Steve Blank
NOVEMBER 23, 2012
Listening to my the family talk about dividing up the cooking chores for this Thanksgiving dinner, including who would peel the potatoes, reminded me that most careers start by peeling potatoes. KP – Kitchen Patrol. One of the iconic punishments in basic training in the military was being threatened by our drill instructors of being assigned to KP – Kitchen Patrol – as a penalty for breaking some rule.
SoCal CTO
NOVEMBER 14, 2012
I was just asked about a particular startup situation (seed stage, CMO hire, non-founder) and particularly what compensation and equity is appropriate. I know a lot more about CTOs specifically CTO Salary and Equity Trends 2009-2011 , Visualization of Startup CTO Equity and Salary Data , Startup CTO Salary and Equity Data , but I've previously written about the issues with Equity for Early Employees in Early Stage Startups.
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Startup Professionals Musings
NOVEMBER 18, 2012
I know entrepreneurs who have suffered from the dreaded premature execution syndrome often associated with the ready-fire-aim approach. Yet I believe that many more have benefited from this approach, especially in early startup stages. If your product is highly innovative, and speed to market is critical, you won’t get it right the first time anyway, no matter how cautiously you plan.
YoungUpstarts
NOVEMBER 25, 2012
by Monica Shepherd, TradeGecko. It’s a no-brainer that keeping track of your incoming and outgoing finances is a critical part of not only keeping your business running, but also of ensuring your business grows and prospers. Therefore you need accounting software that reflects an effective and efficient business – meaning, you’re going to have to upgrade from that spreadsheet.
Speaker: Nick Noreña, Innovation Coach and Advisor, Kromatic
Every startup and innovation project exists within an ecosystem that either helps or hurts that project. As innovation managers, we need to keep a pulse of that ecosystem and make sure we're helping those innovation projects we're managing every step of the way. In this webinar, Nick Noreña will walk through an Innovation Ecosystem Model that he and his team at Kromatic have developed to help investors, heads of product, teachers, and executives understand how they can best support innovation in
The Next Web
NOVEMBER 4, 2012
If Marc Andreesen is right (and I happen to believe he is) then talented software developers will soon be the most sought after type of employee for just about any company, whether that company’s main business is building software or not. Attracting and hiring great software developers for your company is difficult, but it’s not impossible. Here are some tips to get you started: 1.
This is going to be BIG.
NOVEMBER 26, 2012
I can't take credit for this meme, even though I've already invested in it.twice. (Once with Docracy, once with a super cool company launching in the first quarter of 2013.). I was chatting with Thor Muller a couple of weeks ago about web trends--and he made a very insightful point as I talked about how I see more and more models around getting people to work together in different ways.
Start Up Roar brings together the best content for start up professionals from the widest variety of industry thought leaders.
Gust
NOVEMBER 8, 2012
As I write this, days after the 2012 presidential election, I’m probably not alone in feeling relieved that the political jeering and soapboxing that reached a feverish pitch during the seemingly endless campaign season has finally subsided. Yet amidst all the partisan cheerleading and name-calling, there has been some discussion of substance.
Startup Professionals Musings
NOVEMBER 10, 2012
Everyone in the business world has heard of the old bestseller by Geoffrey A. Moore titled “ Crossing the Chasm ,” but most entrepreneurs have no idea how it relates to them. In fact, it’s all about the “focus” required to get early stage technology products across the deadly chasm from early adopters to mainstream customers. Most investors and startup professionals expand this concept of focus to apply to key issues of every aspect of strategic and tactical planning in a startup.
YoungUpstarts
NOVEMBER 27, 2012
by Monica Shepherd, TradeGecko. Are you in control of your business? I don’t mean are you the person calling the shots. I mean as in, if you had to make some critical snap decisions, do you know your business well enough that you could you make them with total confidence? In order to be able to make these sound, informed business decisions you need an accurate and efficient operating system.
The Next Web
NOVEMBER 17, 2012
Self-employed. Freelancer. Entrepreneur. Business owner. However you label it, these people are making an independent living by themselves and their businesses they have built. These “labels” often blend into one another: those who are self-employed consider themselves business owners, business owners consider themselves entrepreneurs, freelancers consider themselves self-employed.
Startup Lessons Learned
NOVEMBER 19, 2012
Guest post by Sarah Milstein, co-host of The Lean Startup Conference. At a party in NYC recently, I was challenged by a VC to name the biggest company currently using Lean Startup practices. I think he expected me to describe a medium-sized startup or maybe some small, old-school media organization. So his eyebrows jumped when I said that GE is the largest company we know of.
crowdSPRING Blog
NOVEMBER 23, 2012
Every day on the crowdSPRING Twitter account and on my own Twitter account , I post links to posts or videos I enjoyed reading or viewing. These posts and videos are about logo design , web design , startups, entrepreneurship, small business, leadership, social media, marketing, and more! Here are some of the links that I’ve liked and shared this past week!
ConversionXL
NOVEMBER 15, 2012
People make snap judgements. It takes only 1/10th of a second to form a first impression about a person, and websites are no different. It takes about 50 milliseconds (that’s 0.05 seconds) for users to form an opinion about your website that determines whether they like your site or not, whether they’ll stay or leave. This number comes from specific studies.
Startup Professionals Musings
NOVEMBER 13, 2012
There is so much written these days about how to attract investors that most entrepreneurs “assume” they need funding, and don’t even consider a plan for “bootstrapping,” or self-financing their startup. Yet, according to many sources , over 90 percent of all businesses are started and grown with no equity financing, and many others would have been better off without it.
YoungUpstarts
NOVEMBER 20, 2012
Marketers in the Asia Pacific region are upbeat and optimistic about the future of digital marketing, but many confess they still struggle or aren’t confident enough to push forward with digital marketing initiatives especially with budget and talent constraints. According to a new study released today called APAC Digital Marketing Performance Dashboard by the CMO Council in partnership with Adobe Systems – which surveyed 295 senior marketers from a range of industries across Austral
The Next Web
NOVEMBER 24, 2012
The long-term overall impact of Apple’s Passbook has been a hot topic over the last two months since it was launched with iOS 6 on the iPhone and iPod Touch. But one thing is for sure: if you’ve got a business — small, medium or large — where getting people in the door is important, and are looking to follow in the footsteps of the likes of McDonalds , United Airlines , Eventbrite , MLB , Starbucks , American Express and others, you should at least be looking into
abovethecrowd.com
NOVEMBER 13, 2012
Since Benchmark’s investment in Ebay 15 years ago, we have been fascinated by online marketplaces. Entrepreneurs accurately recognize that the connective tissue of the Internet provides an opportunity to link the players in a particular market, reducing friction in both the buying and selling experience. The arrival of the smartphone amplifies these opportunities, as the Internet’s connective tissue now extends deeper and deeper into an industry with the participants connected to the marketplace
crowdSPRING Blog
NOVEMBER 30, 2012
Every day on the crowdSPRING Twitter account and on my own Twitter account , I post links to posts or videos I enjoyed reading or viewing. These posts and videos are about logo design , web design , startups, entrepreneurship, small business, leadership, social media, marketing, and more! Here are some of the links that I’ve liked and shared this past week!
ConversionXL
NOVEMBER 29, 2012
136 CMOs were recently asked “What do you see as your biggest opportunity for revenue generation in early 2013?” 46% of them said “improving conversions” Excellent. Now that we know where the opportunity lies, how do we go about doing it? We had two prospective clients this past week where their overall site design was good enough that they didn’t need a full redesign.
Startup Professionals Musings
NOVEMBER 3, 2012
Entrepreneurs always work hard to create an innovative product or service, but often count on standard seller marketing for sales. But the reality is that sellers are no longer in charge of the customer buying process. Reports suggest that 90% of today’s shoppers skip marketing pitches, to research online before they buy, and over 50% check user reviews before making a decision.
YoungUpstarts
NOVEMBER 12, 2012
Software engineers are extremely high in demand, and over the past few years the growth in their salaries has shown exactly how much in demand they are. California-based executive search and technical recruiting firm Riviera Partners recently crunched some numbers by aggregating salary figures from the highest paying tech companies and from a recent report covering the correlation of tech skills in demand and expected salary ranges.
The Next Web
NOVEMBER 24, 2012
The long-term overall impact of Apple’s Passbook has been a hot topic over the last two months since it was launched with iOS 6 on the iPhone and iPod Touch. But one thing is for sure: if you’ve got a business — small, medium or large — where getting people in the door is important, and are looking to follow in the footsteps of the likes of McDonalds , United Airlines , Eventbrite , MLB , Starbucks , American Express and others, you should at least be looking into
OnlyOnce
NOVEMBER 28, 2012
The Value of Paying Down Technical Debt. Our Engineering team has a great term called Technical Debt, which is the accumulation of coding shortcuts and operational inefficiencies over the years in the name of getting product out the door faster that weighs on the company’s code base like debt weighs on a balance sheet. Like debt, it’s there, you can live with it, but it is a drag on the health of the technology organization and has hard servicing costs.
crowdSPRING Blog
NOVEMBER 9, 2012
Every day on the crowdSPRING Twitter account and on my own Twitter account , I post links to posts or videos I enjoyed reading or viewing. These posts and videos are about logo design , web design , startups, entrepreneurship, small business, leadership, social media, marketing, and more! Here are some of the links that I’ve liked and shared this past week!
Entrepreneurs-Journey.com by Yaro Starak
NOVEMBER 19, 2012
Download the Text Transcript in PDF. Subscribe to this Podcast in iTunes. This is a good interview. Trust me. You’re not going to want to miss this. Just hit play now. Then grab a copy of Tim’s latest book – The 4-Hour Chef. Timothy Ferriss needs no introduction. I interviewed him previously about his 4-Hour Workweek book, a runaway … Read the rest of this entry » Download the Text Transcript in PDF Subscribe to this Podcast in iTunes.
ConversionXL
NOVEMBER 9, 2012
If you think people might buy your products or services without checking out the competition first, think again. Research says that on average consumers visit three websites before making a purchase. Another insight by the same study was that the more sites a consumer visits, the more money they are likely to spend. In other words, the more expensive the product, the more time people take to comparison shop.
YoungUpstarts
NOVEMBER 20, 2012
In Singapore, online and mobile shopping is set to enter a new phase. According to a new PayPal survey conducted by market research agency GfK to measure the changing ways that consumers shop and pay, Singaporeans are planning to do at least half of their holiday shopping electronically this year. Singaporeans are expecting to shop online 15 times each this coming festive season – assuming each trip takes around three hours (what with braving the horrendous traffic, crowds and queues), thi
The Next Web
NOVEMBER 25, 2012
You’ve put years of work into your website or blog, but now you’ve decided that it’s time to sell. Maybe you’re not getting the satisfaction you used to from the pursuit. Maybe it’s not making as much money as you had hoped and you want to get something out of all that effort. Maybe you just want to see the site do well under the management of a more experienced, better-funded enterprise.
The Equity Kicker
NOVEMBER 14, 2012
UK broadcaster ITV announced their results yesterday and the differing fortunes of the two halves of their business show the way forward for traditional TV companies everywhere. The two parts of the ITV business are content production and content distribution. The production business is doing well with shows like Downton Abbey getting large audiences in the UK and selling well abroad, but revenues at the distribution business declined.
crowdSPRING Blog
NOVEMBER 27, 2012
I’m rarely surprised when a young entrepreneur or small business owner hasn’t fully identified how their new business will make money. But I’m always surprised when that entrepreneur or small business owner has a tough time describing the potential customers for their new business’s products and services. After all, without customers, there is no revenue.
Both Sides of the Table
NOVEMBER 18, 2012
It’s 4.50am. Sunday morning. And I couldn’t sleep. I have much on my mind since I just returned from a week on the road. 5 days. 3 cities. Late night Mexican food. Beers. Airports. Delays. I left on a Sunday. I had to miss a full day with my family, camping in the mountains. I returned home Friday night at 10pm – too late to see my kids.
Steve Blank
NOVEMBER 27, 2012
One of the great things about being a retired entrepreneur is that I get to give back to the community that helped me. I assembled this collection of free and almost free tools, class syllabi, presentations, books, lectures, videos in the hope that it can make your path as an entrepreneur or educator easier. Free: Startup Tools. If you’re building a startup, the Startup Tools tab on the top of this page has curated links to hundreds of startup resources.
YoungUpstarts
NOVEMBER 5, 2012
by Eric Tyson, author of “ Personal Finance For Dummies “ Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past few months, you know that the presidential election is just around the corner. The constant media coverage and ubiquitous political ads simply won’t let you forget (no matter how much you’d like to!). And amid the candidates’ posturing, daily interviews, debates, and gaffes, one important question keeps popping up: Are you better off now than you were four years ago?
Startup Professionals Musings
NOVEMBER 24, 2012
As a mentor for aspiring and early-stage entrepreneurs, I talk to a fair number who may have a great vision and a strong engineering background, but have a negative interest in the role of public speaking in business. In fact, they often claim to be part of the survey group that fears public speaking more than death, but I’m not sure how anyone could validate that survey.
The Equity Kicker
NOVEMBER 27, 2012
Google just changed the Google Play store so that reviewers’ Google+ name and profile picture are visible, with no option for anonymity, writes Techcrunch. I think this is a good move because identity engenders trust and the lack of trust on the web relative to offline is one of the things that holds people back from using and enjoying the web more.
crowdSPRING Blog
NOVEMBER 18, 2012
I had (another) bad customer service experience with an airline last week. I know – a shocker. Sometimes I start to think that poor service and unhappy customers are a requirement for the airline industry. That this is a part of meeting some unwritten baseline needed for any entrant in the space. Then I come to my senses and remember that there are companies like Southwest , jetBlue , and Virgin who are competing in the industry, in part, by providing a high level of service; these compani
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