Both Sides of the Table
APRIL 20, 2010
I recently did a post for startups on understanding sales people. A few people have asked me to try and define the perfect startup organization chart. I don’t believe that one exists. Every team configuration is different. But I do have more insight into understanding your startup team. This time I thought I’d try and address engineering talent.
A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks
JULY 19, 2010
This is Part 2 of the series: 5 lessons from 150 startup pitches.??? What if someone copies your awesome business idea? About twenty people on Answers OnStartups have asked this question in one form or another: When I meet an angel investor, he may ask: "What if a big company copies your idea and develops the same website as yours after your website goes public?".
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Steve Blank
MAY 27, 2010
Startups need to have a great lawyer, accountant, patent attorney, etc. But founders need to know how to ask for their advice and when to ignore it. Why Entrepreneurs Hate Lawyers. I was having coffee with a friend who teaches at the U.C. Berkeley Boalt Law School and runs their entrepreneurship program. Our conversation led us to Scott Walkers post Why Entrepreneurs Hate Lawyers and why we both recommend that entrepreneurs print it out and tape it to their wall.
Startup Lessons Learned
SEPTEMBER 27, 2010
Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, September 27, 2010 Good enough never is (or is it?) One of the sayings I hear from talented managers in product development is, “good enough never is.&# It’s inspirational, always calling the team to try harder and do better. It works to undermine excuses for poor or shoddy work. And, most importantly, it helps team members develop the courage to stand up for these values in stressful situations.
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
ReadWriteStart
SEPTEMBER 3, 2010
If you're capable of seeing past the old stones of Paris and the picturesque rural villages, you'll realize that France is every bit as technologically advanced as any other Western country - more so in some areas. Not only does the country have a higher percentage of homes with high-speed Internet than the U.S. (plus it's faster and costs half as much ), it ranks first in the world for number of blogs per Internet user, and has a formidable market of Internet consumers who spent €5.5 billi
crowdSPRING Blog
JULY 27, 2010
We’ve recently discussed several useful topics for small businesses and startups, including naming your company , how to make you taglines stand out from the crowd., and tips for buyers looking for logo design. Today, we’ll cover web design marketing best practices and tips for small business. Most businesses, from one person start-ups to small and mid-size businesses to international conglomerates, need to have a presence on the Web.
Start Up Roar brings together the best content for start up professionals from the widest variety of industry thought leaders.
Life Beyond Code
MARCH 14, 2010
Why some smart people don’t take action? I mean “action&# that will lift them to a whole new level in life and in business. This is a question that has haunted me for a while. I meet so many smart people during my travels and speaking engagements. when I hear what these people are involved with and think about what they “could be&# actually involved with, it is not difficult to see the “gap.&# They could be doing much more but it seemed like they have resigned to be just
Software By Rob
AUGUST 5, 2010
Software by Rob Passionate about Startups and MicroISVs Lessons Learned by a Serial Entrepreneur home about press micropreneurs archives ← Two Recent Press Appearances: Inc.com and the TechZing Podcast “Start Small, Stay Small&# Now Available in Kindle and ePub Formats → Why Startup Founders Should Stop Reading Business Books Micropreneurship , Startups If youre trying grow your startup youve come to the right place.
Ben's Blog
APRIL 28, 2010
“You’re just a rent-a-rapper, your rhymes are minute-maid. I’ll be here when it fade to watch you flip like a renegade”. —Rakim, Follow the Leader. When my partner Marc wrote his post describing our firm , the most controversial component of our investment strategy was our preference for founding CEOs. The conventional wisdom says a startup CEO should make way for a professional CEO once the company has achieved product-market fit.
Startup Company Lawyer
MARCH 14, 2010
After the recent announcement of the Series Seed Financing documents by Marc Andreesen, Brad Feld points out that there are now four sets of “open source&# equity seed financing documents: TechStars Model Seed Funding Documents (by Cooley). Y Combinator Series AA Equity Financing Documents (by WSGR). Founders Institute Plain Preferred Term Sheet (by WSGR – disclaimer, I represent the Founders Institute and was involved in drafting this document).
Both Sides of the Table
FEBRUARY 14, 2010
How to Interpret Analyst Reports. The headlines in the media are filled with that latest stats. Stats sell. The stats are often quoted from the latest reports. People then parrot them around like they’re fact when most of them are complete bullsh*t. People throw them around at cocktail parties. Often when they do I throw out my favorite statistic: 73.6% of all statistics are made up.
A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks
AUGUST 9, 2010
This is Part 3 of the series: 5 lessons from 150 startup pitches.? Of hundreds of startup pitches at Capital Factory , almost none had unearthed 10 people willing to say, "If you build this product, I'll give you $X.". Meditate on this: Hundreds of people ready to quit their day jobs, burn up savings, risk personal reputation, toil 70 hours per week, absorb as much stress as having a baby (believe me, I've done both).
Steve Blank
APRIL 12, 2010
Startups are the search to find order in chaos. Steve Blank. At a board meeting last week I watched as the young startup CEO delivered bad news. “Our current plan isn’t working. We can’t scale the company. Each sale requires us to handhold the customer and takes way too long to close. But I think I know how to fix it.” He took a deep breath, looked around the boardroom table and then proceeded to outline a radical reconfiguration of the product line (repackaging the products rather than reengin
Startup Lessons Learned
FEBRUARY 22, 2010
Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, February 22, 2010 Why diversity matters (the meritocracy business) Diversity is the canary in the coal mine for meritocracy. As entrepreneurs, more than any other industry, we’re in the meritocracy business. The companies that make decisions based on merit, rather than title, politics, or hierarchy execute faster and learn faster than their competitors.
ReadWriteStart
DECEMBER 19, 2010
Ideally, you'll find some time over the next few weeks to curl up with a good story. Or hey, at least that's what I look forward to on vacation. If you are looking for some books on entrepreneurship to read, or even to gift, here are some recommended books from 2010. There were a number of great business books published this year, many of which we reviewed here as part of ReadWriteWeb's " Weekend Reading " series.
crowdSPRING Blog
JULY 27, 2010
We’ve recently discussed several useful topics for small businesses and startups, including naming your company , how to make you taglines stand out from the crowd., and tips for buyers looking for logo design. Today, we’ll cover web design marketing best practices and tips for small business. Most businesses, from one person start-ups to small and mid-size businesses to international conglomerates, need to have a presence on the Web.
mashable.com
SEPTEMBER 29, 2010
Top Topics Twitter YouTube Facebook iPhone Google Video Google Buzz Social media Music Business Advertise Network Blippr iPhone App Mashable France MashDeck Twitter App Mobile Site Social Media Events Twitter Guide Book Facebook Guide Book Partners App Development WordPress Experts MaxCDN Content Delivery Dynect Managed DNS Rackspace Hosting Intridea About Us Submit a Tip!
Altgate
DECEMBER 15, 2010
@altgate Startups, Venture Capital & Everything In Between Skip to content Home Furqan Nazeeri (fn@altgate.com) ← No one wants to tell you your baby is ugly More on Liquidation Preferences → Pre-Money Valuation vs Number of Founders Posted on December 15, 2010 by admin Here’s a chart of the day worth sharing. I was working on some data analysis around the topic of angel round pre-money valuations (which I’ll post soon) and came up with the following interesting charts.
Software By Rob
OCTOBER 14, 2010
Software by Rob Passionate about Startups and MicroISVs Lessons Learned by a Serial Entrepreneur home about press micropreneurs archives ← The #1 Goal of Your Website – Slides from my Business of Software Talk Why You Should Start Marketing the Day You Start Coding Micropreneurship , Startups If youre trying grow your startup youve come to the right place.
Ben's Blog
OCTOBER 14, 2010
“Concrete shoes won’t help in the river. I don’t care if you is Michael Phelps my n*&#a”. —Lil’ Wayne. The biggest difference between being a great functional manager and being a great general manager—and particularly a great CEO—is that as a general manager, you must hire and manage people who are far more competent at their jobs than you would be at their jobs.
Feld Thoughts
MAY 10, 2010
Simon Sinek’s TED Talk from TedxPuget Sound (Sept 2009) has been posted and is just awesome. He starts out with the question “Why is Apple so innovative,“ Why is it that Martin Luther King led the civil rights movement,” and “Why is it that the Wright Brothers were able to figure out controlled power manned flight?”. He answers this by describing something he calls the Golden Circle: Every single organization knows WHAT they do.
Both Sides of the Table
DECEMBER 2, 2010
Many of us have the ability to change the trajectory of other people’s lives. Sometimes we don’t even realize it. This is a story of one person who had the power to change my life – and did so. It’s the story of persistence in entrepreneurs. And it’s the story of “paying it forward.&#. The person who changed my life was Cory Van Wolvelaere , who passed away two years ago this week after a long battle with cancer.
A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks
JULY 12, 2010
This is part 1 of the series: 5 Lessons from 150 startup pitches. Listening to first-time entrepreneurs talk about their competitive advantages is as predictably invalid as the local weatherman's 10-day forecast. Between this blog and reviewing applications to Capital Factory I see hundreds of pitches a year. Every pitch has a section on competitive advantages, and quite literally 95% of the time the claimed competitive advantages are pathetic, unoriginal, and not really advantages at all.
Steve Blank
MAY 17, 2010
Last week one of the schools I teach at invited me to judge a business plan contest. I suggested that they first might want to read my post on why business plans are a poor planning and execution tool for startups. They called back laughing and the invitation disappeared. At best I think business plan competitions are a waste of time. But until now I haven’t been able to articulate a framework of why or had a concrete suggestion of what to replace them with.
Startup Lessons Learned
JUNE 17, 2010
Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Thursday, June 17, 2010 No departments Big companies have departments. Startups are companies. Startups aspire to become big companies. Therefore, startups should have departments. Right? Why do companies have departments? There are a lot of reasons: ladder of advancement, sharing of best practices, functional specialization.
ReadWriteStart
DECEMBER 29, 2010
During the holidays, the Web becomes an even more significant part of our lives, connecting us to our relatives and friends around the world. The Internet might be truly global then, but the world of startups still revolves much around Silicon Valley. Together with 40 Nordic entrepreneurs , we decided to take a trip to the startup mecca, looking for opportunities and lessons to learn.
crowdSPRING Blog
DECEMBER 15, 2010
Small businesses and startups face many challenges when marketing their products and services. Small businesses and startups have minimal brand recognition, are often located in geographic or demographic areas that limit their marketing options, and most have small (or non-existent) marketing budgets. Some marketers advise small businesses and startups to research and create strategic marketing plans.
www.paulgraham.com
OCTOBER 23, 2010
Want to start a startup? Get funded by Y Combinator. March 2005 (This essay is derived from a talk at the Harvard ComputerSociety.) You need three things to create a successful startup: to start withgood people, to make something customers actually want, and to spendas little money as possible. Most startups that fail do it becausethey fail at one of these.
For Entrepreneurs
DECEMBER 6, 2010
Provides SaaS entrepreneurs with an Excel spreadsheet model and graphs that show the cash flow trough that happens to SaaS or subscription businesses that use a sales organization.
Software By Rob
OCTOBER 26, 2010
Photo by mpclemens. The following is a guest article by Dave Rodenbaugh of Lessons of Failure. Shortly after the Millennium dawned, I was itching for something new to sink my teeth into. Software development wasn’t giving me the satisfaction I craved from working, and I had recently been part of a startup that was now a smoking crater after the Dot Com crash.
Ben's Blog
MAY 14, 2010
“Teachers teach and do the world good. kings just rule and most are never understood”. - KRS 1, My Philosophy. “Most managers seem to feel that training employees is a job that should be left to others. I, on the other hand, strongly believe that the manager should do it himself.”. - Andy Grove, High Output Management. When I first became a manager, I had mixed feelings about training.
Feld Thoughts
SEPTEMBER 1, 2010
Amy and I created a tradition about a decade ago we call “four minutes in the morning.&# We try to – fully clothed – spend four minutes together every morning 100% focused on each other. I’m an early bird – usually getting up around 5am regardless of the time zone I’m in (except on the weekends – then I sleep until I wake up – sometimes 1pm.
Both Sides of the Table
OCTOBER 22, 2010
On why you should be an entrepreneur, “A lot of people do what they have to do. You want to get yourself to a position where you can do what you want to do&# (Chamillionaire). Last night I co-hosted a dinner at Soho House in Los Angeles with some of the most senior people in the media industry with executives from Disney, Fox, Warner, media agencies and many promising tech & media startup CEO’s.
A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks
JANUARY 18, 2010
" I feel like a fraud. I've been at this for 16 years and I still feel like a fraud. I'm just waiting for the day they see through the façade, but they keep coming back every year." -- Jason Young. Ah yes, the awe-inspiring words of confidence from the seasoned entrepreneur. My friend Jason intended this as soothing words of solace during (one of my) periods of personal freak-out while Smart Bear was in its infancy.
Steve Blank
MARCH 4, 2010
“ By knowing things that exist, you can know that which does not exist.&#. Book of Five Rings. I was having coffee with a former student who was complained that my idea of building a first product release with a minimum feature set was a bad idea. (One of the principles of Customer Development is to get out of the building and understand the smallest feature-set customers will pay for in the first release.).
Startup Lessons Learned
JULY 28, 2010
Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Wednesday, July 28, 2010 Case Study: kaChing, Anatomy of a Pivot (The following guest post is a new experiment for this blog. It was written by Sarah Milstein in collaboration with kaChing CEO Andy Rachleff. kaChing has been very active in the Lean Startup movement. If you havent seen it, Pascals recent presentation on continuous deployment is a must-see; slides are here.
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