Sat.Mar 17, 2012 - Fri.Mar 23, 2012

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Why You Should Think Twice Before You Send That Intro Email

Both Sides of the Table

Intros.They’re the lifeblood of networking – the currency of mavens. They are your route to angel money. Your entrée to sales meetings. We couldn’t live without them. But when misused, overused or abused they can diminish your personal brand, consume your valuable time and waste that of the relationships you value the most. I would like to make the case for being judicious with your introductions.

Email 359
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Investors Seek Entrepreneurs With Fire in the Belly

Startup Professionals Musings

I’ve noticed that some entrepreneurs seem to have no trouble attracting investors, while others with a great business plan struggle with it. The reality is that angel investors are humans, and personal traits often make or break the relationship, even before the investment is considered. On the top line, angel investors look to invest in entrepreneurs that have an almost unwavering passion and sense of urgency.

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How Does Your Brand Look To The Public?

YoungUpstarts

By Joe Thomas, founder and owner of Left Brain Digital. There’s a lot riding on a website that’s working for a business. It has to convey brand and professionalism, communicate the right message and engage visitors. Every detail plays a role, from the logo to the text to the design and functionality. One of my recent clients, Marsha Friedman of EMSI Public Relations , understood that so well, she put off developing a badly needed new website for five years.

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Doing > Talking

Startup Lessons Learned

I had an incredible couple of days at SXSW. The Lean Startup track was successful beyond my wildest imaginations (we'll have video up soon ). My personal highlight was watching newly-appointed United States CTO Todd Park receive a standing ovation from a crowd that is decidedly skeptical about government. What inspired the crowd that day was not just his personal charisma or what he said, but rather, what he had done.

Lean 165
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Building Healthy Innovation Ecosystems for Your Projects

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

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9 Things to Know About Influencing Purchasing Decisions

ConversionXL

If you want to get people to buy your stuff, you need to understand how people make purchasing decisions. Product quality and seller reputation matter , goes without saying. What about when the product matches the customer’s needs and wants, and they trust the seller? What are the things that influence purchasing decisions once those fundamentals are in place?

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Massaging the Octopus: Jiro Dreams of Startups

This is going to be BIG.

The other day I want to go see Jiro Dreams of Sushi --a documentary about an 86 year old sushi chef working out of a 10 seat restaurant in a Ginza subway station. Oh, did I mention that the restaurant is rated 3 stars by the Michelin folks? This guy is like a throwback to another era. He doesn't feel as if he's gotten to the pinnacle of his craft yet.

Startup 117

More Trending

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5 Ways for Small Business to Jump on the Big Data Train

Duct Tape Marketing

5 Ways for Small Business to Jump on the Big Data Train This content from: Duct Tape Marketing. The idea of something that’s being called “ Big Data ” has definitely reached the trend tipping point. Tech firms like are all about it. PR firms are forming teams to promote it and consulting firms have their business technology teams all over it. So, what is it and what does it mean for small business. tsuda via Flickr CC The “what is it” part is pretty easy to explain in textbook terms,

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Customer Loyalty Can Be a Startup Competitive Edge

Startup Professionals Musings

You hear a lot of talk these days about the importance of customer satisfaction, but customer loyalty is the real win. A satisfied customer is necessary, but not sufficient, to be a loyal customer who will come back repeatedly, refer their friends and family to you, and be faithful even when your price is not the lowest. Herein lies an opportunity for startups to beat the big guys.

Customer 261
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Supply Chain Studs

deal architect

They come in bunches – or LTL as logistics folks call less than a full truck load. This morning I had breakfast with Chris Jones, EVP of Marketing and Services at Descartes and he regaled me with tales of supply.

Marketing 225
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Intense Asymmetry and Self-Flagellation

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

Erica Douglass bootstrapped her company and sold it for a million dollars while her friends were switching majors for the third time or dicking around at some entry-level job. She’s successful by any measure. But it just a few short months of super-charging our marketing efforts at WP Engine for her to start turning herself inside out about her lack of “success,” and by implication, lack of ability and self-worth: WP Engine is killing it right now.

San Jose 233
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Persol is Stuff that Works

Duct Tape Marketing

Persol is Stuff that Works This content from: Duct Tape Marketing. This is a new Sunday series that I’m calling Stuff that Works. Each Sunday I’ll pick an item that is for me a foundation element in my line up of stuff that matters or as legendary Texas singer songwriter Guy Clark put it – “The kind of stuff you reach for when you fall.”. Steve McQueen's blue tinted lens Persols in Thomas Crown Affair.

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How to Make a Business Mentoring Relationship Work

Startup Professionals Musings

I’m a big fan of mentoring in business, and have been at different times on both the contributing and receiving end of the process. These days, I seem to often hear from entrepreneurs who are struggling to find a mentor, or complaining about their lack of effectiveness. Like any other relationship, it takes work on both sides to make mentoring work.

Restful 236
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Advantage: Microsoft and Oracle

deal architect

In his annual letter to shareholders in 2009, GE CEO Jeff Immelt wrote: “ I believe that a popular, thirty - year notion that the U.S. can evolve from being a technology and manufacturing leader to a service leader is.

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8 Office Etiquette Tips For Young Workers

YoungUpstarts

(Photo source: Corbis Images; royalty free, creative image). Young workers are known for their energy, enthusiasm, and willingness to learn, but many times their lack of experience and professionalism comes back to bite them when they want a raise, promotion, or just to be taken seriously. If you’re a young worker and you want to stand out from the other baby-faced rookies in the office, check out these eight etiquette tips: Save social networking for home.

Salary 172
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The Monastic Startup

Feld Thoughts

Last week at our Yesware board meeting, we talked about the idea of “the monastic startup.” This was a phrase that Matthew Bellows, Yesware’s CEO, came up with, and it characterizes the culture they are creating at Yesware. It embodies two concepts: The monastic startup is a place where engineers do the best work of their lives. This place involves work with long stretches of uninterrupted time.

Startup 146
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Entitlements in Business Should Never Replace Merit

Startup Professionals Musings

Where did this pervasive sense of entitlement in our business culture come from? I’ve written about this before, but I was surprised again recently at a conference for startups when a couple of entrepreneurs started berating investors for their low rate of funding for early-stage startups. It sounded to investors like me that they expected a funding entitlement for their startup idea.

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Geeky Daydreams

deal architect

Looking for a quick way to access an article cited in my book, I opened the Kindle app on my laptop and was going to click on the URL. Instead I got the message below. Yes, I have loaned my.

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25 Twitter Chats For Valuable Career Advice

YoungUpstarts

While some lucky college students find work right away, for most others, the idea of hitting the job market after graduation is a little intimidating if not downright scary. With competition tough and opportunities limited, finding a job can be difficult. Yet, students and recent grads shouldn’t lose hope: finding a great job is possible even in this market, especially when you get a little help from those who know what it takes to get hired.

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5 tips to getting small business financing

Up and Running

It’s no secret that small businesses can have a hard time getting financing. So before you approach lenders, make sure you ask yourself: how can I maximize my chances of getting credit approval? Here are five simple things you can do to up the odds of getting your funding approved. Demonstrate that your business generates steady cash flow. Cash is still king and is also a key predictor of a business’ health and prospects for the future.

Finance 147
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10 Top Tweets for Your Customers

Rembrandt Communications

If you are actively involved in your social media activities as I mentioned in previous posts, then you may have trouble coming up with new and exciting tweets to share with your customers on a daily basis. However, there is a simple fix for this. Remember, social media is about being social and interaction. When [.].

Customer 124
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The long trunk

deal architect

Some of my blog readers get irritated that I cite from my books for months. Honestly, it is my way to share on my blogs months of research that go into the book. I negotiated with my publisher to excerpt.

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TackThis Helps Small Businesses In Singapore Sell Online

YoungUpstarts

According to Paypal , by 2015 Singapore’s e-commerce market is expected to hit US$4.4 billion in size. However, only 15-percent of local small to medium enterprises have a website with full e-commerce functionality. The founders of local startup company PayWhere believes there’s an opportunity in this gap, and that’s why they’re introducing TackThis.

Singapore 170
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Why Twitter is A Media Company ? AGILEVC

Agile VC

How to Evaluate Firms for a Seed VC. How To Think About The Future. Home. About Me. AGILEVC My idle thoughts on tech startups. Why Twitter is A Media Company. March 18, 2012. CEO Dick Costolo famously said that Twitter is not a media company about six weeks ago at the AllThingsD conference. To be fair, Costolo said that Twitter isn’t a media company but is “in the media business” To some that may be a distinction without a difference.

Media 113
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Happy 74th Birthday Dad

Feld Thoughts

My dad is one of my best friends. His birthday is on Saint Patrick’s Day and it has been a bright green celebration for as long as I can remember. He turned 74 today and we had dinner tonight at Oak at Fourteenth with Amy , my mom Cecelia , my sister-in-law Laura , my brother Daniel , and their daughter Sabrina. We had a wonderful evening and it reminded me once again of the importance and delight of family.

Green 128
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The charm of a campus

deal architect

The businessman in me completely understood salesforce’s decision to cancel its planned Mission Bay campus. The teenager in me was disappointed. I love visiting picturesque campuses. I suspect I will be visiting my son’s New College campus on gorgeous Sarasota.

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Breaking Into Mobile Commerce

YoungUpstarts

by Jessica Sanders, Chonies. With social media on the rise, and a new technology becoming available every day, your company is required to conform. Mobile commerce is the newest addition to the small business family, and worth considering. 46-percent of the adult US population has a smart phone, that’s a large chunk of your consumers that are spending hours with their face in a phone screen looking to shop.

Mobile 166
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10 Good Reasons to Get a Mentor

Life Beyond Code

There is a good chance that you don’t have a mentor right now and are not even considering entering into such a relationship in the near future. Yet athletes have mentors, actors have mentors and business leaders have mentors. Why not technology professionals? Here are a few reasons why you might want to consider engaging a mentor: 1. The structure provides automatic accountability.

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Apply For The Glue Conference Demo Pod By Friday

Feld Thoughts

The Glue Conference is happening again this year on May 23rd and May 24th in Boulder, CO. This is the awesome conference that Eric Norlin puts on around our Glue theme. 500+ people obsessed about mobile app development, cloud computing, and big data are going to be there this year. As part of the conference, Eric provides 15 early-stage startups with FREE exhibit space.

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The Real Deal: Thomas Ryan on the evolution of Warehouse Management Systems

deal architect

This continues a series of columns from practitioners I respect. The category "Real Deal" describes them well. This time it is Thomas K. Ryan, a high impact manager and consultant in the fields of logistics, supply chain, and the solutions.

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Conscious Contraceptives – Fighting HIV/AIDS with One-For-One Condoms

YoungUpstarts

We’re all familiar with TOMS , the shoe company that gives away a free pair of shoes to a child in need for every pair consumers buy. Here’s another organization that follows that “one-for-one” charity model – Conscious Contraceptives ( www.concon.org ) is a discreet online store that sells contraceptives and other sexual health related products, and donates proceeds through partner national and international organizations such as Support for International Change t

Cofounder 163
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Financial services disruption sneaks up from below.

Lightspeed Venture Partners

'A couple of weeks ago I did a guest post on PandoDaily about how big data + machine learning is creating new opportunities in lending. What’s interesting is that most of the disruption is starting in the bottom end of the market; unbanked and underbanked lending and payments. That is not an accident. I did another guest post today at PandoDaily explaining why disruption in financial services comes from below.

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Don't ask "Why Brooklyn?" Ask "How?"

This is going to be BIG.

Since I launched Brooklyn Bridge Ventures , a lot of people have asked me why I put the fund in Brooklyn. Even to those who said it was "obvious", all of them seem to have different reasons why they believe that was a good idea. To me, there are a couple of basic reasons: 1) If nothing else, it's geographically closer to more startups than midtown firms like RRE, Greycroft, and Firstmark.so, *why not* put my office here?

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Telecom: The more things change, the more.

deal architect

I got an email from Vonage this week. “we'd like to offer you a 2nd Extension for $4.99 per month (plus taxes). That means you can now extend your home calling plan to yet another phone. Just like with your.

Email 170
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VISA Launches MICE Connect

YoungUpstarts

Global payments technology company VISA has launched a free one-stop online portal targeted at small- and medium-sized businesses which provides information on major international industry conventions and trade exhibitions (MICE). Known as the VISA MICE Connect, the portal includes a comprehensive directory of over 150 international trade shows and events from around the globe across a range of industries including computers and IT, beauty and cosmetics, fashion, travel and construction.

Asia 157
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Maybe = A Culture of Caution & No Innovation

Gregg Fraley, Author of Jack's Notebook

I had an interesting conversation recently about innovation culture. Comparing notes of various organizations with a friend, one of us remarked about organization X — “they never say yes, they never say no, it’s always…maybe.” We both concluded that maybe is a bad place to be as a culture looking to innovate. I wrote in a blog post last year about the one question survey to assess innovation culture – Are you having fun?

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The power of the right intersection

Life Beyond Code

You already know the need for distinguishing yourself in the marketplace. The opposite of distinguishing yourself is to be a victim of commoditization. The immediate side effect of commoditization is erosion of value – your value. If you offer the same value as hundreds of other available options, then why pay more than one of the hundreds of options available?