Sat.Jun 12, 2010 - Fri.Jun 18, 2010

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The Pattern-Seeking Fallacy

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

What do these have in common? "This pitcher has retired 5 of the last 7 batters.". "We tried 10 AdWord variants and combination D is the clear winner.". "The Bible Code predicted the Sept 11 attacks 5,000 years ago.". "We sliced our Google Analytics data every which way, and these 4 patterns emerged.". All are examples of a common fallacy that I'm dubbing the "Pattern-Seeker.".

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No departments

Startup Lessons Learned

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.

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Learning Leadership From The Movie 13 Days

Feld Thoughts

I don’t care what your political orientation is, if you want an awesome two hour lesson in leadership watch the movie Thirteen Days. It’s the story of the 1963 Cuban Missile Crisis based on the book by May and Zelikow titled The Kennedy Tapes: Inside the White House during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Amy and I watched it last night. I was exhausted from two weeks on the east coast and was having trouble speaking (Amy refers to it as “getting the dregs of Brad.

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Outflanked, Not Outspent: The Real Story of Recruiting for Tech vs Wall St in NYC

This is going to be BIG.

You've heard the arguments before--Wall Street sucks up all the best talent in NYC and that's why its so tough to recruit here. They've been able to outspend on any good candidate and that's also why things have eased up lately--because the financial industry just isn't what it was and the jobs aren't there anymore. It's also why there's a fear that when the economy turns, so will Wall Street, and so will the giant sucking sound from the south (of Manhattan).

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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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Angels Rush in Where VC Fear to Tread

Up and Running

About three years ago I attended a Web 2.0 conference at which a couple of professional venture capitalists and a couple of successful angel investors talked about trends. This was before the great recession, but in the middle of the explosion of web apps and social media. One thing that came up repeatedly, then, was the impact of steeply declining web development costs on professional investment.

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Entrepreneurship is in our DNA

Start Up Blog

We are all born entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurship is inextricably linked to human behaviour. To explore, to understand, to invent and to embrace take risk. Risk which results in a better situation for us and our stakeholders. Knowing that we will fail, and even learning to endure, no less enjoy that as part of it. Civilisation and evolution of humans is due to our entrepreneurial nature.

More Trending

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Book Review: Rework (by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson)

crowdSPRING Blog

I admire 37signals because they make simple, easy to use web applications and because of their unique perspective on business. Rework is a collection of short essays by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson, focusing on doing less and embracing constraints. Jason Fried co-founded 37signals and David Heinemeier Hansson later joined the company as a partner.

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Savara Receives $1.9M in ETF Funding

Austin Startup

Savara, Inc. , an inhalation drug delivery company, today announced that it has been chosen by the state of Texas as the recipient of a commercialization award funded through the Texas Emerging Technology Fund (ETF). The company, which produces novel respiratory therapeutics, will receive a $1.9 million award for the commercialization of its products.

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The myth of the social customer - part 2

deal architect

Dennis Howlett blogged something I have been hearing from old publishing hands for a while now. Don't count too much on the social customer for book sales. The social customer is used to free. That customer thinks in terms of.

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How Many Times Should You Tweet Your Blog Post?

Both Sides of the Table

Last September I was on a panel with Guy Kawasaki talking about Twitter. He said at the time that he Tweeted 4 times for every story that he wrote. FOUR TIMES! The exact same Tweet. I couldn’t believe it. His rationale was that he found that his audience was tuning into Twitter at several different times during the day and he found that four was the optimal number to convert enough of the people reading his posts into traffic back to his website.

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Priceless: The Myth of Fair Value (and How to Take Advantage of It)

Software By Rob

Software by Rob Passionate about Startups and MicroISVs Lessons Learned by a Serial Entrepreneur home about press micropreneurs archives ← Last Chance for the Pre-Launch Discount on the “Developer’s Guide to Launching a Startup&# “Start Small, Stay Small: A Developer’s Guide to Launching a Startup&# is Now Available in Paperback and PDF → Priceless: The Myth of Fair Value (and How to Take Advantage of It) Cool News, Links & Reviews If youre trying grow your

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How to Proactively Protect Your Online Reputation

Startup Professionals Musings

These days, your online Internet reputation is your reputation. Of course, having no reputation is usually better than a bad one, but don’t wait for someone else to establish a good one for you. It’s time for every business and business person to proactively create a positive presence, before someone else puts you in a defensive mode that is hard to win.

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Grand Challenges for the E2.0, SAP and young entrepreneur communities

deal architect

I am presenting at the Enterprise 2.0 conference in Boston and the Sapience conference in Cologne, Germany this week. I also get a chance to spend some time while in Boston with students at Babson College - a school which.

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This Week in VC with Om Malik & Paul Jozefak

Both Sides of the Table

To see the video of This Week in VC click on this link. What a pleasure that I got to spend an hour talking with both Om Malik (whom I’ve always respected his views) and Paul Jozefak , a venture capital partner at Neuhaus Partners in Germany (and formerly the head of Europe for SAP Ventures). We spent the first 45 minutes or so talking about industry trends (in this order): The history and background of True Ventures, one of my favorite early-stage VC’s (and the one with whom Om is

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Is Your VC Founder Friendly?

Steve Blank

The role of a founding CEO in a startup searching for a business model is radically different than a CEO building and growing a company. Some VC’s get it, others may not. So if you’re the founder of a startup, you may want to consider who you take money from. Is Your VC Founder Friendly? How do you figure out which VC firm is best for you? Here are five questions to consider.

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Entrepreneurs Must Take Control of Their Time

Startup Professionals Musings

Every startup founder feels the pressure of the thousands of things that need to get done, all seemingly at the same time. There is just not enough time! The real solution is better time management to put you back in control of your life. We all know someone who always professes to be stressed out and “so busy” that they never have time for anything – yet they never seem to get things done.

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I’ve Failed Over and Over and Over Again in My Life

Feld Thoughts

What a great short Nike commercial staring Michael Jordan. “I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”. Tags: Failure.

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7 Ways to Identify Your Strengths

Life Beyond Code

This has been said before but it can be said again – “work on your strengths and manage your weaknesses (even if it means hiring help in those areas)&#. But the question is how does one identify his or her strengths? Here are a few ways: 1. Journals: If you have your past journals, dust them up and go through them for hints. You record what you care for.

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The Importance of Boredom

This is going to be BIG.

“Being bored is a precious thing, a state of mind we should pursue. Once boredom sets in, our minds begin to wander, looking for something exciting, something interesting to land on. And that's where creativity arises. My best ideas come to me when I am unproductive. When I am running but not listening to my iPod. When I am sitting, doing nothing, waiting for someone.

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The Four Cornerstones of Every Business Plan

Startup Professionals Musings

By Akira Hirai The thought of preparing a business plan for the first time can be very intimidating. There are many "moving parts," and it’s easy to get lost in the details. The task becomes much easier if you think of your plan in terms of four essential cornerstones that serve as the foundation of all business plans: Opportunity, Solution, Execution, and Outcomes.

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Van Gogh’s Starry Night Updated

Feld Thoughts

I’ve always been a huge Van Gogh fan. Starry Night is one of my favorites and is also regarded as one of Van Gogh’s best (or most) important works, even though he apparently didn’t like it very much. This morning, when cruising through my Daily folder which includes the Astronomy Picture of the Day site, I came across a new reproduction titled Starry Night Scavenger Hunt.

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How Fitness Freak Ryan Lee Became A Millionaire Information Marketer

Entrepreneurs-Journey.com by Yaro Starak

Press play to begin streaming the audio or right click the text link and choose save as or save link. Download the MP3 [ 55 Minutes - 74 MB ]. Ryan Lee has a really impressive story, one that any person who has a passion that involves helping other people with problems, should hear. Ryan started out as a personal trainer and all around fitness freak.

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Paul Carr’s Ironic Take on New York

This is going to be BIG.

Did you catch Paul Carr’s latest piece on Techcrunch ? In it, he mocks New York for being a “content town”. What does Carr do for a living again? Oh, that’s right… he’s a writer. On top of that, he writes for the company who took it’s latest conference, Disrupt, to a town trying to “stay relevant” as he puts it as the west coast internet companies are “bleeding it try”.

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Increased Potential for Women Entrepreneurs

Startup Professionals Musings

Women entrepreneurs are starting small businesses at approximately twice the national average for all startups. Despite some inaccurate stereotypes, the evidence is that these are in every industry, from small consulting firms to medical high technology. As a result, there have also been many new resources popping up specifically aimed at women. In most cases, the business questions asked and the answers given are essentially the same for all entrepreneurs, whether they be men or women.

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Who Wants To Be A Tech Star?

Feld Thoughts

Today’s first Tech Star video has nothing to do with TechStars. Instead, it will go down in history as another nerd period piece by Terry Kawaja from GCA Savvian. I first met Terry when we hired him to be CFO of Raindance Communications to help take it public. We had a twisted sister streak then which he maintains to this day. Enjoy the video – it’s a great one.

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Lateral Thinking Mini Workshop

Life Beyond Code

Edward De Bono coined the term lateral thinking. It is about reasoning beyond what general logic reveals. Sharpening your lateral thinking skills will open new opportunities simply because you will start looking at a problem/situation in completely new angles. Rather than giving you theories about lateral thinking, I have chosen three problems that cannot be solved by traditional thinking.

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Saying “thank you” – why startups and small businesses should listen to mom.

crowdSPRING Blog

In these recessionary times, all of us who operate startups and small businesses struggle to meet our bottom line, pay our monthly bills, retain our great employees, and grow our businesses in spite of the challenges presented. What to do, what to do? Well, one time-proven marketing strategy that increases customer lifetime value, cements loyalty, and drives word of mouth, is simply doing what your mom tried to teach you to do always: say “thank you.&# It is a truism that it costs more to

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How to Solve Business Problems Effectively

Startup Professionals Musings

Creating a startup, or managing any business, is all about problem solving. Some people are good at it and some are not – independent of their IQ or their academic credentials (there may even be an inverse relationship here). Yet I’m convinced that problem solving is a learnable trait, rather than just a birthright. Entrepreneurs who are great problem solvers within any business are the best prepared to solve their customers’ needs effectively as well.

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Founders 2010 #4: Let’s Be Honest

Feld Thoughts

Your friends Jason and Brad make guest appearance, as does the infamous Do Not Call list. "Let’s Be Honest" The Founders | TechStars Boulder | Episode 4 from TechStars on Vimeo. Tags: TechStars the founders.

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How I lost my 1K status

VC Adventure

If you followed this blog last year, you know that my quest to hit United 1K status ended with a December 26th trip from Denver to Washington DC. I left the house around 7:00am that morning and returned home that evening at 6:00pm, happily tweeting about the 30 miles I had to spare. And while I never want to make 1K again (that’s just too many miles to fly – especially back and forth from Denver to the east and west coasts, and in particular considering that I probably had another 20k miles on o

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Who Are the Next Services Superstars?

Austin Startup

Normally, I use this space to talk about a (hopefully) fresh software venture or other, or a new tech trend that has caught my attention in recent weeks. However, this time I want to share a slightly different subject that starts with a recent catch-up meeting I had with Bijoy Goswami , Bootstrap founder and Austin evangelist, where we were talking about mapping and roots.

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Technology Alone is Not a Pain-Point Solution

Startup Professionals Musings

Sometimes I chastise startups who seem to be first selling me their new technology, to be more market-driven (find points-of-pain solutions). I usually get pushback about the success of all the great technology companies, like Intel and Apple. Let me be clear – technology and market-driven need not be mutually exclusive! The best startups find a way to drive the market with their technology, rather than push their new technology-driven ‘solution’ on the marketplace.

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Swimming At Night

Feld Thoughts

I hurt my back three months ago. It is a stupid injury – I lifted a printer out of the back seat of my dad’s car and as I was straightening up I turned to the left and twisted my lower back. Three months later I’m finally feeling almost better. My marathon plan for 2010 is trashed; I’ve reset and am now looking toward an October marathon in Detroit.

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Easy to Raise Money - A Bad Thing?

Growthink Blog

If raising money was easy, would it be a bad thing? Well, according to Bob Johansen, in his book "Get There Early," the tension between people with ideas and people with money provides the energy for innovation. He further states that if this dilemma were solved, that creative energy would dwindle. Now, I don’t necessarily agree with this, because the reason why entrepreneurs go into business is NOT to raise money.

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What the Elephant God Can Teach Tech Entrepreneurs

thebarefootvc

This weekend I was at a family celebration in New Jersey and spent some time with an uncle who is a chemical engineer by training but also well versed in the Vedas, the ancient Hindu scriptures. So well versed that he is in high demand throughout the world performing weddings and other Hindu ceromonies in his retirement, giving any donations from his activities to charity.

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Unicast Moving Corporate Headquarters to Austin

Austin Startup

It seems that every other week we hear about another leading technology company opening an Austin office, or acquiring an Austin company. Unicast is the latest to relocate their headquarters here, moving into the Silicon Labs building by City Hall. Unicast is a leading interactive technology company with offices in New York City, London, Los Angeles, Chicago, and San Francisco.

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