Mon.Dec 17, 2012

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The Valuable Unsung Heroes of Startups

Both Sides of the Table

I got a call Sunday from a business colleague while I was sitting in the lounge at LAX waiting for yet another delayed flight. This colleague is a lawyer with whom I work on a deal and have done so for a couple of years. By all accounts I now consider him a friend. He caught me while I was sipping a Bloody Mary and thinking a bit a business situation that bummed me out.

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Serious Entrepreneurs Master Media Training Early

Startup Professionals Musings

Not so long ago, training to meet the press and television reporters was a realm reserved for top business executives only. Now, even the earliest stage startup can rise to visibility or be forever lost by their first media spotlight, so it behooves us all to know the rules early. Most entrepreneurs I know admit to a poor first media interaction, and many are still waiting for the instant replay.

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The Right Question(s) to Ask VCs about Their Availability of Capital

Genuine VC

Most first and second pitch meetings with VCs are fairly lopsided, where entrepreneurs spend the bulk of the time sharing their businesses, rather than being a true exchange of both parties in developing a relationship. However, there is typically (and should be plenty of) time for founders to ask VCs questions about their approach and working-style to help determine if there’s a mutual fit.

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Liquidity for Venture Backed Companies Still Comes Largely in One Flavor—Cash Acquisitions

Pascal's View

Denis Dougherty of Intersouth Partners was recently interviewed by Brian Gormley of The Wall Street Journal on the decade-long liquidity crisis that continues to plague the venture capital industry. Responding to the question “ What do you see as the biggest investment opportunity for venture capital in 2013? ”, Dougherty said, “ If we have a broadly rebounding economy, the big corporations would begin to buy products and programs that they want to have, not just the ones that they have to have.

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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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Seven Ways To “Grow” An Entrepreneur (Instead Of A Boomerang Kid!)

YoungUpstarts

by Michael Houlihan, coauthor of “ The Barefoot Spirit: How Hardship, Hustle, and Heart Built a Bestseller “ Your child may still be in elementary school but you’ve already started worrying about the “boomerang” syndrome. It’s a valid concern. Most kids come back home after college to “crash” until they find a job. But as the months (and years) crawl by and your child still can’t find anything that doesn’t involve cash registers, coffee machines, or polyester uniforms, it becomes cle

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Can You Ski Off The Top Of The Train In Polar Express?

Feld Thoughts

Skiing off of Polar Express. I love the emails I get from readers of this blog. Yesterday morning, I got the following from Shane Schieffer of FitTrip and I just saw it as I was grinding through my morning backlog from the weekend. “Hi Brad, Happy holidays. My friend and I were watching Polar Express with our kids last night, and he commented on the impossibility of skiing down the top of a train towards the engine, even on a crazy steep slope.

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More Trending

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Data and Action in Times of Tragedy

This is going to be BIG.

When I was little, I learned that "Knowing was half the battle." More recently, I've learned another phrase--that "data is the new journalism." In times of national tragedy, more and more people take to the internet on data research missions after reading news narratives. It's not enough for them to just hear a story. They want to know actionable facts.

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Whither the open web

The Equity Kicker

I’ve written a few posts now about the rise of new gatekeepers to the web – Google, Apple, Amazon, Facebook and how that changes the dynamics of innovation to the advantage of those companies and against the interests of both consumers and startups. I the last couple of days Anil Dash and Alan Patrick have written in more detail about the changes that have happened: photos have moved from Flickr where they were well tagged and easily accessed by third party services with clear commercial arrange

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Learn Entrepreneurship By Volunteering

Mike Michalowicz

Learn Entrepreneurship By Volunteering. If I offered you a chance at an internship that would rock your business, and your business potential, more than any class you could take anywhere, would you sign up? Yes? OK, then get out there and volunteer somewhere. Volunteer? Yeah. It’s a good thing. I mean, duh! It helps our neighbors, our communities and our country and it helps us.

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End of year lessons

Start Up Blog

I came across 3 really good pieces in the past week that I really think are worth sharing. The first of the these was a blog post from Jason Calcanis on the topic of how moderate success is the enemy of breakout success. Something I spoke about earlier this year. But this post is totally insightful and potentially direction changing. While we all espouse staying the course – maybe the course isn’t to stick to a particular idea, but to stick to being in startup land.

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Mass Shootings, Political Correctness, and Magical Thinking

Diego Basch

Speaking in Newtown, CT yesterday, President Obama said : We can’t tolerate this anymore. These tragedies must end. And to end them, we must change. We will be told that the causes of such violence are complex, and that is true. [.] Surely, we can do better than this. If there is even one step we can take to save another child, or another parent, or another town, from the grief [.] then surely we have an obligation to try.

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The Power of Full Engagement

Growthink Blog

I had the great good fortune this past weekend to co-host Growthink's third and final Business Blueprint Live event of the year. This is a conference where entrepreneurs and business owners gather for three days and nights to dream, plan, and network as to how to best grow the revenues, increase the profits and better fulfill the missions of their businesses.

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End of year lessons

Start Up Blog

I came across 3 really good pieces in the past week that I really think are worth sharing. The first of the these was a blog post from Jason Calcanis on the topic of how moderate success is the enemy of breakout success. Something I spoke about earlier this year. But this post is totally insightful and potentially direction changing. While we all espouse staying the course – maybe the course isn’t to stick to a particular idea, but to stick to being in startup land.

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Walker Twitter Highlights: December 5th – 16th

Scott Edward Walker

I’m using Twitter as a form of micro-blogging to share interesting blog posts, articles and podcasts relating to entrepreneurship and startups, M&A and legal issues. Below are my five most popular tweets (via bit.ly ) for the past 10 days and a couple of blog-related tweets. If you’d like to see all of my tweets (or an RSS feed of them), you can do so here.

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BlackLocus Acquired by HomeDepot

Austin Startup

This was posted on the BlackLocus website. Congrats to Rodrigo and the team!

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Founder Restricted Stock 101

Early Growth Financial Services

By Sean Greaney: sgreaney@stubbsalderton.com Originally published on Stubbs Alderton & Markiles, LLP Sean Greaney, attorney with Stubbs Alderton & Markiles, LLP gives an informative introduction to Restricted Stock for startup companies. Sean’s practice focuses on corporate transactions, mergers and acquisitions, private equity transactions, and general corporate matters for both public and private clients, focusing on middle-market, emerging growth and development stage companies.

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I’m Back!

Pascal's View

After a one-year hiatus, I am back. Stay tuned for new posts on venture capital, corporate governance trends, and current public policy issues that impact investors and entrepreneurs. I have also done a lot of hiking throughout America and Europe in the last year and will share highlights from my hiking experiences as a new topic. Over the past year I’ve made meaningful personal and professional changes.

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Online shopping in the real world? Google nails it.

Jeff Hilimire

~ thanks to @gumboshowjoe for the link.

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Getting Value From Your Virtual Office

YoungUpstarts

by Lewis Edward, The Office Providers. Every single entrepreneur has to know how to deal with the problem of office space, since basically all companies need to have it. However, there are so many different options out there that many young entrepreneurs are unable to get the best value for their money – and that is especially true when it comes to some of the more unique options like virtual offices.

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The Far Reaching Implications of The Social Business Model

Duct Tape Marketing

For some time now I’ve been suggesting that social media as we’ve come to address it over the last few years doesn’t really matter anymore because it just is. We’ve given up on seeing it as some separate practice and accepted that it’s simply a function of marketing that must be integrated. photo credit: dgray_xplane via photopin cc. Lately I’ve begun to wonder if social behavior, not social media, is actually much more than we’ve made of it.

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New investment: tindie, a marketplace for the maker generation

Version One Ventures

I’m very excited to announce Version One’s investment in Tindie , a marketplace for gadget tinkerers and the maker generation. Many think that 2012 was the year of hardware. Today, getting a product ready for market is less risky and cheaper than ever, thanks to rapid prototyping with 3D printers , cheaper high-powered computers that can run simulations, the emerging democratization of manufacturing, and access to crowdfunding options through sites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo.