Sat.Aug 28, 2010 - Fri.Sep 03, 2010

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Don Estridge, IBM PC Father, Startup Role Model

Startup Professionals Musings

My introduction to startups really came when I first worked in IBM with Philip Donald Estridge back in 1981. Known as Don Estridge, he led development of the original IBM Personal Computer, and thus is known as "father of the IBM PC" He’s gone now, but I still remember him fondly. He and Bill Lowe somehow managed to convince then CEO Frank Cary to give them a dozen engineers, a small budget, and a few months, to set up a small skunk-works called Entry Level Systems in Boca Raton, Flori

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Never Mind the Valley: Here's Paris

ReadWriteStart

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

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Have We Reached The Software Patent Tipping Point?

Feld Thoughts

We’ve shifted into a new zone in the world of software patent stupidity. A few weeks ago, Oracle sued Google over a series of Java-related patents they got when they acquired Sun. Last week, Paul Allen sued 11 major software companies , including Google, over four patents that were granted to his now defunct Interval Research think tank. Much of the early commentary has already been said.

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Incorporate Your Startup at the Right Time

mashable.com

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!

LLC 75
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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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Entrepreneurs: See Paranoia As An Opportunity

Startup Professionals Musings

Even though 1984 passed uneventfully over 25 years ago, there is still a large population out there worried about George Orwell , and the animals taking over the farm. Why is everyone so paranoid these days? My plea to entrepreneurs and startups is to recognize it as an opportunity, and go the extra mile to make people comfortable rather than paranoid.

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Report Examines Where the Top VC Firms Are Investing

ReadWriteStart

Last week, we looked at one of the latest reports from the investment research firm CB Insights , tracking the top venture capital firms across the U.S. in terms of their deal activity. According to that report, over the past year the top 30 firms participated in 663 unique deals (almost a quarter of all deals) with amounting to almost $9 billion in investment.

Deal Flow 121

More Trending

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Incorporate Your Startup at the Right Time

mashable.com

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!

LLC 75
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The Right Kind of Ambition

Ben's Blog

“Some say that I’m they favorite. But I aint hearing none of that. I’m about my team ho. Young money running back”. —Drake. “Stay in your place. While I sit here and rule. I’m king of a cow. And I’m king of a mule”. —Yertle the Turtle. In my last post, I mentioned that you should strive to hire people with the right kind of ambition. Surprisingly to me, I received a large number of responses from readers questioning whether or not this was good advice.

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Service Exports - Driving U.S. Startups and Small Businesses

Growthink Blog

Almost completely shrouded in the anemic U.S. stock market performance and the drumbeat of negativity that passes as business reporting these days has been the massive growth in U.S. service exports – increasingly from U.S. startups and small businesses. By way of anecdote, from the time Dave Lavinsky and I founded Growthink in 1999 through 2008, more than 95% of our firm’s clients and investors were U.S. – based.

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Is Convertible Debt Preferable to Equity?

Both Sides of the Table

Seth Levine of Foundry Group addresses this important topic this morning on his blog with a post, “ Has Convertible Debt Won ?&# Seth was basing this on a Tweet by Paul Graham that said&#. “Convertible notes have won. Every investment so far in this YC batch (and there have been a lot) has been done on a convertible note.&#. I have to say that I didn’t take the question to mean that convertible debt had won for the entire market, but either way it’s clear that convertible

Equity 319
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Toronto Technology Tornado

deal architect

I find myself in Toronto every few years and my image of the city has been one of a financial services capital, a baseball town, and a well-run large city – someone called it “New York run by the Swiss”.

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Connecting the Dots: How New Job Creation, IPO’s, and Venture Capital in America Are Intimately Linked

Pascal's View

Everybody agrees that, without meaningful job growth, America will not emerge from its current deep economic funk. There is plenty of debate, however, over what drives that job creation engine in our country. I’ve recently read several interesting reports that touch on parts of the American job growth conundrum but do not tie them together. Pooling some compelling statistics from these various sources, I believe that the following conclusions are correct and interrelated : (1) Job growth

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Why Product Managers Wear Sneakers

Steve Blank

I gave a talk last night to the Silicon Valley Product Management Association. It’s a San Francisco Bay Area forum for networking, jobs and education for over 500 Product Management professionals. This is one of the Silicon Valley organizations that remind you why this is a company-town whose main industry is entrepreneurship, (and a great example of an industry cluster.).

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Nine Ways to Work Less and Do More In Your Startup

Startup Professionals Musings

The universal challenge of every startup founder is to get everything done that needs to get done, and still have a life. Even outside of business, everyone wants to accomplish more, while working less. I’ve been a student of these techniques for some time, but recently I saw a great summary that seems to pull all the key principles together. Stever Robbins, known on the Internet as the Get-It-Done Guy, just published his book “ 9 Steps to Work Less and Do More ,” which outlines his strategies.

Startup 246
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Burning question: Time to split IT?

deal architect

Mark DeSantis in the section of “consumerization of technology” in his radio interview with me commented about someone he knew at the Pentagon, (which traditionally has had early access to emerging technology) who increasingly walks the halls of the retailer, Tags: Industry Commentary.

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My Guest Post on A Smart Bear: Virtual Assistants and Outsourcing

Software By Rob

Software by Rob Passionate about Startups and MicroISVs Lessons Learned by a Serial Entrepreneur home about press micropreneurs archives ← What the Beatles Can Teach Us About Starting a Company Lesser Known Traits of Successful Founders → Guest Post on A Smart Bear: Virtual Assistants and Outsourcing Micropreneurship , Startups If youre trying grow your startup youve come to the right place.

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Time Heals All Wounds – But We End Up Older Too

entrepreMusings

Time heals all wounds or so they say. Time certainly does makes the wound look different and allows it to close up a bit, but the wound is still there to remind us of something. In the world of high-tech entrepreneurship, people sometimes refer to those wounds as ‘scar tissue’ or ‘battle wounds.’ It means you’ve been through a lot, learned a lot, and in some cases they are looked upon as honored badges of experience here in the US.

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Ten Myths About Innovation – Startups Beware

Startup Professionals Musings

Most people think innovation is all about ideas, when in fact it is more about delivery, people, and process. Entrepreneurs looking to innovate need to understand the execution challenge if they expect their startup to carve out a profitable niche in the marketplace, and keep innovating to build and maintain a sustainable competitive advantage. Everyone thinks they know how to make innovation happen, but I can’t find much real research on the subject.

Startup 234
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The power of conversation

deal architect

Rob Day, an investor with Black Coral Capital, wrote this morning on Greentechmedia “…after I posted a pretty critical take today on a book I'd just read, it was a new experience to have the author (Vinnie Mirchandani, "The New.

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More Web Events in Los Angeles

SoCal CTO

I’ve updated my earlier post on Networking Events Los Angeles with some great suggestions from Lorin Cha who I just met through LinkedIn. Here were the new ones: LeanLA Startup Circle Meetup I’ve gone to a couple of these. Often the presentations are pretty basic because of a fair number of newbies in the audience. However, there are some great folks who have lots of experience also attending so the networking and discussion is generally pretty great.

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Four Minutes In The Morning

Feld Thoughts

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.

Dividend 191
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Friends and Family: Largest Startup Funding Source

Startup Professionals Musings

By Adam Hoeksema According to a report distributed by the Angel Capital Education Foundation , total startup funding from venture capital funds, state funds, and angel investors totals approximately $20.8 billion annually. Surprisingly, friends and family contributed nearly three times the amount of capital to thousands of startups each year. With approximately $60 billion in startup funding coming from friends and family, entrepreneurs must consider this as an option as they seek to launch new

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The Real Deal: Martin Geddes on a New Paradigm for Communications Services

deal architect

This continues a series of columns from practitioners I respect. The category "Real Deal" describes them well. This time it is Martin Geddes, profiled in my book in the chapter on telcos. He is a thought leader on business models. Tags: Telecommunications.

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How a startup should leverage a personal assistant

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

Rob Walling generously allowed me to reprint this excerpt from his new book, "Start Small, Stay Small: A Developer's Guide to Launching a Startup" available in paperback and Kindle from Amazon and in PDF and ePub from StartupBook.net. Rob is one of the most successful "micropreneurs" — creators of small, cash-generating startups frequently sold for cash.

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Serious Questions For Super Angels

Feld Thoughts

Following is a post on super angels I wrote yesterday for PEHub. In the beginning, there were angel investors. And it was good. As individual angel investors made more and more investments, they became super angels. One day a super angel woke up and thought to himself, “Gosh, I could do a lot more investments if I had a fund.” And so the super angels became micro-VCs (or “institutionalized super angels”).

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How to Get a Job at a Startup After College Graduation

ReadWriteStart

College hiring is projected to rebound in time for the Class of 2011 to feel its effects, according to a new survey conducted by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE). Employers who took part in NACE's survey say they're anticipating hiring 13.5% more new college grades from the Class of 2011 than they did from the Class of 2010.

Startup 130
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More New Renaissance

deal architect

from the innovation blog The math behind Paul the octupus Ubiquitous USB? Frenchy: a life of techno-thrill and caution The Adidas Jabulani FIFA soccer ball. Tags: Innovative Business Uses of Technology.

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10 things about kids from which entrepreneurs can learn

crowdSPRING Blog

I have a couple of kids and, although they are getting older now and moving towards their own adult lives, I learn from them every day. Watching them grow, learn, and develop into individuals has taught me many lessons, including how to be a better entrepreneur. It is valuable to step back and consider ways in which we can all do and be better and lessons we can draw from children and their unique approach to living, their fresh attitudes about others, and their ongoing joy in making their way t

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Attracting Smart People To Your Community Accelerates Entrepreneurship

Feld Thoughts

Entrepreneurial communities grow up around smart people. Whenever someone in state or local government asks me what they can do to accelerate entrepreneurship, I always tell them to put as much money and energy as they can into education. If you build a broad base of smart, inquisitive, curious people that are long term members of your community (e.g. they don’t move somewhere else), you’ll be delighted with the results over a long period of time (think 20+ years).

Community 138
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Traction for Your Startup: How to Get It & How Much is Enough

ReadWriteStart

You could have the greatest idea for a startup in the world. You could even have the best team working together to build a great product. That's all fine and dandy, but for first-time entrepreneurs, if you don't have traction, you're not going anywhere. Traction means having a measurable set of customers or users that serves to prove to a potential investor that your startup is "going places.

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Back to Business – Are You Ready?

Rembrandt Communications

With Labor Day comes back-to-school and back-to-business. With this in mind, are you dreading your old routine and the cooler months ahead? Well, here are a few things you can do now to make a smoother transition and have more business success 1. Check Your PR Action Plan. Review your plan of action for the [.].

PR 100
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Marketing Is About Values

crowdSPRING Blog

Today, Apple is considered one of the best brands in the world. The iPod wasn’t the first mp3 player but it redefined the entire industry. The iPad wasn’t the first tablet PC and yet Apple may sell more than 10 million of them in 2010. Apple may sell 48 million iPhones in 2010. Today, nearly everything that Apple touches turns to gold. But this wasn’t always true.

Marketing 126
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TechStars New York

Feld Thoughts

TechStars is coming to New York City. The first program runs from 1/10/11 to 4/8/11. Applications are open now. The NY mentor list is stunning and includes the following: Phin Barnes (First Round Capital), Alex Blum (KickApps), Matt Blumberg (Return Path), Brad Burnham (USV), Jeff Clavier, Dennis Crowley (FourSquare), Chris Dixon (Founder Collective), Roger Ehrenberg, Darren Herman (The Media Kitchen), Jennifer Hyman (Rent The Runway), Alex Iskold (Adaptive Blue), David Karp (Tumblr), Zach K

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World Economic Forum Honors 31 Startups as "Technology Pioneers"

ReadWriteStart

As I argued earlier this week, words like "disruptive," "innovative," and "transformational" can lose their punch when applied to every new company, every new product, every new feature. But there are undoubtedly plenty of areas in which innovation and transformation are not just happening and warranted, but absolutely crucial. It is with that in mind that each year the World Economic Forum selects a group of startups to honor as Technology Pioneers.

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Convertible? Equity? What kind of coin should you use to scratch off a lottery ticket?

This is going to be BIG.

There’s been a lot of debate recently in the market about what kind of investment structure is best for angel and seed arounds. Mark Suster , Seth Levine , Fred Wilson , and Chris Dixon have all weighed in and there’s more on RWW. Here’s my own personal take, not any kind of official First Round take: You should read all of these posts, instantly forget everything you read, and then do what it takes to go out and find the investors who are most passionate, most willing, and most able to help you

Equity 104
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How To Make Money With Your Blog (With Case Studies As Proof)

Entrepreneurs-Journey.com by Yaro Starak

People often come to me as an expert at monetizing blogs. Although my experience making money online is not limited only to blogs, I’ve been able to extract a lot of income from not necessarily a lot of traffic. For example, my proofreading business was able to generate a salary level income – sometimes as much as $15,000 in one month during peak season – from barely 100 unique visitors a day to the website.

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