Sat.Jan 15, 2011 - Fri.Jan 21, 2011

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CTO Equity - Negotiation After Funding

SoCal CTO

I received an inquiry from a reader of my blog and thought I would provide some thoughts, but would definitely welcome input: I am an unpaid CTO of a small startup. I have been working full time with two founders for about 10 months on full time basis. I have been through many months with them but because of lack of funds, I spent lot of time doing non-technical work for first 4-5 months, spending time with them on putting pitches for investors, cash flows, budgets, writing business plans, produ

CTO 167
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The Valley Lacks Flexibility, Not Talent

ReadWriteStart

Right now there are a lot of reports about large companies in the Valley not being able to find the talent they need. There are also a lot of reports about companies bending over backwards financially to retain the people they have. But what I found working for a large Valley corporate in the last few years is that it is not hard to find talent. The real problem is that companies are not ready for new talent.

Europe 139
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Twitter Link Roundup #70 – Small Business, Social Media, Design, Copywriting, Marketing And More

crowdSPRING Blog

Every day on the crowdSPRING Twitter account and on my own Twitter account , I post links to posts or videos I enjoyed reading or viewing. These posts and videos are about logo design , web design , startups, entrepreneurship, small business, leadership, social media, marketing, and more! Here are some of the links that I’ve liked and shared this past week!

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A New World of Experts Without Gatekeepers

Up and Running

I posted here yesterday something that worries me about social media marketing, those fake word of mouth tactics. Writing that reminded me about the good and a little bit bad in the sweeping change of the new business landscape that social media represents. I’ve been in the expert business for 40 years. I was a journalist, then a business journalist, then a consultant, a software developer and publisher, and now a blogger.

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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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CTO Equity - Negotiation After Funding

SoCal CTO

I received an inquiry from a reader of my blog and thought I would provide some thoughts, but would definitely welcome input: I am an unpaid CTO of a small startup. I have been working full time with two founders for about 10 months on full time basis. I have been through many months with them but because of lack of funds, I spent lot of time doing non-technical work for first 4-5 months, spending time with them on putting pitches for investors, cash flows, budgets, writing business plans, produ

CTO 150
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Should You Sell Your Company?

Ben's Blog

Sittin’ up drunk shuffling thoughts. Got paper but I’m lost. Losing focus what a n#%$a still hustin’ for? My seed is straight the family’s settled. Idle time get the man in trouble. —Nas, Suicide Bounce. One of the most difficult decisions that a CEO ever makes is whether or not to sell her company. Logically, determining whether selling a company will be better in the long term than continuing to run it stand-alone involves a huge number of factors, most of which are speculative or unknown.

More Trending

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A New World of Experts Without Gatekeepers

Up and Running

Tweet I posted here yesterday something that worries me about social media marketing, those fake word of mouth tactics. Writing that reminded me about the good and a little bit bad in the sweeping change of the new business landscape that social media represents. I’ve been in the expert business for 40 years. I was a journalist, then a business journalist, then a consultant, a software developer and publisher, and now a blogger.

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Startup Advice: When to Use a Consulting CTO

rapidrollout.wordpress.com

Web Startup Lessons Advice from a CTO and Entrepreneur Home About Startup Advice: When to Use a Consulting CTO There are not many to be found. He or she might call himself a “consulting CTO,&# “freelance CTO,&# “on-demand CTO,&# “CTO on call,&# “CTO for hire,&# or just a “technology strategy advisor.&# Most likely, this is a person who is a serial entrepreneur and was the chief technology officer for two or more web startups.

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Five Voices at Once

The Entrepreneurial Mind

Normal. 0. false. false. false. EN-US. X-NONE. X-NONE. MicrosoftInternetExplorer4. Lee Rainie, Director of Pew Research Center's Internet and American Life Project , gave an intriguing talk on their research into the current use of the Internet in the US at our USASBE conference this past week. The trends they are finding on the use of wireless, social networking, the types of technology we are using to access information, and the types of information we are seeking is really eye-opening.

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How I Use Visualization to Drive Creativity

Both Sides of the Table

Creativity. I’ve always believed it’s been one of the most important attributes of business success yet something very few business leaders talk about. So I thought I’d write a post about how I drive my personal creativity. (A slightly shorter version of this post originally appeared on TechCrunch ). As a practitioner of creativity rather than as an instructor of it I’m certain that there are many ways to get the creative juices flowing and how to release more creativit

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Avoid These Three Startup Mistakes

Up and Running

Tweet While speaking at Entrepreneur magazine’s Growth Conference in Atlanta this week, I spoke to small business owners in a talk I’m calling 3 Weeks to Startup after the book that I co-authored. I went over the basic assumptions behind starting a business in three weeks – that it’s a tight schedule, and very quick, but doable with tools available online today – and I shared some of my favorite common startup mistakes to avoid.

Startup 61
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The End Of The Road For Web Services

blogs.computerworlduk.com

Slideshows White Papers Videos Newsletters Topics Open Source Mobile & Wireless Networking Public Sector Operating Systems Outsourcing Business Intelligence Antivirus Microsoft Apple All Topics News In Depth IT Management IT Business Security Applications Infrastructure Cloud Computing Professional Resources Career Development How-Tos Advice White Papers IT Jobs Solution Centres Blogs Most Popular );//]]> Home Blogs Blogs Topics Open Source Public Sector Security Applications Windows Apple Our A

Web 51
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Cuppa Joe

deal architect

It is with sadness that I heard this week of the untimely passing of Joe Vales. As Phil Fersht describes he was a powerhouse in outsourcing circles. But I will especially miss him for our personal relationship. Our paths did.

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Ten Golden Insights From Successful Entrepreneurs

Startup Professionals Musings

Entrepreneurs are a notoriously stubborn (some say confident) group of people, so I see many of them making the same mistakes that predecessors have made. Thus I’m convinced that it’s useful for all of you to step back from time to time, and listen to some sage advice from people who have been there and enjoyed success. Recently, as I was perusing a new book by Robert Jordan, titled “ How They Did It: Billion Dollar Insights ” I saw some wisdom and inspiration that made sense.

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Naming your startup: Settle down, it’s cool!

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

Finding and agreeing upon a worthy name is always a struggle, especially if you have co-founders. This is one of those emotional decisions where it’s not okay to agree to disagree. There’s a lot of advice on the Internet about naming companies; see this article from OnStartups.com for a particularly good, detailed checklist. Here’s a few additional things I’ve found useful.

Naming 247
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Examples of good startup term sheets

www.quora.com

Quora Home About Login Sign Up Add Question Before adding a question, search for it above. If you can't find what you are looking for, hit enter or click "Add Question" again. Find Questions, Topics and People Add Question Add Question Venture Capital Venture Capital Term Sheets Startups Term Sheets What are examples of good startup term sheets?

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Adult supervision Google and HP style

deal architect

“Day-to-day adult supervision no longer needed!” tweeted Eric Schmidt as Google announced he would move up to Executive Chairman. Lost in that bombshell was a move by Ray Lane, the incoming Non-Executive Chairman at HP to add some exceptional talent.

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Eight Types of Intelligence Make the Entrepreneur

Startup Professionals Musings

I’ve long believed that entrepreneurs are different. We all know successful entrepreneurs who dropped out of school, and people with high IQs that cannot manage a business. I used to call this “street smarts,” but recently I found a better explanation, called multiple intelligences. Successful entrepreneurs always seem to have several good intelligences.

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Never Mind the Valley: Here's Nashville

ReadWriteStart

When I asked for recommendations a couple of weeks ago for sites to feature in our "Never Mind the Valley" series, I was overwhelmed with the response. It's quite encouraging, in light of all the reports of global recessions, slumps, and downturns, to hear from so many people saying that their community is a thriving site for entrepreneurship. You can still send me your recommendations, and I'll be working my way through them in the coming weeks and months.

Nashville 161
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Officially Launching NextView Ventures

Genuine VC

Last summer, I along with my partners announced that we were forming a new micro venture capital firm. At that point, Rob Go, Lee Hower, and I possessed a shared vision and a newly minted name, but were still in the process of forming our approach. Now six months later, we’re ready to lift the covers on what we’re doing (although there have been a few previews ).

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A new form of buy-side analyst?

deal architect

In the investment world there is a clear demarcation between sell-side and buy-side analysts. Been wondering whether the tech world needs something similar as I read various industry research and have conversations with several technology advisers. Among the research I.

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Great Entrepreneurs Master Reflective Thinking

Startup Professionals Musings

Startups and entrepreneurs are drowning in the information overload, where the volume of data created is like a new Library of Congress every 15 minutes. That creates a huge gap between data and meaning, and makes quick decisions and action ever more difficult. We all need to take a little more time to think. On the other end of the spectrum, some people “over-think” things to the point of inaction.

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Book: The Startup Game

Feld Thoughts

After writing Do More Faster with David Cohen, I have deep appreciation for the effort involved in writing a book. After reading a bunch of entrepreneurship books, I’ve decided there are three categories: (a) autobiographies, (b) consultant roadmaps, and (c) practitioner stories. I like the practitioner stories best, followed closely by autobiographies.

LP 129
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What's In a Name? Is a Hip Startup Name Important?

ReadWriteStart

Debates over the importance of naming your startup have resurfaced recently with news of a stealthy startup called Hipster. The company is in private alpha, and while details are scarce as to what Hipster is , folks seem to have plenty to say about the startup's name. Mashable's Brenna Ehrlich asks "Should you name your startup after a meme?" And Techcrunch's Alexis Tsotsis asks the question "Is naming your startup 'Hipster' genius or terrible?".

Naming 126
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More New Renaissance

deal architect

on the New Florence innovation blog The improving ROI around LED lighting The Mercedes SLS AMG E-cell Bluetooth and Barbecue IBM’s annual “Next Five in Five”

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Name the Big Three Social Networks for Business

Startup Professionals Musings

With the advent of social networking sites like LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook, Internet usage has totally morphed, from a serious business medium, to a social and fun medium that still means business. Regular people now build business applications with “mashup” technology, rather than hiring programmers. I’m a technology follower from the early days of the Internet, so a couple of years ago I decided to dive into this new world and check it out (who even heard of blogging or mashups ten years

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Who’s LOLing Now?

Feld Thoughts

Today we announced that Foundry Group took a bite out of Cheezburger as we led a $ 30m financing of the company that started out by bringing your cute cate pictures. Ever since I met Ben Huh 18 months ago via an introduction from Micah Baldwin (see Micah – I do take you seriously – some of the time) I’ve had a major entrepreneur-crush (sort of like a man-crush, but, well, you get the idea) on Ben.

Finance 127
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Top 10 Venture Capital Bloggers of 2010

ReadWriteStart

Many of the top investors in the tech industry are also prolific bloggers, offering their insights on investment and technology trends. So if you're looking for a list of the best - or at least the most trafficked, then you're in luck. As Marshall Kirkpatrick noted in a story about what the best-of-the- blogging venture capitalists love , VC Larry Cheng has posted his 4th annual Venture Capitalist Blog Index.

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The IBM archipelago

deal architect

Remember the IBM of old? Homogenous corporate culture, even down to dress code.

PR 218
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Seven Characteristics of a Committed Entrepreneur

Startup Professionals Musings

We’ve all heard the old joke “In a bacon-and-egg breakfast, the chicken is involved, but the pig is committed.” This quote epitomizes the true essence of commitment. We all know at least one self-professed entrepreneur who claims to committed, but seems to treat it like a part-time hobby, won’t put any personal skin in the game, and is quick to give up when things are tough.

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Entrepreneurs Unplugged With Pete Sheinbaum on 1/24/10

Feld Thoughts

It’s time for Silicon Flatirons Entrepreneurs Unplugged to start up again. In case you don’t know what this is, I moderate a monthly interview series each semester with Brad Bernthal. We co-interview successful entrepreneurs – most of them local (Boulder / Denver). These interviews are done Charlie Rose style (one can dream) and generally last an hour followed by some Q&A.

Denver 118
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Why Isn’t Your Site Optimized?

Rembrandt Communications

Is your site optimized for the search engines? If not, does one of these statements sound familiar? • I don’t need SEO. • It’s too expensive. • I was ripped off by SEO in the past. Well, here’s the cold hard truth about SEO: You need search engine optimization to compete. What happens right now when potential customers [.].

SEO 100
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Apply to Demo On Stage at the 6th Founder Showcase

ReadWriteStart

The Founder Showcase is taking applications now for a chance to make your pitch onstage at its event to be held February 1 in Mountain View, California. Any seed or early-stage company less than two years old and with less than $500,000 in funding is invited to apply. It's free to enter the pitch competition. And members of TheFunded vote to determine who they want to see onstage.

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Five Common Mistakes in Jumping the Corporate Ship

Startup Professionals Musings

Many people, especially those who have spent years struggling up the corporate ladder, dream of jumping ship and becoming an entrepreneur. But every job move is fraught with risk, and the move from employee to entrepreneur is on the high end of the risk curve. This is a big jump, especially in a down economy, so do your homework first on this one. According to an article in the Harvard Business Review a while back, “Five Ways to Bungle a Job Change” there are at least five common missteps that p

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Blur Conference Day 1 Is Looking Awesome

Feld Thoughts

The next Eric Norlin conference is Blur and is happening in Orlando, Florida (yay – warm) on February 22 and 23. I’ll be there along with my three Foundry Group partners Seth , Ryan , and Jason exploring the future of human computer interaction. While I’ve written about the development of Blur, Eric just put up a blog post describing the first day.

Florida 114
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Big day for Living Social – $10 for a $20 Amazon gift certificate

Lightspeed Venture Partners

'Last year, Amazon invested $175M into Living Social , one of our portfolio companies. Today we’re seeing the first step of operational integration from that investment. Living Social is running a nationwide deal – $10 for a $20 Amazon gift certificate. It’s blowing up on Twitter , and it’s going to be a big day for Living Social!

Portfolio 114