Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 22, 2011

Today’s post courtesy of the Dave McClure school of vocabulary. About a month ago I was meeting with a seasoned entrepreneur. After 10 minutes I felt like we were old buddies because we had both been through the trenches of startup tech land and had had similar experiences. He was recounting one of his higher profile startups to me. He founded the company, raised a bunch of money, built the product and established a good reputation and market position.

Leadership 418

Leadership Technical Review Software Review PR 418

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

OCTOBER 31, 2011

(Powered by LaunchBit ). Tweet. --> It’s one of the hardest steps in a startup, getting that first rube to part with their money over your barely-minimum barely-viable product. Here’s an email I got last week: Hello Jason, I am a big fan of your advice and wanted to see if you could offer any advice for marketing my start-up XYZ. I was totally product focused for the last year and now it’s live, so I need to start thinking about finding some customers.

Customer 279

Customer Software Review SEM Technical Review 279

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 19, 2011

QR codes were first created by Toyota to track vehicles in manufacturing, offering a small barcode that can be quickly decoded. That was 1994, and now, almost 20 years later, QR code technology is experiencing a revival — but not in the automotive industry. The small, square codes are ubiquitous, showing up on everything from flyers to beer bottles, allowing anyone with a smart phone to quickly scan and find out more information with the code.

Software Review 262

Software Review Technical Review Mobile Video 262

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 10, 2011

I was invited to Finland as part of Stanford’s Engineering Technology Venture Program partnership with Aalto University. (Thanks to Kristo Ovaska and team for the fabulous logistics!) I presented to 1,000’s of entrepreneurs, talked to 17 startups, gave 12 lectures, had 9 interviews, chatted with 8 VC’s, sat on 4 panels, talked policy with 2 government ministers, 2 members of parliament, 1 head of a public pension fund and was in 1 TV-documentary.

Finland 324

Finland Naming Russia Government 324

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

Startup

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 28, 2011

Most of the entrepreneurs I know realize they have some bad habits, like maybe procrastination or not listening well, so they focus on dropping these. New studies indicate that a more productive approach would be adopting new good habits and behaviors that clearly move your business forward, like good time management and implementing customer recommendations.

Entrepreneur 262

Entrepreneur Programming Partner Design 262

Gust

OCTOBER 18, 2011

This is the first of a six part series on different methods used by angel investors to arrive at pre-money startup valuations. Below is a brief description of each of the most popular methods. Detailed descriptions will be published over the next few weeks: The Scorecard Method: This method compares the target company to typical angel-funded startup ventures and adjusts the average valuation of recently funded companies in the region to establish a pre-money valuation of the target.

Valuation 174

Valuation Pre-Money Valuation Southern California Post-Money Valuation 174

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

OCTOBER 24, 2011

It’s Episode 3 my little “ Loveline for startups. ” Introduced a few months ago as an Austin event, I’m now doing this live audio advice column to the web, taking phone calls from startups around the country. My co-hosts were Bob Walsh and Patrick Foley , hosts of the well-known Startup Success Podcast. It’s awesome having podcasting experts on board, Bob with pithy advice and Patrick producing and organizing the show which is a lot more work than you might imagin

Cofounder 208

Cofounder Technical Review Software Review Differentiation 208

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 24, 2011

Near Field Communication (NFC) – a form of data transmission that allows simplified transactions, data exchange, and wireless connections between two devices in close proximity to each other – is one of the newest technologies currently being embraced by the mobile communications industry, and especially by handset makers. Samsung, for example, together with Google recently unveiled in an event Android 4.0 “Ice Cream Sandwich” on the Samsung GALAXY NEXUS smartphone.

Singapore 207

Singapore Technical Review Technology Brunei 207

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 7, 2011

I spent the month of September lecturing, and interacting with (literally) thousands of entrepreneurs in two emerging startup markets, Finland and Russia. This is the first of two posts about Finland and entrepreneurship. —— I was invited to Finland as part of Stanford’s Engineering Technology Venture Program partnership with Aalto University.

Finland 324

Finland Venture Capital Government Russia 324

crowdSPRING Blog

OCTOBER 16, 2011

What is a freelancer if not a small business? Just like small businesses, freelancers must engage in marketing, manage payables and receivables and other accounting tasks, perform HR functions, direct production, and plan strategy. 1. Planning and strategy. There are lots of great tools and apps out there that will help you to plan and execute great strategy for your freelance career or business, but the greatest tool you can use is knowledge.

Small Business 118

Small Business Technical Review Software Review Technical Support 118

ReadWriteStart

OCTOBER 6, 2011

"Here's to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes. the ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules, and they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can't do is ignore them because they change things.

Silicon Valley 118

Silicon Valley India San Francisco Entrepreneur 118

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 10, 2011

This article originally appeared on TechCrunch. A month ago I applauded Reed Hasting’s bold decision to split his business into two components. Today he’s announcing that they’re backing out of this decision. Netflix as a service has always prided itself on movie recommendations that are tailored specifically to you plus user ratings on the quality of films.

Customer 287

Customer Technical Review Caching PR 287

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

OCTOBER 17, 2011

I wanted to expand on the practical and mathematical implementations of the cancellation rate I referred to in last week’s post. Why cancellation rate is so important. As a preamble to the metrics, it’s useful to know what you’re measuring and why it’s vital. [Cancellation rate] = [product utility] + [service quality] + [acceptable price].

Business Model 245

Business Model Metrics Engineer Technical Review 245

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 18, 2011

Even though online professional networking sites and services like LinkedIn and BranchOut have changed the face of human resource recruitment, there’s still room for continued disruption. In fact, a new web-based talent sourcing solution aims to make Boolean search string training for recruiters – which they traditionally rely on – obsolete: Scavado , a simple, yet powerful, alternative to costly Boolean search training that quickly yields relevant prospects to recruit.

CTO Hire 224

CTO Hire Search Web Internet 224

mashable.com

OCTOBER 11, 2011

Top Stories Photo & Video Galleries Top Lists Trending Topics Twitter YouTube Facebook iPhone Google Video More Topics. People Recommended Mashable Staff More people. Jobs Awards Welcome to Mashable! Sign in with Facebook or Facebook Mashable Social Media All Social Media How-To Facebook Twitter YouTube Google Plus Featured in Social Media Tech All Tech Apps & Software Dev & Design Gadgets Mobile Featured in Tech Business All Business Advertising Marketing Media Small Business Startups Featured

PR 103

PR Startup Social Media Technical Review 103

crowdSPRING Blog

OCTOBER 6, 2011

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!

Social Media 98

Social Media Small Business Design Media 98

ReadWriteStart

OCTOBER 13, 2011

I spent the month of September lecturing, and interacting with (literally) thousands of entrepreneurs in two emerging startup markets, Finland and Russia. This is the first of two posts about Finland and entrepreneurship. I was invited to Finland as part of Stanford's Engineering Technology Venture Program partnership with Aalto University. (Thanks to Kristo Ovaska and team for the fabulous logistics!

Finland 158

Finland Venture Capital Government Russia 158

Feld Thoughts

OCTOBER 28, 2011

While Jane was building SayAhh’s revenue projections , Dick focused his attention on building the expense side of the projections. He procrastinated for a few weeks because he was deep in product development, but surfaced a few days ago when he realized they had an investor meeting coming up and really should have at least a basic financial model ready in case the investor asked about it.

Revenue 127

Revenue Balance Sheet Forecast Software Review 127

This is going to be BIG.

OCTOBER 28, 2011

I asked a company the other day whether or not they were going to take advantage of a great event here in NYC. Its an opportunity to pitch Sony on a biz dev deal --a no brainer for nearly any company given the scope of Sony's areas of interest. ( applications are due this Monday the 31st ) The company said no because their main angel investor didn't think it was a good idea to let an audience see their pitch.

Angel Investor 111

Angel Investor Technical Review Audience Management 111

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 14, 2011

“Never was so much owed by so many to so few” – these famous words were uttered in a wartime speech by Sir Winston Churchill, referring to pilots of the Royal Air Force in defense of Britain during World War II. But those same words could easily be applied to the Singapore-based technology entrepreneurs present at Techventure 2011.

Singapore 198

Singapore Technical Review Technology Incubator 198

Ben's Blog

OCTOBER 6, 2011

You’d better check yourself before you wreck yourself. —Ice Cube, Check Yo Self. Everyone in the technology industry seems to agree that people are paramount, yet nobody seems to be on the same page with what the people organization­—Human Resources—should look like. The problem is that when it comes to HR, most CEOs don’t really know what they want.

Management 78

Management Development Team Review Stock Options Technical Review 78

crowdSPRING Blog

OCTOBER 28, 2011

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!

Social Media 98

Social Media Small Business Design Media 98

ReadWriteStart

OCTOBER 27, 2011

During today's roundtable, we had some excellent discussions of product marketing for a couple of different concepts. The 1M/1M Channel on Stanzr. The first of these discussions was about a new social media marketing platform called Stanzr, from San Francisco-based Voluble, that we are using at 1M/1M. Taariq Lewis, the founder of Voluble, is a 1M/1M premium entrepreneur.

Entrepreneur 116

Entrepreneur San Francisco Technical Review New Jersey 116

K9 Ventures

OCTOBER 11, 2011

IndexTank (@ IndexTank ) has been acquired by LinkedIn ! Huge congratulations to the entire IndexTank Team and especially to IndexTank’s founder Diego Basch (@ dbasch ). Diego and I first met in 1997. I had recently finished the Master of Software Engineering ( MSE ) program at Carnegie Mellon and gone full time on my first startup. Diego had just started in the MSE program.

Pennsylvania 93

Pennsylvania Search Acquisition Software Engineering 93

Babbling VC

OCTOBER 3, 2011

The European Investment Fund (EIF) put out a working paper recently that initially sounds like bad news. Fortunately, for those of us in the market long enough, it's actually good news. As a side note, I'm glad to see this paper come out from the EIF. For those of you not in the know, they are one of the largest limited partners ( LP's : investors in venture capital funds) in Europe and are basically in almost all the funds throughout the market.

LP 82

LP Europe Germany Venture Capital 82

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 19, 2011

Co-authored by Stanford University Marketing Professor Jennifer Aaker and her husband Andy Smith, a leading marketing consultant of Vonavona Ventures, “ The Dragonfly Effect: Quick, Effective, and Powerful Ways To Use Social Media to Drive Social Change ” offers a recipe for social change leveraging on the power of social media. Unlike many other books on social media which are strong on examples but weak on structure, the book proposed a systematic design thinking oriented process w

Social Media 178

Social Media Technical Review Media United States 178

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 13, 2011

OK. I know with a title like that I’m going to subject myself to people thinking I’m just being a grumpy, exclusive VC. That’s not the point. It’s honest advice so please judge once you’re read the post. I’ll keep it short. Meals or coffee are a great way to build rapport with other people and since I’m an ENTP I love breaking bread as much as the next guy.

Networking 397

Networking Email Portfolio Sales 397

crowdSPRING Blog

OCTOBER 13, 2011

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!

Social Media 94

Social Media Small Business Design Media 94

deal architect

OCTOBER 18, 2011

SAP announced recently it was moving to smaller, more frequent modifications to its Business Suite every three months: “In the past, we have delivered innovation with enhancement packages or releases in a bundle, but our customers gave us clear feedback.

Cloud 297

Cloud Customer 297

K9 Ventures

OCTOBER 11, 2011

IndexTank (@ IndexTank ) has been acquired by LinkedIn ! Huge congratulations to the entire IndexTank Team and especially to IndexTank’s founder Diego Basch (@ dbasch ). Diego and I first met in 1997. I had recently finished the Master of Software Engineering ( MSE ) program at Carnegie Mellon and gone full time on my first startup. Diego had just started in the MSE program.

Pennsylvania 90

Pennsylvania Search Acquisition Software Engineering 90

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 18, 2011

It was the most advanced consumer product of the century. The industry started with its innovators located in different cities over a wide region. But within 20 years it would be concentrated in a single entrepreneurial startup cluster. At first it was a craft business, then it was driven by relentless technology innovation and then a price war as economies of scale drove efficiencies in production.

Detroit 302

Detroit Distribution Vertical Finance 302

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 7, 2011

Every entrepreneur needs to be honest about their strengths and weaknesses, and realistic about their reasons for choosing the startup route. For any entrepreneur, even the best business opportunities, if entered for the wrong reasons, will likely fail. Some of these reasons seem obvious, so forgive me for restating, but I still hear them too often.

Entrepreneur 277

Entrepreneur Employee Startup Partner 277

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 20, 2011

Early today I gave a keynote at the VCJ Venture Alpha conference here in San Francisco. I was asked to speak about the topic of “what is going on in the venture capital world and what is the next big thing after social networking?”. Future of VC Internet – Tough topic, but what the heck? Next week I promised to follow up on PE Hub , one of the main journals VCs read about our industry, with a detail description of some specifics that are happening.

Venture Capital 306

Venture Capital Internet San Francisco Social Network 306

crowdSPRING Blog

OCTOBER 20, 2011

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!

Social Media 90

Social Media Small Business Design Media 90

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

OCTOBER 3, 2011

Get more involved in the Bay Area startup community: Join the WebWallflower mailing list to get a calendar of upcoming startup events and exclusive discounts sent right to you every two weeks. (Powered by LaunchBit ). Tweet. --> You might tacitly assume that I have no major blind spots when it comes building little tech startups. I pontificate on concepts that I learned through hard work, luck, observation, and failure, so surely I have all my bases covered.

Metrics 273

Metrics Startup Revenue Engineer 273

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 11, 2011

Although a strong education is by no means a requirement for business acumen or success, many still saunter off to college and further hone what they’ve already got. Those walking on or logging onto campus with visions of profits and genius dancing in their heads shouldn’t relegate their learning within those boundaries exclusively. They should drink up any potentially valuable insight they can, and the venerable TED offers up one such conduit.

West Virginia 279

West Virginia Los Angeles Nigeria Virginia 279