Sat.Mar 03, 2012 - Fri.Mar 09, 2012

article thumbnail

Always Go Home with the Lady Who Brought you to the Dance

Both Sides of the Table

I had this ethical dilemma pop up on one of the first deals I even did as a VC. I had been looking around at several deals in late 2008 as the markets were tanking. I had gotten close on a couple of deals but nothing rose to the level of “must do.” I was learning which VCs I wanted to work with, what stage & check size I wanted to commit do and what teams would be a good fit for me.

article thumbnail

Private Sector Bandaids, and Making the US Competitive Again

David Teten

On Monday night I attended a Harvard Business School “Paths Forward” event tied to the March issue of Harvard Business Review , which consists of a wide range of research on How to Increase U.S. Competitiveness. I also contributed a blog post to the HBS Competitiveness website on some initiatives I’m working on personally with ff Venture Capital and HBS Angels related to increasing competitiveness.

Insiders

Sign Up for our Newsletter

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

article thumbnail

Twitter Link Roundup #122 – 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!

article thumbnail

Technology Trend Tracking – Fast Path to Innovation Glory

Gregg Fraley, Author of Jack's Notebook

Innovators need to keep an eagle eye on new technology trends. Things are developing so quickly now and in so many areas that keeping tabs on what’s happening is daunting. These new developments offer a constant stream of opportunities (if you think and take action on them), but it’s a bit like that famous clip [.].

article thumbnail

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

article thumbnail

The Leader of the Freemium World

This is going to be BIG.

I didn't write most of the following and the original text had nothing to do with entrepreneurship. "All entrepreneurs are unsuited to the job, and therefore all entrepreneurs fail in certain crucial aspects of the job. And all are mis-assessed while in their job, for reasons that typically depend more on luck and historical accident than on factors within their control.

Analytics 110
article thumbnail

It’s Cool When You are Not Square

Austin Startup

Recently rated by GigaOM as one of the 10 Austin Startups You Need to Meet at SXSW 2012, SubtleData is a Platform as a Service (PaaS) company that provides mobile app and mobile web developers with iPad enclosures, back-end software for retail apps and integrated payment processing. The company has been in stealth mode since the middle of 2010 and is making its debut at this year’s conference in Austin.

Stealth 67

More Trending

article thumbnail

The Trouble With Non-tech Cofounders | TechCrunch

techcrunch.com

Home. Startups. Mobile. Gadgets. Europe. Video. More. Enterprise. Venture. Social. GreenTech. Gaming. Opinion. Events. CrunchBase. Hot topics. Editor’s Picks. Apple. Facebook. Google. Android. SXSW. Disrupt NYC. europe. Comment. The Trouble With Non-tech Cofounders. guest author. Thursday, February 23rd, 2012. Comments. This is a guest post by Scott Allison, CEO and founder of Teamly.com.

article thumbnail

Search versus Execute

Steve Blank

One of the confusing things to entrepreneurs, investors and educators is the relationship between customer development and business model design and business planning and execution. When does a new venture focus on customer development and business models ? And when do business planning and execution come into play? Here’s an attempt to put this all in context.

Search 320
article thumbnail

Technology Trend Tracking – Fast Path to Innovation Glory

Gregg Fraley, Author of Jack's Notebook

Innovators need to keep an eagle eye on new technology trends. Things are developing so quickly now and in so many areas that keeping tabs on what’s happening is daunting. These new developments offer a constant stream of opportunities (if you think and take action on them), but it’s a bit like that famous clip of Lucille Ball on the chocolate line — all that tasty stuff can quickly overwhelm you.

article thumbnail

10 Things to Consider Before Replacing Business Equipment

Up and Running

With the end of the first quarter in sight and with economic indicators continuing to look positive, businesses may finally be ready to pull the trigger and replace their worn business technology equipment. Regardless of whether you are looking to move your business computing to the Cloud or to upgrade your computers, servers, smart phones or any other equipment, before taking the plunge I recommend that you follow the tips below.

article thumbnail

Finding Technical Cofounders Is Hard

rob.by

Home. Finding Technical Cofounders Is Hard. Tuesday, August 17, 2010. Yesterday, Michael Pope posted an article titled Technical Cofounders Are a Myth. He argued that software engineers don’t finish what they start, and that you’re better off paying a technical person than partnering with one. His frustrations are valid and not uncommon, but his conclusions are way off base for a lot of reasons.

article thumbnail

10 Ways to Build a Business Culture Like Apple

Startup Professionals Musings

One of the big advantages of being an entrepreneur and starting your company from scratch is that you get to set the culture, which is much easier than changing the culture of an existing business. The challenge is how to do it, and how to do it right. Why not learn what you can from companies like Apple, who are leading the way with great growth and a great culture?

Portfolio 272
article thumbnail

Stanford 2012 Lean LaunchPad Presentations – part 1 of 2

Steve Blank

Today, the first half of the Stanford Engineering Lean LaunchPad Class gave their final presentations. Here are the first five. It Feels Like 20 Years Ago Today. It’s hard to believe it’s only been a year since we taught the first 10 teams in the Stanford Lean LaunchPad class. To share what we learned, we blogged each of those class sessions , (all the slides can be found here.

Lean 256
article thumbnail

Modesty as a Technology Elite attribute

deal architect

The core of my new book is about 12 attributes of what I describe as the industry’s elites.

article thumbnail

How To Find A Technical Cofounder For Your Online Business Idea

www.virtuosimedia.com

-->. Our Newsletters Contact Us. About Us. About Virtuosi Media. Our Services. Our Story. Our Vision. Contact Us. Corporate Blog. About Our Website. Feeds. Privacy Policy. Terms of Use. Community. Community Resources. Authors. Feeds. Newsletters. Write For Us. Designers. Design Articles and Tutorials. Graphic Design Theory. Photoshop Tutorials. Typography Tutorials.

article thumbnail

Begin With a Job at a Startup, Then Start Your Own

Startup Professionals Musings

For those of you who want to get in on the ground floor of a new venture, but haven’t yet worked up the nerve to start your own, begin with a job at a startup. But first you should ask yourself if you are prepared for the realities. Working for a startup is not a career choice, but more of a lifestyle. The long-term opportunities may be large, but near-term paychecks will be small, compared to large companies in the same industry.

article thumbnail

If you saw your competitor’s roadmap would it matter?

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

This is part of an ongoing startup advice series where I answer (anonymized!) questions from readers, like a written version of Smart Bear Live. To get your question answered , email me at asmartbear -at- shortmail -dot- com. Clever Idea Hoarder writes: I’d like to take everyone’s advice and talk to potential customers and investors about my ideas, but what if someone else steals my idea?

Cofounder 237
article thumbnail

The IBM tightrope

deal architect

BusinessWeek’s recent column on IBM is meant to be generous, but it highlights the chasm between how Wall Street appreciates it for steady results and how many customers see it as stodgy and un-innovative as I have written here and.

Customer 218
article thumbnail

Technical Co-Founders Are A Myth

blog.captainrecruiter.com

skip to main | skip to sidebar. Captain Recruiter. Real Jobs. Real Advice. No Nonsense. Sunday, August 15, 2010. Technical Co-Founders Are A Myth. An Internet entrepreneur needs a website. Two years ago I got the bug to do an online recruiting startup and I began the hunt to find a technical co-founder - a software engineer who works for no cash - to help me build my dream website.

article thumbnail

Entrepreneurs: Connect to Today’s Customer Network

Startup Professionals Musings

Every startup needs to understand that the customer paradigm has dramatically shifted over the past two years with pervasive social networks and smartphones. The customer base is no longer a mass audience that can be driven by mass media, but a dynamic network of individual customers who interact with each other, and expect to interact with you as a business.

article thumbnail

50 Terrific Twitter Chats For Journalism Students

YoungUpstarts

The web has become the place where a large number of people go to get their news, and with good reason. It’s always on, numerous viewpoints are represented, and anyone can contribute. Thus, students of journalism not only need to study web journalism itself but would also be well-served by keeping up with the best ways to use the web to find information, network, and learn about their chosen career path.

article thumbnail

The 2 x4 of Big Data

deal architect

One of my proudest moments as a Gartner analyst was when we (thanks to senior analyst, Erik Keller's persistence) called that the ERP market would slow down due to Y2K drivers in 98, not 99. We were hearing from many.

Marketing 210
article thumbnail

TangoSource

www.tangosource.com

HOME. OUR WORK. Portfolio. Process. Pricing. ABOUT US. BLOG. CONTACT. You are here: Blog > Finding a technical co-founder: Youâ??re doing it wrong. Finding a technical co-founder: Youâ??re doing it wrong. By Eric Siegfried. in. Business. |. If only they could shift their perspectives a bit. Photo credit. Katy Tresseder. When youâ??re trying to create a new product as a non technical person, it might seem easy at first, until you start looking for real technical partners.

article thumbnail

Overly-Direct Feedback to VC Pitches

Genuine VC

When I first started in the VC business in 2004, I usually shared some reactions with entrepreneurs whenever we passed on pursuing an investment, but I admittedly erred towards communicating generic thoughts that were fairly non-specific but perhaps mildly helpful. After a few years into this role, however, I developed a style and approach where I always try to share some type of real meaningful constructive thoughts as to why an opportunity wouldn’t be a fit for my firm.

article thumbnail

5 Tips To Help Your Team Be More Creative

YoungUpstarts

By Mark Miller, co-author of “ Great Leaders Grow: Becoming a Leader for Life “ In today’s challenging economic times, creative thinking is more valuable than ever. Not creative for creativity’s sake — creativity to solve real business problems. Many of the ideas of the past are no longer relevant. As a seasoned leader shared with me recently, “The half-life of ideas is decreasing rapidly.” So what’s our response?

article thumbnail

The Kindle and business books 2 steps forward, 1 backward

deal architect

Shame on me for assuming my book would come out on the Kindle after the hardback. That’s so one book ago. Amazon (and B&N) show a March 27 hardcopy ship date, but they released the Kindle version February 28. Makes.

article thumbnail

Finding a Technical Cofounder

bizthoughts.mikelee.org

BizThoughts Thoughts about business, technology, the web & entrepreneurship About Booklist Contact Nov 15 2011 Finding a Technical Cofounder By Mike Lee Categories: Entrepreneurship , Leadership Since I have a technical background, I get about one offer a month to join some engineering team, or to be a technical cofounder. Active software engineers probably get two offers a month or more.

article thumbnail

Shout Out to Seth Levine, or the In-N-Out burger startup

Scalable Startup

Shout Out to Seth Levine – Seth Levine’s VC Adventure – “I’m getting sick of the bull$%!^” [link]. Seth Levine, a successful VC with the Foundry Group , wrote a great blog entry about all the hype going on currently in the startup world. Worth the read. His focus is on people bragging about how amazing they and their startup are when they usually have close to n o t h i n g, which goes against the karma good business and screw it up for those really trying to build

article thumbnail

Singapore Could Take Regional Lead In Social Enterprise: Mechai Viravaidya

YoungUpstarts

Singapore is the best Southeast Asian country to produce and promote social entrepreneurship in the region, according to Mr Mechai Viravaidya, founder of Thailand’s Population and Community Development Association (PDA). Speaking at the Singapore International Foundation (SIF)’s seventh Ideas for a Better World Forum on 29 February, the 71-year-old was addressing the need to nurture new generations of social entrepreneurs.

Singapore 171
article thumbnail

Yo, Apple want to really impress us?

deal architect

In launching the iPad 3 yesterday, Phyllis Schiller of Apple announced it “has the most wireless bands that has ever shipped.” That’s nice in terms of international travel, but think of what it means to the average consumer. We are.

186
186
article thumbnail

New Web Order - Finding a Technical Co-Founder

nikcub.appspot.com

New Web Order. Archive. Projects. Contact. About. Finding a Technical Co-Founder. 5th November 2010. #. My own anecdotal evidence indicates that the number of tech startups being founded is on the rise again. YCombinator received a record number of applicants in the most recent batch, and has extended the number of interview slots this year because of both the increased number of applicants and the quality of applicants.

article thumbnail

The Lean Startup at SXSW 2012

Startup Lessons Learned

SXSW is less than a week away. Lean Startup ideas will be a big part of the festival this year. Last year SXSW invited me to produce an official Lean Startup track for the conference, which I did in partnership with 500 Startups. For those that were able to join us, you'll recall that we were in a pretty small venue far from the center of town. Apparently, they liked what they saw, as we've been seriously upgraded this year.

Lean 150
article thumbnail

DEMO Asia: 10 Tips To Create Your Perfect Business Pitch

YoungUpstarts

DEMO Asia , the biggest startup event in the region, had no lack of outstanding and memorable pitches. We got hold of five startup founders to share with us some tips on how they prepare and deliver their presentations: 1. Answer 7 questions. Alexie Dunayev, CEO of TranscribeMe , uses two sentences to answer each of these questions: Who are you? What is the problem?

Asia 167
article thumbnail

Apples other product

deal architect

While all eyes and ears were on the iPad 3 yesterday I was more impressed with how Tim Cook is gradually winning over hearts - last month with Wall Street and yesterday with a broader audience. In the last 6.

Product 186
article thumbnail

Nailing that elusive technical co-founder

www.kernelmag.com

The Kernel. New technology for enquiring minds. Thursday, 8 March 2012. Comment. Features. Yiannopoulos. The Scene. The Nutshell. Editors’ Blog. Presented by. The Scene Developers Nailing that elusive technical co-founder. Andy Young. Wednesday, 21 December 2011. Photo: Messaging Robot. The greatest obstacle to starting a tech company in 2012 will be the shortage of entrepreneurial tech talent, says Andy Young, who explains why there appears such a shortage of qualified people around to he

article thumbnail

Life Gets In The Way – Punting on SXSW

Feld Thoughts

This morning I was taking a break between meetings in San Antonio at TechStars Cloud to check my email when I saw a note from my wife Amy with the header “ I just broke my wrist.” The email said “ Fell on stairs. At urgent care. Got x ray. Have “dinner fork” type fracture. Pam and Ryan will get me home. Not hurting too bad.