Gust

SEPTEMBER 16, 2012

Steve Forbes image via Wikipedia. Presenting your startup vision as a founder to a potential investor, or presenting an idea as an employee to an executive, requires that you effectively communicate, or “translate”, the value proposition into terms that the receiver can fully understand and appreciate. If you fail, it’s your loss, not theirs, no matter what the reason.

Technology 162

Technology Agile Architecture Distribution 162

Gust

SEPTEMBER 11, 2012

One of the more stubborn problems in building a business is the paradox of consistency vs. the pivot. . Consider this: It’s better to have a mediocre strategy consistently applied over three or more years than a series of brilliant strategies, each applied for six months or so. But too often people get bored with consistency and drop a working strategy long before the market understands it.

Technical Review 121

Technical Review Algorithm Business Plan Technology 121

Gust

SEPTEMBER 2, 2012

Sergey Bin and Larry Page image via Wikipedia for Google. If you are a first-time entrepreneur, I recommend that you team with a co-founder with experiences, connections, and a skill set that complements, but doesn’t duplicate yours. Even experienced entrepreneurs need a partner to back up each other and improve fundability. The question is how to find that elusive perfect-fit partner.

Cofounder 170

Cofounder Silicon Valley Non-Compete Seattle 170

Gust

SEPTEMBER 9, 2012

Amilya Antonetti image via Entertainment Resource Group. It takes a great entrepreneur with a great vision to start a business, but it takes a collaboration of many people to make it a success. That’s where leadership comes in as a key ingredient, to drive the collaborative process to make the whole team better than the sum of the parts. I remember a book from a while back by Amilya Antonetti, titled “ The Recipe: A Fable for Leaders and Teams ” which illustrates the key concepts with stories an

Leadership 167

Leadership Matching Developer Entrepreneur 167

Gust

SEPTEMBER 30, 2012

David Cohen image via Kathleen Lavine, Denver Business Journal. Business incubators for sharing services were all the rage back in the days of the dot-com bubble (700 for profit, many more non-profit). About that time the bubble burst, causing more than 80% of them to disappear. Now they are coming back, and the best even provide networking, technical leadership, and seed funding, as well as investors waving money at graduates.

Incubator 147

Incubator Entrepreneur New York City Startup 147

Gust

SEPTEMBER 25, 2012

Gust Startup Map & Trends Analysis – August 2012. Attention startup enthusiasts! Gust is thrilled to have nearly 7,000 new entrepreneurs creating startup profiles each month. To help us visualize the scale and global reach of these entrepreneurs we have put together a monthly startup map, which captures all new startup profiles on Gust. The map showcases new entrepreneur sign ups that chose to publish their startup profiles between August 1 st and August 31 st.

Brazil 134

Brazil India Startup Florida 134

Gust

SEPTEMBER 5, 2012

How to finance a new seed-stage startup? Equity? Convertible debt? Convertible equity? As of August 2010, Paul Graham famously proclaimed , “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.” Yet in my little corner of Wonksville, Founder Institute CEO Adeo Ressi and Yoichiro “Yokum” Taku , a partner at my “alma mater” law firm Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati , created

Finance 134

Finance Convertible Security Equity Seed Stage 134