Thu.Jul 07, 2011

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How to Get Certified as a Woman Owned Business

Up and Running

Image by ShashiBellamkonda via Flickr. Did you know that several companies and government agencies allot a certain number of projects/portion of their budget for contracts that can only go to woman-owned businesses? Those contracts include everything from military projects to public works and information technologies. When it comes to securing those choice contracts, the only eligible businesses are those that are certified as woman-owned.

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How We Grew Our Fashion Accessories Business To Over A Million Dollars In Sales

Entrepreneurs-Journey.com by Yaro Starak

As with any company, growth happens in stages, but especially a company with physical products. Research and development, sample making, marketing the product and perhaps even handling some of the preliminary sales are some of the stages of expansion. However, with my handbag company charm and luck , to grow our business we realized we needed to find sales partners to handle our sales.

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Software Patents are Becoming a Tax on Innovation

Startup Professionals Musings

I always advise software startups to file patents to protect their “secret sauce” from competitors, and to increase their valuation. The good news is that a patent can scare off or at least delay competitors, and as a “rule of thumb” every patent can add up to $1M to your startup valuation for investors, or for M&A exits (merger and acquisition).

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[Infographic] The Truth Behind Small Business Lending

YoungUpstarts

If you’re wondering about how small business view bank loans, this infographic from Chicago, Illinois-based credit card processing fee comparison engine FeeFighters shows that only 42-percent of small businesses see bank loans as a viable financing option. The number is quite similar to a recent Pepperdine University’s Graziadio School of Business and Management study, that shows approximately 48-percent of the 1,221 privately-held businesses that responded to its survey target bank loans

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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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Book: I Am John Galt

Feld Thoughts

A few weeks ago my dad said “Brad, you have to read the book I Am John Galt: Today’s Heroic Innovators Building the World and the Villainous Parasites Destroying It. You’ll love it.&# That’s all the recommendation I needed – it went to the top of my Kindle reading list. I read it the other night in a jet lagged haze on my couch.

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School of Self Promotion for Awesome People who Don't Self Promote

This is going to be BIG.

Do you have friends that have really top notch experience, are thoughtful about their industry, and whip smart? Are they about a billion times more insightful than your average tech blogger? Does it kill you that more people don't know them? Unfortunately, if you look at the people who actively self-promote, it's a pretty adversely selected pool versus the pool of people who don't bother.

More Trending

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Mini Saga #111 – Worthwhile

Life Beyond Code

Activity is rarely an indicator of productivity. Mini Saga #111 – Worthwhile. When John left the office at 3pm fourth day in a row, Sam could not take it anymore. He went to Andy, their Boss and brought it up. Andy smiled, “John would have done something worthwhile already. I am more worried about people who stay late and produce nothing worthwhile.”.

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BlackLocus Raises $2.5M, Adding Austin Operations

Austin Startup

BlackLocus, the leading cloud provider of automated pricing optimization and revenue management solutions for online retailers, today announced it has raised a $2.5 million Series A round of venture capital financing. They are hiring in Austin, seeking office space, and moving significant operations here. The round was co-led by Texas-based DFJ Mercury and Silverton Partners, and included co-investment from Pittsburgh-based Innovation Works.

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What you should NOT learn about Marketing from HBR Campaigns?

Life Beyond Code

I love Harvard Business Review. I really do. I have learned a number of things and got exposed to a number of thought leaders via the magazine. However, I couldn’t help smiling when I watched some of their own marketing campaigns. For a company that is in the business of showcasing thought leadership, it was a bit of an irony. Here is the scoop.

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Richard Branson – Live

Start Up Blog

I’m going to a breakfast 7-9am with Richard Branson tomorrow – (Australian Eastern Standard time) Well we aren’t exactly sharing an omelet, but I’ll be in a prime seat near him. I intend to live tweet some interesting sound bites, and take some mobile video footage. So be sure to tune in to my tweet stream: [link] to get your share of Branson brilliance.

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Return Path Core Values

OnlyOnce

Return Path Core Values. At Return Path , we have a list of 13 core values that was carefully cultivated and written by a committee of the whole (literally, every employee was involved) about 3 years ago. I love our values, and I think they serve us incredibly well — both for what they are, and for documenting them and discussing them publicly.

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Cyber Crooks Target Small Business

The Entrepreneurial Mind

Criminals take the path of least resistance. If your car door is locked, they tend to go to the car that was left open. If your house looks dark and empty, it is the one they will probably break into. Same is true for your business. For years cyber crooks went after large business. After all, that is where all the cyber money is. But over time corporate America has tightened its Internet security to the point that it is no longer easy pickings.

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G+, Twitter and Tumblr are Biggest Losers

Venture Chronicles

Like a lot of my peers I have been immersed in Google Plus for the last week and I have to give credit to Google for really getting this one right. The sharing mechanism is very accessible, Circles offer welcome segmentation of your social graph, and most importantly, it’s fun to use. Much of the commentary has centered on what a successful Google + means for Facebook but I disagree that this is represents a severe near or medium term threat to Facebook.

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Lighten Up Already :: Small Business Marketing Blog from Duct Tape.

Duct Tape Marketing

SIMPLE, EFFECTIVE AND AFFORDABLE SMALL BUSINESS MARKETING Home About Consulting Products Programs Workshops Blog Resources Contact Subscribe by RSS Subscribe to Duct Tape Marketing by Email Small Business Week 2011 Our winners! Mon – Justin Severidt Tues – Elizabeth Frederick Wed – Denise Sheehan Thurs – Nicholas Hammernik Fri – Jennifer Nagel Books by John Jantsch Duct Tape Marketing: The World’s Most Practical Small Business Marketing Guide – by John J

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Venture Capital Term Sheets – Redemption Rights

Scott Edward Walker

Introduction This post originally appeared in the “ Ask the Attorney ” column I am writing for VentureBeat ; it is part of my ongoing series regarding venture capital term sheets. Here are the issues I have addressed to date: common mistakes dealing with VC’s valuation liquidation preferences stock options exploding term sheets and no-shop provisions anti-dilution provisions dividends Board control protective provisions drag-along provisions pay-to-play and pull-up provisions conversion rights

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Vacation – To Tell or Not To Tell

ithacaVC

In the past 3 or 4 days, I have received blog notices from Brad Feld , Fred Wilson and Steve Blank that they are on vacation. For Fred and Steve, I think the purpose was to let their readers know to expect fewer or no posts while they are enjoying a break (actually Fred’s is apparently a combination of work and vacation). For Brad, I think the purpose is to share his travel adventures, the status of his marital workings with Amy (his wife), his woes of getting adequate internet access o

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Tech Wildcatters Fall 2011 Deadline Approaching

The Startup Lawyer

The application deadline for Dallas-based seed accelerator Tech Wildcatters is July 24th. Tech Wildcatters will accept 7-10 startups. What is Tech Wildcatters? Tech Wildcatters is a mentorship-driven startup accelerator that puts participating companies through an intensive 12-week program. Startups receive up to $25,000 in seed funding in exchange for a small amount of equity (~6%) and have access to mentors.

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ReBlog (kind of like retweet) – Insider Rounds

ithacaVC

Jason Mendelson just blogged about a new academic paper that seeks to destroy the myth that venture capitalists use inside rounds to dilute founders by issuing themselves cheap stock. The full paper is here. Amen.

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It’s All About Iteration

Andrew Payne

With Google+, we’re now reading the comparisons with Facebook, and the inevitable commentary on the commentary. I think Google+ is very interesting (and doesn’t suck), but it’s too early to tell how it will play out. Google’s biggest hurdle is not Facebook’s current feature set, but Facebook’s ability to iterate product functionality.

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Start Making Video Calls on Facebook Right Now :: Small Business.

Duct Tape Marketing

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The Value of Ownership

OnlyOnce

The Value of Ownership. We believe in ownership at Return Path. One of our 13 core values, as I noted in my prior post , which kicks off a series of 13 posts, is: We are all owners in the business and think of our employment at the company as a two-way street. We give stock options to every employee, and we regularly give additional grants to employees as well, as their initial grants vest, as they get promoted into more senior roles, and as they earn them through outstanding performance.

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The importance of confidence and the four keys to getting it

Jeff Hilimire

Watching LeBron James in this year’s NBA Finals reminded me how important, and precious, confidence can be. LeBron had one of his best statistical years, played great through the playoffs, and then in the most important moments he crumbled. He passed the ball when he had open looks or was on a smaller defender, he missed routine shots, he made silly fouls and he lost his usual energy and passion.

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