Sat.Oct 01, 2011 - Fri.Oct 07, 2011

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Customer Validation - 33 Great Articles

SoCal CTO

I saw a great post from Tristan Kromer Pivoting on Investor Feedback a.k.a Beware of Mentors. It was a top post on StartupRoar on Tuesday. His basic point was: If someone, including me, tells you something isn’t a great idea and there’s no market for it there are only two acceptable responses. Either: "That’s interesting. I’m going to take that thought out into the field and validate it with my customers.

Customer 227
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The Helsinki Spring

Steve Blank

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
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Oracle Fusion gets its due

deal architect

Larry Ellison could have been somber – if he knew of his friend Steve Jobs dying he did not let on. He could have been pissy about the Marc Benioff incident in the morning. He could have been lethargic –.

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Twitter Link Roundup #105 – 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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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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Management Quality Assurance

Ben's Blog

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.

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When Bad News Is Actually Good News

Babbling VC

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

More Trending

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Small business tips: mobile technology, the iPad, and your business

crowdSPRING Blog

Last week I was struck by a news story that was unusual in several respects. I turned on the news to see video of a small group of rock climbers rappelling down the exterior of the Washington Monument. The sported the typical gear one would expect to see on such folks: harnesses, helmets, ropes, and what-not. They were also carrying small hammers and tapping away at the stone as they slowly made their way down the 555-foot tall obelisk.

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Five signs it’s time to get your business organized

www.greenhornconnect.com

Skip to Navigation. >. User login. Sign in here or Create your free account! Username: Password: Forgot your password ? The Feed Blog. News. Resources General. Learning. Students. Calendar. Guides. Job Board. Friends Sponsors. Partners. About The Team. In the Press. What's Next. Connect with Greenhorn: -->. Find. what you need. faster! Resources Events Feed Job Board Students.

IP 40
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10 Quotes That Tag You as a High Risk Entrepreneur

Startup Professionals Musings

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.

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Memo to Infosys

deal architect

You guys are killing me. I make a living blogging about innovation, writing books about it, presenting on it. Innovation should make people go “wow” – your presentation at OOW made the lady next to me go to sleep. Last.

Offshore 258
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The full story of “the one important thing” for startups

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

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
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The Myth Of Work/Life Balance: Seven Ways To Rethink Your Approach To The Daily Grind

YoungUpstarts

by Jon Gordon , author of “ The Seed: Finding Purpose and Happiness in Life and Work “ In a perfect world, “work” and “home” would balance out neatly. We’d work from 8 to 5 each day, take an hour-long lunch, and then come home and spend uninterrupted time with our families. But for those of us here in the wake of the Great Recession, firmly entrenched in an “always on” society, this notion seems hopelessly outdated.

Harvest 184
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Smart Entrepreneurs Follow the Zig Zag Principle

Startup Professionals Musings

It would be no fun if starting a business was simply plotting a straight line between your idea and success, with no challenges along the way. Zigging and zagging amongst the obstacles is the fun part of being an entrepreneur, and it’s what sets you apart from the average worker who knows exactly what he or she has to do every day to get paid. Relish it, or if it scares you, don’t try it.

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You dance with them that brung ya!

deal architect

Larry Dignan summarizes commentary on a war or words that has broken out at Oracle Open World about Marc Benioff’s talk being canceled/postponed/relocated. Sorry, Marc I will miss your talk. I still love you but I also said no to.

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Ask your startup question live, Oct 6, 1-3pm Central

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

We’re doing another episode of Smart Bear Live this Thursday, October 6th, 1:00-3:00 CDT (starts at 2:00 on the East coast and 11:00 on the West). Want specific advice from me and co-hosts Bob Walsh ( 47hats and the Web Startup Success Guide ) and Patrick Foley ( blog ) of the infamous Startup Success Podcast ? It’s like Loveline for startups.

Startup 206
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LinkedIn Introduces Company Status Updates And LinkedIn Certified Developer Program

YoungUpstarts

Professional social networking site LinkedIn has just announced a feature that allows companies to update their own status. Called “Company Status Updates”, companies can directly share updates with those who follow their pages, such as company news, announce available jobs, industry articles and so on. It’s a great tool for administrators to keep the relevant communities updated and engaged.

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It’s Time for Entrepreneurs to Shift and Reset

Startup Professionals Musings

It’s time for more entrepreneurs to reset their focus, and shift their thinking to completely different ways of doing things. Everyone talks about innovation, but the majority of business plans I see still reflect linear thinking – one more social network with improved usability, one more wind-farm energy generator with a few more blades, or one more dating site with a new dimension of compatibility.

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More New Florence

deal architect

on the innovation blog Next-Gen Motorcycle Sprint’s new app to combat distracted driving Online gamers crack AIDS enzyme puzzle FCC and FEMA’s new disaster communication guidelines.

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Top 10 Signs You Need To Retool Your Business

ReadWriteStart

The folks at Heller Communications Design have this wonderful "About" page that has some pointers on when a potential client should hire them. The list spoke to me, not because I need a design firm or some other consultant, but because there is a lot there that any entrepreneur can use as warning signs that they need to restart their efforts, or perhaps rethink the direction that they are taking their business.

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Considering Entrepreneurship? How To Know If You Should Take The Plunge.

YoungUpstarts

By Adelaide Lancaster, co-author of “ The Big Enough Company: Creating a Business That Works for You “ It’s easy to think of most entrepreneurs as big-thinking creative types, who are always innovating and taking big risks. The truth is that most of us are just everyday people who by luck, fate or circumstance have decided to work for themselves.

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How to Get Past SEO and PR Frustration Fast

Rembrandt Communications

I have been on the phone since 5:00 a.m., and it’s now 11:00 a.m. I just got a major media-venue to agree to an exclusive story about my client. But, it’s been one hour since I spoke to him, and I haven’t heard back… what gives? I call him up, and he says he has [.].

PR 124
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Entrepreneurial Density Revisted

Feld Thoughts

I’m in San Francisco right now and then New York later this week. When I look at my schedule, and where I’m hanging out, I realize that even though I’m in two very big cities, I’m going to spending most of my time in a very small area. When asked why Boulder is such a vibrant entrepreneurial community, I talk about a concept I call entrepreneurial density.

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Applications now open for ERA January 2012 class!

David Teten

Applications are now open for the January 2012 class ERA class; Application deadline is November 20th, 2011. Benefits: * Get a $25,000 investment for your startup. * 3 months of free collaborative office space in the heart of NYC at. Times Square (January 9th, 2012 – March 30th, 2012). * 200+ mentors from the NYC startup community. * One-on-one, hands-on support. * Speakers and seminars from leading entrepreneurs, technologists, and. industry experts. * Free services and support from 25+ s

Revenue 128
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Cut The Noise And Cut To The Chase: Seven Tips For Streamlining Communication At Your Organization

YoungUpstarts

by Michael Feuer, author of “ The Benevolent Dictator “ If you don’t think that our society is experiencing a communication overload, you really are living under a rock. We can (over)share every aspect of our lives in real time via social media. We can record all of the ups and downs of our personal sagas through blogs. We can call or text anyone at any time.

Cofounder 154
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Building the Company vs. Building the Business

OnlyOnce

Building the Company vs. Building the Business. I was being interviewed recently for a book someone is writing on entrepreneurship, which focused on identifying the elements of my “playbook” for entrepreneurial success at Return Path. I’m not sure I’ve ever had a full playbook, though I’ve certainly documented pieces of it in this blog over the years.

Warrant 128
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Steve Jobs – Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish

Feld Thoughts

Last night, during dinner with the Return Path board, Fred Wilson interrupted the discussion we were having to tell us that Steve Jobs had just passed away. All of us were stunned silent for a minute as we reflected on the amazing impact that Steve has had on our lives. While I don’t have a personal relationship with Steve, he’s been a hero of mine since I was a teenager when I bought an Apple II computer with 16K of RAM in 1978 with my Bar Mitzvah money.

PR 138
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Creativity is Not a Muse, it’s a Choice

Gregg Fraley, Author of Jack's Notebook

“Creativity is Not a Muse, it’s a Choice.” Gregg Fraley Yes, that’s my quote, and what this post is all about today. I’m writing this piece to co-publish on a cool new blog called Follow the Weasel. Most of the content on FtW is in German, but selected bits, such as mine, are in English. [.].

Austria 119
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Students To Make Biodegradable Plastic Bags A Reality

YoungUpstarts

Most plastic bags we use today will either get incinerated or end up in a landfill somewhere. But not if four University of Arkansas student have anything to say about that – the founders of cycleWood Solutions Inc. intends to make biodegradable plastic shopping bags into reality. Using technology developed by University of Minnesota biochemist Simo Sarkanen from its Department of Bioproducts and Biosystems Engineering , the four students started their company after creating a business pla

Arkansas 151
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Do you have a plan for the success of your team?

This is going to be BIG.

Tweet. One of the most knowledgeable angel investors out there, Jeff Stewart , told me that the definition of success as an entrepreneur was when you walk into work, and there's nothing for you to do. At that point, you've hired someone better than you at all of the tasks you did previously as a founder. You've built a well oiled machine and it works without kicking, prodding, or you being a key cog.

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SayAhh’s Revenue Projections

Feld Thoughts

Since last checking in with the SayAhh team, they have spent a few months consumed with building an early version of the product and speaking to potential customers, all the while watching their cash balance steadily diminish. They realize the clock is ticking and have decided that it is time to create a robust set of financial projections in order to provide themselves with a better sense of when they will need to raise more money.

Revenue 130
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Steve Jobs In His Own Words

crowdSPRING Blog

Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me … Going to bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful … that’s what matters to me. [Steve Jobs]. You have put a ding in the universe, Steve. We will miss you. If you haven’t seen Steve Jobs’ 2005 commencement speech at Stanford, take the time to watch it (it’s 14 minutes long but well worth it).

Marketing 107
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[Review] The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari

YoungUpstarts

Part self help book, part fable, “ The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari: A Fable About Fulfilling Your Dreams & Reaching Your Destiny ” by leadership guru Robin Sharma is a slim volume that packs powerful life and leadership lessons in the form of a novel. Written in a semi-autobiographical manner – Sharma himself was a hotshot lawyer before he switched paths – the book borrowed ideas from various thinkers that are woven into a spiritual tale.

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10 Rules For Writing An Effective Sales Letter

Entrepreneurs-Journey.com by Yaro Starak

I’m Tom McSherry , EJ’s newest columnist. I’ve been self-employed for the past two years thanks to the world of Internet marketing and my skills as a freelance copywriter. My main business is Premium Online Writing , a top-quality writing service designed to give web business owners a reliable option for outsourcing writing work without taking a “lucky dip” on quality.

Sales 109
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The Predictable Flood of Politics Oriented Web Startups

Feld Thoughts

I received at least one email a day last week pitching a politics oriented web startup. The emails start off something like this. Over $8 billion dollars will be spent on the upcoming 2012 election. The web and social media are critical tools for any candidate. Every candidate will need our stuff and since over $8 billion dollars will be spent, even if we capture a tiny part of that market, we will create a huge company.

Web 126
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Idea Generation is Not Efficient (and you don’t want it to be)

Gregg Fraley, Author of Jack's Notebook

I really have to say something about this notion that brainstorming / idea generation / ideation can be made into an efficient process. I’ve read a couple of interesting pieces on this lately, this idea it can be made more efficient, so you only get “good” ideas. If only it were so… I’ll grant you [.].

Campaign 104
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[Singapore] Facebook Eyes Asia-based Developers

YoungUpstarts

In a developer conference today in Singapore, online social networking giant Facebook made its strongest indication yet of its intention to better engage developers in Asia and Southeast Asia. Facebook , which flew in some 13 executives and staff for f8 Singapore organized by Asia technology community and blog e27 , recently expanded the function of its sales and marketing office in Singapore to include developer relations for the region.

Asia 150