Sat.Mar 10, 2012 - Fri.Mar 16, 2012

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Never Negotiate Piecemeal. Here’s Why

Both Sides of the Table

When I started my first tech company in 1999 I had pretty good tech chops and had led teams but had very little exposure to many other things that matter in a startup including sales, marketing & business development. Like most first-timers, I learned the hard way. Negotiating was a subset of every activity in a startup – it really was a way of life.

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Finding a Technical Cofounder for Your Startup

SoCal CTO

I've recently received several emails from people looking for a technical cofounder for their startup. I promised I would write this post with some thoughts and ideas on the topic. Here's an example of that kind of email. "I'm looking for a partner / cofounder who can not only head the technical aspects and build a working model of the site, but someone with the connections to put a great development team together when we need it.

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Searching for the Kinect Killer App

Genuine VC

We at NextView have been thinking about and looking for investments in seed-stage startups which leverage the megatrend of transitioning computing away from a standard fixed-web PC world. Of course that includes “mobile-first” applications and companies which ride the adoption of tablet devices (more on those in upcoming posts). But this exploration also includes alternative user-interfaces and inputs, like gesture controls.

Search 211
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50 Blogs That Will Make You A Better Manager

YoungUpstarts

When you’ve made it to the management level, it’s tempting to think that you’re in a comfortable position where you don’t have much room for improvement. But while you may be a great manager now, there is always the possibility of becoming a better one, if only you just know how. These blogs offer a look into great ideas for growing and improving in your role as a manager, creating a better workplace and getting more results from the people you manage.

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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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Yes Elvis, Prescriptions Drugs Can Kill You

Gregg Fraley, Author of Jack's Notebook

Yes, Elvis, prescription drugs can kill you. Yes, I’ve updated my website and blog. It’s been a surprisingly fun project due to having a great technology and brand innovation partner in the firm Reuben-Hunter. Not only does it look better, it will be easier to change — and I can do it myself! I’m confident it’s more engaging, and will achieve higher rankings, sell more books and speeches and lead to more business.

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Yahoo! vs Facebook: Lame Lawsuit, Good Timing ? AGILEVC

Agile VC

How to Evaluate Firms for a Seed VC. How To Think About The Future. Home. About Me. AGILEVC My idle thoughts on tech startups. Yahoo! vs Facebook: Lame Lawsuit, Good Timing. March 13, 2012. Yesterday Yahoo! filed it’s much awaited lawsuit against Facebook for patent infringement. New Yahoo! CEO Scott Thompson alluded to their plan a couple weeks ago but the IP lawsuit itself was only official late afternoon yesterday (and now public).

IP 100

More Trending

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[Event] [Singapore] Mobile Flea Market App Snapsell Wins Startup Weekend Singapore 2012

YoungUpstarts

Startup Weekend Singapore 2012 participants. After 54 hours of intense product development and business pitching at Startup Weekend Singapore over the weekend, Team Snapsell – which developed a mobile application which allows users to sell stuff on a mobile-first marketplace – beat over 40 other ideas to emerge victorious as grand winner of the event.

Singapore 148
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Capital On Stage – the conference where VCs pitch to startups

The Equity Kicker

Please take a few minutes to read the passage below about the upcoming Capital On Stage conference in London. Arjen Strijker (the conference organiser) and I had a meeting of minds when we spoke last week about the importance of demystifying venture capital, it is one of the reasons I write this blog, it is why he started his conference and it is why I’m promoting it now.

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5 ways to help remote workers thrive

Up and Running

Last week’s post about the pros and cons of remote employees discussed how to tell if a remote worker situation would be a good fit for your company. Today, guest author Lior Levin provides tips to help you get up and running with remote employees or offices. Remote workers make up of roughly 10 percent of America’s workforce, according to MIT Sloan Management Review , and current cost-cutting trends suggest that this trade of cubicles for cafes and kitchen tables will continue.

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Positivity at Work by Chris Edmonds and Lisa Zigarmi

Life Beyond Code

My friends Chris Edmonds and Lisa Zigarmi have written a wonderful book called Positivity at Work Tweet. [Full Disclosure: Apart from Chris and Lisa being friends, the book is also published by our publishing company ThinkAha ]. First, quick bios of the authors: S. Chris Edmonds is a speaker, author, and senior consultant with the Ken Blanchard Companies.

Global 78
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Profit Per Impression - The Most Important Number in Your Business

Growthink Blog

I've spent years starting and growing my own companies and helping thousands of entrepreneurs do the same. And one thing that's helped me and others succeed is keeping track of key numbers. We refer to these number as KPIs or key performance indicators. KPIs allow us to better manage our businesses. Since they allow us to clearly see what figures correlate with success, and allow us to focus on improving them month after month.

Widget 78
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Le Sacre du Printemps

deal architect

Spring is in the enterprise software air. 3 signs this week were about transition and optimism. Aneel Bhusri, co-CEO of Workday presented to the same CIO audience I did at Stanford this week. He did it without slides in a.

Software 253
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Website Ads are Not a Revenue Stream for Startups

Startup Professionals Musings

One of the biggest red flags I see in many Internet-related business plans today is advertising as the initial revenue stream, or a key part of it. If challenged, the founder usually cites the Facebook business model (free service to users, revenue from ads), but forgets that Facebook has had several hundred million in funding, and has been profitable only in the last couple of years.

Revenue 266
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Stanford 2012 Lean LaunchPad Presentations – part 2 of 2

Steve Blank

Today, the second half of the Stanford Engineering Lean LaunchPad Class gave their final presentations. Here are the final four (the first five are here.). Team ParkPoint Capital. This team spoke face-to-face with 326 customers. As often happens, this team came into class convinced that their market research proved that their business was providing credit to underbanked customers. 8 weeks later they ended up as a financial service provider for immigrants.

Lean 248
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9 Business Acronyms You Need To Know

YoungUpstarts

Business can be a dirty business. And the language of business can be hard to understand. For beginners in the field (or the more analog of the bunch), business acronyms old and new can confuse and ultimately disappoint if not correctly understood. The more market-savvy professionals already know some of these standard shortened phrases, and business glossaries abound.

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The Octo-GL-Mom

deal architect

In a previous incarnation, a vendor in Long Island had accumulated or developed at least 4 different versions of General Ledgers. Of course, these days there are several vendors who can make similar claims. And with their multi-tenancy plans, Brangelina.

Developer 225
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3 Steps to Get a Big Story in the Media

Rembrandt Communications

As a small business owner, you may think it’s impossible to get a big, feature story about your company in one of your favorite publications, especially if you don’t have the money to hire a publicist. And while a publicist has the skills to build buzz and cultivate relationships with the media, it is possible [.].

Media 133
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Games Where The Only Winning Move Is Not To Play

Feld Thoughts

By now the blogosphere, twitterverse, and even mainstream media is abuzz with the absurd decision that Yahoo has made to sue Facebook over ten software patents with the assertion that Facebook’s entire business is based on Yahoo’s patented inventions. My partner Jason Mendelson called this on 2/28 when he wrote his post Goodbye Yahoo! It was nice knowing you and Fred Wilson weighed in this morning with his post Yahoo!

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Five Ways To Know When You’re Done With What You’re Doing

YoungUpstarts

by Jason Womack, author of “ Your Best Just Got Better: Work Smarter, Think Bigger, Make More “ The curse for many of us modern-day movers and shakers is that we never seem to have enough time to do everything that needs doing. There simply aren’t enough hours in the work day (or even the work week!) to accomplish everything on our to-do lists.

Email 177
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Travel adjustments

deal architect

As I had lunch with my daughter a couple of days ago and she excitedly described various trips she has coming up, and as I get ready for my own travel this week, I thought about the subtle and not.

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A Big Data Imperative: Driving Big Action

Occam's Razor

Is there anything in the analytics space that is so full of promise and hype and sexiness and possible awesomeness than "big data?" I don't think so. So what is big data really? No one quite knows. As I interpret it, big data is the collection of massive databases of structured and unstructured data. The data sources include traditional (now considered puny) sources like corporate ERP / CRM systems and non-traditional (massive) sources like every technical ping from every human or

Framework 127
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The Acceleration of TechStars

Feld Thoughts

It dawned on me last night that as of tomorrow TechStars will have three programs running at same time with about 40 companies actively engaged in programs in Boston, New York , and San Antonio. Last week David Cohen, the co-founder and CEO of TechStars announced that he had raised a new $28 million seed fund called Bullet Time Ventures II. The final companies are being selected for The Kinect Accelerator.

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[Infographic] You Are Not Safe Online

YoungUpstarts

The information you post online is not safe. That’s right – according to a study by Stanford University, even anonymous data posted online are collected via personal web browsers and then sold. Some shocking statistics: 8.1 million people in the United States fall victim to identity theft every year, and a further 1.6 million households have had their bank accounts compromised.

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My heroes have always been

deal architect

I was invited to present on themes from The New Technology Elite to an Innovative CIO executive session at Stanford. It attracted a wide set of CIOs and other IT leaders from various US, Brazilian, Dutch, Indian, Saudi Arabian and.

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5 Branding must-haves for startups

Up and Running

This is a guest post from Amina AlTai , Marketing Director at Imagemme, a New York-based packaging design and branding agency. Building a memorable brand is more important than ever. In this climate of unlimited choices, your brand has to be cohesive, memorable and differentiated to captivate consumers and eventually capture mind share. Branding isn’t simply a visual identity, and a lot of start-ups go wrong by undervaluing the importance of branding initiatives.

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Don’t Be Gunshy Because You Dealt With Bucketheads The Last Time Around

Feld Thoughts

For all of you out there who are wondering, Amy is doing fine. We’re in Boulder, she’s happy, in some pain, but enjoying the delightful impact of Percocet, and making her way through MI-5 Season 8. Thanks for all of the support, emails, and kind words. I’m about to head out for a five hour run (broken into three separate segments) in preparation for the 50 miler I’m doing in April after I help her take a shower (which ordinarily I would be excited about), but first I thou

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50 Killer Ikea Hacks To Transform Your Home Office

YoungUpstarts

Whether you work at home every day, need a place to finish up projects from the office, or have to work on homework from college classes , having a comfortable and organized home office can be essential to getting ahead and maximizing productivity while you’re working on just about anything. Luckily, there are many ways that you can create an amazing place to work in your home on a shoestring budget.

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More New Florence

deal architect

on the innovation blog The Toto Washlet Impossible Chemistry The Old Farmer’s Almanac Google’s HUD Eyeglasses?

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Opportunities in 3D printing

The Equity Kicker

You may have noticed that last year I blogged a couple of times about 3D printing. Since the beginning of this year I’ve stepped up my interest in the area in the hope of finding an investment opportunity in the short term. Below are my emerging thoughts on what makes 3D printing interesting, some of the challenges today, some of the end markets, how the 3D printing value chain breaks down, and where the investment opportunities might lie.

Software 111
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An Interview With A CU Boulder Engineering Student

Feld Thoughts

I love talking to, meeting with, and teaching college students. A few weeks ago I sat down to do a 30 minute interview with a young woman from CU Boulder who is an engineering student. She did a great job of capturing my essence, and that of Foundry Group, in our interview. I particularly loved her conclusion, which I asked if I could repost (she said yes).

Engineer 126
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10 Cool Gaming Tools in MBA Education

YoungUpstarts

Despite their huge potential for facilitating learning, “games” have a connotation as being frivolous and time-wasting. While that is often true, teachers in higher education are catching on to the fact that allowing students to learn through competition or in a virtual environment can be effective well past grade school. Many business schools are making use of business simulation games and other games to teach important MBA skills.

Tennessee 166
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More Innovation

deal architect

On the New Florence blog Nano Quadrotors Psychedelic Bean The Online Pinboard Long ride for some gum!

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Why the NYC startup scene needs Sean Parker

This is going to be BIG.

I have never met Sean Parker. I don't know if the movie portrayal of him is accurate and I don't particularly care. What I do care about is that a person who is long on vision and has a knack for being around big companies early on is now living in New York City. Parker made a huge dent in the web as co-founder of Napster, then built Plaxo up to 20 million users.

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50 Miles Is Too Many

Feld Thoughts

Some time last year Katherine McIntyre, my partner Ryan’s wife, asked me if I wanted to do a 50 mile race with her. I think she was expecting me to say no, in which case she could have decided it was a silly idea. But my reaction, without thinking about it, was “sure – that sounds cool.” So we both signed up for the American River 50 Mile Endurance Run on April 7th in Sacramento.

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[Review] The Three Commitments Of Leadership

YoungUpstarts

In the book “ Three Commitments of Leadership: How Clarity, Stability, and Rhythm Create Great Leaders “, authors Tom Endersbe, Jon Wortmann, and Jay Therrien – all of whom are learning and development experts – attempt to distil individual experiences and learning to piece together a model of leadership that can be applied to any organization, big or small.

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Why large companies make acquisitions

The Equity Kicker

Mergers and acquisitions have a notoriously high failure rate and as a result investors knocked a couple of percent off Cisco’s share price yesterday following the announcement of their $5bn acquisition of NDS Group. This morning the Financial Times’s Lex column ran a piece which gives a partial explanation of why big companies push ahead with acquisitions in spite of the stats and antipathy from their shareholders.