Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 27, 2012

By now you probably know that David Sacks , co-founder of PayPal and founder of both Geni & Yammer made some observations on Facebook that Silicon Valley “as we know it” was coming to an end. He says. “In order to create a successful new company, you have to find an idea that. (1) has escaped the attention of the major Internet companies, which are better run than ever before; (2) is capable of being launched and proven out for ~$5M, the typical seed plus series A investmen

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Silicon Valley Technical Review Early Stage Cofounder 299

Steve Blank

AUGUST 3, 2012

Long before there was the Lean Startup, Business Model Canvas or Customer Development there was a guy in Santa Barbara California who had already figured it out. Frank Robinson of SyncDev has been helping companies figure out their minimum viable product and pivots since 1984, long before I even knew what it meant. They’ve done it for more than 400 companies ranging in size from 200 hundred starts-ups, one of whom was Citrus Systems that became Citrix, to IBM.

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San Jose Technical Review Customer Development Software Review 256

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 3, 2012

Contrary to what most of you might guess, the highest rate of entrepreneurial activity over the last few years is not Gen-Y young upstarts, but Baby Boomers in the 55-64 year age group. In fact, according to a study by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, these Boomers are actually driving a new entrepreneurship boom. Some people are calling entrepreneurship the ‘new mid-life crisis’ for the 76 million-strong demographic once thought to be over the hill.

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Technical Review United States America Technical Support 281

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

AUGUST 28, 2012

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. Regretful Pricer asks: Can you recommend any good price negotiation approaches with the existing customers? My service has greatly improved as times goes, but the rate is still ~30-50% lower than other companies are charging for the same thing.

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Software Review Technical Review Email Revenue 240

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

Startup

YoungUpstarts

AUGUST 5, 2012

Coworking spaces are a really cool option for a lot of workers that, for whatever reason, don’t really fit in to a traditional office space like startups, telecommuters, small businesses, and especially creatives in search of collaboration. With free coffee and Internet, workspaces, and built-in community, coworking spaces provide a great place to get things done without feeling the isolation of working at home, or trying to overcome the frenetic nature of working in a coffee shop.

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San Francisco Las Vegas Seattle Phoenix 201

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 8, 2012

This post was co-written by Eric Ries and Sarah Milstein , co-hosts of The Lean Startup Conference this fall. Last week , we announced the date and venue for The Lean Startup Conference: Dec 3 - 4, 2012 at the InterContintenal in SF. Now we’re starting to reach out to speakers. We’re aiming for a mix of people: those well known for their work on lean startups and those who aren’t yet prominent but are applying Lean Startup techniques and have valuable lessons to share.

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Lean Houston Continuous Deployment Technical Review 164

Steve Blank

AUGUST 17, 2012

At times not losing is as important as winning. Customer Validation. E.piphany was an 11-month-old startup with 31 people and on fire. We had closed four $100,000 deals for our customer relationship management software. Joe Dinucci, our VP of Sales, was hot on the trail of our next big order. He had just demo’d our product to his friend, the CFO of Autodesk.

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Forecast Sales Matching Customer Development 290

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 31, 2012

Every investor expects to see some business traction, both before and after a funding event. If you have been working 20 hours a day, and spent your last dollar, but have no results to show, investors will be sympathetic, but will probably tell you that your dream doesn’t have wheels. Traction means forward progress. I hear a lot of entrepreneurs contemplating their great “idea” for several years with little discernable progress, and looking for money to start.

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Intellectual Property Sweat Equity CTO Hire Fractional CTO 260

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

AUGUST 8, 2012

Welcome back to Smart Bear Live, the call-in show with Jason Cohen, sponsored by Software Promotions. In this episode, Jason speaks with Jared from Padseeker.com. Pin It Listen to this episode if you want to hear a really tough conversation about refining a cool idea into a profit-making business. This is a long episode (1:20), but it’s a conversation that will resonate with a lot of early-stage startup founders.

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API Software Review Hosting Technical Review 220

YoungUpstarts

AUGUST 6, 2012

College campuses are ripe with innovation, as students grow through education and experimentation in school. To help foster this innovation, many colleges and universities have opened business incubators, helping students and others in their community to help make their innovative dreams a reality. Whether they’re offering tricked-out labs or incredible funding opportunities, these incubators offer a great opportunity for students who are smart (and lucky!

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ReadWriteStart

AUGUST 28, 2012

In today’s startup landscape, practically everything can be outsourced. But when it comes to core technical skills, more and more entrepreneurs are opting to partner with technical co-founders rather than hiring someone for an in-house position. So how do you decide what’s right for your new company? To find the best way to integrate core technical skills into a start up, we asked eight successful young entrepreneurs from the Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) whether startups need tech-oriented f

Technical Review 131

Technical Review Cofounder Founder Software Review 131

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 28, 2012

This is a hot topic I’ve been asked a lot about recently. You’re on a first date with a VC – how much should you tell them? You’re heading into a full partner meeting and you’ve been asked for a full data pack before – should you give it? When is it appropriate for a VC to call your customers? There is no universal answer and my discussions with various VCs on these topics have yielded many differing opinions.

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Technical Review Due Diligence Term Sheet Cap Table 316

Mike Michalowicz

AUGUST 30, 2012

The Watering Hole Is Putrid. Have you had bad results when using job boards to find top talent? It isn’t that the job listing sites are bad, its just that employer and their mother uses those systems to find employees. In other words, the job board watering hole is saturated, and the select few great employees get picked up before you even get a chance to print out their resume.

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Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 25, 2012

The new hot topic for entrepreneurs these days is crowd funding, which is anticipated to at least supplement, if not replace, the slow and mysterious process of current Angel and venture capital investors. The problem is that crowd funding means something different to everyone, and even I have been confused by the different ways the term gets used. So I have set out here to outline and offer some practical advice on the many different models currently used with the term “crowd funding” and “crow

Intellectual Property 242

Intellectual Property Venture Capital Angel Investor Equity 242

This is going to be BIG.

AUGUST 22, 2012

You have a million things to get done at your startup, yet you only have a handful of people to do them. How are you ever going to get it done? Who should you hire? What should be the makeup of a founding team? What is the Minimum Viable Team, if you will, for a startup? To make life simpler, I'll take a page from George Carlin, who masterfully widdled down the Ten Commandments down to two simple rules.

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PR Technical Review Seed Stage Design 132

YoungUpstarts

AUGUST 13, 2012

If you’re curious about learning a programming language then you’re in luck: there’s no shortage of resources for learning how to code online. University-level courses, tutorials, cheat sheets, and coding communities all offer excellent ways to pick up a new language, and maybe even a new job, too. Read on, and you’ll discover 50 great places to learn how to code, for free, online.

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Ruby HTML Michigan Artificial Inteligence 188

David Teten

AUGUST 29, 2012

I’ll be a judge for IGNITE!, a pitch event featuring ten early stage tech startups, Tuesday night , September 4 at Microsoft’s midtown office at 1290 Avenue of the Americas. RSVP. Presenting Companies. geekli.st. A place for geeks to share what they’ve done, who they did it with and connect with great companies and communities. Geeklist is a vibrant platform for geeks to discover, connect and share the great work they have done.

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Curation Japan Technical Review Artificial Inteligence 114

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 15, 2012

I recently read Brad Feld’s thought provoking piece encouraging founders to sit on the board of another startup company. I found it thought provoking because I’ve always believed startup founders need extreme focus on only their company to succeed. We live in an era where the press espouses the entrepreneurs who have five startups. I’m not one who has subscribed to the “superman founder” narrative.

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Founder Vesting Startup Stock 294

Gust

AUGUST 22, 2012

At the threshold of one of the most recognizable landmarks in human history — the sole survivor among the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World , dating back nearly five thousand years — my host was engaged in heated debate with a rotating phalanx of functionaries. As our group sweltered in the July heat on the outskirts of Cairo , each of these purported minions of the state — none of whom wore a uniform or badge — in turn blocked our entry, determined to exercise the modest amount of authority b

Technical Review 172

Technical Review Egypt Morocco Russia 172

ReadWriteStart

AUGUST 16, 2012

The ends justify the means, according to Machiavelli in The Prince back in the early 16th Century. The concept is hardly to news to countless startup founders who find themselves facing intense pressuresto survive and grow their companies in extraordinarily challenging conditions. Hopefully, the struggles and compromises are worth it in the end. We asked a panel of eight successful young entrepreneurs from the Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) to reveal the hardest, most wrenching thing they’ve h

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This is going to be BIG.

AUGUST 13, 2012

If anything has held true about the progress of technology over the last 150 years, it is that one generation's bread and butter tasks become automated and the skill level requirement for participating successfully in the workforce is forced up. We've seen disruption by machines among all sorts of human labor, particularly in the area of "making stuff".

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Coder Ruby Bandwidth Mobile 117

David Cohen

AUGUST 22, 2012

I was recently interviewed for a WSJ article that was exploring the trends associated with the popularity (or lack thereof) of the freemium model called “ When Freemium Fails.” In researching my answers for the WSJ reporter, I dug up some data on TechStars companies over the last several years that use the freemium model. Here’s the data: 2007: 10%. 2008: 30%. 2009: 42%. 2010: 20%. 2011: 12%. 2012: 21%.

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Vertical Search Business Model Software Developers 110

crowdSPRING Blog

AUGUST 10, 2012

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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Social Media Small Business Design Media 94

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 29, 2012

Nate Redmond is the managing partner of Rustic Canyon Partners – he’s probably one of the youngest managing partners of a major fund you’ll meet. And no wonder, lately he and his partners are on a tear, investing out of their $200+ million VC fund. They recently exited their investment in Gaikai for $380 million while their rival OnLive (who had raised > $200 million) just went through bankruptcy.

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Southern California Detroit Los Angeles California 279

The Next Web

AUGUST 4, 2012

If you’ve read any of my previous marketing focused articles, you might notice a common, underlying theme : If you’re not measuring, you’re not marketing. In my professional life, this is a credo I live by. Companies live and die by how agile they are and how they’re meeting the demands of their customers. But the age old question is: “How do I know what customers want?

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Campaign Advertising Email Startup 131

Occam's Razor

AUGUST 13, 2012

A couple weeks back I'd requested the nice folks following me on Google+ and Facebook to submit their most important digital marketing and analytics questions. The questions reveal a bunch of things we used to worry about, and continue to, like data quality and creating data driven cultures. They also reveal things that starting to become scary (Privacy!

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Analytics Channel Metrics Web 124

alexpoole.info

AUGUST 14, 2012

Alex Poole. User experience design and research. Site français. Skip to content. Home. Portfolio. Deliverables. Applications. Case study: Icon design. Blog. Research. About me. ← How do people find and recognise browser bookmarks? Give direction → Which Are More Legible: Serif or Sans Serif Typefaces? Posted on February 17, 2008 by Alex Poole.

Technical Review 85

Technical Review Software Review Design Web 85

VC Cafe

AUGUST 9, 2012

Photo credit: Images_of_Money, Flickr. Guest post by Nitzan Yudan*. Building a good reputation is one of the most fundamental components to a successful start-up and is particularly invaluable in the early stages. Without positive feedback and growing popularity, the critical first few sales become even harder as well as funding being tough to secure.

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Elevator Pitch Startup Europe Reputation 109

crowdSPRING Blog

AUGUST 3, 2012

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!

Social Media 92

Social Media Small Business Design Media 92

Growthink Blog

AUGUST 14, 2012

Crowdfunding, or raising money from the Internet "crowd" has really taken off. Just a couple years ago there were only hundreds of companies who had raised Crowdfunding. Today we are in the tens of thousands. Below is a brief overview of the many Crowdfunding platforms to consider. The Largest Crowdfunding Sites: Kickstarter.com is the largest site for funding projects, mostly creative projects.

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SEC Equity Technical Review Mobile 113

The Next Web

AUGUST 26, 2012

In November 2010 we launched Whatser : an application that made it easy to get personal suggestions on where to go such as bars, restaurants, galleries, shops and other spots based on your location, interest and social graph. Although we got some early traction, we were unable to prevent a bankruptcy from happening in October 2011. We are currently in the middle of a restart and would like to share our seven lessons learned in the hopes that other entrepreneurs can benefit from our experiences a

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Bankruptcy Technical Review Intellectual Property Due Diligence 121

Entrepreneurs-Journey.com by Yaro Starak

AUGUST 16, 2012

I recently had a meeting with my CrankyAds team and a friend named Andy who I had not seen in many years. Andy left a software company he founded over ten years ago. He’s one of those guys who can do everything.

Software Developers 87

Software Developers Software Development Software Developer 87

Ben's Blog

AUGUST 28, 2012

This is a guest post by Christian Gheorghe, founder and CEO of Tidemark. It’s a start, a work of art. To revolutionize make a change nothing’s strange. People, people we are the same. No we’re not the same. Cause we don’t know the game. What we need is awareness, we can’t get careless. You say what is this? —Public Enemy, Fight The Power.

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Romania Software Review Cloud Mobile 77

www.fastcompany.com

AUGUST 29, 2012

Skip navigation. Fast Company. RSS. Subscribe. Newsletter. Search. Stumbleupon. linkedin. Google+. Co.DESIGN. Co.CREATE. Co.EXIST. Co.LEAD. TECHNOLOGY. MOST CREATIVE PEOPLE. MAGAZINE. Fast Talk. How Algorithms Rule The World. By Arnie Cooper | August 29, 2012. In his new book, Aisle50 cofounder Christopher Steiner counts the (many, many) ways digits have come to dominate.

Algorithm 86

Algorithm Silicon Valley Cofounder Flash 86

crowdSPRING Blog

AUGUST 16, 2012

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!

Social Media 92

Social Media Small Business Design Media 92

Growthink Blog

AUGUST 28, 2012

Speaking at events is a great way to generate quality leads and expand your business. The truth is, you don't have to be a great orator or the next Tony Robbins, so long as you know what you're talking about (which you will), come across as credible, and most of all, interest the audience. Below are some tips to help you find and speak at events to generate new business.

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Customer Technical Support Audience Channel 89