article thumbnail

Early-stage Regional Venture Funds–part 2 of 3 of Bigger in Bend

Steve Blank

Dino Vendetti a VC at Bay Partners, moved up to Bend, Oregon on a mission to engineer Bend into a regional technology cluster. Today with every city, state and country trying to build out a technology cluster, following Dino’s progress can provide others with a roadmap of what’s worked and what has not. Here’s Part 2 of Dino’s story….

article thumbnail

6 Sources of Help For Early Stage Concept Exploration

Startup Professionals Musings

Yet I still get too many business plans that clearly are looking for money to do research and development (R&D) on a new and unproven technology. If you need funding for these early stage activities, I have some suggestions on better strategies to follow. Technology pilots. They believe in you above all else.

Insiders

Sign Up for our Newsletter

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

article thumbnail

Technical Advisors: Every Startup Needs One

TechEmpower

The Strategic Technical Advisor looks at the business and determines what makes sense from a technology perspective in the short-term and longer-terms. As noted in Symptoms of a Weak Development Team , this is a symptom of the old software engineering adage: The first 90% of a project takes 90% of the time. And Maybe You Need Two!

article thumbnail

10 Marketing Lessons for Early-Stage Tech Startups

Both Sides of the Table

The following are some lessons I learned about early-stage startup marketing. Marketing futures can be really good for enterprise software companies where the information is passed between sales rep and potential customer in terms of near-term roadmap. . “ We need to learn from doing, by trial-and-error.

article thumbnail

10 Keys To Surviving Startup Cash Flow Requirements

Startup Professionals Musings

The “valley of death” is a common term in the startup world, referring to the difficulty of covering the negative cash flow in the early stages of a startup, before their new product or service is bringing in revenue from real customers. In the early days (25 years ago), most new e-commerce sites cost a million dollars to set up.

article thumbnail

How Baby Boomers Fit In The Realm Of Entrepreneurship

Startup Professionals Musings

They couldn’t possibly understand the new social media culture, new technologies, or have the determination to beat their younger counterparts in the market. In fact, they are well-qualified overall, having worked with high technology and computers for at least 20 years, are highly educated, and highly motivated.

article thumbnail

53 Questions Developers Should Ask Innovators

TechEmpower

Still, if you’re a business leader and your developers haven’t asked you these questions, look for a Fractional CTO to help navigate the critical early stage of development. Do you have a custom algorithm or other technology? Team and Process Are you using, or planning to use any software development methodologies?

Developer 520