Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 17, 2015

It seems like every entrepreneur I meet these days is quick to proclaim themselves a visionary, expecting that will give more credibility to their startup idea, and improve their odds with investors. In reality, I’m one of the majority of investors who believe that startup success is more about the execution than the idea. Thus, unless the visionary highlights a cofounder who can take the vision and execute, I assume the worst.

Cofounder 205

Cofounder Bandwidth Matching Leadership 205

YoungUpstarts

JUNE 17, 2015

By Janis Kestenbaum , a partner in Perkins Coie. Startups have bigger concerns than privacy, or so they think. Many startups have learned that being young and small does not keep them off the radar screens of privacy regulators, and they can be vulnerable to costly investigations. Privacy issues that come to light in the course of the due diligence process for an acquisition can also threaten their valuation.

Software Review 153

Software Review Technical Review Due Diligence Startup 153

View from Seed

JUNE 17, 2015

I’ve observed what may be an emerging trend, at least in some startups, that I find somewhat unsettling. It has an impact at an individual level, a company level, and an ecosystem level. This is not an easy topic to discuss without coming off like a jerk or a crusty old dude, so I wanted to share two quick stories about my own career below. But I think it’s important to discuss, particularly given today’s heady environment for startups.

Startup 262

Startup Cofounder Seed Stage IPO 262

Agile VC

JUNE 17, 2015

I’ve observed what may be an emerging trend, at least in some startups, that I find somewhat unsettling. It has an impact at an individual level, a company level, and an ecosystem level. This is not an easy topic to discuss without coming off like a jerk or a crusty old dude, so I wanted to share two quick stories about my own career below. But I think it’s important to discuss, particularly given today’s heady environment for startups.

Startup 219

Startup Cofounder Seed Stage IPO 219

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

JUNE 17, 2015

by Andrea J. Lee, author of “ We Need To Talk: Your Guide to Challenging Business Conversations “ “We need to talk.”. What is it about those four little words that strikes fear into the heart of the bravest business person? It happens all the time everywhere. People avoid the most difficult conversations, usually because they simply aren’t good at them having never learned how to do it effectively.

Conversion 186

Conversion Switzerland Partner Leadership 186

Brandanew

JUNE 17, 2015

A quick Google search on “social media time management” will leave you with a flurry of options and key steps to follow through for high efficiency. A lot of those details and pointers are sometimes very sketchy. Because they rely on underlying assumptions that may not hold true for your brand culture. Coming from another culture or location, you already know that may just not work for and you may be on a different S-curve of Social Media growth.

Social Media 169

Social Media Media Management Curation 169

YoungUpstarts

JUNE 17, 2015

by Lewis Robinson. Business processes are often mired in unnecessary details and procedures. Business owners who take the time to create business plans easily identify when it is time to trim the fat in their daily processes. There are several tips to know where to simplify business processes: Regular workflow and employee performance reviews. Tighten process and scheduling systems.

Employee 158

Employee Social Media Engineer Sales 158

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 17, 2015

What follows is a guest post by Kirsten Cluthe, the new Editorial Director of The Lean Startup Conference. Kirsten is leading our program development and speaker selection -- curating a four day, multi-tracked, 2000-person event. With a career that’s spanned from the music industry to General Electric to the Olympics, Kirsten brings deep event programming experience to the Lean Startup team.

Lean 125

Lean Startup Curation Community 125

Feld Thoughts

JUNE 17, 2015

This morning, Mapbox announced a $52.55 million Series B financing. We’ve been on a wonderful ride with them ever since we led their first financing – a $10 million round – in October 2013. Let’s start with the simple stuff. My partners and I have a massive founder crush on Eric Gundersen, the CEO of Mapbox. My partner Ryan McIntyre was introduced to Eric by another CEO we’ve backed, Zack Rosen of Pantheon.

API 113

API Cofounder Bootstrapping Algorithm 113

Up and Running

JUNE 17, 2015

Sometimes, you need a little help finding your way. Some of the most common advice for new entrepreneurs is to “find a mentor.”. It’s understandable—after all, it’s good advice; having a mentor relationship is often a dream come true. A mentor is a teacher, a trusted advisor that a budding entrepreneur can turn to with questions and get valuable advice, tailored directly to their industry and specific business situation.

Incubator 107

Incubator LLC Networking Kansas City 107

The Equity Kicker

JUNE 17, 2015

Earlier this week Benedict Evans/Andreessen Horowitz published a great deck with their thoughts on whether we are in a bubble or not. The whole thing is well worth a read, but two slides stood out for me. Firstly this table comparing 1999 and 2014 on key bubble-related metrics. As you can see this time round the funding is both smaller in scale and more conservative, and we are operating in a much, much bigger market.

IPO 106

IPO Early Stage Valuation Metrics 106

Up and Running

JUNE 17, 2015

Half the fun of starting your own business was creating your ideal work culture. But as you grow and scale, this can be hard to maintain. So how do you make sure your awesome culture grows with your company? To find out, we asked 13 successful founders from the YEC how they managed to do so with their own teams. 1. Be first to arrive and last to leave.

Chad 106

Chad Cofounder Employee Hiring 106

The Next Web

JUNE 17, 2015

Giving up equity in your business, as an alternative to paying cash, often sounds like a great idea to cash-starved startups. But, giving up equity in your business is often a very big decision, and can come at a long-term price, both financially and operationally. This post will help you figure out when it is appropriate to trade equity for services, and when you should avoid it.

Equity 100

Equity Valuation Preferred Stock Common Stock 100

Eric Friedman

JUNE 17, 2015

I was talking to a friend a couple of weeks ago who wanted to break into and meet people within a specific vertical of startup tech companies. His approach was to feign interest in their offering and take a pitch from a salesperson. The thinking being that although there was zero chance of him becoming a customer, he could get time with a rep, learn about the offering and “build a network” I told him this wasn’t a good use of his time, and certainly not a good use of their tim

Networking 98

Networking Vertical Email Startup 98

David Teten

JUNE 17, 2015

It’s fascinating to be an angel investor, but do most angels actually make positive returns? And even more important, how long until they get liquidity? The theoretical returns look extremely attractive; we’ve identified 12 different studies showing annual returns of 18-54%. But the bad news: according to CB Insights , the average time for VCs to exit via M&A is 5 years, and via IPO is 7 years.

Angel Investor 93

Angel Investor Angel Groups Liquidity Event IPO 93

YFS Magazine

JUNE 17, 2015

Consider this list as a personal assessment guide to know if you are truly ready to start a business now, or later.

Developer 109

Developer Leadership Startup 109

Hearpreneur

JUNE 17, 2015

What’s in a name? Would a rose called by any other name sell just as well? Coming up with a name for your business is just as important as the business idea itself. A name not only identifies you, but it can also serve to set you apart from your competitors and reflect your values. We asked some CEOs, entrepreneurs, and business owners about how they named their company and this is what they had to say. 1) ​A Vendetta.

Naming 81

Naming Entrepreneur Haiti Incubator 81

YFS Magazine

JUNE 17, 2015

Writing a book can help you leapfrog the conventional sales cycle in several ways.

Sales Cycle 108

Sales Cycle Sales Marketing 108

Entrepreneurs-Journey.com by Yaro Starak

JUNE 17, 2015

Number Of Backing Spots Available: 100 After the success of the Social Slider crowdfunding campaign (all 100 ‘backer’ spots sold out in less than 24 hours), Walter and I decided we’d do another crowdfund campaign to find out if you want us to create the next slider. What kind of. The post Grow Your Email List With The New Email Slider Plugin For WordPress appeared first on Entrepreneurs-Journey.com.

Email 77

Email Campaign Entrepreneur Lead Generation 77

YFS Magazine

JUNE 17, 2015

When people discuss entrepreneurship, they usually wax poetic with the myth of the lone genius.

Developer 95

Developer Leadership Marketing 95

SiliconHills

JUNE 17, 2015

Informed Data Systems, which makes the One Drop diabetes tracker app, announced Wednesday it has received $8 million in funding. RRE Ventures led the Series A round. The Austin-based startup plans to use the money to expand the development of its One Drop diabetes management software, hardware and services platform and on marketing and sales. […] The post One Drop Raises $8 Million in Funding appeared first on SiliconHills.

Austin 70

Austin Software Sales Developer 70

crowdSPRING Blog

JUNE 17, 2015

When perusing our galleries here on crowdSPRING, we see some amazing work submitted in the projects. Today, we noticed this gem submitted in this logo project. Let us start the slow clap for xianpr. Check out more great work on xianpr ’s profile page. Nicely done, xianpr, nicely done! Related posts: Fresh from the SPRING: 5IVE_STAR_CREATIVE. from the SPRING: airborne.

Design 67

Design Community Marketing 67

Duct Tape Marketing

JUNE 17, 2015

We’re All On The Same Side in Sales written by Alex Boyer read more at Small Business Marketing Blog from Duct Tape Marketing. Marketing Podcast with Ian Altman. There was a time, a really long time, where selling was compared to winning a game, outflanking your opponent or capturing your prey. And maybe when the seller held a few of the cards there was some truth to the analogies.

Sales 49

Sales Revenue Internet Small Business 49