YoungUpstarts

JANUARY 13, 2014

'by Wheeler del Torro. High school students have always been informal entrepreneurs, but they’ve moved on from mowing lawns and babysitting to creating products and services that can compete in the open market. The economy has also changed. No longer does a college education guarantee a secure, well-paying job, so students need to be equipped with the skills to be self-sufficient in this new marketplace — no matter what their post-graduation plans may be.

Demand 279

Demand Hosting Programming Finance 279

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 13, 2014

'“Will the dogs eat the dog food?” This rather crude expression weighs heavily on the mind of all good startup founders, no matter how confident they appear. We all know the products they give away, and the ones purchased by family and friends don’t count. The real milestone, proving the business model, is that first product sold for full price to a total stranger, leaving him happy.

Business Model 248

Business Model Sales Customer Distribution 248

Genuine VC

JANUARY 13, 2014

'I’ve commonly heard entrepreneurs recite some version of “I don’t want to waste too much time fundraising because it will distract me from building my business, so I’ll only talk to a few potential funders.” The idea is that a couple of highly-qualified VC conversations will follow the 80/20 rule of a “good enough” financing in a relatively short amount period without taking the time of an extended process to truly optimize the funding outcome.

Term Sheet 206

Term Sheet Venture Capital Valuation Portfolio 206

Gust

JANUARY 13, 2014

'If you could pick the top five countries with the most newly created startups, which countries would you choose? The United States? What about India, or Brazil? With thousands of new entrepreneurs creating startup profiles on Gust each month, we’re excited to share with you some of the major findings that are happening in the startup world. To capture the global reach of startup growth, we’ve put together the Gust quarterly startup map.

Brazil 175

Brazil United States India Startup 175

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

JANUARY 13, 2014

'by Bill McBean, author of “ The Facts of Business Life: What Every Successful Business Owner Knows that You Don’t “ The confetti has fallen, the ball has dropped, and the champagne has been popped — 2013 is officially over, and 2014 is underway. For many business owners, that means doing a post-mortem on their businesses by looking back at what went right and what went wrong in the year gone by.

Leadership 150

Leadership Employee Campaign Demand 150

The Next Web

JANUARY 13, 2014

'Brian Honigman is a marketing consultant, a freelance writer and a social media enthusiast. This post originally appeared on the SumAll blog. According to Instagram, its growth is continuing to skyrocket with 50 million sign ups in the last six months leading them to 150 million users total. The app’s growth presents an ongoing opportunity for both B2B and B2C businesses looking to increase visibility among existing and potential customers.

Campaign 147

Campaign Social Media B2C Metrics 147

The Next Web

JANUARY 13, 2014

'Denis Duvauchelle is the CEO & co-founder of Twoodo , the ultimate online collaboration tool. Things don’t stop changing just because we decide to stand still. External forces will always create uncertainty by mixing random events together and push us into different situations. Our ability to take stock of the chaos and react accordingly helps us to survive the storm.

Wisconsin 137

Wisconsin Entrepreneur Retention Lean 137

Eric Friedman

JANUARY 13, 2014

'In Cheryl Sandberg’s book Lean In she devotes a chapter to mentorship and how many people approach her at the end of a talk or conference asking her (without a prior relationship) to be their mentor. She admits this is an awkward situation, and obviously cannot mentor all these individuals. I have heard this happening to others and its not an easy situation.

Lean 117

Lean Email Founder 117

Gust

JANUARY 13, 2014

'If you could pick the top five countries with the most newly created startups, which countries would you choose? The United States? What about India, or Brazil? With thousands of new entrepreneurs creating startup profiles on Gust each month, we’re excited to share with you some of the major findings that are happening in the startup world. To capture the global reach of startup growth, we’ve put together the Gust quarterly startup map.

Brazil 111

Brazil United States India Startup 111

Mike Michalowicz

JANUARY 13, 2014

'Promise me this: Promise that you will never ever again say you have self control. You don’t. Not always. And if you don’t have it always, you don’t have self control. That money you’ve been saving for your children’s college fund and you promised yourself never to tap into. goes right out the window when you can’t make the mortgage payment. That candy that you “never” eat is the first thing you buy at the gas station convenience store when you’re hungry as hell on a long drive.

Management 104

Management Entrepreneur Product 104

SiliconHills

JANUARY 13, 2014

'By INGRID VANDERVELDT Dell’s Entrepreneur in Residence Special Contribution to Silicon Hills News We’re seeing more entrepreneurial activity in the U.S. than ever before – a result of factors including low cost of entry for startups, increased availability of funding for early-stage startups, and valuations for successful startups hitting an all-time high.

Early Stage 108

Early Stage Entrepreneur Valuation Austin 108

The Equity Kicker

JANUARY 13, 2014

'A long time ago someone shared this Roy H Williams quote with me (although I didn’t know it was him until now when Google helped me out): A smart man makes a mistake, learns from it, and never makes that mistake again. But a wise man finds a smart man and learns from him how to avoid the mistake altogether. I thought that was pretty smart and have tried to live by it ever since.

Restful 94

Restful Internet Founder Startup 94

ConversionXL

JANUARY 13, 2014

'Pricing itself is super important, and so are the pages that communicate the prices. We’ll look at 8 different pricing pages and see how we could improve them. Effective pricing pages have several things in common. The most important of these are: Simplicity: how easy it is to understand your pricing and everything about it? Ease of comparison: if you have multiple price plans, can I understand the differences?

Employee 99

Employee Lean Video Analytics 99

SiliconHills

JANUARY 13, 2014

'Techstars Austin Alumni Atlas Wearables officially launched its fitness device last week at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Atlas received quite a reception with a big write up in TechCrunch. It participated in the TechCrunch Battlefield for hardware companies at CES. The Austin-based startup is also running an IndieGoGo crowdfunding campaign to finance […] The post Atlas Debuts its Fitness Tracking Device at CES and Launches Pre-Orders on IndieGoGo appeared first on SiliconHi

Las Vegas 97

Las Vegas Austin Campaign Finance 97

thebarefootvc

JANUARY 13, 2014

'A few observations from the just announced Google $3.2 billion acquisition of Nest , a Silicon Valley based company that sells “smart” thermostats and smoke detectors: - Build vs Buy: Even for a company with significant resources such as Google, it is difficult to innovate beyond core products. While Google was better than most companies through its 20% program (which Quartz documented the demise of a few months ago) – in which employees were encouraged to spend 20% of their

Silicon Valley 94

Silicon Valley Venture Capital Cofounder Acquisition 94

Up and Running

JANUARY 13, 2014

'Aron Susman, co-founder of The Square Foot, offers advice on vetting vendors. These days, we Google everything. From dinner recipes to peculiar medical problems, a search engine holds the answers. Aron Susman and a two of his high school friends wanted to hone this power for a particular purpose. They wanted to create a search engine-like site that would allow small businesses to find retail, industrial and office space in specific areas. “If you want office space, you have to call a real

Due Diligence 79

Due Diligence Coder Social Media Cofounder 79

SiliconHills

JANUARY 13, 2014

'Three San Antonio high school students last year created Apps for Aptitude, a nonprofit organization aimed at kids helping other kids combat illiteracy by creating mobile apps. Joshua Singer, a junior at the International School of the Americas and Abhinav Suri, a junior at St. Mary’s Hall created the organization and brought Canzhi Ye, a […] The post Apps for Aptitude Releases Cards for a Cause appeared first on SiliconHills.

San Antonio 75

San Antonio America Mobile 75

Babbling VC

JANUARY 13, 2014

'Seriously, speak up if you are trying to sell a product or yourself. Have an opinion and share it and if necessary, defend it. It may be a European thing but very few young people I run across lately are truly memorable or bold. There is the odd exception here and there and usually, at the far end of the spectrum. With this, I mean new candidates for positions or folks pitching their ideas or interns and students whose paths I cross.

Channel 75

Channel Restful Sales Product 75

SiliconHills

JANUARY 13, 2014

'Bigcommerce is hosting a job fair on Jan. 21st at its Austin office with hopes of hiring 100 new employees this year. The company’s “Rock Your Resume concert and recruiting event” is an invitation-only event featuring a live acoustic concert by Austin’s LC Rocks. Snacks and drinks will served. The company is encouraging people to […] The post Bigcommerce to Hold Job Fair and Plans to Hire 100 People This Year appeared first on SiliconHills.

Hiring 67

Hiring Austin Hosting Employee 67

Babbling VC

JANUARY 13, 2014

'Everyone seems so surprised that Nest sold to Google. Specifically, most are surprised by the $3.2B price tag. I am not. It''s a smart move for Google and a wonderful step for Nest. Seriously, does anyone think the $3.2b is going to put any dent in Google''s account? Having recently purchased my house, I''d love to install Nest here in Europe. Not possible yet but as soon as it is, I will.

Design 70

Design Europe 70

SiliconHills

JANUARY 13, 2014

'Upland Software has raised $19.8 million in venture capital, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Austin-based Upland Software makes cloud-based management software for large companies. Its customers include more than 1,200 companies in 50 countries. Upland plans to use the fund to improve its products, customer service and on strategic acquisitions. […] The post Upland Software Raises $19.8 Million in Venture Capital appeared first on SiliconHills.

Venture Capital 67

Venture Capital Securities and Exchange Commission Software Austin 67

Duct Tape Marketing

JANUARY 13, 2014

'One Simple Way to Generate More Traffic for Every Blog Post written by John Jantsch read more at Small Business Marketing Blog from Duct Tape Marketing So you write that killer blog post, hit publish and go about promoting it in social media and email. You get some nice traffic, people share it with their networks and you capture a few leads. It had a good run, so now on to the next one right?

Social Media 69

Social Media API Social Network SEO 69

SiliconHills

JANUARY 13, 2014

'Volusion announced the completion of $35 million in debt financing to expand its ecommerce software and services. The Austin-based company secured the line of credit from Silicon Valley Bank. The company plans to use the money to further develop its software platform and to hire product, support, sales, marketing and IT workers. The company decided […] The post Volusion Completes $35 Million in Debt Financing appeared first on SiliconHills.

Silicon Valley 54

Silicon Valley Finance eCommerce Austin 54

Jeff Hilimire

JANUARY 13, 2014

'Zappos is getting rid of its managers and creating a holacracy , wherin a company has: No people managers. Maximum autonomy. Organic expansion. When a job gets too big, hire another person. Tension resolution. Identify issues people are facing, write them down, and resolve them systematically. Make everything explicit – from vacation policies to decision makers in each area.

Management 58

Management Distribution Hiring Employee 58

SiliconHills

JANUARY 13, 2014

'Bazaarvoice has been found guilty of violating U.S. antitrust laws involving its $168 million acquisition of rival PowerReviews. Judge William Orrick with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California issued the ruling last week following a three week trail which began on Sept. 23rd. The court has scheduled a hearing on Jan. […] The post Bazaarvoice’s Acquisition of PowerReviews Violated Antitrust Laws appeared first on SiliconHills.

Acquisition 48

Acquisition California Austin 48

Austin Startup

JANUARY 13, 2014

'Upland Software is the world''s largest cloud provider of enterprise work management applications.

Software 67

Software Acquisition Cloud Management 67

Lightspeed Venture Partners

JANUARY 13, 2014

'Congratulations to Tony Fadell, Matt Rogers and the world class team at Nest! Today Nest announced that it has agreed to be acquired by Google. As investors in the company since the early days, we here at Lightspeed have been honored to be a partner of Nest. Nest is a very special company with a truly exceptional team… a VC’s dream. We are thrilled to see Nest have an opportunity to further accelerate its business as part of Google.

Cofounder 119

Cofounder Michigan Stealth Internet 119

Early Growth Financial Services

JANUARY 13, 2014

'Arguably the biggest tax mistake that businesses make is not really giving their taxes the attention they deserve. Some companies wait until they start earning revenue to think about taxes; others wait until year-end to adopt aggressive tax strategies. But to avoid tax trouble down the line, and to hold onto more of your profits, you need to think about taxes from the outset.

Small Business 41

Small Business Revenue 41

YoungUpstarts

JANUARY 13, 2014

'by Morgan Sims. A company’s break room is the social and cultural epicenter of the building. All too often these break rooms don’t offer much beyond a place to warm up last night’s leftovers and keep your sandwich cold until it’s time to eat it. With the increasing opportunities to communicate digitally, the chances to speak with coworkers face to face are dwindling.

Employee 212

Employee Stock Florida Restful 212

A Crowded Space

JANUARY 13, 2014

'Lots of entrepreneurs aim to build a marketplace. It’s a popular type of startup. People look at the success of an oDesk or and Uber and think, “I’m going to build the Uber of _” and they fill in the blank with any category from construction rentals to lactation consultants. But, not all marketplaces will work. You need certain ingredients in an industry to have the potential for a successful marketplace.

Vertical 99

Vertical Audio Framework Demand 99

YoungUpstarts

JANUARY 13, 2014

'Even though they will add products to the shopping cart, one study confirms that over 65 percent of consumers visiting your online store will abandon those carts and your overall website. This is one of the main reasons the average conversion rate within the world of eCommerce is barely over two percent, according to Savvy Panda. However, there are several key ways you can shift this figures back in your favor: Don’t Require Customer Accounts.

eCommerce 190

eCommerce Conversion United States Matching 190