Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 19, 2013

'“Scope creep” (or feature creep) is an insidious disease that kills more good startups than any other, especially high-tech ones, and yet most founders (who may be the cause) never even see it happening. This term refers to the penchant to add just one more feature to the product or service before first delivery, just because you can. The instigators are all well-intentioned – executives talk to potential customers who “must have” a few more things; or the technical team edicts some “technicall

Technical Review 275

Technical Review Startup Software Review Database 275

The Next Web

OCTOBER 19, 2013

'Square co-founder and Twitter chairman Jack Dorsey made an appearance at Y Combinator’s Startup School event where he spoke about acceptance and motivation in how you build a team and company. You can’t do something without a common share or purpose — you will wobble and not do anything that is timeless. Reading from Robert Henri’s “ The Art Spirit “, Dorsey made comparisons about what’s in the story with how it relates to startups.

Cofounder 167

Cofounder Founder IPO Leadership 167

Life Beyond Code

OCTOBER 19, 2013

'Mini Saga #131 – Important. It was peer pressure that made Tom look for one of the latest smartphones. The enthusiastic salesperson went over two dozen features. “This has an app that can show the level of your happiness,” he said. Tom scratched his head and asked, “Can I also make phone calls with this?”. It is easy to get carried away…AND forget the basics.

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The Next Web

OCTOBER 19, 2013

'Y Combinator’s annual event, Startup School , was live streamed for the first time this year. It’s not unreasonable to say that it’s a must attend, or at least must watch, for any aspiring technology entrepreneur. If you were unable to watch, with any luck, videos of the talks will be posted online soon. In the mean time, a generous soul has written up lecture notes from each talk and published them to a Google Doc.

Startup 145

Startup Video Entrepreneur Technology 145

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

Lightspeed Venture Partners

OCTOBER 19, 2013

'We all know that internet usage is steadily shifting over to mobile. We also know that mobile phones are not just mini laptops. User behavior changes on mobile phones. I have a guest column in Pando Daily today that talks about how ecommerce has steadily been changing from a “shopping is a chore” paradigm to a “ shopping is fun ” paradigm, and how mobile has accelerated and exacerbated this shift.

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eCommerce Mobile Internet Conversion 96

Babbling VC

OCTOBER 19, 2013

'Not only is tax optimization practically a national sport ("Volkssport"), I''d even gander to say that it''s more popular than football (soccer for my American friends) in this country. After almost twenty years in Germany, I have to admit that I have spoken of nothing more than all the possible ways to save on taxes. It may be the crowd I hang with but to be honest, it really isn''t.

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Germany LP Early Stage Incubator 74

Mike Michalowicz

OCTOBER 19, 2013

'I was intending to share this card (picture below) as an example of exemplary customer service. But I can’t My name was messed up, and I am (mildly) pissed. I know this is trivial. I know I am being persnickety. But it’s my name. My experience at the Marriott hotel was perfect. Everything. They even had a welcome card waiting in my room.

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Customer Naming 60

Scott Edward Walker

OCTOBER 19, 2013

'Welcome to our weekly series “ Motivational Clips for Entrepreneurs.” Each week, we share a favorite video clip to inspire and motivate entrepreneurs. Why? Because we know how tough it is being an entrepreneur; and whether you’re launching a venture, trying to execute your business model or raising funds, you need a little juice to help you push the ball forward.

Business Model 59

Business Model Video Founder Entrepreneur 59

Duct Tape Marketing

OCTOBER 19, 2013

'Weekend Favs October Nineteen written by John Jantsch read more at Small Business Marketing Blog from Duct Tape Marketing My weekend blog post routine includes posting links to a handful of tools or great content I ran across during the week. I don’t go into depth about the finds, but encourage you check them out if they sound interesting. The photo in the post is a favorite for the week from Flickr or one that I took out there on the road.

SEO 62

SEO Internet Small Business Marketing 62

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 19, 2013

'Guest post by Lisa Regan, writer for The Lean Startup Conference. As we’ve mentioned before , this year’s Lean Startup Conference features a lot of speakers who have incredible expertise to share but are new to our event. Mariya Yao is one such speaker. She’s the founder and Creative Director at Xanadu, a mobile strategy and design consultancy helping to guide app developers to success in a rapidly-changing, often chaotic mobile ecosystem.

Mobile 167

Mobile Developer Technical Review Lean 167

The Next Web

OCTOBER 19, 2013

'As if bootstrapped startups already didn’t have enough on their plates , they face an additional, major challenge that no amount of engineering or business acumen can adequately overcome: Naming their company. In an age where strong online presence and clear differentiation from the competition are the order of the day, startups have their work cut out for them when it comes to settling on a name that is both memorable and meaningful to their audience.

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Naming Cofounder Differentiation Startup 142