VC Cafe

OCTOBER 29, 2013

'mobile health is taking off in Israel. Guest post by Levi Shapiro* The Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”) represents the most systemic, transformative change in over 40 years to America’s largest economic sector: healthcare. This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity for mobile and digital startups to disrupt an inefficient industry. Even the government (CMMI- Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services) predict health expenditures will continue to outpace economic growth, jumping 7.4% in 2014 to

Azure 133

Azure Government Mobile 133

The Next Web

OCTOBER 29, 2013

'Ramy Khuffash is the co-founder and Chief Lifelogger at Narrato. It’s hard not to notice the shift from paid-up-front apps to free ones. Even Apple has made its OS X Mavericks software free. There are clear benefits for consumers, especially in a marketplace that doesn’t offer trials. Instead of having to take a leap of faith based on nothing more than screenshots and a few reviews, you can try freemium apps, then pay for extras if you want them.

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Product Software Review Cofounder Software 120

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 29, 2013

'Startups ask me “How much money should I ask for?” The simple answer is the absolute minimum amount you need to make your plan work. Some entrepreneurs try to start with a huge number, hoping they can negotiate and close on a smaller one, while others understate their requirements, in hopes of getting their foot in the door with an investor. Neither of these strategies is a good one, as both are likely to damage your credibility with potential investors, even before they look hard at your plan.

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Valuation Early Stage Warrant Common Stock 258

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 29, 2013

'If you’re a young upstart of any stripe, aside from what you do for a living you’re likely to be involved in side projects of some sort. Whether the projects you’re involved in is for a good cause or simply one for vanity, side projects are a great way for self-improvement and pursuing interests. “Side projects are an amazing way to spend time doing what you love,” says Mark Hendrickson.

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Cofounder Community Lean Matching 187

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

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 29, 2013

'Guest post by Lisa Regan, writer for The Lean Startup Conference. Last week, we hosted a webcast conversation, Lean Startup for Growing Companies , with Eric Ries, Wyatt Jenkins of Shutterstock, and Ari Gesher of Palantir. The discussion focused on companies that have hit product-market fit and are growing fast—a topic for advanced entrepreneurs. But the information was critical for any early-stage company that hopes to reach that critical point and wants to be prepared when it comes.

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Lean Hiring Metrics Conversion 167

Version One Ventures

OCTOBER 29, 2013

'If we look back ten years, the venture world was quite different. Investors weren’t too keen on investing out of town. And given the fact that the majority of top investors were congregated around Silicon Valley, many entrepreneurs felt compelled to move to the valley to start their business. It was much harder for a “remote” company in the Mid West, Europe, or Canada to draw any attention to themselves.

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Silicon Valley Global Finance New York City 161

The Next Web

OCTOBER 29, 2013

'Drew Myler is Interaction Designer at Signal , a Chicago-based provider of mobile marketing technology. This article was originally published on Drew’s Medium blog. This morning my two-year-old and I leafed through her copy of Mother Goose’s Nursery rhymes. The introductory page is covered with various characters, and we paused there, pointing at the ones she recognized.

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Chicago Design Mobile Software 129

Mike Michalowicz

OCTOBER 29, 2013

'My wife said, “It took twenty seconds of bravery.” Three months later she keynoted to one hundred entrepreneurs and their spouses. Krista had never keynoted before. She had never done improv class, or rock climbing, or walking on fire either. But all of those things happened, with her new approach to life. She made a resolution at the beginning of this year, and it was to say yes to what life presents her.

Phoenix 129

Phoenix Leadership Restful Entrepreneur 129

SiliconHills

OCTOBER 29, 2013

'By SUSAN LAHEY Reporter with Silicon Hills News Alan Knitowski calls it like he sees it, letting fly his controversial perspectives that: Austinites bootstrap too much, entrepreneurs interested in work/life balance need to “grow up” and he would happily rail on the entire group of investors at Austin Ventures to their faces. The investor, serial […] The post Phunware’s Alan Knitowski Calls it Like He Sees It at Startup Grind Austin appeared first on SiliconHills.

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Austin Bootstrapping Startup Technology 122

David Teten

OCTOBER 29, 2013

'I periodically serve as a judge at pitch events for companies raising funding. In every case, I’m assessing each company against ffVC’s standard criteria for investing. You can see a video of a recent pitch contest where I served as a judge here. For some of the new employees at ffVC, I put together a guide on how to serve as a judge at investment pitch events, evaluate investment ideas, and add value both to the pitching companies and to the audience.

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Venture Capital Audience Video Employee 114

Rob Go

OCTOBER 29, 2013

'I continue to be on a kick towards better and more systematic decision-making. One exercise I’ve tried is to codify my mental decision-tree for early stage investing. Essentially, it is the internal dialog I tend to have with myself when evaluating companies. But by charting it out, it helped me to be more explicit about what attributes I’m looking for, and how my opinion about different attributes feeds into an ultimate decision.

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Early Stage Founder Portfolio Metrics 78

Austin Startup

OCTOBER 29, 2013

'The Austin chapter of Entrepreneurs’ Organization today announced results from the latest Global Entrepreneur Indicator, showing that Austin business leaders are experience strong success and preparing for continued growth.

Global 64

Global Austin Revenue Entrepreneur 64

Duct Tape Marketing

OCTOBER 29, 2013

'50 Simple Lead Generation Tactics written by John Jantsch read more at Small Business Marketing Blog from Duct Tape Marketing If you’ve read this blog, or anything I’ve written for that matter, then you know I’m a strategy before tactics kind of guy, but sometimes you just need some new ideas and tactics. I got together with my network of independent Duct Tape Marketing Consultants and brainstormed fifty tactics for generating more leads.

Lead Generation 73

Lead Generation Networking Engineer Conversion 73

Business Plan Blog

OCTOBER 29, 2013

'Friends and Family Financing. One of the most daunting challenges when starting a business is raising start-up capital. Finding and securing the cash will take careful research, good negotiating skills, and, above all, an unflagging commitment to launching your new business. Begin your capital search within your current network of friends and family.

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PPC Business Plan Public Relations Differentiation 59

Jeff Hilimire

OCTOBER 29, 2013

'A man gets on a plane with his three beautiful daughters, all under the age of 10. Sure enough, before the plane even takes off, the youngest one starts crying and the oldest two start fighting. By the time they are in the air, they are all crying or yelling and the father is embarrassingly apologizing to everyone around him. . The man next to him says, “You have beautiful girls, you should be very proud.” The father says, “I’m so sorry about them, they don’t norma

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Bryce Dot VC

OCTOBER 29, 2013

'Recently, a group of fancy kids from a fancy school back east dropped by OATV HQ to talk shop as part of their tour through Silicon Valley. The kids were super smart and the conversation was engaging. . At one point, I was asked about how we put together our investment themes and which trends we track. Implying that our portfolio looked, um, different than the other VCs they’d been meeting.

Silicon Valley 45

Silicon Valley Portfolio Founder Conversion 45

Early Growth Financial Services

OCTOBER 29, 2013

'On October 24th, 2013 Early Growth Financial Services and Lighter Capital held a joint webinar—Getting Your Ducks in a Row: Preparing Your Company for Investment Capital We were excited to have Rob Belcher, VP at Lighter Capital, join David Ehrenberg, Founder and CEO of Early Growth Financial Services, in a discussion on how to get your company ready for finding investment capital.

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Due Diligence Equity Business Model Finance 41