February, 2015

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Be Careful About Being a Meddling Startup CEO

Both Sides of the Table

'*. I recently wrote a post talking about how some VCs meddle in operating company decisions or some executive teams are too reliant on VCs to jump in and make hard calls for them. Fred Wilson also wrote on a similar topic in his usual more succinct manner , with a great quote being: “One thing I know for sure is that those who advise and invest in startups cannot and should not meddle in the day to day decision making.

Startup 276
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Why Entrepreneur Advisors Matter

Agile VC

As the holiday season is behind us and 2015 is firmly underway, we wanted to take a moment to both announce and celebrate the collection of top entrepreneurs who have agreed to return as our Entrepreneur Advisors. These individuals have all graciously agreed​ to continue their prior commitments to NextView-backed startups and entrepreneurs. We’re excited and feel incredibly lucky to have them back on board: Niraj Shah & Steve Conine – Co-founders of Wayfair.

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4 Reasons Small Businesses Fail

YoungUpstarts

'By Brian Sutter, Director of Marketing, Wasp Barcode Technologies. Most entrepreneurs start a new business with dreams of success, but the unfortunate fact is that too many of them fail. The U.S. Census Bureau showed the reality in hard terms – 400,000 small businesses opened and 470,000 SMBs closed their doors just last year. What separates new businesses that flourish from those that close in disappointment?

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Scaling by “delegation” isn’t good enough

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

'Founding a company is a selfish act. It will consume every waking moment for the next 1-10 years. It’s an act of defiance and irreverence towards competitors and the status quo. That matches well with the life of a 20-something — fueled by the energy of youth, too young to be jaded, with no financial or social dependents. Not all selfish acts are bad ones!

Warrant 258
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Building Healthy Innovation Ecosystems for Your Projects

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

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Will Crowdfunding Replace Angel And VC Investors?

Startup Professionals Musings

'Even if you ignore all the hype around crowdfunding, there can be no doubt that it is a real alternative for entrepreneurs to achieve visibility and funding today. According to articles on Entrepreneur last year, there are now almost 1,000 crowdfunding platforms in existence, currently estimated to add more than $65 billion and 270,000 jobs to the economy.

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Pantheon for Agencies

Feld Thoughts

'When your website crashes on launch day it really sucks. It’s ridiculous to me that that still happens today as a regular course of business. Every time a marketing team works with a web design firm, there is the usual painful and broken handoff between the outside agency and the technical operations of the client which culminate on launch day. So many things have to go right for your launch to be flawless: server configuration, load testing, and deployment.

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Ben Dyer Joins Austin-based Enola Labs’ Advisory Board

SiliconHills

'Ben Dyer, a serial technology entrepreneur and entrepreneur in residence at the Cockrell School of Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin, has joined the advisory board of Enola Labs. The Austin-based mobile and web development company is run by Marcus Turner, its president and chief technology officer. It is also in the process […] The post Ben Dyer Joins Austin-based Enola Labs’ Advisory Board appeared first on SiliconHills.

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Optimizing Your Website For Better Business: Four Tips To Getting It Right

YoungUpstarts

'By Patrick Llewellyn, CEO of 99designs. You never get a second chance to make a first impression. While most entrepreneurs today recognize the critical role having a website plays in attracting customers, many neglect to optimize it to ensure its performing at its best. Consumers have grown increasingly impatient when it comes to using the Internet, so it is important to catch their attention early with content that will keep them engaged.

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How to Recognize Great Conversion Optimization People

ConversionXL

'While mediocre people are dime a dozen, good people are always in demand. But good optimizers are in very high demand, everyone and their mother is trying to hire one. Alas they can be hard to find. If you’re looking to hire one, what should you look for? What makes an optimizer a great optimizer? There are many universal traits that make anyone a “good hire” – like being proactive, hard working and so on – but what’s unique about optimizers?

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Angel Investors Skip Startups With No Profit Motive

Startup Professionals Musings

'Angel investors and venture capitalists don’t make equity investments in non-profits. The simple reason is that it’s impossible to make money for investors when the goal of the company is to not make money. Yet as an active Angel investor, I still get this question on a regular basis, so I’ll try to outline the considerations in common-sense terms.

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The 7 Key Metrics Every Business Owner Should Monitor

Up and Running

'Did you know that 28% of businesses fail due to problems with the financial structure of the company? This includes keeping poor accounting records. If you don’t understand your key financial metrics, you have no way of monitoring your business’s health—and you risk mingling assets, incurring penalties for filing taxes late, overlooking expenses, and running into difficulties paying bills and employees, just to mention a few!

Metrics 115
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Enterprise Software Churn: Microsoft momentum

deal architect

'This continues a series about customer moves to reshape their enterprise software landscapes. When I was researching SAP Nation, I was impressed with how many customers are swapping out software, moving to third party maintenance, “ring fencing” the core solution.

Software 188
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Here Are the Details About Upfront Ventures’ Newest EIR – @Chamillionaire

Both Sides of the Table

'Five-and-a-half years ago I first met Chamillionaire at a tech conference in LA. I saw him on stage at the event talking about how he used social media to engage audiences. This was 2009 and his understanding of audience engagement was far beyond anything I was hearing from most people at that time. I reached out after the event to learn more. We started hanging out a bit and discussing technology and entrepreneurship.

Houston 330
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Mapping Movement: The Growing Need For Computer And Cell Phone Forensics

YoungUpstarts

'by Jared K Stern, the President/CEO at Prudent Risk. Computer and cell phone forensics are becoming more mainstream, and for good reason. There’s a lot of information hiding on electronic devices these days, and that information could be the key to uncovering huge liabilities for companies and help the government solve crimes more quickly. What Is Electronic Forensics?

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Market Type and Revenue. 2 Minutes to Find Out Why

Steve Blank

'Understanding “Market Type” can save you a ton of money and time. This 2-minute video explained “ why not all startups are the same ” and introduced the notion of “market type” and described the difference between new markets, existing markets and resegmented markets. The next video described what happens to startups who don’t understand they are in a new market.

Revenue 227
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Add Real Value To Your Startup With A Financial Model

Startup Professionals Musings

'If you think that financial modeling for a new business is arcane magic, limited in value to financial wizards and professional investors, then you have been listening to the wrong advisors. In reality, a simple Excel spreadsheet model customized around your assumptions can save you hours and avoid a wasted expense in validating alternative vendor and marketing decisions.

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Free Invoice Templates You Can Use Right Now

Up and Running

'If you’re a freelancer or independent contractor, chances are you’re familiar with how time-consuming the invoicing process can be. If you want to get paid, invoicing is not something you can set aside. The real question is, how can you do it faster? And, how can you do it more affordably, without having to turn to expensive software? One quick and easy way to streamline the process is to use an invoice template.

Flash 108
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Big Data Misses: Auto Insurance

deal architect

'On New Florence, I have been cataloging impressive use of advanced analytics for a few years now. Nowadays, it is jarring when you see scenarios which do not leverage the deluge of data available at reasonable cost to most enterprises.

Analytics 195
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Taking My Hat Off to @Shervin and His Hyperloop Ambitions

Both Sides of the Table

'*. Shervin Pishevar. Many of the articles I’ve read about him over the last several years have a listing of his biggest successes – mostly Uber – and a tinge of cynicism about his close connections with celebrities or self promotion. Not this one. I’m going to write a pure admiration piece. A “hats off” (see what I did there?

Las Vegas 281
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Why You Need Qualifications In Frontline Management

YoungUpstarts

'Some people are born leaders; others were groomed to be ones. There’s a fine difference between becoming a leader because the situation called for it and becoming a leader through hard work and diligence. When it comes to frontline management, you can never be too careful about how you handle yourself. Your decisions and choices will affect dozens if not thousands of other people in the same organisation or company as you are.

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A Recently Exited Founder on Surviving the Contradictory Role of Startup CEO

View from Seed

'This is a guest post from Rob May , a co-founder and CEO of Backupify , which raised $19.5M and sold to Datto in late 2014. Below, he gives an honest take about what he’d do differently and what he’d do again as a startup CEO. (Disclosure: NextView was not an investor in Backupify.). In 2010, we were recruiting for a Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Backupify, and it was clear that many of the people I was interviewing wanted the CEO role.

Founder 263
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10 Tips For Managing Entrepreneur Startup Overload

Startup Professionals Musings

'One of the most common complaints I hear from entrepreneurs is that they are overwhelmed by the workload and stress of starting their company. Then there are the additional challenges of balancing the demands of family and friends. Having too much on your plate can turn your dream into a nightmare. Some people will tell you to just get a bigger plate, meaning hire some help.

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Life Science Startups Rising in the UK

Steve Blank

'Stephen Chambers spent 22 years in some of the most innovative companies in life science as the director of gene expression and then as a co-founder of his own company. Today he runs SynbiCITE , the UK’s synthetic biology consortium of 56 industrial partners and 19 Academic institutions located at Imperial College in London. Stephen and SynbiCITE , just launched the world’s first Lean LaunchPad for Synthetic Biology program.

Lean 221
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Throwback S4HANA

deal architect

'When SAP launched S4HANA a few weeks ago, an executive emailed me to ask if it reminded me of 2006? 2006 as in the Oracle “Halfway to Fusion” announcement. Today Oracle alum and even some at the company chuckle about.

Software 233
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5 Ways to Find New Customers Fast… Without spending a fortune!

Rembrandt Communications

'Time to Boost Sales! As a small business owner, you are probably always thinking about your sales quotas and new customers. With all of your marketing, accounting, and other, responsibilities, the whole process can be overwhelming. But it’s time to step back and take a more simple approach. Here are… 5 Ways to Find (and […]. The post 5 Ways to Find New Customers Fast… Without spending a fortune!

PPC 100
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Will Your Startup Fail? Here’s How You Can Tell

YoungUpstarts

'There is an alarming number of statistics surrounding the failure of startups. The Wall Street Journal reports that as many as 3 out of 4 startups fail per year. These startups are actually backed by venture capitalists. Imagine the number of startups that fail without proper capital and funding. Why would a well-funded startup company fail? There are dozens of reasons.

Startup 175
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Our Investment in Konekt: Picks & Shovels for the IoT Gold Rush

Agile VC

Today Konekt announced their $1.3M seed round. We were pleased to lead this round along with a great group of other co-investors. And I’m excited to collaborate with co-founders Ben Forgan and Patrick Wilbur as they build their IoT connectivity platform. Konekt is creating a turnkey platform for makers of internet connected devices to integrate cellular connectivity.

Cofounder 100
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How Smart Entrepreneurs Make Innovation Look Easy

Startup Professionals Musings

'Why do a few entrepreneurs, like Steve Jobs and Elon Musk, seem to come up with all the real innovations, while the majority of business leaders seem stuck in the rut of linear thinking? I have always wondered if innovation required some rare gene mutation, or whether I might be missing a simple formula for unlocking the ability in any intelligent business person to innovate.

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What Do I Do Now? The Startup Lifecycle

Steve Blank

'Last week I got a call from Patrick an ex-student I hadn’t heard from for 8 years. He was now the CEO of a company and wanted to talk about what he admitted was a “first world” problem. Over breakfast he got me up to date on his life since school (two non-CEO roles in startups,) but he wanted to talk about his third startup – the one he and two co-founders had started.

Startup 257
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Enterprise Software Churn: UNIT4 in UK local government

deal architect

'The general presumption in the enterprise software marketplace is customers stay loyal for lifetimes – the more realistic thinking, of course, is they stay loyal for long periods, but not that long. When I was researching SAP Nation, I was.

Software 247
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5 Ways to Find New Customers Fast… Without spending a fortune!

Rembrandt Communications

'Time to Boost Sales! As a small business owner, you are probably always thinking about your sales quotas and new customers. With all of your marketing, accounting, and other, responsibilities, the whole process can be overwhelming. But it’s time to step back and take a more simple approach. Here are… 5 Ways to Find (and […]. The post 5 Ways to Find New Customers Fast… Without spending a fortune!

PPC 109
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Hiring New Talent? Seven Ways To Spot Entrepreneurial DNA

YoungUpstarts

'by Michael Houlihan and Bonnie Harvey, authors of “ The Entrepreneurial Culture: 23 Ways to Engage and Empower Your Peopl e“ and “ The Barefoot Spirit: How Hardship, Hustle, and Heart Built a Bestseller “. As the market continues to improve, your organization might (finally!) be plugging some holes in the workforce and even creating new positions.

Hiring 158
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Our Investment in Konekt: Picks & Shovels for the IoT Gold Rush

Agile VC

'Today Konekt announced their $1.3M seed round. We were pleased to lead this round along with a great group of other co-investors. And I’m excited to collaborate with co-founders Ben Forgan and Patrick Wilbur as they build their IoT connectivity platform. Konekt is creating a turnkey platform for makers of internet connected devices to integrate cellular connectivity.

Cofounder 141
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10 Business Courses You May Have Missed In School

Startup Professionals Musings

'I’m sure that every one of us who has been out in the business world for a few years can look back with perfect hindsight and name a few college courses that we should have taken. What’s more disconcerting to me is that I can name a few that aren’t usually even offered, resulting in more than a few students graduating ill-prepared for the real business world!

Dividend 213
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The Magic of OtherInbox

Feld Thoughts

'I get 300+ non-spam emails a day. No matter how diligent I am at unsubscribing from stuff, I still get an endless stream of valid, opt-in email that I want to unsubscribe to. Google takes good care of my spam and they even jumped all over my complaints about their spam filtering , figured out the problem, and fixed it (thanks friends at Google). So, I’m not talking about spam, but all the rest of the stuff that I don’t need to see right away.

Email 114
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The art of the possible

deal architect

'The Preface to SAP Nation starts with “I first thought about writing this book five years ago.” In the weeks since the book has come out, I have had a chance to spend a bit more time on my innovation.

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