March, 2015

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Is This Ex-Googler’s Pre-Product Approach the Fast Track to Product-Market Fit?

View from Seed

'If you’re in the tech startup industry today, you get the sense that every one of your peers wants to take on the entire world. Founders laud their own “end-to-end” thinking. Engineers and even marketers proudly claim to be “full stack.” Startups launched around seemingly mundane, insular problems glow about their abilities to change the world.

Product 263
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What I’ve Learned from Fred Wilson

Both Sides of the Table

'Last week Fred Wilson and I sat down in Santa Monica for an hour+ discussion with the video cameras rolling. One of the questions we discussed is, “How much capital should a startup raise?” Fred & I are both in agreement that there is a tension between capital constraints and creativity. In his words, [in some instances] “because lots of capital is available, the company takes on the capital and that ends up resulting in no constraints on decision making and so the company

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Three Tools To Button Up Your Business

YoungUpstarts

'by Max Yoder, co-founder and CEO of Lesson.ly. Small businesses are always looking for improvements to help their businesses run effectively while maintaining a positive reputation in the community. Online solutions that provide a “buttoned-up” impression don’t have to be costly. In fact, some of the best tools available are created to give a bigger-business feel without breaking the bank.

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Will Your Business Innovation Disrupt The Market?

Startup Professionals Musings

'Every entrepreneur with a new technology tells me that his innovation will be industry-disrupting, meaning that it will render the existing technology obsolete, and create a new market. Yet truly disruptive innovations, like the smartphone from Apple and the rise of the Internet, are very rare, and are generally unpredicted. So why would any investor ever believe any of these claims?

Marketing 210
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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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The 7 Website Mistakes Small Business Owners Make (and How to Avoid Them)

Up and Running

'Does your website have you feeling stressed? If you’re a small business owner or service professional who wants to develop a new website, you might find yourself thinking, “It’s a jungle out there!” You wouldn’t be wrong. Let’s work through a case study with Carl, a financial planner, who’s a composite of several professional service businesses.

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How To Get Things Better And Cheaper

Mike Michalowicz

'In a few rare moments of downtime, I was flipping through TV channels when I happened on Suze Orman. I paused to watch a bit, and her words were profound. She said that financial freedom today achieved by getting more pleasure out of what you save rather than what you spend. While Suze was talking about personal finances, I immediately thought that the same principle holds true for businesses as well.

More Trending

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A Checklist For Writing Code

David Teten

'Ever since I studied Total Quality Management in college, I’ve been a bit obsessed with documenting processes. I was particularly influenced by Dr. Atul Gawande’s “ Checklist Manifesto ”, which underlined for me the value of collecting, documenting, analyzing, and continually re-optimizing best practices. I wrote a while ago a 3-part series on communications: How to Write a Memo That People Will Actually Read.

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Evading “Zombies” While Shopping Online

YoungUpstarts

'by Max Nomad, author of “ Surviving The Zombie Apocalypse: Safer Computing Tips for Small Business Managers and Everyday People ” . Cybercriminals are coming up with more and more devious ways to steal every day. Some of the breaches are huge, like the recent Anthem security breach, allow hackers to get access to millions of people social security numbers, email address, credit card numbers and other personal information.

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Why We Invested in Rubrik

Lightspeed Venture Partners

'Today we are excited to announce Lightspeed’s $10 million Series A investment in Rubrik. Just as Apple built a time machine to protect Macs, Rubrik has built a powerful time machine for enterprise cloud infrastructure that unites data management with web-scale technology. A market size of epic proportions, a groundbreaking architectural approach, and a world-class founding team drove our decision to invest.

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What Type of Business Plan Do I Need?

Up and Running

'Unsure what kind of business plan you need? Read on. We get this question a lot, mainly because there are so many different things labelled as business plans: strategic plans, annual plans, operational plans, feasibility plans, and, of course, what most people think of, business plans for startups seeking investment. And also, what real business owners want—lean business plans for better management.

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Midas List 2020: Forerunner’s Eurie Kim (and Why Company Names Matter to Her)

Hunter Walker

'Forerunner Ventures is one of Homebrew’s favorite co-investors for consumer commerce/retail startups. Firm founder Kirsten Green has an amazing analytical mind combined with empathy for the consumer. Since talent attracts talent, it’s not surprising Kirsten built a small community around her that also shines, notably Eurie Kim. We got to know Eurie over the last two years via our work together and I asked her to share some of her stories here… Hunter Walk: What was your path

Naming 101
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Oracle HCM World: Fracking for Talent

deal architect

'Thomas Smouse, VP of Administration and HR at Newfield Exploration, an attendee at Oracle’s HCM event this week in Washington, DC, appropriately framed for me the rapidly changing talent market. The oil and gas industry has been transformed with innovations.

DC 294
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Some Perspective on Twitter vs. Meerkat

Both Sides of the Table

'*. I love Twitter. I’m loving Meerkat so far. It’s brand new but the enthusiasm we’ve seen for such an early product is truly awesome. I ran a VC AMA (ask me anything) last Monday on Meerkat and had > 1,000 simultaneous people asking me questions. The energy was election so I’m going to do it again this coming week. You may have read that Twitter has now made it harder for Meerkat to operate.

SMS 266
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5 Tools To Button Up Your Business

YoungUpstarts

'by Max Yoder, co-founder and CEO of Lesson.ly. Small businesses are always looking for improvements to help their businesses run effectively while maintaining a positive reputation in the community. Businesses want to appear as though they aren’t brand new and have a firm foundation, especially when it comes to new employees, or consumers looking for a new product.

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Startup PR: A Journalist’s Advice for Seed-Stage Companies Seeking Press Coverage

View from Seed

'Editor’s note: Unlike the Ubers and Airbnbs of the tech startup world, seed-stage companies don’t typically have the valuations, awareness, or traction typically associated with press coverage. That said, coverage is important, and early-stage companies would be wise to work with local press in addition to national. Below, we interview Lauren Landry, a journalist who covered the Boston innovation economy for four years prior to her recent move to Northeastern University.

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Tools, Tips, and Tricks to Improve Business Writing

Up and Running

'Of the many courses I took in college, business writing was the most challenging. Students whose plans involve business careers are not interested in abstract rules, referencing standards, confusing legal language, and other materials presented in those classes. After a term spent editing and writing different documents, my classmates and I ended up even more confused.

Email 87
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Hacking For Defense In Silicon Valley

Steve Blank

'Lead, follow or get the heck out of the way. In peacetime the U.S. military is an immovable and inflexible bureaucracy. In wartime it can adapt and adopt organizational change with startling speed. BMNT , a new Silicon Valley company, is combining the Lean Methods it learned in combat with the technology expertise and speed of startups. —– But first some history… World War II.

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Enterprise Software Churn: The NetSuite edition

deal architect

'This continues a series showcasing customers which are adopting two-tier, ring fence, third party maintenance strategies or outright replacing their core enterprise applications. Previous posts have highlighted UNIT4, Microsoft, Rimini Street , E2Open and Infor. NetSuite has shared with us.

Software 200
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Every Entrepreneur Dreams Of A Startup Without Risk

Startup Professionals Musings

'Outside of dreams, there is no real business opportunity without risk. Serious entrepreneurs know that, but too many “wannabes” still fall for that elusive get-rich-quick scheme with no risk. As an active Angel investor, I still hear entrepreneurs asserting large opportunities with minimal risk and no competition. My conclusion either way is that they have no market, or haven’t looked.

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Crowdsourcing Your Next Design Project From Designhill

YoungUpstarts

'Over the last few years, there has been a dramatic rise in the number of small businesses and startups around the world, with each one being driven by entrepreneurs filled with unfaltering ambition, energy and desire. However, not every is lucky enough to early stage or seed funding, which makes most startups and small businesses obsessed with the words like low-cost and cost-effective.

Design 193
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Can Pre-Seed Capital Hurt an Entrepreneur’s Chances to Raise Seed from VCs?

View from Seed

'In the last year or so, the debate over the definitions of seed versus pre-seed capital (sometimes called genesis rounds) has exploded. Much digital ink has been spilled about what dollar amount constitutes a pre-seed and how that might affect a startup’s ability to go raise a “normal” seed round from institutional investors. (Among those trying to inform the industry and offer perspective was my partner Rob Go.).

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How to Know if Your Content Stinks and What to Do About it… Fast!

Rembrandt Communications

'Your writing is great… that’s what you think! Are you happy with all of the marketing content your business is producing? If so, it’s time for a review. Yes, I know you have many responsibilities as a business owner, and you may place your content near the bottom of the “To Do” pile. But your […]. The post How to Know if Your Content Stinks and What to Do About it… Fast!

PPC 136
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Fellow VCs: Here’s Where to Invest $1B+

Genuine VC

'A couple weeks ago my colleague Dimitri Dadiomov published a post on NextView’s “View From Seed” blog which answered the question “Should we take Harvard MBAs Seriously as Startup Founders?” The (obvious) answer of “yes” he supported with comprehensive research about the entrepreneurial activity coming out of Harvard’s business school. We knew that it was formidable, but the sheer number of founders, companies founded, dollars raised, and (early) exits from HBS founders over the past six years

Cofounder 208
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S/4HANA Customer Survey

deal architect

'When SAP announced S4 in February, several analysts commented (see my post here) there were scores of unanswered questions. What does the product release roadmap look like beyond the Simple Finance? When will industry specific applications become part of the.

Customer 215
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How Valuable Are Stock Options Offered By A Startup?

Startup Professionals Musings

'Wouldn’t you like to be one of the lucky people who joined Google and Facebook when these were startups, and now be a multi-millionaire? So people ask me “How many shares should I ask for or expect when I join a startup today?” In reality, the number of shares doesn’t mean anything – it’s your percent of the total that you need to negotiate. For example, 200,000 shares may sound like a lot, but if the startup has issued 20 million (a common starting point), that’s just 1% of the company.

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How Video Conferencing Has Made A Difference

YoungUpstarts

'How has video conferencing changed the professional landscape for companies and employees? Read on to find insights collected from the Small Business site and The Future of Business Collaboration and Pownowwow blogs. . Cost savings. Company: this is one of the best results if not outright the best one, on the list. With low cost web based video technologies like Blue Jeans, small companies and startups now have the chance to add video to their organizations without hurting their bottom line.

Video 161
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Unicorns Don’t Exist: Why This Startup Dialogue Is Incredibly Dangerous

View from Seed

'There is something so funny and also so appropriate about all this talk about Unicorn companies. I’m not the first person to say that the proliferation of startups valued at $1 billion or higher is a signal of an overheated late-stage market. Yet there continues to be so much fanfare and excitement about all of these unicorn companies. Unicorns are a great metaphor and a brilliant meme – just excellent marketing.

Valuation 246
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You have great, BtoB content. Now what?

Rembrandt Communications

'It’s time to turn all of that copy into sales via content strategy! What’s your BtoB Content Strategy, Anyway? News flash. It’s 2015 and time to use your BtoB content to get the best results possible. Sure, you have great blogs, expert insights, social-media posts, articles, newsletters, and more. You have pages and pages of […]. The post You have great, BtoB content.

PPC 136
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Trying Something New On Immigration In Colorado

Feld Thoughts

'I’ve been working on the Startup Visa since I first wrote about it on 9/10/2009 in my post The Founders Visa Movement. While there has periodically been improvement on the margins on the issue, I think our federal government has broadly failed us on this front. So, I’m going to try something different. Yesterday, CU Boulder announced a new Entrepreneurs in Residence program to be administered by the Silicon Flatirons program.

Colorado 140
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SAPs Continuing Myopia

deal architect

'In SAP Nation, I wrote “SAP has a tendency to write code, and then hand it over to its partners. It fails to think enough about customer deployment issues.” More of that focus on what happens in their labs and.

Software 214
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No Expert Has A Startup Checklist To Ensure Success

Startup Professionals Musings

'A common request I get while mentoring entrepreneurs is for a copy of the startup checklist they need to follow, in order to build a successful new business. I wish it was that easy. The challenge is that every new business needs to be innovative and different, in order to rise above the crowd, bring real change to the world, and give you the satisfaction you seek.

Startup 219
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Ten Conversations That Are Undermining Your Strategy And Killing Performance

YoungUpstarts

'by Dan Prosser, author of “ Thirteeners: Why Only 13 Percent of Companies Successfully Execute Their Strategy – and How Yours Can Be One of Them “. Did you know that the business world, in general, is a vast network of interrelated conversations? It’s true. And your company is a microcosm of that network. What this means is that the conversations that take place between your team members are incredibly important.

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Revenues kill the dream

BeyondVC

I was on the phone yesterday with the CEO of one of our portfolio companies, and we were talking about goals for the next few months and in particular, what the company needed to get a Series A done. Her answer was quite simply “make the product delightful.” She continued: “I want to iterate to continue to make the product faster, better, and easier to use.

Revenue 60
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Building an Environmentally Friendly Brand: The Pitfalls to Avoid

Up and Running

'Customers love it when you go green, and using renewable energy is just one way to do it. Several years ago the global PR firm Edelmen published a study which suggested that 73% of consumers would choose to buy from a different brand of equal quality if that brand supported a good cause. “Implementing more environmentally friendly business practices can be the stepping stone toward building a more powerful, well-rounded, and attractive brand.” From a business perspective, there are

Green 84
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Book: The Intel Trinity

Feld Thoughts

'As of today The Intel Trinity,The: How Robert Noyce, Gordon Moore, and Andy Grove Built the World’s Most Important Company wins my award for best business book of 2015. I got an Apple ][ for my bar mitzvah in 1978. Ever since then I’ve been fascinated with computers and the computer industry. I obviously missed the 1950s and 1960s, but the history of that time period has deeply informed my perspective, especially the definition of Moore’s law by Gordon Moore in 1965.

Cofounder 113
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Enterprise Software Churn: Infors co-existence scenarios

deal architect

'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 with specialist tools, and implementing two and three tier strategies – different solutions.

Software 199