June, 2014

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The Power of Getting the Band Back Together

Both Sides of the Table

'Startups are hard. You’ve heard that a million times. Those that we survive with become family. It’s something you can’t know unless you’ve ever been in the trenches. Working hard together at a big company just isn’t the same. The truth is you really don’t know how your teammates or your bosses will perform in good times and bad.

CTO Hire 320
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I-Corps @ NIH – Pivoting the Curriculum

Steve Blank

'We’ve pivoted our Lean LaunchPad / I-Corps curriculum. We’re changing the order in which we teach the business model canvas and customer development to better-fit therapeutics, diagnostics and medical devices. — Over the last three years the Lean LaunchPad class has started to replace the last century’s “how to write a business plan” classes as the foundation for entrepreneurial education.

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10 Key Outsourcing Mistakes Made By Entrepreneurs

Startup Professionals Musings

'These days, it is almost impossible to find a small business where everything is done at the home location, by full-time employees. We are in the age of outsourcing, by any of many popular names, including subcontracting, freelancing, and virtual assistants. These approaches allow your startup to grow more rapidly, save costs, but costly mistakes can lead to business failure.

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Do Quit Your Day Job: How To Leave A Traditional Job For Entrepreneurship

YoungUpstarts

'by Tim Maliyil , CEO and Data Security Architect for AlertBoot. The decision to leave the security of a traditional job for the uncertain life of an entrepreneur is difficult. You’re giving up financial stability, committing a lot of time, and accepting the challenges of running your own business. Although you can never really know whether it’s the right decision beforehand, in many situations, the jump to entrepreneurship is worth the risk.

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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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How a mobile app for honesty can make you a better marketer

The Next Web

'Chris Bolman is the Director of Growth at Percolate. This post originally appeared on the Percolate blog. Over the summer of 2013, David Byttow, a former Google software developer, started building a mobile app to solve a problem he had. Byttow noticed he and the engineers he worked with were bad at giving each other feedback, and he wanted a way they could comment honestly on each other’s work without professional or personal backlash for saying something negative.

Mobile 166
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How early should you connect to a VC? Here's some data.

This is going to be BIG.

'How long does it take from first meeting a VC to getting cash in the bank? That''s an interesting question. Theoretically, someone could meet you, sign your document, and write you a check for deposit that day, but that''s not how it usually works. It''s also not the best way to create a helpful syndicate of investors that share the founder''s vision for the company.

More Trending

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Why Lean May Save Your Life – The I-Corps @ NIH

Steve Blank

'Today the National Institutes of Health announced they are offering my Lean LaunchPad class ( I-Corps @ NIH ) to commercialize Life Science. There may come a day that one of these teams makes a drug, diagnostic or medical device that saves your life. —-. Over the last two and a half years the National Science Foundation I-Corps has taught over 300 teams of scientists how to commercialize their technology and how to fail less, increasing their odds for commercial success.

Lean 269
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Every Technical Startup Wishes For This Dream Team

Startup Professionals Musings

'In my years of advising startups and occasional investing, I’ve seen many great ideas start and fail, but the right team always seems to make good things happen, even without the ultimate idea. That’s why investors say they invest in people (bet on the jockey, not the horse), rather than the idea. Yet every entrepreneur I meet wants to talk about the idea, and rarely mentions the team.

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[Review] How Asian Women Lead

YoungUpstarts

'How do Asian women experience leadership? What challenges do they face? More importantly, how can organizations recognize, nurture and celebrate Asian women leaders? The answers to these and more can be found in “ How Asian Women Lead ” by career and organizational consultant Jane Horan. Developed from Horan’s doctoral dissertation, the book is structured as a “multicultural narrative inquiry” focusing on the leadership experiences of women in Asia.

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7 US startup visa options for international founders

The Next Web

'Mikita Mikado is a software engineer and entrepreneur from Belarus, now based in San Francisco. He is the co-­founder and CEO of Quote Roller and PandaDoc. There is no other place like Silicon Valley, the tech Mecca of access to great talent, capital and countless prospective clients. For some founders, moving to the Valley is the only option to succeed.

Belarus 167
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Om Malik on why valuations defy metrics

The Equity Kicker

'Yesterday Om Malik reminded us that predicting the future is hard. That’s true, but in the startup industry we have to do it every day. Both as investors and entrepreneurs. When companies attract high valuations their investors are predicting the future too – either that the business will trade in M&A at a ‘strategic multiple’ or that they will generate big cash flows.

Valuation 123
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Cable Company Fuckery

Feld Thoughts

'John Oliver and his new show Last Week Tonight has become Sunday night entertainment in my house. He’s simultaneously brilliant and hilarious. Oliver took on Net Neutrality on Sunday. Due to my cable connection being down, I didn’t see it until Monday when I was able to watch it on my DVR. He started off by reminding us that American’s simply don’t respond to “boring” so he suggested we change the phrase “Net Neutrality” to “Cable Company Fu

.Net 161
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What the Founder of Cheek’d Can Teach You About Startup Marketing

Up and Running

'For savvy startup marketing, look no further than Lori Cheek. In 2010 Lori launched Cheek’d.com , an online dating site that combines “old-school calling cards with the power of the internet.” The inspiration for the business came to her two years previously, when out to dinner with a colleague from the architectural company she worked for at the time.

Founder 142
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Twitter Link Roundup #226 – Small Business, Startups, Innovation, Social Media, Design, Marketing and More

crowdSPRING Blog

'Every day on the crowdSPRING Twitter account and on my own Twitter account , I post links to posts or videos I enjoyed reading or viewing. These posts and videos are about logo design , web design , startups, entrepreneurship, small business, leadership, social media, marketing, and more! Here are some of the links that I’ve liked and shared this past week!

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The 4 Phases For Developing A Customer Retention Strategy

ConversionXL

'Has your company’s customer retention rate increased, decreased or remained status quo over the past five years? Have you outlined and initiated a formal customer retention strategy? In a study by Harvard Business School , it was found that increasing customer retention by even 5% can increase profits between 25-95%. And yet…Forrester found that 70% of CMOs did not list retention as a top priority.

Retention 115
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Getting your startup visa: Seven tips on choosing the right immigration attorney

The Next Web

'Mikita Mikado is a software engineer and entrepreneur from Belarus, now based in San Francisco. He is the co-­founder and CEO of Quote Roller and PandaDoc. While Congress is trying to decide on immigration reform, I’ve been through the excruciating, year-and-a-half-long process of getting a long-term US visa. I wasn’t looking to work for an American company.

Belarus 154
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Why entrepreneurs and VCs perceive risk differently

The Equity Kicker

'Last week I wrote that a $1m revenue run rate and 20% month-on-month growth is a good benchmark to assess whether a transactional company is ready for a Series A, and then over the weekend I had a conversation on Twitter about whether investing in companies with a $1m revenue run rate was ‘venture’ capital or ‘growth’ capital.

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Venture Deals Class With The Kauffman Fellows Academy – Version 2

Feld Thoughts

'This spring, Jason Mendelson and I taught a class called Venture Deals with the Kauffman Fellows Academy. It was a blast so we’ve decided to do it again. KFA uses NovoEd as their platform. Jason and I spent two days recording videos around our Venture Deals: Be Smarter Than Your Lawyer and Venture Capitalist explaining each section and going deeper with Q&A.

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10 Ideas for Winning Back Unhappy Customers

Up and Running

'What do you do when a customer threatens to leave your product or service? Some companies don’t respond at all, while others reply with an exit survey. But for early-stage companies, trying to win them back — and learn from their feedback — is often a better strategy. To learn what works best, we asked 10 founders the following: What is one creative way that you can show value to (and possibly win back) customers who are threatening to leave your service or company for another?

Customer 115
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Twitter Link Roundup #228 – Small Business, Startups, Innovation, Social Media, Design, Marketing and More

crowdSPRING Blog

'Every day on the crowdSPRING Twitter account and on my own Twitter account , I post links to posts or videos I enjoyed reading or viewing. These posts and videos are about logo design , web design , startups, entrepreneurship, small business, leadership, social media, marketing, and more! Here are some of the links that I’ve liked and shared this past week!

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How To Develop Your Customer Retention Strategy

ConversionXL

'Has your company’s customer retention rate increased, decreased or remained status quo over the past five years? Have you outlined and initiated a formal customer retention strategy? In a study by Harvard Business School , it was found that increasing customer retention by even 5% can increase profits between 25-95%. And yet…Forrester found that 70% of CMOs did not list retention as a top priority.

Retention 112
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The high road to building an enterprise SaaS company

The Next Web

'Yoav Leitersdorf and Ofer Schreiber of are partners at YL Ventures. Developing an enterprise-grade SaaS product is not easy. The keys are maintaining capital efficiency, launching early versions to the SMB market and constantly applying customer development methods. B2B companies, often due to the higher barriers to develop a working product, have historically been less popular with early-stage investors – such barriers sometimes involve tough requirements for core IP and deep technology.

B2C 132
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Michelle Dale: Mother Of Three Takes Her Kids Around Europe On A Ten Year “Laptop Lifestyle” Trip Thanks To Her $30,000+ A Month Online Business

Entrepreneurs-Journey.com by Yaro Starak

'This has to be one of the best “laptop lifestyle” case studies I have ever heard. Let me introduce you to Michelle Dale. She is the founder of Virtual Miss Friday , a virtual assistant service and training company. [ Download MP3 | Transcript | iTunes | Soundcloud | Raw RSS ]. Michelle has been traveling all around Europe … Read the rest of this entry » The post Michelle Dale: Mother Of Three Takes Her Kids Around Europe On A Ten Year “Laptop Lif

Europe 111
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When Third is First

thebarefootvc

'In 2011, I wrote about Jugaad, according to Wikipedia “a colloquial Hindi word that can mean an innovative fix or a simple work-around”. I noted in the blog post that Jugaad is “now an acceptable management technique…and also applies to any kind of creative and out of the box thinking which maximizes resources for a company and its stakeholders”. Resource scarcity leads to innovation — as those of us who have lived and worked in the developing world are acutely aware.

Africa 106
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ERP Mayberry

deal architect

'“No stock footage here” Remarked Plex CEO Jason Blessing about the video about various shop floors at customer sites which kicked off his user conference, PowerPlex yesterday. Actually he need not have used any footage at all. He had 900.

Stock 363
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Why Venture Capital is So Much More Compelling Now

Both Sides of the Table

'It’s not hard to find people willing to write the narrative that “venture capital is not an asset class” or “venture capital has performed terribly.” The most recent was 18 months ago or so called The Kauffman Report. It had an influence on the people who fund our industry in a negative way as many asset managers who fund our industry read this flawed report.

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The 4 Phases For Developing A Customer Retention Strategy

ConversionXL

'Has your company’s customer retention rate increased, decreased or remained status quo over the past five years? Have you outlined and initiated a formal customer retention strategy? In a study by Harvard Business School , it was found that increasing customer retention by even 5% can increase profits between 25-95%. And yet…Forrester found that 70% of CMOs did not list retention as a top priority.

Retention 105
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New York’s The Infatuation and growing up on the Internet

The Next Web

'Five years ago, when Chris Stang and Andrew Steinthal were two music executives frustrated with the grandiosity of food criticism, they self-published a review of Manhattan’s Gemma. Their outlet was the Infatuation — a blog, traditional by then — but the tone was something new. Equal parts down-to-earth, lighthearted, and accessible, the Infatuation provided an unfortunately-rare type of dinin?

Internet 132
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Natalie MacNeil: Emmy Award Winning Founder Of “She Takes On The World” Blogs Her Way To Half A Million Dollars A Year

Entrepreneurs-Journey.com by Yaro Starak

'I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Natalie MacNeil , founder of She Takes On The World , a graduate of my Blog Mastermind and Membership Site Mastermind programs. She’s won an Emmy award, and today is in charge of a half a million dollar a year blogging business. You can listen to this interview right now to hear the … Read the rest of this entry » The post Natalie MacNeil: Emmy Award Winning Founder Of “She Takes On The World” Blogs Her Way To Half A Milli

Founder 108
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Has The Bar For Series A Changed?

Rob Go

'(Note: The majority of this post first ran on BetaBoston. This version goes a little deeper into some of my more nuanced thoughts). There has been a lot of discussion recently about the bar required to raise a series A. A few notable excerpts: Kyle Alspach’s commentary on seed and series A at BetaBoston; Brad Feld’s tweet a few weeks ago that “$100k MRR [monthly recurring revenue] used to be interesting.

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Vishal Sikka at Infosys

deal architect

'Vishal Sikka has landed as CEO of Infosys, a few weeks after a tumultuous exit at SAP. My reaction – beyond the short term calming of jittery investors, Vishal will have his plenty of other opportunities. As I wrote last.

Offshore 323
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Joe Perez, Founder of @tastemade, On What Makes a Great Product Manager & More

Both Sides of the Table

'Update : Bothsides TV is now available on iTunes , Soundcloud , Stitcher , or any RSS podcast player you use, and don’t forget to subscribe on YouTube. I also added a little Soundcloud widget on the sidebar (if you’re viewing on web – not on mobile or RSS reader) that you can listen to each episode with. In the most recent episode, I interviewed Joe Perez , Founder of Tastemade.

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How To Design A Landing Page That Stands Out In A Competitive Market

ConversionXL

'If you’re selling in a competitive market, you must live & die by the little things that make you uniquely different from your competition. Do you have superior customer service? Have you targeted a very specific segment of the market with a common complaint? Are you approaching the problem in a way your competitors won’t? I suspect that might be the case with Team Colony , the subject of this week’s website review.

Design 100
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Customer Discovery: The Search for Product/Market Fit. 2 Minutes to See Why

Steve Blank

'If you can’t see the video click here Filed under: 2 Minute Lessons , Business Model versus Business Plan , Customer Development , Lean LaunchPad , Teaching.

Search 313
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These 5 Decisions Define You As An Entrepreneur

Startup Professionals Musings

'Most aspiring entrepreneurs are convinced that the strength of their initial idea somehow defines them as a leader, as well as the success potential of their derivative business. In my experience, it’s a lot more complicated than that. It takes leadership ability, as well as a good idea, to make a successful entrepreneur, and great leaders evolve from key leadership decisions along the way.

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3 Questions To Ask Yourself Before Conducting Your Startup Experiment

YoungUpstarts

'by Kuty Shalev is the founder of Clevertech. You’ve got an amazing idea for a business, and you just know it’s going to change the world — or at least your part of it. But is your big idea enough to make you a successful entrepreneur? Unfortunately, the answer is “probably not.”. There’s a big difference between having an idea and executing on it to turn it into a profitable reality.