September, 2015

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Why I Look for High Conviction, not Consensus, in Venture Capital Decisions

Both Sides of the Table

One of the least understood parts of the venture capital industry and venture capital firms is how investment decisions actually get made. The truth is that each firm is different and there isn’t one standard but over the years I’ve talked with enough of my peers to get sense of how many firms work. Often if it’s a bigger firm (say 4 partners or more) and it’s a super small investment for their fund size (let’s say $250-500k when they normally invest $5-7 million) t

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Four Tips For Retaining And Motivating Your Staff

YoungUpstarts

by Jason O’Brien, Chief Operating Officer of TollFreeForwarding.com. No matter what stage your business is currently at, it can cause significant difficulties when employees move on to find new employment. The time and energy it takes to look for new recruits, the loss of productivity whilst new staff learn the ropes – not to mention the financial repercussions, which can often run into the tens of thousands – are all going to have a drain on your business.

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Refutation: An acquisition is always a failure

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

Oh how the media loves superlatives (but only because that’s what we click on and share). Jake Lodwick wrote an article on PandoDaily entitled “An acquisition is always a failure.” He explains: Either the founders failed to achieve their goal, or – far likelier – they failed to dream big enough. The proper ambition for a tech entrepreneur should be to join the ranks of the great tech companies, or, at least, to create a profitable, independent company beloved by employees, cus

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Developing Leadership Skills: What You Need to Know

Startup Professionals Musings

These days, with the many Internet articles and new courses available, most new professionals readily cross the gap from lack of business knowledge to knowing, but many never make it over the knowing versus doing gap. Investors I know highlight this problem with the mantra that they fund founders and teams who can execute, rather than ones who just talk about their great ideas.

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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 to Solve Problems in Your Business: Kanban, Kaizen and Scrum

Up and Running

Solving problems is a central issue in business ownership. In fact, you might say that business itself is a series of problems waiting to be solved. But, when it comes to finding the ideal approach, or the perfect process for solving any of the dozens of problems faced by the modern business, things get complicated. Today I’d like to discuss three methods for problem solving that have proven track records in the world of commerce.

SCRUM 97
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Goodbye Alex

David Cohen

Alex King recently passed away after a two year battle with cancer. Alex was not one of my closest friends, but his passing hit me very hard. I was riding in a car from the airport yesterday when I got the news from his wife, and I just started crying. I got to know Alex because he was a mentor in Boulder in the early years of Techstars. He totally leaned into mentoring startups and never for a moment asked what was in it for him.

Denver 105

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7 Reasons A Small Business Should Hire Advisors 

YoungUpstarts

by Jonathan Aspatore, CEO of ExecRank. The right advisor can have a greater impact on the success of your small business than any other hire you ever make. Here are seven ways that advisors can immediately help your small business achieve the next level of success: Assist With Strategies & Connections to Have Record Revenue & Profit in 2016.

CTO Hire 205
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Don’t Buy the Hype

A Crowded Space

“People calculate too much and think too little” – Charlie Munger One of the core principles of Jackson Square Ventures is that we don’t buy hype. Don’t get me wrong – we love it when a company in our portfolio does exceptionally well and receives a lot of attention. We try to avoid buying hype when there is no substance - we look out for it before we ever invest.

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Postmodern ERP Strategies: Next-Gen Application Management

deal architect

Another in the series of postmodern ERP Strategies. While these are excerpted from SAP Nation 2.0, the concepts can be applied to many other ERP environments. One of the largest cost components in the SAP economy is application management, much.

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How to Choose a Business Location

Up and Running

If you’ve been thinking about starting a business for a while, chances are you’ve got an idea of what your business location is going to look like. That’s great, but it’s not enough. Choosing the right location is about so much more than finding the place that looks closest to the one you’ve envisioned. It’s about being somewhere your customers will see you, about being in a competitive location, about staying within budget, and about meeting local and state regulations and laws.

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What Can You Do if a VC Pulls Their Term Sheet?

Both Sides of the Table

What Can You Do if a VC Pulls Their Term Sheet? I was asked to answer this exact question on Quora and I did so some time ago. The beauty of evergreen content is that it resurfaces all the time and it is as relevant today as it was years ago when I answered it. One of my favorite ways to resurface content is when I see people on Twitter put out a Tweet linking to an old post.

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Network effects on social platforms: why the quality of user matters

Version One Ventures

Back in July, we wrote about network effects in marketplaces and social platforms and how they are critical to defensibility. In the post, we talked about the difference between direct and indirect network effects, and how they may or may not relate to virality. Since then, we have been further developing our investment thesis on social platforms and want to add more nuance to the discussion.

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The No-Nonsense Approach To Cutting Your Small Business Expenses

YoungUpstarts

by Tony Campbell, founder and managing partner at WhichVoIP.com. Setting up your own business involves a lot of start-up costs, many of which you may not have even been aware of when you first launched. If you go into business without fully preparing for these costs, you may find that they take you by surprise, which can cause you unexpected problems.

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Three Not So Obvious Learnings from 8 Years in VC

Rob Go

Around this time 8 years ago, I joined Spark Capital and started this chapter of my career in Venture Capital. About three years later, I started NextView with Dave and Lee. I knew very little about VC when I started, and as the old adage goes, the more I learn, the more I realize I don’t know. 8 years is a decent about of time, and it’s been an interesting period.

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Postmodern ERP Strategies: Rip and Replace

deal architect

Another in the series of postmodern ERP Strategies. While these are excerpted from SAP Nation 2.0, the concepts can be applied to many other ERP environments. While this is an extreme move, many midsized companies especially those being spun off.

Software 204
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11 Tips for Focused, Effective (and Inexpensive) Startup Marketing

Up and Running

How can you market your startup more effectively? Offering a free trial of your product or service in exchange for a review on a well-trafficked blog is one creative way. In a recent article, Palo Alto Software founder Tim Berry equates startup marketing to throwing darts at a dartboard. While existing companies can get away with throwing their “marketing darts” a little aimlessly, a startup has to be more careful and precise.

Marketing 113
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8 Steps to Exit Your Startup With Pride And Profit

Startup Professionals Musings

Once an entrepreneur, always an entrepreneur. Although many won’t admit it, true entrepreneurs can’t wait to exit their current startup, and build a new and better one with their next great idea. In addition, current investors want to see every startup go public or be acquired, as an exit event, so they can get their due return for that investment which has been tied up for the last few years.

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Entrepreneurs are Everywhere show No. 4: David Lerner and Gary Marcus

Steve Blank

Growing interest in entrepreneurship is driving a culture change across Columbia University. And Silicon Valley’s pay-it-forward culture is a huge help to startup founders. Culture matters whether you’re starting up or helping others to do so. That was the message from the latest guests on Entrepreneurs are Everywhere , my radio show on Sirius XM Channel 111.

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Misconceptions About Mobile Websites

YoungUpstarts

It is a shame to see the fact that most site owners do not actually understand much about mobile websites and about the importance of having a site that is perfectly optimized for mobile browsing. This is due to the fact that many site owners do not have much knowledge about webs development. It is normal. After all, it is why people tend to hire other professionals to get the work done for them.

Mobile 149
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Three Not So Obvious Learnings from 8 Years in VC

Rob Go

Around this time 8 years ago, I joined Spark Capital and started this chapter of my career in Venture Capital. About three years later, I started NextView with Dave and Lee. I knew very little about VC when I started, and as the old adage goes, the more I learn, the more I realize I don’t know. 8 years is a decent about of time, and it’s been an interesting period.

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Postmodern ERP strategies: Tiering

deal architect

Another in the series of postmodern ERP Strategies. While these are excerpted from SAP Nation 2.0, the concepts can be applied to many other ERP environments. In the 1980s, as AS/400s and LANs matured, many multinationals adopted two- or three-tier.

Software 207
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How to Start an Ebay Business

Up and Running

What is eBay and how does it work? eBay is an online shopping and auction website that allows people to buy and sell used or new products, either as a business, or as way to clear out clutter and make a bit of extra cash doing so. While the site is free to use, eBay does charge a per-item insertion fee and a final value fee, as well as fees for any additional but optional features used.

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7 Investor Term Sheet Demands Startups Need Not Fear

Startup Professionals Musings

Most entrepreneurs looking for an investor can tell you how much money they need, but few have given much thought to what they are willing to give up for it. Perhaps they're way off in their valuation (usually far too high), or paralyzed by fear at seeing the other terms, because they have no idea what's normal, and what's worth a fight to the death (their startup's).

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Mattermark’s Clever Origin Story & Why Their CEO Loves Arguing with VCs [Traction #11]

View from Seed

The NextView podcast Traction explores all the clever, creative, and atypical things entrepreneurs do to make initial progress against the odds. If startups should do things that “don’t scale,” then this podcast asks a simple question: What ARE those things? Past episodes include stories from founders of LinkedIn , DraftKings , General Assembly , The Muse , Behance , InsightSquared , and more.

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Six Ways To Keep Trade Secrets And Sensitive Company Info Offline

YoungUpstarts

By James Pooley, author of “ Secrets: Managing Information Assets in the Age of Cyberespionage “. You can be sure that most of your employees are active on social media. For younger ones, in fact, Facebooking, Instagramming, and Tweeting are as natural as breathing. But suppose an employee shared pictures of your product prototype? Posted a draft patent application your company was about to file?

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How To Tell A Remarkable Product Story!

Brandanew

We have all heard great brand stories. The story of an aspiring entrepreneur with humble means overcoming all obstacles with his wit and perseverance is always a good read. But have you ever thought about product stories? Do they work too? Sure it depends on the product. But if you really have a unique and innovative product, it is possible to create a story that entertains, creates awareness and also enhances its value in the eyes of the customers.

Product 145
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Postmodern ERP strategies: Independent Support

deal architect

Gartner has been talking about "postmodern ERP" for a couple of years now: "Businesses looking to improve administration today can take advantage of lower costs, better functional fit and process flexibility offered by blending cloud applications with on-premises applications in.

Cloud 203
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Announcing Our Investment in Renoviso

Genuine VC

A few years ago I replaced all of the decades-old windows in our home with new ones. The entire process was horrible. I used home service lead-gen and recommendation-review sites to identify a half-dozen installers to set up initial in-person consultation appointments. Only half of them even showed up. For those who did, I was offered a set of confusing options with opaque pricing without any relative understanding of the quality of the service or the product itself.

Syndicate 174
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10 Keys To Transforming Your Dream Into A Business

Startup Professionals Musings

Business dreams are fun, but they don’t change the world or make you any money if you can’t turn them into a reality. Many aspiring entrepreneurs are stuck in the idea stage, and only a few have the discipline and the insight to move on to the execution phase. There is no magic formula for building a good business, but I’ve seen enough successful ventures to pick out some common elements.

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Mattermark’s Clever Origin Story and Why Their CEO Loves Arguing with VCs [Traction #11]

View from Seed

The NextView podcast Traction explores all the clever, creative, and atypical things entrepreneurs do to make initial progress against the odds. If startups should do things that “don’t scale,” then this podcast asks a simple question: What ARE those things? Past episodes include stories from founders of LinkedIn , DraftKings , General Assembly , The Muse , Behance , InsightSquared , and more.

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How To Hire Rock Star Employees

YoungUpstarts

By Brian Sutter, Director of Marketing, Wasp Barcode Technologies. The definition of a rock star is a celebrity in any field or profession who is highly admired. While most people think of a musician when they hear that word, small business owners should be able to think about their employees as rock stars too. Hiring someone who will be “highly admired” in the workplace is the ultimate goal when filling any type of position.

Hiring 208
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5 Social Scheduling Tools That You Can Use For a Worry-Free Vacation!

Brandanew

Going on a vacation and looking for someone who could help you keep up with the latest? Reduce the trouble. Here are 5 social scheduling tools that will do the job for you, without having to be monitored. Editor’s note: Social media scheduling is the need of the hour. We recommend using scheduling to optimize on the best timings to post- whether or not you’re around.

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Postmodern ERP strategies: Ring Fence

deal architect

Gartner has been talking about "postmodern ERP" for a couple of years now: "Businesses looking to improve administration today can take advantage of lower costs, better functional fit and process flexibility offered by blending cloud applications with on-premises applications in.

Cloud 199
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3 Top Tips For Ultimate, Business Success

Rembrandt Communications

Are you forgetting these simple tips? It’s the busy fall season, and your schedule is probably filled with meetings, sales calls, content-strategy sessions, copywriting, and more. With all of this going on, it can be easy to forget the simple, but important, things you need to be successful in the long-term… so as you rush […]. The post 3 Top Tips For Ultimate, Business Success appeared first on Boost sales with BtoB Content Strategy and PR here.

PR 126
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7 Reasons Smart Startups Establish 'Coopetition'

Startup Professionals Musings

As a startup advisor, when I suggest cooperating with competitors, most entrepreneurs initially think I'm crazy or suggesting something illegal. But trust me, I’m not talking about anything sinister here, just a concept known in smart business circles as "coopetition," recognized as one of the best and fastest ways to grow a company. And growth is the lifeblood of every startup.

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Price of Admission Is An Amazing Product

Feld Thoughts

As I read about the unveiling of the Tesla Model X , I have two thoughts. The first one is “I want” (hint: Amy – you need to replace your red Range Rover.) The second is that price of admission is an amazing product. Indulge me while I go on an amazing product rant from our portfolio. Glowforge is turning 3D printing inside out by using a laser to cut and engrave, instead of an extruder to, well, extrude.

Mezzanine 114