January, 2015

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Be Honest About Whether Your Product Really Makes a Difference

Both Sides of the Table

'Startups in a world of massive markets can be confusing. The law of large numbers, platforms that can make your company blow up unexpectedly and the trendy nature of tech markets can be deceiving. Success for many is ephemeral. I have written about the deceiving nature of early successes before – in particular in the SaaS or B2B world leading to a phenomenon called “shelfware.” If you didn’t read it I recommend it.

Product 256
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Startup Founders Face Serious Business Culture Myths

Startup Professionals Musings

'New entrepreneurs tend to focus only on getting the product right, and assume that the right culture and ethics will come later simply by hiring good people. In fact, they need an early focus on developing their moral compass, as well as setting the right ethical tone. Building an ethical business is more than just compliance and meeting legal requirements, and it has big paybacks.

Founder 205
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It’s About Women Running Startups

Steve Blank

'Just before the holidays I had coffee with Anne, an ex MBA student running a fairly large product group at a search engine company, now out trying to raise money for her own startup. She had an interesting insight: existing content/media companies were having the same problem as hardware companies that rarely made the leap to new platforms. And she had a model for a new media company for mobile and wearables.

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Consistent Revenue Growth At Core Of Google’s Mobile Advertising Strategy: TBR

YoungUpstarts

'by Jack Narcotta, Devices Analyst at Technology Business Research. Google is focused on expanding its already broad reach into the advertising market by increasing the span and coverage of its digital and mobile platforms, and the company’s 4Q14 results highlight how the company’s efforts to buttress its core services is paying off: Google’s revenue and gross profit climbed 15.3% and 18.3% year-to-year, respectively, as the company remains the gold standard for digital and search advertising.

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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 Does A Small Company Make A Big Company Successful?

Feld Thoughts

'tl;dr: As a small company, focus on two things with big companies: “1. What can we, the small company do, to make the big company successful? 2. What can I do, as a leader of a small company, do to help the people I’m working with at the big company be successful within the big company?” I was on the phone yesterday with the head of corp dev for a very large tech company.

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New Web Developers Debut at Codeup’s Demo Day

SiliconHills

'By LAURA LOREK Reporter with Silicon Hills News For three months Josee Farmer drove daily from North Austin to San Antonio to learn how to become a web developer at Codeup. “It was totally worth it,” Farmer said. She recently relocated from North Carolina to Texas and she wanted to get into the technology industry. […] The post New Web Developers Debut at Codeup’s Demo Day appeared first on SiliconHills.

More Trending

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How Smart Startups Survive Investor Due Diligence

Startup Professionals Musings

'For the elite startups and entrepreneurs who manage to attract the investor they dream of, and survive the term sheet negotiation, there is still one more hurdle before the money is in the bank. This is the mysterious and dreaded due diligence process, which can kill the whole deal. In reality, it is nothing more than a final integrity check on all aspects of the business and the team.

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SWOT Analysis Challenge Day 1: How to Identify Your Strengths

Up and Running

'Welcome to Day 1 of our 5 Day SWOT Analysis Challenge! Sign up for our daily updates during the challenge and complete your own SWOT Analysis. Click here to join the challenge for FREE. Invite others to take the challenge! Share this article on Facebook or Twitter and use the #SWOT hashtag. As an entrepreneur, you want to know your business inside and out so you can make informed, money-making decisions.

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iPhone 6 Fuels Record Growth For Apple: TBR

YoungUpstarts

'by Jack Narcotta, Devices Analyst at Technology Business Research. With the release of each new version of the iPhone, Apple’s grip on the most lucrative segments of the mobile device market becomes even stronger, and with the success of the iPhone 6 during Apple’s calendar 4Q14 it is clear that Apple’s dominance of the premium smartphone market is uncontested.

China 138
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In Santa Fe We Wish We Had The Boulder Problems!

Feld Thoughts

'There has been a lot of recent noise in Boulder about growth, challenges, and the impact of the tech community on the city. I stirred the pot a little more with my post The Endless Struggle That Boulder Has With Itself. It generated some private emails, including non-constructive troll-like ones such as “Get the f**k out of town, you and people like you are ruining everything” at one end of the extreme to “It’s so frustrating that the all growth is bad crowd is framing

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MVPs and Excellence

Startup Lessons Learned

'Lately, I’ve been hearing from a lot of entrepreneurs experiencing pushback to the concept of minimum viable product. Their teams may disagree about what a product should look like, who the customer is, and which distributors to work with, but one thing they can all agree upon is: “We build high-quality products in this company. We wouldn’t even know how to go about building something ‘minimally viable.

Stealth 131
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ReturnShip Program

OnlyOnce

'ReturnShip Program. Today is a very exciting day for Return Path as we launch a new program we have been cooking for more than a year called the ReturnShip program. (Sometimes the name of our company comes in handy.). Return Path has always had a significant commitment to building a strong and diverse organization as well as supporting and encouraging women to pursue careers in technical environments.

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Non-Disclosures Can Protect Your Idea, Or Destroy It

Startup Professionals Musings

'Most entrepreneurs I meet are reluctant to disclose anything about their idea to investors before getting a signed confidential disclosure agreement (CDA). Professional investors and advisors, on the other hand, usually refuse to sign these agreements today due to the risk of litigation and administrative workload, and will walk away. How can you make this a win-win opportunity?

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The Biggest Business Fails of 2014 and How to Avoid Them

Up and Running

'Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, image via winbeta.org. Every year, a few businesses make bad decisions or mistakes publicly. Sometimes they recover quickly and no one notices. Other times, the blunders are nothing short of newsworthy. We’ve gathered up some of the worst fails of 2014 and included some helpful tips on how to avoid them yourself. Walmart asks its employees to purchase their own uniforms.

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Microsoft’s Cloud-First, Mobile-First Bets To Start Paying Off: TBR

YoungUpstarts

'by Jack Narcotta, Devices Analyst at Technology Business Research. The substantial changes to Microsoft’s culture, business models and organizational structure since Satya Nadella was appointed CEO in February 2014 have enabled to company to put strategies influenced by Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer behind them, which TBR believes has helped Microsoft capitalize on a broader range of opportunities in cloud and software markets.

Cloud 136
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Customer Success Summit 15 is coming this march

Guy Nirpaz

'The idea behind the first Customer Success Summit came as a result of many conversation with new customers who’ve asked us to connect with their peer group. As Customer Success is relatively new and there is not a lot of known best practices, customer success practitioners wanted to exchange notes with one another. The first Customer Success Summit took place on March 2013 at the financial district in San Francisco.

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6 Key Tactics Agencies Use to Help Local Businesses Rank Higher in Google

Duct Tape Marketing

'6 Key Tactics Agencies Use to Help Local Businesses Rank Higher in Google written by Guest Post read more at Small Business Marketing Blog from Duct Tape Marketing. It’s guest post day here at Duct Tape Marketing, and today’s guest post is from Dan Olson – Enjoy! photos credit: Business strategy with seo concept © Ximagination | Dreamstime.com. Small businesses today, more than ever, rely on agencies to help with organic search and local results to drive business in their local markets.

SEO 57
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Not Everyone Is “Killing” It: How & When to Admit It

Agile VC

Note: This post also published at NextView’s blog for seed stage companies The View From Seed. The startup ecosystem is often full of hyperbole, which is perfectly understandable when you think about it. A population of founders, employees, investors, advisors, and others all aligned in trying to build large disruptive businesses is naturally prone to lofty, even over-the-top language.

Cofounder 188
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10 Ways To Make Your Investor Pitch More Effective

Startup Professionals Musings

'The average length of a funding pitch to Angel investors is ten minutes. Even if you have booked an hour with a VC, you should plan to talk only for the first fifteen minutes. The biggest complaint I hear from investors is that startup founders often talk way too long, and neglect to cover the most relevant points. Or they get sidetracked by a technical glitch due to poor preparation.

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The Business Insider Mark Hurd interview

deal architect

'Maybe it is the Marshawn Lynch effect – most everyone is squirming this week as the NFL forces him to make mandatory media appearances in the run up to the Super Bowl. But I felt bad for Mark Hurd of.

Media 174
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Eight Qualities Your Kids Need To Master To Get Ahead In A Tech-Driven World

YoungUpstarts

'by Edward D. Hess, author of “ Learn or Die: Using Science to Build a Leading-Edge Learning Organization “. Go to school, study, get good grades. Traditionally, this strategy has prepared children to become successful adults. But thanks to rapidly advancing technology, an increasingly connected world, and the evolving global marketplace, students will need to develop a lot more than “just” book smarts to compete for tomorrow’s jobs.

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How to Build Online Relationships into Meaningful Networks

Both Sides of the Table

'I was waiting for my son’s basketball game to start this morning and with the morning’s emails all drained I turned to Twitter and saw this Tweet from Marshall Kirkpatick. Test: open your twitter stream, look at the 1st item in it, think of something to say in response, say it. Theory: it’s really that simple. — Marshall Kirkpatrick (@marshallk) January 24, 2015.

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An ongoing discussion on linkedin about Offshore Web Development and building a team in Europe.

Scalable Startup

'This discussion began last week and has fostered some great comments and resources… Offshore resources/Europe company for U.S. web development projects. Tom Nora Startup Whisperer, Web Market Development. I’m a startup growth consultant who started a digital marketing + web development agency due to such high demand from my startup clients.

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What Customers Want

Duct Tape Marketing

'What Customers Want written by Guest Post read more at Small Business Marketing Blog from Duct Tape Marketing. It’s guest post day here at Duct Tape Marketing, and today’s guest post is from Mark Kirkpatrick – Enjoy! photo credit: shutterstock. The only consistent in the wants and needs of internet users is change. This has less to do with finicky temperaments and more to do with the change of the infrastructure of the internet itself.

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Startups Without Business Plans Are Expensive Hobbies

Startup Professionals Musings

'If you sold your last startup for $800 million, you probably already know how to build a business, and even conservative investors won’t worry about the quality of your next business plan. But, for the rest of us, don’t believe the Silicon Valley myth that all you have to do is sketch your million-dollar idea on the back of a napkin, and investors will line up to give you money.

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ERP Excitement

deal architect

'In the last couple of weeks, in very different settings I have seen the future of ERP. Invited to be part of UNIT4/FinancialForce’s sales kickoff in Madrid, Spain and that of Plex Systems in Troy, MI, I saw wildly enthusiastic.

Spain 288
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Answers to 10 Critical Questions for Seed-Stage Startups [SlideShare]

View from Seed

'In the last six months, we’ve been asked and answered several key questions about seed-stage startups and raising seed capital. When we first launched this blog, we considered it a “physical” representation of our mission at NextView: Help founders give their companies the best possible start. All we do is seed — we focus on it, we want to be the best seed partner, and we obsess over helping startups through that first, formative 18-24 month period.

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The Most Misunderstood Facts About Building a Business on YouTube

Both Sides of the Table

'Any reader of this blog for a period of time will know that I’ve been long YouTube for years. Along with Greycroft, I was the first institutional investor in Maker Studios (sold to Disney for nearly $1 billion) and am still the largest investor in Mitu Network , the largest online video producer of Latino content. We have made 5 online video investments in total – some we will talk about later this year.

SEM 288
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Fermi estimation for startup business models

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

'Early in a company’s life, you don’t know anything. Often your best estimate of any metric or market behavior or business model component is at best accurate within a power of ten, for example “expected conversion rate between 0.5% and 5%” or “cost to acquire a customer between $50 and $500″ or “average monthly revenue per customer between $20 and $200.” Estimating with these extremely wide ranges can be surprisingly useful.

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Ruby On Rails Experts Can Accelerate The Programming Process For First Movers

YoungUpstarts

'Discovering a niche market is the first step to getting that coveted first mover advantage , but today’s technology makes it very easy for other companies (especially well-funded ones) to quickly move in on your idea. Ruby on Rails experts work quickly and efficiently to help you carve out a loyal following before the competition strikes, and stay ahead of the game by helping you implement new innovations in web services and applications.

Ruby 126
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How Introverts Like Mark Zuckerberg Build A Startup

Startup Professionals Musings

'You can’t win as an entrepreneur working alone. You need to have business relationships with team members, investors, customers, and a myriad of other support people. That doesn’t mean you have to be a social butterfly to succeed, or introverts need not apply. It does mean that you need to look, listen, and participate in the business world around you, and network through all available channels, like business-oriented social networks online (LinkedIn), local business organizations (Chamber of C

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The SAP Fort Knox

deal architect

'Andrew Nusca at Fortune interviews Bill McDermott, CEO of SAP here. What’s striking is Bill talks incessantly about the “new SAP” : HANA, Ariba, Concur, SuccessFactors, Hybris, Fieldglass, Sybase. The stuff is not exactly new – most of the products.

Software 233
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Not Every Startup Is “Killing It” (How to Speak Up During Tough Times)

View from Seed

'The startup ecosystem is often full of hyperbole, which is perfectly understandable when you think about it. A population of founders, employees, investors, advisors, and others all aligned in trying to build large disruptive businesses is naturally prone to lofty, even over-the-top language. But the reality of tech entrepreneurship is that not everyone is “killing it,” and certainly not all of the time.

Startup 263
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It’s Time To Supercharge Your Business!

Rembrandt Communications

'Sales slow? Bored? Want a change? Read on… If you own a business, you are probably wearing numerous hats and running around like a crazy person to meet all of your responsibilities and deadlines. This year is brand new… are you already exhausted? How are sales going? If any of this sounds familiar, you are […]. The post It’s Time To Supercharge Your Business!

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Not Everyone Is “Killing” It: How & When to Admit It

Agile VC

'Note: This post also published at NextView’s blog for seed stage companies The View From Seed. The startup ecosystem is often full of hyperbole, which is perfectly understandable when you think about it. A population of founders, employees, investors, advisors, and others all aligned in trying to build large disruptive businesses is naturally prone to lofty, even over-the-top language.

Cofounder 219
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How To Improve Internal Communications In Your Business

YoungUpstarts

'by Ian Cowley, managing director of www.cartridgesave.co.uk. As your company grows and your workforce increases, it is vital that you have a robust internal comms strategy in place. All your employees should feel they can speak with ease to members of their team, as well as their senior managers. Miscommunication at home or in social situations can easily lead to arguments; in the workplace the repercussions can be far more severe – unmotivated employees, unsure of what the future may hold and

Employee 153