May, 2014

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Be Your First Customer: Why Beta Testing Is Right for You

YoungUpstarts

'by Sam Bahreini, co-founder and COO of VoloForce. It seems like almost all technology goes to market with a “beta” tag attached. Google is notorious for this, releasing many of its products in beta form — and sometimes even leaving them in that phase for years. After all, Gmail wasn’t taken out of beta until 2009 — five years after it was originally released.

Customer 231
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Crowd Funding Has Not Killed Angel Investing Yet

Startup Professionals Musings

'Entrepreneurs who require funding for their startup have long counted on self-accredited high net worth individuals (“angels”) to fill their needs, after friends and family, and before they qualify for institutional investments (“VCs”). New crowd funding platforms on the Internet, like Kickstarter and IndieGoGo , as well as the Jobs Act of 2012 , are expected by many to ramp up regular people’s ability to fund new opportunities and kill the need for angel groups.

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The Economics of a Small VC Fund

This is going to be BIG.

'Two years ago I started a fund. For the fund to be viable, it had to be at least $5 million, but somewhere in the neighborhood of $8-10 million would have been perfect. Thankfully, that''s what I raised--$8.3 million. So how does it work? How does one make money raising a venture fund of this size? Not easily, let me tell you. The benefit comes in the upside, and it''s very back end weighted.

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The rise of the female founder

Version One Ventures

'We’re all too familiar with the very real gender gap within the tech community. Women are underrepresented as engineers, management, investors, and founders. A commonly cited statistic is that only 7 percent of U.S. venture capital deals go to women founders and CEOs. Business Insider recently crunched the numbers behind 26 of the top venture capital funds in Silicon Valley and learned that the percentage of female-founded startups in their portfolios ranged from a high of 19% to a low of just

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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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Verified Data Will Prevent “Fake It Til You Make It”

Hunter Walker

'Besides having a great animated graphic, yesterday’s New York Times “ Faking Cultural Literacy ” OpEd got me thinking about the role of verified data. The column touches on the increasing proclivity (or even probability) that you develop and espouse an opinion without even experiencing the source data itself. “It’s never been so easy to pretend to know so much without actually knowing anything.

API 105
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5 Popular eCommerce Trends That Might Be Costing You Conversions

ConversionXL

'From image carousels to social media logins, trends spread like wildfire in the eCommerce industry. But, have you ever stopped to question the business implications of following these trends? ‘Everyone has that thing on their website,’ you think, “So it must be working!”. But that logic is flawed. Chances are, the sites you’re copying from are as clueless about the effectiveness of such trends as you are.

eCommerce 125

More Trending

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Improv and Innovation Do Mix

Gregg Fraley, Author of Jack's Notebook

'Improv and Innovation do mix — and it’s not funny. You don’t have to be funny for Improv training to be useful in innovation. There are two things holding back more business people from pushing the Improv training button: 1.) They believe that Improv is difficult and that you need to have a funny bone, and, 2.) They believe that while Improv might be a good soft skill there is no direct and near term benefit to innovation (or other corporate goals).

Harvest 124
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Founders. Run. Amok. It Starts With a Term Sheet.

This is going to be BIG.

'Last week, for just the second time ever, I passed on an investment opportunity because of the terms of the deal--both the price and the legal structure of the agreement. It was a company whose product I believed in and whose founder I liked, but a firm lobbed in a term sheet at a price 33% higher than what I had offered using a very light agreement meant for a much earlier stage company.

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The challenge facing Bitcoin start-ups

Version One Ventures

'There is not doubt that Bitcoin / the blockchain is a revolutionary technology. Once implemented, the blockchain might be able to disrupt many verticals that are built around managing the transfer of ownership by replacing a centralized approach with a decentralized (and hence usually more efficient) approach. While the blockchain can be applied to a range of verticals , from passports to wills, vacation rental keys and movie tickets, most of the start-up activity to date has focused on using B

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Five Mistakes New VCs Make (& How I Tried to Avoid Them)

Hunter Walker

'Now that our seed fund Homebrew has past its first anniversary , people often ask what has surprised me during my year as a VC, or what am I liking/disliking about my new profession. My answers are actually bland, largely because I had a pretty good handle on what the initial 12 months would bring and a great partner in Satya Patel. One question I did spend time on before we started Homebrew and throughout the year is “What mistakes do new VCs usually make and how could I avoid these comm

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7 Ways Entrepreneurs Can Use Video To Grow Their New Business

Duct Tape Marketing

'7 Ways Entrepreneurs Can Use Video To Grow Their New Business 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 is from Joe Forte – Enjoy! Congratulations! Your business plans are in place, perhaps you have sought out and won investors, and gotten a foothold in the market with your product.

Video 77
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Are You Losing Money by Staying Too Niche?

YoungUpstarts

'by Joshua Conran , senior partner at Deksia . Niche businesses almost always originate from an identifiable need in the marketplace. They recognize an underserved segment of the population — whether that’s expectant mothers, pet owners, or cheese lovers — then develop a product or service to meet the specific needs of that customer base. Marc Lore and Vinit Bharara did just that with Diapers.com.

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Entrepreneurship in New York: The Mismatch between Venture Capital and Academic R&D

ithacaVC

'I received this report yesterday: Entrepreneurship in New York ebook. It is worth reviewing if you are interested in entrepreneurship and VC in upstate NY. Good perspective though I am favorably biased towards activity that I see “up here” Our deal flow is strong and constantly growing. It is actually better than ever. I am including below the entire introductory email that came with the report.

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To My Wife, On Mother’s Day

Both Sides of the Table

'Mother’s Day. The one day a year where we recognize this all important figure in our lives who shapes our childhood providing unconditional love through our successes and failures with encouragement and support through our struggles. I’ve written about my own mom before and the role she played in shaping my life but of course you never quite appreciate the full contributions of Mom until you’re much older.

Mobile 323
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Three Things I Learned on Commencement Day

Steve Blank

'In the last five years I’ve been at Commencement Day at universities around the world – a few times to receive awards and three times as the commencement speaker. But attending both my daughters’ college graduations this year helped me to see how things look from the other side of the podium. ——-. First, college graduations fall in the category of “life cycle” events.

Agile 329
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8 Deadly Wastes That Every Entrepreneur Must Avoid

Startup Professionals Musings

'Every entrepreneur I know is short on resources, including time, money, and skills. The last thing they can afford is to waste any of these, but in my mentoring and coaching activities, I see it happening all too often. Waste in a startup is any activity that absorbs resources, but creates no value or competitive advantage in the eyes of customers.

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Trials and Tribulations of the New Uncover

Spencer Fry

'OMG is the best way to describe how I feel right now. I’m so relieved to have finally shipped the massive update to Uncover. It’s something that we began working on in July 2013, only to release it ten months later on April 30th, 2014. Anyone who works in product development will know that ten months is an eternity. This release pressed down on us like the heaviest of weights.

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5 Keys to Developing Personal Power Working on Emotional Intelligence Skills Can Open the Door to Achievement

YoungUpstarts

'By Lynda Chervil, author of “ Fool’s Return “ Personal power is a core leadership competency that everyone needs to develop before they can lead others. It has to do with being able to lead yourself. “Personal power is the ability to achieve what you want,” according to Frederick Mann, a successful entrepreneur and author of “ The Economic Rape of America “ “More than anything else, it is personal power that brings you success and happiness.

Developer 217
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Dear Internet: Let’s Demo The Slow Lane

Feld Thoughts

'Yesterday when we were having Comcast issues in downtown Boulder, I thought about how slow the Internet speed at my office was. For several hours, it was 0 Mbps down and 0 Mbps up (0/0) until I gave up and tethered my iPhone to my computer and used Verizon LTE for the rest of the afternoon. When I got home, Pandora had trouble starting up on my CenturyLink connection, which Speedtest showed was 2/0.5.

Internet 195
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Why I’m Now Long NPR

Both Sides of the Table

'Anyone who knows me well knows that I have a few brands & media properties that I truly love and for which I have huge loyalty. Virgin America. Uber. USAA. Jon Stewart. Fareed Zakaria. David Brooks. And NPR. NPR has been a part of my life for 25 years. As a news junkie and seeker of information, I’m that guy who always has his car tuned to KPCC everyday to get my daily dose of NPR.

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At times more is less and less is more. 2 minutes to see why

Steve Blank

'If you can’t see the video click here Filed under: Customer Development.

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The Correct Answers to 'How Will You Use My Money?'

Startup Professionals Musings

'Entrepreneurs looking for investor funding often fail to realize that all money comes with strings. For example, if you have watched the Shark Tank TV series, you probably noticed that the Sharks always ask the entrepreneurs for their intended “use of funds.” Those who respond with one of the wrong answers, such as “I want to pay myself a salary,” usually go home empty-handed.

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7 Steps To Making A Great Entrepreneur Impression

Gust

'Barack Obama meets Mark Zuckerberg, photo via Wikimedia. Entrepreneurs are all about firsts, and the most important is you making a great first impression – on investors, customers, new team members, and strategic partners. Poor first impressions can be avoided, but I’m amazed at the number of unnecessary mistakes I see at those critical first introductions, presentations, and meetings.

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Six Tips To Ace Your Video Conference From Anywhere

YoungUpstarts

'There was a time when you could not even dream of applying to an outstation job. Even though you were more than qualified for the job, there was no way you could leave your existing job to travel for a job interview. Times have changed though. Now with video conferencing, you can think about applying for a job anywhere in the country or the world without even moving from your home.

Video 216
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The Largest Startup Community In The World

Feld Thoughts

'As Boulder Startup Week 2014 comes to an end, I have been reflecting on the power of startup communities today. When I wrote Startup Communities: Building an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem in Your City , I made some assertions about how to build startup communities and what the impact of them would be on society. As I sit here at the end of a week pondering everything that is going on in the world around startup communities, I believe I have vastly underestimated their potential impact.

Community 172
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What Would Happen if you Built the Reverse of Amazon? It Might Look Something Like This …

Both Sides of the Table

'Amazon. It’s the company that evokes fear into more startups and venture capitalists looking to fund eCommerce businesses than any other potential competitor. Every pitch I’ve ever seen has led to the, “Would Amazon eventually do this? And could we then compete?” type questions. But what if you could do the reverse of Amazon?

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Framework Benchmarks Round 9

TechEmpower

'The latest round of our ongoing Framework Benchmarks project is now available! Round 9 updates several test implementations and introduces a new test environment using modern server hardware. Since the first round, we have known that the highest-performance frameworks and platforms have been network-limited by our gigabit Ethernet. For Round 9, Peak Hosting has provided a high-performance environment equipped with 10-gigabit Ethernet at one of their data centers.

Framework 546
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Don't Let These 7 Excuses Sink Your Startup

Startup Professionals Musings

'When I heard a friend and business mentor say, “Your startup won’t fail if you don’t quit,” I realized that every entrepreneur should adopt “never give up” as their mantra. Rather than quitting, there are always alternatives, like pivoting the business model or merging with new partners for support. Either could improve the statistic that most startups fail within the first five years.

Startup 275
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10 Ways To Kill A Growing Business With Bad Hires

Gust

'Image via Flickr by Hobvias Sudoneighm. Every startup with any traction quickly reaches a point where they need to hire employees to grow the business. Unfortunately, this always happens when pressures are the highest, and business processes are ill-defined. At this point you need superstars and versatile future executives, yet your in-house hiring processes and focus are at their weakest.

Hiring 170
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7 Tips To Secure Funding They Don’t Teach In Business School

YoungUpstarts

'by Asif Khan, CEO of Caremerge. Fundraising is arguably the most important issue for any entrepreneur. Without financial backing, even the most brilliant idea will never see the light of day. This is a daily fight for start-ups as they delicately balance cultivating their billion dollar idea while struggling to come up with the next hundred dollars to keep the lights on.

Security 200
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A guide to networking for those who hate networking

The Next Web

'Andrea Deets is the Lead Writer at Crew, an invite-only network connecting short-term software projects with handpicked developers and designers. This post originally appeared on the Crew blog. Once I was making oatmeal in the microwave in my dorm and two of my other flatmates came in… I never cooked food in that kitchen again. I’m an introvert and people scare the hell out of me.

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A Few Surprising Facts about the 2014 Lean Startup Call for Speakers

Startup Lessons Learned

'Post written by Sarah Milstein & Eric Ries, co-hosts for The Lean Startup Conference We’re seeking speakers we don’t already know for this year’s Lean Startup Conference , December 10 -11 in San Francisco. Our call for proposals is open now , and if you know already that you want to apply, jump to it (but read the directions first!). If you’ve never applied to speak at The Lean Startup Conference before—or never even considered it before—here are a few things to keep in mind, some of them s

Lean 167
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Beer and Startups: The Alcohol Culture of the Tech World

This is going to be BIG.

'I don''t drink. I mean, I consume liquid, but all of those liquids are non-alcoholic. I''m not Mormon. Nor am I an alcoholic. I have no real moral issue with reasonable amounts of drinking--and actually quite envy wine enthusiasts. It seems like a neat and interesting hobby. I just really don''t like the taste. Otherwise, I probably would drink wine.

Startup 166
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Do You Have To Be A Freak To Be A Good Entrepreneur?

Startup Professionals Musings

'Every culture and community puts pressure on its members to follow the norms. Even young people who start out wanting to be different are called “freaks,” and most are slowly bent back into the norm by the time they “grow up.” Maybe that’s why so many entrepreneurs struggle with building a disruptive new business, where breaks from the norm are the key to success.

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Customer Engagement Is Key To Branding Yourself

Gust

'The days are gone when a techie or a genius could build things in his garage and customers would find and buy the product, based purely on the “wow factor” of the technology. New technologies are everywhere today. People have seen so much that they are blasé, or actually fear pure technology. They want a personable brand, before they will consider the product.

Customer 166
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Doing Business With Other Businesses: Networking In The 21st Century

YoungUpstarts

'If you run a successful business, you probably spend plenty of time ensuring that your customers’ experiences are good ones, but that relationship — as vital as it is to your bottom line — is just one of many that are essential. From your suppliers and shippers to the local mom and pop business that keeps your HVAC working, operating a business requires doing business with a lot of different people and companies, and finding good, reliable people to keep your ship afloat still requires the art