Both Sides of the Table
SEPTEMBER 8, 2010
I’ve had a post in my head for months – maybe longer – about the role of a CEO. It originally appeared on TechCrunch as a guest post but just in case you missed it there. My primary role was “chief psychologist&# and as I’ve learned over the past few years the same has been true as a VC. Both are basically people businesses.
Steve Blank
SEPTEMBER 16, 2010
It took losing something important to understand the difference between a commodity and an opportunity. Along the way I also learned yet another way entrepreneurs see the world differently from their investors. Advisory Board. In the early days of Rocket Science I realized that we needed high-level advice on multiple fronts; technology, game development, video game distribution, etc.
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Startup Professionals Musings
SEPTEMBER 16, 2010
If you have a unique creation or invention, and you are not selling it around the world on the Internet, now is the time to start. The cost of entry has never been lower. Anyone can be an entrepreneur today, without a huge investment, bank loans, venture capitalists, or angels. In the early days (20 years ago), most new e-commerce sites cost a million dollars to set up.
ReadWriteStart
SEPTEMBER 3, 2010
If you're capable of seeing past the old stones of Paris and the picturesque rural villages, you'll realize that France is every bit as technologically advanced as any other Western country - more so in some areas. Not only does the country have a higher percentage of homes with high-speed Internet than the U.S. (plus it's faster and costs half as much ), it ranks first in the world for number of blogs per Internet user, and has a formidable market of Internet consumers who spent €5.5 billi
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
Genuine VC
SEPTEMBER 7, 2010
Most VCs drink beer, but how much do they realize that their industry is increasingly resembling that of the beer industry? Forgive me if I start a bit theoretical. The famed business strategist Michael Porter described a set of successful general strategies which firms employ to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage: differentiation strategy and cost leadership strategy for those firms with a broad market scope, and a segmentation strategy for those with a narrow market scope.
Occam's Razor
SEPTEMBER 20, 2010
Make love? Direct Traffic? Really? I am not kidding. Direct traffic contains visitors that proactively seek you out, everyone else you have to "beg" to show up on your site! Yet this question seems to bedevil a lot of people: What the heck is Direct Traffic? As if that was not sad enough, even people who do know what the definition of Direct traffic is rarely focus on it or work hard to tease out the opportunity that exists in Direct traffic.
Start Up Roar brings together the best content for start up professionals from the widest variety of industry thought leaders.
Feld Thoughts
SEPTEMBER 22, 2010
I think I’ll avoid all the “ are super angels colluding “, “ no they aren’t “, “ go fuck yourself and stop talking horseshit “, and “ guys, quit being narcissistic and do something productive &# blog chatter today and focus on something that came up yesterday. I was on a call when someone asked a straightforward question that had a binary answer (yes or no).
Startup Professionals Musings
SEPTEMBER 2, 2010
My introduction to startups really came when I first worked in IBM with Philip Donald Estridge back in 1981. Known as Don Estridge, he led development of the original IBM Personal Computer, and thus is known as "father of the IBM PC" He’s gone now, but I still remember him fondly. He and Bill Lowe somehow managed to convince then CEO Frank Cary to give them a dozen engineers, a small budget, and a few months, to set up a small skunk-works called Entry Level Systems in Boca Raton, Flori
ReadWriteStart
SEPTEMBER 15, 2010
Oftentimes, when you hear the arguments for "Why open source?", they are aimed at convincing companies to use open source software. But the other piece of the argument is, of course, an argument for why your company should build open source - why it should develop its technology in a community-driven, open sourced way. Along those lines, Peter Friese, head of mobile development at Itemis recently wrote an article arguing " Why Your Next App Should Be Open Sourced.".
crowdSPRING Blog
SEPTEMBER 22, 2010
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!
Life Beyond Code
SEPTEMBER 11, 2010
Without further ado, here they are in no particular order. Some types lend themselves to be popular within closed circles and others more broadly. 1. The Fun Type: You are always fun to be around. You transform any party with your humor, wit and just by being jovial. You are popular and people will miss you in a party. It is never the same. However, if that is the only reason you are popular, they will not miss you outside the party halls. 2.
Both Sides of the Table
SEPTEMBER 30, 2010
I was recently involved with a company (not as an investor) where an embarrassing mistake was made. One of the leaders took a sort of “heads will roll&# approach. It’s not my company so I basically stayed out but tried to encourage him to think differently about the “punishment.&# I didn’t stick around for the repercussions so I hope the process was balanced.
Growthink Blog
SEPTEMBER 7, 2010
For opportunities that Growthink is following now, click here. Believe it or not, the great residential real estate crash of the last few years will turn out, in the long run, to be VERY good for the U.S. and the global economy. Here's why: The Fixation on Housing Prices Has Been and Is Unhealthy: The word that comes to mind when reflecting upon the government subsidies (see mortgage interest deduction, first-time home buying credits, etc.) and media attention given to housing prices is distorte
Startup Professionals Musings
SEPTEMBER 7, 2010
Creating and building a business is not a one-man show. It requires a team effort, or at least the ability to build trust and confidence among key players, and effectively communicate with partners, team members, investors, vendors, and customers. These actions are the hallmark of an effective leader. Behind the actions are a set of principles and characteristics that entrepreneurial leaders, like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, seem to have in common.
ReadWriteStart
SEPTEMBER 1, 2010
Last week, we looked at one of the latest reports from the investment research firm CB Insights , tracking the top venture capital firms across the U.S. in terms of their deal activity. According to that report, over the past year the top 30 firms participated in 663 unique deals (almost a quarter of all deals) with amounting to almost $9 billion in investment.
crowdSPRING Blog
SEPTEMBER 29, 2010
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!
Entrepreneurs-Journey.com by Yaro Starak
SEPTEMBER 22, 2010
Press play to begin streaming the audio or right click the text link and choose save as or save link. Download the MP3 [ 49 Minutes - 71 MB ] I was speaking to Michael Fountain on a 30 minute coaching call, which he qualified for as a bonus because he purchased a product via my affiliate link recently, and he happened to mention his previous life as a software developer.
Both Sides of the Table
SEPTEMBER 23, 2010
OMG. This is super funny. I wrote the post below after work. I had to race to meet my wife for dinner & a movie (we have “date night&# once / week) and went to see Town (which was awesome). I figured I needed time to spell check and edit before publishing so I would hit publish when I got home. Wow! I returned to my house, flipped on my Mac and see AngelGate, The Sequel.
VC Cafe
SEPTEMBER 26, 2010
A fter years of talking with many of you in the Israeli startup industry, investors and entrepreneurs alike, I was invited to present some tips for entrepreneurs at the Launch48 conference in London this weekend. Launch48 is a new kind of micro-incubator taking place over the course of a weekend, which enables entrepreneurs to pitch their concept in one minute, in order to find team mates who are interested in pursuing the idea.
Startup Professionals Musings
SEPTEMBER 21, 2010
A couple of weeks ago I wrote about “ Ten of the Worst Reasons for Starting a Business ,” so naturally a reader challenged me to turn that around and talk about the right reasons for starting a business. That’s a fair challenge, and probably more productive than the negative approach for all the people out there who are budding entrepreneurs. In doing some research on this one, I found out that everyone has a favorite list of good reasons for starting a business, so mine really reflects more my
ReadWriteStart
SEPTEMBER 16, 2010
At today?'s roundtable, I started with a presentation on blue sky opportunities in cloud computing based on our Thought Leaders In Cloud Computing (TLCC) research. I took the audience through five cloud-based business ideas, discussed why they are relevant and pointed them to the sources I derived those ideas from. For you, readers, here they are: Sponsor. 1.
Altgate
SEPTEMBER 16, 2010
@altgate Startups, Venture Capital & Everything In Between Skip to content Home Furqan Nazeeri (fn@altgate.com) ← Switching Costs Startup Executive Compensation Scorecard → Outsourcing For Startups Posted on September 16, 2010 by fnazeeri A few weeks ago John Prendergast (founder/CEO of Blueleaf ) and I gave a presentation on outsourcing at the Boston Founder Institute.
Entrepreneurs-Journey.com by Yaro Starak
SEPTEMBER 7, 2010
This weekend I’m attending James Schramko’s seminar in Sydney. I’ll be there for a panel interview on late Saturday and hang around on Sunday as well. James is one of the best Internet marketers I know of when it comes to getting things done quickly. His stuff isn’t always the most polished in terms of presentation, but it’s quality content and unlike many people, he doesn’t let perfectionism stop him from getting to market.
Both Sides of the Table
SEPTEMBER 16, 2010
This is the fourth article in a series on what it takes to be a great angel investor (and why this should matter to entrepreneurs). Part 1 – Access to Great Deal Flow – is here. The first three skills I espoused were: access to the highest-quality deal-flow, domain knowledge of the topic area in which you’re investing and access to VCs to help fund the next stages of development.
Software By Rob
SEPTEMBER 16, 2010
Software by Rob Passionate about Startups and MicroISVs Lessons Learned by a Serial Entrepreneur home about press micropreneurs archives ← Guest Post on A Smart Bear: Virtual Assistants and Outsourcing Ten Things I Will Never Have to Do Again → Lesser Known Traits of Successful Founders Micropreneurship , Startups If youre trying grow your startup youve come to the right place.
Startup Professionals Musings
SEPTEMBER 23, 2010
Every new startup I know dreams of being funded by an angel investor. Yet according to the latest data from AngelSoft , only about 3 out of 100 companies who initiate the formal request process actually get funded. The AngelSoft Deal Funnel from the last 12 months indicates is that 70% of the interested companies never make it past the initial screening process.
ReadWriteStart
SEPTEMBER 10, 2010
I have been meaning to get to discussing blue-sky opportunities at the roundtables, and this week we did some of that. During this week's roundtable we discussed an area that deserves a serious look from entrepreneurs: Rural BPO. Whether it is in the emerging markets or in the U.S., it is my sincere belief that there are numerous entrepreneurial opportunities to be tapped into.
deal architect
SEPTEMBER 3, 2010
I find myself in Toronto every few years and my image of the city has been one of a financial services capital, a baseball town, and a well-run large city – someone called it “New York run by the Swiss”.
Steve Blank
SEPTEMBER 13, 2010
I had coffee with an ex student earlier in the week that reminded me yet again why startups burn through so many early VP’s. And after 30 years of Venture investing we still have a hard time articulating why. Here’s one possible explanation – Job titles in a startup mean something different than titles in a large company. You Can’t Always Get What You Want.
Both Sides of the Table
SEPTEMBER 27, 2010
What do you get when you combine 7 panelist plus one moderator on to a stage for 30 minutes to talk about a serious topic? Answer: Not much. And that was evident on today’s Angel vs. VC panel. It’s a shame. There are real changes in the venture capital industry and it would have been fun to talk about them. I said almost nothing in the 30 minutes.
A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks
SEPTEMBER 27, 2010
It's time for me to nut up or shut up. I need to put my money where my mouth is. We're going to separate the men from the boys. I'm going to whip out the dick, slap it on the table, and get out a ruler. Did I miss any other clichés? I've been lecturing you about how to build honest, successful little bootstrapped startups for a few years now, and you've been patient, attentive, and in those spunky moments which I very much appreciate, vehemently argumentative.
Startup Professionals Musings
SEPTEMBER 9, 2010
It is no secret that the world of venture capital (VCs) has been turned upside down by the recession, and the many other changes in the marketplace. I see now emerging a new wave of investors, popularly known as “super angels,” micro-VCs, or “super-seed” investors. Every early-stage startup should explore this new funding alternative. Business Week ran a more thorough analysis of this movement a while back, which I am summarizing here.
ReadWriteStart
SEPTEMBER 23, 2010
At today's roundtable, we had three niche e-commerce entrepreneurs and two e-commerce infrastructure entrepreneurs. I will describe their businesses briefly, below. You can vote on which one you like most by clicking on our Facebook page. If you missed the session, please listen to the recording before voting. Sponsor. GrillGrate. First up was Brad Barrett presenting GrillGrate , a grill accessory with which Brad has built a year-to-date revenue of $400,000.
deal architect
SEPTEMBER 26, 2010
Gartner made a name starting in the mid-90s forecasting the estimated cumulative cost of Y2K remediation. I was there – and the big numbers it bandied about helped focus enterprises on the core problem. But it also led to hype, Tags: Industry Commentary.
Steve Blank
SEPTEMBER 20, 2010
One of the ironies of being a startup is that when you are small no one can put you out of business but you. Paradoxically, as your revenues and market share increase the risk of competitors damaging your company increases. Often the cause is the inability to grow the startup past the worldview of its founders. We’re Getting Our Butts Kicked. One of my ex-engineering students helped start a six-year old company headquartered in Los Angeles that sells to government agencies.
Both Sides of the Table
SEPTEMBER 14, 2010
Executive Summary. I believe the rise in angel investing is here to stay and the professionalization of this class (aka “super angels&# or “micro VC&# ) is a good thing for the VC industry and for entrepreneurs. It is basically a return to the type of VC that was done 20 years ago long before the craziness of the Internet boom that skewed things so greatly.
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