August, 2012

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Is Silicon Valley Really Coming to an End?

Both Sides of the Table

By now you probably know that David Sacks , co-founder of PayPal and founder of both Geni & Yammer made some observations on Facebook that Silicon Valley “as we know it” was coming to an end. He says. “In order to create a successful new company, you have to find an idea that. (1) has escaped the attention of the major Internet companies, which are better run than ever before; (2) is capable of being launched and proven out for ~$5M, the typical seed plus series A investmen

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Massacre at IBM

Steve Blank

Long before there was the Lean Startup, Business Model Canvas or Customer Development there was a guy in Santa Barbara California who had already figured it out. Frank Robinson of SyncDev has been helping companies figure out their minimum viable product and pivots since 1984, long before I even knew what it meant. They’ve done it for more than 400 companies ranging in size from 200 hundred starts-ups, one of whom was Citrus Systems that became Citrix, to IBM.

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The 20 Coolest CoWorking Spaces In The U.S.

YoungUpstarts

Coworking spaces are a really cool option for a lot of workers that, for whatever reason, don’t really fit in to a traditional office space like startups, telecommuters, small businesses, and especially creatives in search of collaboration. With free coffee and Internet, workspaces, and built-in community, coworking spaces provide a great place to get things done without feeling the isolation of working at home, or trying to overcome the frenetic nature of working in a coffee shop.

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10 Keys to Startup Traction That Investors Look For

Startup Professionals Musings

Every investor expects to see some business traction, both before and after a funding event. If you have been working 20 hours a day, and spent your last dollar, but have no results to show, investors will be sympathetic, but will probably tell you that your dream doesn’t have wheels. Traction means forward progress. I hear a lot of entrepreneurs contemplating their great “idea” for several years with little discernable progress, and looking for money to start.

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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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Does Your Startup Need A Technical Co-Founder?

ReadWriteStart

In today’s startup landscape, practically everything can be outsourced. But when it comes to core technical skills, more and more entrepreneurs are opting to partner with technical co-founders rather than hiring someone for an in-house position. So how do you decide what’s right for your new company? To find the best way to integrate core technical skills into a start up, we asked eight successful young entrepreneurs from the Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) whether startups need tech-oriented f

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Minimum Viable Team

This is going to be BIG.

You have a million things to get done at your startup, yet you only have a handful of people to do them. How are you ever going to get it done? Who should you hire? What should be the makeup of a founding team? What is the Minimum Viable Team, if you will, for a startup? To make life simpler, I'll take a page from George Carlin, who masterfully widdled down the Ten Commandments down to two simple rules.

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More Trending

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IGNITE! pitch event at Microsoft – September 4

David Teten

I’ll be a judge for IGNITE!, a pitch event featuring ten early stage tech startups, Tuesday night , September 4 at Microsoft’s midtown office at 1290 Avenue of the Americas. RSVP. Presenting Companies. geekli.st. A place for geeks to share what they’ve done, who they did it with and connect with great companies and communities. Geeklist is a vibrant platform for geeks to discover, connect and share the great work they have done.

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50 Places You Can Learn to Code (for Free) Online

YoungUpstarts

If you’re curious about learning a programming language then you’re in luck: there’s no shortage of resources for learning how to code online. University-level courses, tutorials, cheat sheets, and coding communities all offer excellent ways to pick up a new language, and maybe even a new job, too. Read on, and you’ll discover 50 great places to learn how to code, for free, online.

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Will the Real Crowd Funding Model Please Stand Up?

Startup Professionals Musings

The new hot topic for entrepreneurs these days is crowd funding, which is anticipated to at least supplement, if not replace, the slow and mysterious process of current Angel and venture capital investors. The problem is that crowd funding means something different to everyone, and even I have been confused by the different ways the term gets used. So I have set out here to outline and offer some practical advice on the many different models currently used with the term “crowd funding” and “crow

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Sprint Like An Egyptian: A Tech Entrepreneurship Revolution in Alexandria

Gust

At the threshold of one of the most recognizable landmarks in human history — the sole survivor among the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World , dating back nearly five thousand years — my host was engaged in heated debate with a rotating phalanx of functionaries. As our group sweltered in the July heat on the outskirts of Cairo , each of these purported minions of the state — none of whom wore a uniform or badge — in turn blocked our entry, determined to exercise the modest amount of authority b

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The Last Coder

This is going to be BIG.

If anything has held true about the progress of technology over the last 150 years, it is that one generation's bread and butter tasks become automated and the skill level requirement for participating successfully in the workforce is forced up. We've seen disruption by machines among all sorts of human labor, particularly in the area of "making stuff".

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How Much Information Should you Give VCs for Due Diligence?

Both Sides of the Table

This is a hot topic I’ve been asked a lot about recently. You’re on a first date with a VC – how much should you tell them? You’re heading into a full partner meeting and you’ve been asked for a full data pack before – should you give it? When is it appropriate for a VC to call your customers? There is no universal answer and my discussions with various VCs on these topics have yielded many differing opinions.

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What’s the Hardest Thing You Ever Had To Do? Startup Founders Share Their Darkest Moments

ReadWriteStart

The ends justify the means, according to Machiavelli in The Prince back in the early 16th Century. The concept is hardly to news to countless startup founders who find themselves facing intense pressuresto survive and grow their companies in extraordinarily challenging conditions. Hopefully, the struggles and compromises are worth it in the end. We asked a panel of eight successful young entrepreneurs from the Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) to reveal the hardest, most wrenching thing they’ve h

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10 College Business Incubators We’re Most Excited About

YoungUpstarts

College campuses are ripe with innovation, as students grow through education and experimentation in school. To help foster this innovation, many colleges and universities have opened business incubators, helping students and others in their community to help make their innovative dreams a reality. Whether they’re offering tricked-out labs or incredible funding opportunities, these incubators offer a great opportunity for students who are smart (and lucky!

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The 22 Unexpected Places Where You Can Find Great Employees

Mike Michalowicz

The Watering Hole Is Putrid. Have you had bad results when using job boards to find top talent? It isn’t that the job listing sites are bad, its just that employer and their mother uses those systems to find employees. In other words, the job board watering hole is saturated, and the select few great employees get picked up before you even get a chance to print out their resume.

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Freemium is alive and kicking

David Cohen

I was recently interviewed for a WSJ article that was exploring the trends associated with the popularity (or lack thereof) of the freemium model called “ When Freemium Fails.” In researching my answers for the WSJ reporter, I dug up some data on TechStars companies over the last several years that use the freemium model. Here’s the data: 2007: 10%. 2008: 30%. 2009: 42%. 2010: 20%. 2011: 12%. 2012: 21%.

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Why A/B testing is essential to your startup’s campaigns

The Next Web

If you’ve read any of my previous marketing focused articles, you might notice a common, underlying theme : If you’re not measuring, you’re not marketing. In my professional life, this is a credo I live by. Companies live and die by how agile they are and how they’re meeting the demands of their customers. But the age old question is: “How do I know what customers want?

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Should You Really Sit on Other Boards When You’re a Startup Founder?

Both Sides of the Table

I recently read Brad Feld’s thought provoking piece encouraging founders to sit on the board of another startup company. I found it thought provoking because I’ve always believed startup founders need extreme focus on only their company to succeed. We live in an era where the press espouses the entrepreneurs who have five startups. I’m not one who has subscribed to the “superman founder” narrative.

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Twitter Link Roundup #142 – Small Business, Social Media, Design, Copywriting, 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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Seven Ways Leaders Can Unearth (And Neutralize) The Fear That Lurks Behind The Blame Game

YoungUpstarts

by Mike Staver, author of “ Leadership Isn’t For Cowards: How to Drive Performance by Challenging People and Confronting Problems ”. When you arrive at the office each morning, you find yourself in a blame-free zone. Your team attacks projects proactively and with confidence. When a problem arises, everyone involved “owns it” and takes corrective action.

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The Top Crowdfunding Sites for Business Owners

Growthink Blog

Crowdfunding, or raising money from the Internet "crowd" has really taken off. Just a couple years ago there were only hundreds of companies who had raised Crowdfunding. Today we are in the tens of thousands. Below is a brief overview of the many Crowdfunding platforms to consider. The Largest Crowdfunding Sites: Kickstarter.com is the largest site for funding projects, mostly creative projects.

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The Sprint: A Productivity Technique From Software Development Every Entrepreneur Should Know

Entrepreneurs-Journey.com by Yaro Starak

I recently had a meeting with my CrankyAds team and a friend named Andy who I had not seen in many years. Andy left a software company he founded over ten years ago. He’s one of those guys who can do everything.

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Revolution at the Edge

Ben's Blog

This is a guest post by Christian Gheorghe, founder and CEO of Tidemark. It’s a start, a work of art. To revolutionize make a change nothing’s strange. People, people we are the same. No we’re not the same. Cause we don’t know the game. What we need is awareness, we can’t get careless. You say what is this? —Public Enemy, Fight The Power.

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VC Evolution: Physician, Scale Thyself.

500hats.com

TL:DR : This post aims to recap significant changes in the venture capital industry over the past ten years, and then make some [biased] predictions as to major forces at play in the next five years. In particular, I hope to highlight some less obvious [r]evolutionary shifts that people outside the industry may overlook. This is a long piece, so if you’re not a fan of inside baseball, skip it.

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What is convertible equity (or a convertible security)?

Startup Company Lawyer

Quick answer: convertible equity (or a convertible security) is convertible debt without the repayment feature at maturity or interest. Background. Over the past few years, convertible debt has emerged as a quick and inexpensive method for startup companies to raise money from angel investors and early stage venture funds. Paul Graham sparked some commentary by declaring in a tweet in August 2010 that “Convertible notes have won.

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Priced To Sell: 10 Tips For Finding The Right Price For Your Goods

YoungUpstarts

by Chip Averwater, author of “ Retail Truths ”. There’s no denying how much the Internet has empowered today’s consumers. They can find what they want for the price they want without ever leaving their couches. And today, many of them are entering brick-and-mortar stores wielding another powerful weapon — their smartphones. Now consumers can compare a product’s price while they’re in a store to what it’s going for at other brick-and-mortar and online stores before they even step out of the aisle

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Why Public Speaking is Easy & Gets You More Customers

Growthink Blog

Speaking at events is a great way to generate quality leads and expand your business. The truth is, you don't have to be a great orator or the next Tony Robbins, so long as you know what you're talking about (which you will), come across as credible, and most of all, interest the audience. Below are some tips to help you find and speak at events to generate new business.

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The Real Deal: Charles Phillips on The End of Monolithic ERP

deal architect

This continues a series of columns from practitioners I respect. The category "Real Deal" describes them well. This time it is Charles Phillips, the CEO of Infor. I have had the honor of knowing Charles for 2 decades in his.

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Is Media Manipulation the New Media Relations

Duct Tape Marketing

Join me for a Google+ Hangout live streaming to YouTube at 1:30pm ET today for: Media Manipulation – fact or fiction – a frank conversation with Ryan Holiday (@ryanholiday), author of Trust Me I’m Lying – Confessions of a Media Manipulator and Peter Shankman (@petershankman), VP, Small Business Evangelist at Vocus. You can tune in by going here at 1:30 ET – [link].

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Vision versus Hallucination – Founders and Pivots

Steve Blank

A founder’s skill is knowing how to recognize new patterns and to pivot on a dime. At times the pattern is noise, and the vision turns out to be a hallucination. Knowing how to sort between vision and hallucination can avoid chaos inside your startup. ——— Yuri, one of my ex students started a big-data analytics company last year. He turned his PhD thesis into a killer product, got it funded and now was CEO of a company of 30.

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Rethinking Board Observers – The Role of the “Silent Observer”

Both Sides of the Table

It has always surprised me that founders were so quick to fight over how many board members there were and so quick to agree to have as many board observers as people wanted. I have always been vehemently against board observers and wrote some of the reasons in this previous post. But over the past couple of years I’ve slightly modified my views, which I’d like to explain: The Case Against Board Observers.

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10 Personal Productivity Mantras For Entrepreneurs

Startup Professionals Musings

Every startup founder feels the pressure of the thousands of things that need to get done, all seemingly at the same time. There is just not enough time! The real solution is better productivity and less procrastination, to put you back in control of your business. You need to spend time on important things, as well as the urgent. Many entrepreneurs waste too much time on low-priority administrative tasks, procrastinating on higher priority but tougher tasks, resulting in last minute crises, and

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Advisors aren’t pokemon (but they are magical)

The Startup Toolkit

Advisors aren’t pokemon. You don’t need to collect the full set (tech, industry, product, customer, etc). Instead, focus on the problems your company has. Sometimes advisors are a quick and cheap way to overcome. Situations where advisors can add huge value. If the founding team is non-technical and you can’t figure out whether you are being screwed by your developers or whether your potential new CTO is amazing, a tech advisor can help by joining you in interviews and revie

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[Infographic] [Singapore] The Nine New Faces Of The Singapore Consumer

YoungUpstarts

Singapore’s average household income has risen to S$2,925 per month in 2011, according to global services information company Experian. The Experian Mosaic Singapore , an index that looks at the Singapore consumer, was recently updated with over 200 new data points from sources including SingPost postcodes, Census 2010 data, property and market research data and shows that average monthly household income has risen some 25 percent from 2007.

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How to Onboard a New Customer With Seriously Profitable Flair

Duct Tape Marketing

One of the best marketing investments a company can make is to spend time and resources on bringing a new customer on in a way that exceeds anything like what they’ve experienced in the past. This is where sale number two comes from and this is how a profitable referral relationship blossoms. photo credit: kenteegardin via photo pin cc. Far too many organizations spend all of their efforts on landing the new client and then immediately move on leaving the customer experience to chance or to Bob

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When Microsoft Threatened to Sue Us Over the Letter “E”

Steve Blank

By 1997 E.piphany was a fast growing startup with customers, revenue and something approaching a repeatable business model. Somewhere that year we decided to professionalize our logo (you should have seen the first one.) With a massive leap of creativity we decided that it should it should have our company name and the letter “E” with a swoop over it. 1997 was also that year that Microsoft was in the middle of the browser wars with Netscape.

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