YoungUpstarts
FEBRUARY 6, 2012
Bunker is a project management and online billing service built by small web application developer Focus Centric that is positioned for use by freelancers and small businesses. Originally built by software developer Alexandre Deschamps , Bunker was acquired by Focus Centric – run by French Canadian Dominic St Pierre – who built further functionality into the product.
Startup Professionals Musings
FEBRUARY 4, 2012
After you have successfully attracted angels or venture capital with your business case, your million dollar product idea, and you have a signed term sheet, there is still one more hurdle to overcome before investors write the check. This is the dreaded “due diligence” process. For no good reason, this process seems shrouded in mystery, when in fact it is nothing more than a final integrity check on all aspects of your business model, team, product, customers, and plan.
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crowdSPRING Blog
FEBRUARY 10, 2012
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!
The Equity Kicker
FEBRUARY 8, 2012
Fortieth in a series of weekly posts by myself and Nicholas Lovell of Gamesbrief which answer the fifty questions you should ask before raising venture capital. We expect the series to run for a year after which we will collate the posts into a book. You can find the rationale behind the series here , and the list of questions here. We welcome your comments on any and every aspect of what we are doing. —————————————.
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
YoungUpstarts
FEBRUARY 8, 2012
Email is dead. We’ve all heard that clarion call more than a few times. But here’s a startup that aims to help email avoid that fate, by transforming boring, static email as we know it. Founded in 2010, Cambridge, Massachusetts-based PowerInbox is an email technology company that hopes to do exactly that by enabling live, interactive email inside of most popular email services, such as Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo Mail and Outlook.
This is going to be BIG.
FEBRUARY 6, 2012
An amazing catch setting up a 4th quarter come from behind victory against a team we weren’t supposed to beat. Where have a seen this before? The Giants did it again, winning their fourth title in my lifetime. Now I know how Yankees fans feel—except that this year and in ‘07, these were teams that were counted out before they really got started.
Start Up Roar brings together the best content for start up professionals from the widest variety of industry thought leaders.
Steve Blank
FEBRUARY 9, 2012
While entrepreneurship is in the news fairly regularly, I seldom make news myself. Today, however there are two important updates for entrepreneurs everywhere. Let me be brief…. The “Startup Owner’s Manual” goes On Press Tuesday 2/14. Two years in the making and literally ten years in development, I’m proud to announce that my new book, The Startup Owners Manual , goes onto the printing press next Tuesday.
Startup Professionals Musings
FEBRUARY 5, 2012
If you are looking for an outside investor, you need to know how they see you. Different types of investors look for startups at different levels of maturity. If your startup is at the wrong stage for the investor you are approaching, fishing for money is a waste of time for both of you. For instance, if your company is only a few weeks old and you have zero customers and your product offering is still in design, don’t expect someone to hand over $10 million to fund your efforts.
A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks
FEBRUARY 7, 2012
I’m not a “big trends” thinker. Maybe that makes me short-sighted, maybe that makes me focussed on reality. How much should you care about “trends?” A lot of predictions are easy. In the next 10 years: There will be another “surprising” Black Swan financial market event. Mobile device usage will increase. “Old Media” will be consumed less.
deal architect
FEBRUARY 8, 2012
It was 1997. Gartner used to publish an annual poster which rated systems integrators/outsourcers by industries, by geographies, by technologies, and other competencies. It was a large wall hanger with many rows and columns, and many analysts, including me, had.
YoungUpstarts
FEBRUARY 7, 2012
Remember Startup Schwag , the online subscription service that sent you random technology startup related schwag – such as a T-shirt and die-cut stickers – every month? I was a subscriber, until it died back in 2010 after 32 months of operation. I was disconsolate. Until now. A similar service has just been announced – Startup Threads Monthly will deliver a limited edition “box of swag” – exclusive t-shirts, stickers, and other surprise merchandise from a different startu
Startup Professionals Musings
FEBRUARY 8, 2012
After the idea, it’s all about execution. I often hear from investors that a great idea is necessary, but not sufficient. The most important thing is a proven team, meaning one who has built a startup before, and has experience with the execution process in this domain. I’ve talked before about the best personality traits for a good entrepreneur, but I’ve never talked about the importance of process.
Feld Thoughts
FEBRUARY 4, 2012
I first heard the word “ grinfucker ” a decade or so ago from a close friend who was a former investment banker. He said, in response to a meeting we were in with a person who was very polite and charming “he’s such a grinfucker.” I loved the word and, as I found out later, it described the person perfectly. I had an encounter with someone on Friday that made me think to myself “that person is a grinfucker” and I vaguely remembered a post on the web from
deal architect
FEBRUARY 9, 2012
During the Super Bowl I saw a couple of tweets which lamented that few of the ads “called for action” on part of the customer. Probably part of the brand nurturing investment I thought. Sometime in the near future, in.
YoungUpstarts
FEBRUARY 9, 2012
by Jessica Sanders. Whether you’re worrying about finances, talking to potential clients or having nightmares about getting up and running, starting a business can be difficult and stressful. When it becomes too much, it can be easy to forget your goals and original intention of creating your dream business. When that happens, you can veer off course, destroying all the work you’ve completed up until that point.
Startup Professionals Musings
FEBRUARY 6, 2012
Every investor is looking for the “dream team” of executives to put his money on. Often I find that experienced investors flip to the management page of a business plan, even before they read the product description. That’s how important the people are. What are investors looking for in the CEO and the rest of the top executives? Been there, done that, and won.
Feld Thoughts
FEBRUARY 10, 2012
In December I wrote a post titled It’s Not About Having The Most Friends, It’s About Having The Best Friends. Since then I’ve been systematically modifying my social networking behavior and cleaning up my various social graphs. As a significant content generator in a variety of forms (blogs, books, tweets, videos) and a massive content consumer, I found that my historical approach of social network promiscuity wasn’t working well for me in terms of surfacing information.
deal architect
FEBRUARY 9, 2012
It is so predictable. The media flurry around an M&A announcement, the celebratory mood at the acquired company, the speculation around the acquirer’s quarter, the giddy talk about conquering the world, the rumors around “who-next” and “roll-ups”, the debates around.
YoungUpstarts
FEBRUARY 8, 2012
by Dan Adams, author of “ New Product Blueprinting: The Handbook for B2B Organic Growth “ Maximize shareholder value. If you’ve heard it once, you’ve heard it a thousand times. It’s the pledge of allegiance recited in boardrooms around the world, the North Star used to guide the decisions of the business masses. But I want you to consider a controversial notion: What if that pledge is just a collection of meaningless words?
Startup Professionals Musings
FEBRUARY 7, 2012
Too many entrepreneurs develop a new product without regard to market demand, then build an entire strategy based on creating a need, rather than acting on an existing market need. Investors characterize this approach as a “solution looking for a problem.” These don’t get funded. The best startups find a way to drive the market with their technology, rather than push their new technology-driven ‘solution’ on the marketplace.
David Teten
FEBRUARY 7, 2012
Before making the decision to join ff Venture Capital , I did some research on early-stage tech investing as an asset class and how it’s evolving. What was striking was what an attractive asset class it was. Although any given early-stage company is quite risky, when aggregated across a large portfolio, returns are very attractive. There is low exposure to many risks that investors inherently have in most of their other investments, e.g., interest rate volatility, exchange rates, macro factors s
deal architect
FEBRUARY 6, 2012
That has to be one of the best Super Bowls I have watched. I was neutral so could watch the game dispassionately. The game was close all the way – a couple of caught or dropped balls made the difference.
YoungUpstarts
FEBRUARY 10, 2012
A customer survey conducted by B2B daily deals service RapidBuyr ( www.RapidBuyr.com ) has found that mobile technologies and travel deals top the list of purchases that small business owners plan to make in the coming year. Conducted by RapidBuyr in November and December last year with over 2000 respondents, the survey revealed that: Technology. 1.
Startup Professionals Musings
FEBRUARY 10, 2012
One of the most important questions you will be asked by potential investors is how your solutions beats the competition, not just today, but over the three to five year life of their investment. There is no perfect answer to this question, but there are many wrong answers which will immediately jeopardize your credibility. The concept is called “sustainable competitive advantage.
Rembrandt Communications
FEBRUARY 9, 2012
Woo Hoo! You just started your new business, and customers are starting to arrive at your door and visit your Website, but you haven’t heard from the media. Why aren’t they calling you? Well, here are… The Top 3 Reasons Why The Media Is Not Calling You 1. They won’t unless you call them. Have [.].
deal architect
FEBRUARY 10, 2012
The FBI has made public notes from the background check on Steve Jobs when President Bush wanted to consider him for an appointment. Sure there is some unflattering personal detail, but this was during Bush Sr’s (yes!) tenure – over.
YoungUpstarts
FEBRUARY 5, 2012
With the subtitle “A Masterclass in Modern Marketing Ideas” , British marketing consultant Kevin Duncan’s “ Marketing Greatest Hits: Mastering the Brightest Minds of Modern Marketing ” provides quick summaries of what he considers seminal or interesting titles and their key ideas in marketing. Touted as a “definitive compendium of everything you need to know from the best minds in modern marketing”, the book attempts to encapsulate key lessons from the d
Agile VC
FEBRUARY 7, 2012
How to Evaluate Firms for a Seed VC. How To Think About The Future. Home. About Me. AGILEVC My idle thoughts on tech startups. Ethos: What Golazo Means to NextView. February 7, 2012. Those of you who’ve visited the NextView website may have seen a Ethos section where we describe five tenets of how we approach things… Golazo, Authentic, Blank Canvas, Invited Guest, and Tribe.
Feld Thoughts
FEBRUARY 8, 2012
In the “truth is stranger than fiction” category, my CU Boulder bathroom donation (well – the gift I gave to CU Boulder that resulted in me getting to name a bathroom) made the TV news tonight in Boston on Fox 25. There’s apparently a new bathroom news cycle because of William Falik’s gift to Harvard Law School for the Falik Men’s Room at Harvard Law School.
deal architect
FEBRUARY 7, 2012
on the New Florence blog Bill Gates’ Annual Foundation Letter The Perception Analyzer Technology and the State of the Union speech The Logitech Cube Mouse.
YoungUpstarts
FEBRUARY 7, 2012
If you’re an Internet marketer or SEO (search engine optimization) expert, February 2011 probably changed your life forever. You’d know that that was the day Google introduced its Panda algorithm , likely ripping up your carefully thought of plans for Internet domination. But Panda does help act as an excellent filter on search results that returns better results and cut down spam, so the rest of us should be grateful.
David Cohen
FEBRUARY 8, 2012
Consider the email chain below. I’ve assembled it in sequential order and bracketed out some parts that are not public. On Feb 8, 2012, at 10:56 AM, David Cohen wrote: Hi Mark, [Something great is happening to me that I never expected - redacted]. Who knew. Can you send me [the address I need - redacted]? On Feb 8, 2012, at 11:14 AM, Mark Solon wrote: i did… [the address - redacted].
Life Beyond Code
FEBRUARY 7, 2012
Being grateful is not optional. Most people behave differently though – because they are taking things for granted. Here is a thought experiment: Can you list all the things that you are grateful for in the next minute? How many items did you get on that list? What if you expanded the available time. Would it make a difference? How big of a difference would it make on the list?
deal architect
FEBRUARY 9, 2012
on the innovation blog The most beautiful college libraries iPad in the classroom Crowdsourced Analytics Technology and Gasparilla.
YoungUpstarts
FEBRUARY 9, 2012
It’s not easy being an artist or artisan anywhere in the world; however, it’s probably worse in class- (and caste-) conscious India. India’s artisan community – faced by high interest loans and mass-produced crafts from other countries – is in a state of extreme poverty and duress. But an unlikely young heroine is emerging in the country’s art and culture scene to address its decline.
Growthink Blog
FEBRUARY 9, 2012
The other day I had the opportunity to interview two entrepreneurs I really respect. The qualities of an entrepreneur I respect? 1. They've achieved significant entrepreneurial success 2. They've done it more than once, or over a prolonged period, so they clearly weren't "lucky" but rather know how to play the game 3. They're "paying it back" or using their entrepreneurial success to help others The two entrepreneurs I interviewed clearly embody these qualities.
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