Sat.Mar 08, 2014 - Fri.Mar 14, 2014

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Beyond the Lemonade Stand: How to Teach High School Students Lean Startups

Steve Blank

'While the Lean LaunchPad class has been adopted by Universities and the National Science Foundation, the question we get is, “Can students in K-12 handle an experiential entrepreneurship class?” Hawken School has now given us an answer. Their seniors just completed the school’s first-ever 3-credit semester program in evidence-based entrepreneurship.

Lean 334
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10 Top Traits Of The Boss You Always Wanted

Startup Professionals Musings

'Everyone can recognize a great manager a mile away, so why is it so hard to find one? We all remember a few that are “legends in their own mind”, but that doesn’t do it. In fact, the clue here is that the view in your mind is the only one that matters, rather than the other way around. Almost every one of us in business can remember that one special manager in their career who exemplifies the norm, who commanded our respect, and treated us like a friend, even in the toughest of personal or busi

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Debunking Five Job Hunting Myths

YoungUpstarts

'by Thomas Moran, CEO of Addison Group. It’s inevitable that new job hunters will run into a plethora of career advice, both wanted and unwanted. As the job market continues to be tough and technology is increasing competitiveness the dos and don’ts of job searching are changing. But while career advice is a useful tool in the job hunt, it can also be extremely outdated and counterproductive.

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Technical recruiting is broken: Here are 4 ways to hire better

The Next Web

'Vivek Ravisankar is the co-founder of Y Combinator alumnus, HackerRank , a platform for coding contests used by programmers to hone their skills and a tool for companies to streamline their own recruiting process. The hiring process for technical talent is broken. Across the board, the number one problem for any company is hiring programmers. Whether it’s a series A-funded startup or a large multinational corporation, hiring technical talent takes up a lot of time, energy, and money – and does

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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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CS Degree Won’t Make You A Great Engineer, Your First Job Will

Hunter Walker

'Early Google engineer and now Twitter Ads engineering manager Jeremy Ginsberg follows up on my New Grad Career Advice with some of his own thoughts. tldr: CS Degree Won’t Make You A Great Engineer, Your First Job Will. A CS degree is generally the best foundation for a career in software (for PM’s and SWE’s alike, IMHO), but it won’t make you a great engineer: your first 2 years working in industry are when you really develop your skills and learn best practices.

Engineer 117
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What’s up with WhatsApp – Part Deux

Growthink Blog

'Last week, I shared how between 2011 and 2013, Sequoia Capital invested approximately $60 million in WhatsApp – the instant messaging subscription service bought last month by Facebook for $19 billion. And how Sequoia’s return on that $60 million was close to $3 billion, or more than 50 times its original investment. I then offered to share some of our research findings as to the selection strategies that early-stage technology investors like Sequoia now utilize to identify companies with this

More Trending

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‘I don’t know’: Why admitting you don’t have all the answers is perfectly okay

The Next Web

'Jason Freedman is the co-founder of 42Floors , making it easy for everyone to rent office space. He’s a two-time Y Combinator alum and blogs regularly on humbledMBA. This post was originally published on the 42floors blog. I want to share an interesting conversation I had with Kiran Divvela back when he was still interviewing for our company. Kiran runs all of our data supply chain activities.

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Here’s Why it Was an Epic Month for #LATech

Both Sides of the Table

'A few years ago I started calling the local tech ecosystem down here #LATech. I had an agenda. We graduate more engineers in our greater region than anywhere else in the US. We have top 25 engineering schools than anywhere else, too. I never wanted to be a derivative of Silicon Valley. I have the utmost respect for the tech produced by our northern colleagues and acknowledge it is the tech capital of the world and that won’t change.

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Smartand Dumb Big Data

deal architect

'The Software AG theme at CeBIT was “smart big data” – using analytics and processes much more intelligently I have been thinking on the trip about two very smart set of services and two shockingly inefficient ones. 1a) I called.

Analytics 316
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When The Mobile Evolution Turns To Revolution

YoungUpstarts

'by Scott Hirsch, f ounder and CEO of Appsbar. It wasn’t that long ago that web-savvy marketers were touting the advances in technology that allowed anyone to build a website, publish a blog, or embark on a social media campaign. The advent of mobile platforms has rendered all of those tools passé. We are now a mobile society and the proliferation of smartphones and tablets has given rise to a new paradigm in digital marketing: the mobile app.

Mobile 160
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Forget what you know: There’s no right way to start up

The Next Web

'Ryan Hoover is the co-creator of Product Hunt and EIR at Tradecraft. Visit his blog to read more about startups and product design. Twitter is confusing. Early on, skeptics questioned, “What problem does it solve?” Even its founders couldn’t quite describe it, let alone foresee what it would become. It wasn’t clear what [Twitter] was. They called it a social network, they called it microblogging, but it was hard to define, because it didn’t replace anything.

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Be A Business Leader As Well As A Thought Leader

Startup Professionals Musings

'By definition, most entrepreneurs are thought leaders. They have the ability to recognize a market need, the skills to design and implement a solution, and the drive to start a business from that solution. It all comes from within themselves. A business leader does the same thing and more through the people around them. Most entrepreneurs are not both.

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Smart Bear Live 8: Edwin from MeetingKing.com

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

'Welcome back to Smart Bear Live … the show were Jason speaks with entrepreneurs looking to improve their businesses. In this episode, Jason talks to Edwin from MeetingKing. Listen to this episode if you want to hear about a founder who has a product and users and paying customers … and is trying to figure out how to take his company to the next level and grow faster.

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Vibrant Frankfurt

deal architect

'I have been to Frankfurt countless times, but I have an unfair, bland view of the city possibly because so much of the time has been spent at the sprawling city that is FRA airport. Spending a beautiful spring day.

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5 things smart entrepreneurs did at SXSWi this year

The Next Web

'Juan Diego Calle is a serial entrepreneur and the CEO of.CO. Take off your branded sunnies and pack up all your swag – SXSW Interactive has wrapped for another year. This was my fourth year at SXSW with my company.CO, and while some are doubting whether this geek spring break can sustain the Austin takeover for many years to come, 2014 bubbled with smart people, big ideas and tons of energy.

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One Of These Days, You May Not Be An Entrepreneur

Startup Professionals Musings

'If I had a dollar for every time someone has said to me, “One of these days, I’m going to start my own company,” I’d be rich. If this day ever comes for all these people, we will be overrun by startups. Yet I don’t lose any sleep over either of these possibilities. Most people procrastinate from time to time, but I suspect that the challenge here is somewhat deeper than that.

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The Ten Things Inventors Should Never Do

YoungUpstarts

'By Patricia Nolan-Brown, author of “ Idea to Invention: What You Need to Know to Cash In on Your Inspiration “ If you want to know how to invent a product, you can get all the steps to invention you need in my new book, “ Idea to Invention “ Meanwhile, here is an Inventor Help Line with important information to help avoid the top ten traps that many inventors fall into: 1.

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Harmonize this!

deal architect

'At CeBIT, two of the keynoters were David Cameron who announced a 5G initiative (he also talked about progress in UK rural broadband in another session) and Neelie Kroes who had negotiated roaming charge limitations within the EU. Seriously, I.

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Why Startups Face Increasing Competition In Raising Series As And Bs

Gust

'By Tomasz Tunguz , Partner at Redpoint Ventures. Has it become harder to raise money? is a question I hear all the time. On one hand, the total dollars invested by VCs is relatively flat at just under $30B per year, according to the NVCA. On the other hand, the stories of difficulty raising series As and Bs have become a steady drumbeat. To get some sense of the patterns, I analyzed 917 companies from seed through Series B over the past 14 years, using Crunchbase data.

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‘Customer Experience’ Is Today’s Business Benchmark

Startup Professionals Musings

'Not so long ago, every business assumed that the keys to success were the highest quality product, the best value for the buck, and the best customer service. Now all we hear about is providing the best “customer experience.” Exactly what is that customer experience that every modern marketer is talking about, and how do you measure it? A recent article in the Harvard Business Review “ The Truth About Customer Experience ” defines it as your customer’s end-to-end journey with you, not just the

Customer 245
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How To Get Online Fans To Do Real World Tasks

YoungUpstarts

'by George Elfond, CEO of Rallyware. For small and large brands with strong social media programs, it’s easy to gather likes and shares, bu it’s often a challenge to get your audiences, fans or followers to do specific, tangible actions in the real world. It’s a common problem but can be solved with just a few simple steps. Engaging with a brand or organization online can naturally lead to offline engagement – but only if the right microtasks, reporting systems, and incentives

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Two New Experiments from The Lean Startup Conference Team

Startup Lessons Learned

'Guest post by Sarah Milstein , CEO of Lean Startup Productions The 2013 Lean Startup Conference was a hit on several levels, with many people telling us it was the most valuable business conference they’d ever attended. To extend what we learned and help more people build and scale successful companies, we’re testing out two brand new events this spring: * Office Optional , a one-day conference on April 22 in San Francisco.

Lean 166
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How to Create a Pitch the Media Wants to Hear

Rembrandt Communications

'Stop sending hundreds of pitches to a massive list of media members. If you are new to the world of public relations, you may think that sending out a press release to the masses will help you get the media coverage you are looking for. Well, many businesses and organizations do this, and that’s one […].

Media 145
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Will The ‘Open Business’ Wave Bring Real Change?

Startup Professionals Musings

'Too many customers have long felt distanced from many successful brands, seeing them as closed and mysterious environments, focused only on profits and killing competitors. They may not have noticed the wave of “open businesses,” spawned by the Internet and social media. These are responding to the demands of this new world for collaboration, trust, and transparency.

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The Savvy Approach To Setting Up A New Office

YoungUpstarts

'by Lizzie Pertwee . Setting up an office is exciting and daunting in equal measures, especially if it’s your first time at the helm of a business. Like virtually all start-ups, you’re bound to find that money’s tight, meaning it’s crucial to be savvy in your approach. Splashing too much cash on your working environment can prove to be disastrous for the success of your enterprise.

Design 162
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Working with Startups what do Law Firms and Attorneys contribute?

Gust

'While it sounds tautological, the most important thing a law firm brings to the startup table is… a knowledge of the law surrounding everything having to do with founding, financing and operating a startup! But while obvious, that doesn’t make it any less important. There are an enormous number of laws that cover the world of business, and those go up almost exponentially once you start dealing with fundraising/financing.

Warrant 156
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Rover Cuddles Up to $12 Million

Feld Thoughts

'Today, Rover announced that Menlo Ventures has led a new $12m round of financing. As is our style, we participated, but we’re excited to have a new partner to join us, Madrona, and Petco in this fast growing adventure. Lots of VC firms are once again talking about online marketplaces. Some get it; many don’t. Being systematic about what it takes to build and scale a marketplace effectively and make it an enduring enterprise is difficult.

Seattle 149
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The programmable web and the future of platforms

Version One Ventures

'Virtually every start-up dreams of becoming a platform at some stage. After all, it is the most powerful position in the ecosystem. What has been the one rule to becoming a platform? Develop a killer app that gets you to scale: and then open up the platform once your reach is attractive enough for other developers to develop specific apps for your platform.

Web 150
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5 Killer Tips To Boost Your Startup Business

YoungUpstarts

'Starting your own business can be dicey. Aside from the obvious difficulties of financially weaning yourself from the corporate breast, the statistics associated with startup companies hardly paints a promising picture. According to research carried out by the Harvard Business School, three or four firms from 10 will crash and burn, with only one or two producing “substantial returns”.

Startup 160
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How To Size Your Marketing Budget For Funding

Gust

'Image via Flickr.com. It’s not uncommon for me to see a startup business plan “mission” to be the “premier brand” for their product, yet their marketing budget in the financials is trivial. This combination will almost certainly get your plan tossed by potential investors, who understand all too well the need and cost for marketing in today’s environment.

Marketing 146
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Book: The Hard Thing About Hard Things

Feld Thoughts

'If you haven’t yet bought Ben Horowitz’s book The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers , go get it right now. It’s one of the best books you’ll ever read on entrepreneurship and being a CEO. If you are a CEO, read this book. If you aspire to be a CEO read this book. If you are on a management team and want to understand what a CEO goes through, read this book.

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Why integrating philanthropic strategies should be the new norm for tech startups

The Next Web

'Kraig Swensrud is the CEO & Co-Founder of GetFeedback.com, a modern survey marketing application designed and built for a mobile world. Kraig previously was the Chief Marketing Officer at salesforce.com. We’re in the midst of the biggest technology boom in a decade. Dropbox and Box are following Twitter and Facebook into celebrity IPO territory.

IPO 146
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NakedWines.com Connects Winemakers And Wine Drinkers Via Crowdfunding

YoungUpstarts

'Here’s a dirty little secret in the wine world – did you know that the sales and marketing of a wine actually increases its price drastically, oftentimes more than tripling the initial cost of making that wine? For example, an example of an excellent Cabernet from Napa Valley with a retail price tag of around $40-50 may actually cost just $7 to make.

Channel 157
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European seed fund explosion – what does it mean?

The Equity Kicker

'BrightSun have just published research on the number of seed funds in Europe. As you can see from the graphs below the number of seed funds is growing very fast whilst the number of later stage funds is flat. Chart 1: number of European funds investing in rounds of $1m and less (blue line) and number of countries receiving investment (green bars).

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What Really Matters About Being Human

Feld Thoughts

'As we roll into the weekend, and I start another digital sabbath, I’ve got the question “what really matters about being human” rolling through my mind. I spent the afternoon at the Silicon Flatirons conference SciFi and Entrepreneurship – Is Resistance Futile? I thought it was phenomenal and remarkably thought provoking. I came back to my office to find Dane and Eugene playing TitanFall on my 75″ screen.

Search 136
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Show, don’t tell: How to live your mission statement

The Next Web

'Andrea Ayres-Deets is the Lead Writer at ooomf , an invite-only network connecting short-term software projects with handpicked developers and designers. Andrea writes about psychology, creativity, and business over on the ooomf blog. I once worked for a company who was really proud of their mission statement. They had it printed on everything and talked about it often.

Search 143