Sat.Mar 22, 2014 - Fri.Mar 28, 2014

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Understanding the Power of Your Human Networks

Both Sides of the Table

'We all intuitively know how important human connections are in business but for many people it’s like exercise or eating well – one of those things you keep meaning to get around to. It reminds me of a line my wife and I often jokingly say to each other after seeing the awesome film “ Notorious ” about the life of Biggie Smalls. “I know mothafuckas who know mothafuckas.” Please just take 8 seconds to listen to this clip on YouTube – it’s priceless

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Can Project Management Support High Growth Companies?

YoungUpstarts

'By Russell Harley, veteran project manager and Director at PMO. There is some thinking that equates project management with being a roadblock to speedy delivery of critical projects. This is reinforced by the number of processes and documentation that can be involved in a project. After all, when a company is trying to meet market needs or break into trends, the last thing it needs is a project manager/PMO saying, ‘We need to have all this documentation before we can start working on this

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Problem Solvers Rock In This New Entrepreneur Era

Startup Professionals Musings

'Perhaps sparked by the recent recession, I’m seeing a new era of the entrepreneur, with startups springing up all around. Based on my own mentoring and investing experience, the best entrepreneurs are pragmatic problem solvers. They have an uncanny ability to find elegant, easy, and fast solutions to pain points in the marketplace, as well as their own challenges.

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Set Your Online Reputation Before Someone Else Does

Gust

'Image via Flickr by krossbow. These days, your online Internet reputation is your reputation. Of course, having no reputation is usually better than a bad one, but don’t wait for someone else to establish a good one for you. It’s time for every business and business person to proactively create a positive presence, before someone else puts you in a defensive mode that is hard to win.

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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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How I Got the Monkey Off My Back – Today Was a Good Day

Both Sides of the Table

'I become a venture capitalist in September 2007 – exactly 6.5 years ago. I spent my first year developing proprietary deal flow and learning the business and then the Sept 2008 / Lehman Bros collapse / financial meltdown happened. As a result I didn’t write my first venture capital check until March 2009 – exactly 5 years ago. That company was Invoca, which just announced a $20 million fund raise led by Accel.

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Should You Build Out Features Or Create A New Product?

YoungUpstarts

'by Adam Root, founder and CTO of Hiplogiq. If you were looking for a lawyer to represent your company for a multimillion-dollar merger, what kind of lawyer would you want? A DUI lawyer? A jack-of-all-trades, I’ll-make-your-copies-too lawyer? Didn’t think so. Most of us would want to hire the most experienced, cutthroat lawyer specializing in multimillion-dollar mergers.

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Everything You Need To Know About Creating Killer Explainer Videos

ConversionXL

'You’ve likely already heard that explainer videos can boost conversions anywhere between ten and ten bazillion percent. You’re probably even toying with the idea of doing one for your company. The question is… Can you make it any good? With over 100 years of movie & video history embedded in our collective subconscious, your customer’s expectations are really high.

Video 122
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Engineering spirals: 10 philosophies to facilitate innovation

The Next Web

'Daniel Jacobson (Twitter | LinkedIn) is the VP of Edge Engineering for the Netflix API. Prior to Netflix, Daniel ran application development for NPR where, among other things, he created the NPR API. He is also the co-author of APIs: A Strategy Guide. “Get busy living, or get busy dying” – Shawshank Redemption Building great engineering teams is difficult, but it is also increasingly important as the world in which we live is more than ever driven by software.

Engineer 148
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5 Tips To Boost Your SEO In A Competitive Online Environment

YoungUpstarts

'by Eric Covino, President of Creative Signals. While rankings are an important part of an SEO campaign there are other areas you should pay attention to. Here are some tips: Tip 1. Google provides free tools for website marketers to use to help understand how visitors are finding your site and interacting with it. You should sign up for Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools (Bing also offers a Webmaster Tools product that you should utilize as well).

SEO 169
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Andreessen Horowitz explain why now is a good time to be a tech investor

The Equity Kicker

'The guys at Andreessen Hororwitz are on a hell of a tear. The firm was founded in 2009 and they just announced the closing of their fourth fund at $1.5bn. On top of that they’ve invested in a large number of marquee companies that have had big exits, including this weeks hot story Occulus Rift, and Twitter and AirBnB. They are one of the firms that inspires us here at Forward Partners , particularly for their operational model which we have adapted and extended so it works for early stag

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4 Steps to Find the Right Accountant for Your Business

Up and Running

'You might not have a full list of employees on the payroll yet, but many small business owners find they have a need to turn to an accountant for financial help from their very beginning of their new venture. Whether you need assistance filing taxes, want someone to act as a financial advisor, or need help compiling your financial statements , finding the right accountant can be a huge advantage to your business.

LLC 96
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In pursuit of truth: A brand’s guide to managing misinformation online

The Next Web

'Patrice Francois is co-founder and associate director at Digimind, one of the fastest growing companies in the field of social media monitoring software. The Internet has rewritten the rules for what can be viewed as fact versus fiction. From fake online reviews to inaccurate media articles, it’s impossible to truly know what online information is real and what is fabricated.

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[US][Event] CITE 2014

YoungUpstarts

'Consumerization of IT in the Enterprise (CITE) Conference & Expo will return for its third edition this year, taking place April 27-29 at the Hilton Union Square in San Francisco. The event, devoted exclusively to the intersection of consumer technologies and the enterprise, will explore the ways companies are embracing consumer-inspired technology to engage employees, drive innovation, and attract and empower the next generation workforce.

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The cloud landscape described, categorized, and compared

www.theenterprisearchitect.eu

'The Enterprise Architect building an Agile Enterprise Home MDD PaaS Startup Presentations About The cloud landscape described, categorized, and compared October 12, 2013 Johan Den Haan 10 comments “I work for a PaaS company” I answered him. “Ah, okay, great”, and he moved to another subject. It was a cold winter day on a hipster cloud conference.

Cloud 48
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Y U No Kickstart?

Andrew Payne

'The presale, best typified by Kickstarter , has become a powerful tool for hardware companies to sample market demand and fund initial manufacturing. It’s not the endless beta-test that software developers have, but it moves in that direction. Presales are not perfect: a successful sale is not necessarily evidence of product-market fit. Witness Ouya , which had one of the most successful campaigns ever, shipped product as promised, but then failed to create a library of compelling game

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Hogging the Credit - Why Software Is Eating Banking

Seeing Both Sides

' . When this 10s decade is over, we will look back and be amazed that a mere ten years prior, a few, absolutely massive financial institutions controlled the global banking industry. Software is eating the world, as Marc Andreessen famously observed, and an industry like financial services -- whose service offering is essentially all information-based -- is particularly susceptible to the disruptive force of technology.

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Why Internal Ventures are Different from External Startups

Steve Blank

'Henry Chesbrough is known as the father of Open Innovation and wrote the book that defined the practice. Henry is the Faculty Director of the Garwood Center for Corporate Innovation , at U.C. Berkeley in the Haas Business School. Henry and I teach a corporate innovation class together. —— Thanks to Steve for the opportunity to share my thoughts with you all.

Startup 327
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A framework for categorizing and comparing cloud platforms

bijoor.me

'Home. Menu. Travel. Adventure Travel. Cycling. Trekking. Bike Tours. Business. Content Marketing. Engagement Tracking. Conversation Management. Employee Engagement. Social Marketing and Sales. Sales Activity Management. B2B Sales Process. Technology. Affordable Technology. Agile Development. Big Data. Business Analytics & Intelligence. Cloud Computing.

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Deal Architect, Jr.

deal architect

'Suvir Mirchandani, clearly from the more gifted side of my family tree, is only 14 and has this $ 400 million savings proposal for the Feds. Thanks to Joe McKendrick for pointer. “The printing-related expenditure that is budgeted in 2014.

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Short-term Profit Taking vs. Long-term Value Creation: The Future of PayPal

Reid Hoffman

'In January, activist investor Carl Icahn acquired around 2 percent of eBay’s stock. A month or so later, eager for a return on his investment, he published an open letter to eBay’s shareholders. In it, he expresses concerns about the “long-term value” of the eBay subsidiary PayPal, and its ability to “remain competitive over the long term.

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Why Most People Fail To Cash In On Their Dream Idea

Startup Professionals Musings

'It seems like everyone wants to be an entrepreneur and get rich these days. As a business mentor, I sometimes feel besieged by people begging for my view and support of their latest idea. In reality, I like most ideas, but I have to tell them that the real challenge is taking the inspiration from a dream to a business. All the evidence says that over 99% fail to make that leap.

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Four Winning Strategies from Series Seed to Series A

Genuine VC

'A couple years ago, my partner Lee penned a blog post about the milestone benchmarks for startups raising a Series A round of financing. The five conditions for a Series A financing which he enumerated are: a core team ready to scale, demonstrable market size, repeatable cost effective customer acquisition, metric momentum, and plausible monetization.

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Oracles Middle Earth

deal architect

'In a recent blog post I discussed canine expert Cesar Millan’s view of a pack of dogs – alpha, those in the middle, those at the back. He talks about a role for each. Interestingly, in the IT world, lots.

Vertical 287
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5 Critical Questions Restaurant/Franchisees Must Ask When Choosing A Payroll Provider

YoungUpstarts

'by Michael Alter, CEO and President of SurePayroll . One of the greatest recurring expenses for a small business is payroll. Its impact goes beyond the bottom line as small business payroll is about paying mortgages, feeding families and not running afoul of local, state and federal regulations. Approximately 33 percent of small businesses nationwide trust their payroll to an outside source.

Security 171
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Founder’s Stock Is Gold, If You Know The Rules

Startup Professionals Musings

'In reality, so-called “Founder’s” shares are simply common stock, issued at the time of startup incorporation, for a very low price, and normally allocated to the multiple initial players commensurate with their investment or role. But that’s only the beginning of the story. These shares are allocated and committed, but not really issued and owned (vested) until later.

Stock 256
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Are You Preparing for May Flowers Right Now?

Rembrandt Communications

'Start Spring PR and Content Activities Now! If you have a big “To Do” list for your business and PR and marketing activities right now, it’s time to take action. Start big projects, reach out to new customers and review your goals. After all, the snow is thawing. Do you really want to be stuck […].

PR 164
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CX an opportunity for every industry

deal architect

'Most of the sessions at Oracle’s Industry Connect event in Boston this week were organized in vertical tracks. One of the few cross-industry sessions in the Grand Ballroom was a panel on Customer Experiences, hosted by Mike Webster, SVP at.

Vertical 257
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5 Tips To Help Ace A Phone Interview

YoungUpstarts

'by Thomas Moran, CEO of Addison Group. Phone interviews are often used as a first round step in the tedious process of job searching. While a seemingly simple step, the phone interview is crucial in securing a face-to-face meeting. Some people assume that since it’s not in person, a phone interview is easier and requires less preparation. This simply isn’t the case and interviewees should go into a phone interview with the same professional and organized mindset as a traditional interview.

Chicago 167
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That’s a nice little $40M ecommerce company you have there. Call me when it scales

For Entrepreneurs

'It will surprise a lot of entrepreneurs to learn that building an e-commerce business with $10 million to $20 million in revenues is not that hard. It also surprises many to learn that it’s not actually that valuable. This is in stark contrast to, say, a SaaS business, which is very difficult to build to […].

eCommerce 167
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Upgrade your brain: Programming resources for coding newbies

The Next Web

'Adam Benzion is the founder of Entirely—a Seattle startup focused on social innovation, keen on connecting more people in more places to create special things together. “Everybody in this country should learn to program a computer, because it teaches you how to think.”— Steve Jobs Anyone who’s paying attention these days has probably figured out that computer programming is fast becoming the new standard of literacy in our technology-driven economy.

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Flat world creativity

deal architect

'Innovation from around the globe Immarsat’s Satellites - UK EV Car dispensing machine – China Chef robots – Portugal Powering agriculture – Uganda The pot at the end of the rainbow – Ireland Google “Climate Change” View – Canada Precision.

Uganda 207
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Microsoft Announces MS Office For iPad As Part Of “Mobile First, Cloud First” Approach

YoungUpstarts

'iPad-toting mobile warriors rejoice. If you’re missing the functionality of your Microsoft Office applications such as Word, Excel and Powerpoint, Microsoft has just made them official for your iPad. As part of Microsoft’s mobile- and cloud-focused event hours ago in San Francisco, new Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has announced Office For iPad, extending the functionality of its suite of applications you’ve gotten used to on your desktop and other tablet devices to the popular

Cloud 165
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Announcing our latest investment: Clio

Version One Ventures

'At version one, we are big believers in the vertical SaaS opportunity. Small to mid-sized businesses have long been underusing technology. A mobile-first approach, combined with a laser-like focus on a specific vertical, can create the right toolset to help SMBs achieve huge productivity gains ( I wrote about this nearly a year ago for TechCrunch).

Vertical 153
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Why entrepreneurs are obsessed with failures

The Next Web

'Aashish Gupta (or The Fundamentalyst) is an investment banking research associate covering European Tech sector. He loves to experiment with startup ideas and write about technology, life, society and spirituality. “The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing.” While most of you must be sick of the much clichéd idea of “learning from failures” – a phrase which annoys us even more in the darkest periods of our life – I believe in the opposite.

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What is the process of a (new) VC firm raising its first fund?

Gust

'There are some great answers here already (and there’s no way I’m going to try to top Terrence Yang ‘s magnum opus , so I will simply point you to a first-hand account of the challenges of VC fund-raising by Alan Patricof , the founder of Greycroft Partners. (Of course, this may not be quite a similar case to yours, as Alan happens to be one of the patriarchs of the venture capital industry, who in 1969 founded the firm that would become Apax Partners (which has raised

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Smart Financial Planning For Start-up Entrepreneurs

YoungUpstarts

'For some people the desire to start their own business is fuelled by a need to escape the humdrum routine of the corporate office environment. For others, there is a genuine passion for innovation, an exciting new idea and the drive to turn it into a money-making venture. Whatever the reason for establishing a start-up, it is important to plan it carefully – none more so than when it comes to planning your new company’s finances.

Finance 160