Both Sides of the Table
JULY 1, 2010
We all like to think of startups as “non hierarchic&# organizations and to some extent that should be true. I’m not a big believer in too much hierarchy. A good early-stage CEO needs to be accessible, to be accountable for producing results and should be establishing the cultural norms of the company through direct leadership at all levels.
This is going to be BIG.
JUNE 30, 2010
When Luke Skywalker had to drop a proton torpedo into a reactor vent shaft, he had one shot. Failure was not an option. Startups, on the other hand, have lots of little failures and successes over time. Growing a company is a process with lots of little iterations over time--just like fundraising. Just ask Dennis Crowely. He’s done it twice. The first time around, his meetings with Union Square Ventures didn’t result in a check—not until a little nudge got Fred thinking more ab
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Start Up Blog
JUNE 26, 2010
This guest post by Michael Fox. Michael is a co-founder of the design your own women’s shoe business Shoes of Prey. He blogs about the adventures of running a startup at www.22michaels.com. 5 reasons why retail startups are rad. Prior to starting Shoes of Prey , Mike Knapp and I were working at Google and were brainstorming industries that would be good for an online startup.
Up and Running
JUNE 29, 2010
I posted about Good Clean Love last month; it’s a local (Eugene, Ore.) company that won our angel investment contest. And I’ve been meaning to post about the national SBDC program ever since. Good Clean Love is one of several good local companies that have been through our SBDC’s business management program. Do you know where your local SBDC is?
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
Software By Rob
JULY 1, 2010
Software by Rob Passionate about Startups and MicroISVs Lessons Learned by a Serial Entrepreneur home about press micropreneurs archives ← Two Days Left for a Discount on the Business of Software Conference A Micropreneur Blueprint: How to Stay Solo, Bleed Passion, and Build Products that Matter → Why You Should Build Your Startup to Sell (But Not to Flip) Micropreneurship , Startups If youre trying grow your startup youve come to the right place.
Both Sides of the Table
JULY 1, 2010
I think I’ve now mastered how to make images clickable so in the future you *should* always be able to click on the TWiVC image above and go directly to the video. Just in case here’s the link to this week’s episode. Our guest this week was Scott Painter. Scott is the kind of guy you could just grab a drink with, sit back and listen to him tell stories for hours.
Start Up Roar brings together the best content for start up professionals from the widest variety of industry thought leaders.
A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks
JUNE 28, 2010
A lovely new company/customer etiquette has emerged, and small startups are especially suited for exploiting it. I hope you're not ignoring it. Just yesterday someone explained to me what they expect from their website hosting company: I want someone else making sure the server doesn't go down. Or, if it does go down, I want someone to apologize to me.
Software By Rob
JUNE 29, 2010
Software by Rob Passionate about Startups and MicroISVs Lessons Learned by a Serial Entrepreneur home about press micropreneurs archives ← The Warren Buffett of Websites Why You Should Build Your Startup to Sell (But Not to Flip) → Two Days Left for a Discount on the Business of Software Conference Cool News, Links & Reviews If youre trying grow your startup youve come to the right place.
Both Sides of the Table
JUNE 28, 2010
Here is the link to this week’s TWiVC with Mike Hirshland. I apologize for the audio quality – we did this in a rush because we found a last minute studio and recorded in San Francisco. But you can see & hear the entire interview well and I think it will be well worth your while. One of things I’ve loved the most about doing now 11 weeks of This Week in VC is a chance to have an hour-long recorded conversation with investors.
Startup Professionals Musings
JUNE 30, 2010
One of the toughest challenges of an entrepreneur in building a startup is the fact that there are so many things that you don’t know how to do, or don’t like to do. Things like raising money, building a business plan, or hiring and firing people. These aren’t fun, especially for a visionary. That’s when the curse of procrastination steps in. The result is that certain things just never seem to get done.
deal architect
JUNE 30, 2010
Ok, it has taken Microsoft 25+ years to acknowledge it – but it is good to see it appreciative of Apple products, As it mimics Google’s infrastructure around Azure, I hope it is also man enough to acknowledge that. And.
Venture Chronicles
JUNE 29, 2010
I was on vacation last week with my family and did not post anything but I have been wanting to write about a meeting I had with Accept Software a few weeks ago so I went through my notes and refreshed myself on the conversation, which was interesting in many dimensions. First let me give you some background on how this came about. I received an email from the PR contact for the company that mentioned the BP oil spill in the Gulf and the process of idea collection on the web they were undertakin
Steve Blank
JUNE 29, 2010
I’ve been traveling – New York/Cairo/Tel Aviv – for the last three weeks. Posts will resume in July. Egyptian Fallujah on the nile at Luxor.
Startup Professionals Musings
JUNE 27, 2010
Fundraising is brutal. Actually, according to Paul Graham , “Raising money is the second hardest part of starting a startup. The hardest part is making something people want.” More startups may fail for that reason, but a close second is the difficulty of raising money. A while back, I outlined “ Ten Top Funding Sources for Startups ” for startups, listing angel investors as alternative #6.
Feld Thoughts
JUNE 28, 2010
Do you remember the “Let’s Build a Filter&# scene from Apollo 13? It remains – at least in my mind – one of the most heroic engineering scenes in the movies. The one minute segment with the meat of the scene follows: Several times over the past week the BP Gulf Crisis has come up in conversation. The conversations have started in different places (politics, environment, leadership) but in each case quickly cycled toward the concept that the people involved need to try
crowdSPRING Blog
JULY 2, 2010
As I wrote last week in 10 Tips for Startups and Small Businesses on Naming Your Company , coming up with a great company name for your new small business or startup can be challenging and time consuming. Coming up with a memorable tagline can present an even greater challenge. A tagline is supposed to communicate to your customers and potential customers what sets you apart from your competition and also your brand’s focus.
Rembrandt Communications
JULY 1, 2010
Are You Traveling This Holiday Weekend? If so, you may want to check out the Detroit Windsor Tunnel and my StartupNation interview with Carolyn Brown, the DWT Executive Vice President, at [link] You see, The Detroit Windsor Tunnel is one of the great, engineering marvels of the world and is the only “vehicular international subaqueous [.].
Startup Professionals Musings
JUNE 26, 2010
Startup work environments are always chaos, but they can still be great environments to work in, or they can be terrible. Whether yours is terrible or great, that same tone flows out to your customers, and regulates your productivity inside. You as the founder are the starting point and definer, so you need to get it right. What does it take to create a positive workplace culture?
Feld Thoughts
JUNE 30, 2010
Gearbox , one of the teams that I’m mentoring in this year’s TechStars Boulder program, is starting to blog about their product. One of their taglines is “reinventing the ball&# and while this potentially generates plenty of 14 year old boy jokes it’s pretty amazing stuff. The ball, which consists of a custom circuit board inside a 3D printed spherical shell (which is pretty cool all by itself) with lots of fun things on it, is completely controlled by a smartphone (in t
crowdSPRING Blog
JULY 2, 2010
As I wrote last week in 10 Tips for Startups and Small Businesses on Naming Your Company , coming up with a great company name for your new small business or startup can be challenging and time consuming. Coming up with a memorable tagline can present an even greater challenge. A tagline is supposed to communicate to your customers and potential customers what sets you apart from your competition and also your brand’s focus.
Gregg Fraley, Author of Jack's Notebook
JUNE 30, 2010
Call me a Johnny-come-lately but I’m suddenly enamored of what’s going on with electronic book readers, or “e-readers&# as they are sometimes called, and the potential for a whole new kind of reading experience. This is an area of exploding innovation. I’m talking about devices like the Kindle, and the iPad. And there are others [.].
Startup Professionals Musings
JULY 1, 2010
One of my favorite sayings is the “Real change doesn’t happen until the pain level gets high enough.” There aren’t many of us who love change, just for the opportunity to learn something new, and even we won’t pay much for it. Entrepreneurs who search for real pain points, and build solutions around them, have the best chance of changing the world. In my opinion, real pain points for most people do not require a new user interface for Facebook, a new programming platform for app development, or
Feld Thoughts
JUNE 30, 2010
I’ve been in several board meetings over the past month where the companies are having a killer Q2. A year ago everyone was still pretty rattled from the financial crisis and there was plenty of belt tightening, consternation, and general anxiety. By Q409 we’d had a number of companies we are investors in end the year strongly and their growth has continued into Q1 and Q2.
crowdSPRING Blog
JUNE 28, 2010
Finding your company’s voice in your marketing efforts and written content is a rich way to connect with your customers, engage potential customers, and develop a loyal audience base. Voice is one of the imponderable elements of good writing, and unlike punctuation and spelling it can not be taught with a swift rap from a strong wooden ruler. Strunk and White did get a few things right, including their emphasis on this art; voice should be the driving force behind marketing and message and
Up and Running
JULY 1, 2010
I got an email this other day from Rob Crawford about an effort to generate The Global Network for Entrepreneurs with Disabilities. There’s a website going up for that next month, and in the meantime if you’re interested there’s a related blog at the Life Development Institute , which is where I found the chart at the right here. The title over that chart, in context, is: is this the best we can do ?
Start Up Blog
JUNE 28, 2010
I caught up with all round good guy Ned Dwyer yesterday. We chatted about many things, of which the top of the list was the recent launch of “And now it’s in print.&# A project Ned is heavily involved with. Let me just say this. It’s one of my favourite startups this year. The world over. For many reasons, but here’s one: I asked Ned what the business model was, and this was his reply: “It’s too important to have a business model.
Feld Thoughts
JUNE 26, 2010
It is so nice to be back in Boulder after my 10 hours trip home from New York yesterday that included a lot of time on tarmacs, a diverted landing in Colorado Springs, and an I-25 road trip. I really want a personal portable teleportation machine. I’m about to head out for a run but thought I’d toss up a few fun posts and videos that I saw when scanning through my email and news this morning.
crowdSPRING Blog
JULY 1, 2010
“I’m In Logo Love” is a new series on the crowdSPRING blog. Periodically, we’ll pick a logo we’d like to take home from a bar and tell you why. And if you think it’s a bit strange to have a crush on a cleverly designed logo, get in line – my mom has already lectured me on this topic. Today, we’ll look at the logo for EIGHTY20.
Entrepreneurs-Journey.com by Yaro Starak
JUNE 27, 2010
Press play to begin streaming the audio or right click the text link and choose save as or save link. Download the MP3 [ 43 Minutes - 20 MB ]. One of the coolest thing about running this blog is the amazing people I meet, who are not just from my industry, but also in other industries doing really interesting things. Outside of Internet marketing, two of my passions are tennis and dance music.
Growthink Blog
JULY 2, 2010
Last week, Vringo, a video ringtone company raised $9.2 million. That’s a lot of money, particularly considering that Vringo only generated $20,000 in revenues last year. What’s most interesting is how Vringo raised the money. It didn’t raise the money from venture capitalists, angel investors, or any of the usual suspects. Which is particularly surprising since Vringo’s CEO and co-founder, Jon Medved, was formerly a venture capitalist himself.
Feld Thoughts
JUNE 29, 2010
After a long and awesome day in Seattle ending with a great dinner with the BigDoor board at Emmer & Rye , I came back to my room and watched Episode 6 of this year’s TechStars Founders video serious. It was about the TechStars reunion event and included scenes from the world’s largest Ignite event as well as some beautiful Boulder pictures.
crowdSPRING Blog
JULY 1, 2010
“I’m In Logo Love” is a new series on the crowdSPRING blog. Periodically, we’ll pick a logo we’d like to take home from a bar and tell you why. And if you think it’s a bit strange to have a crush on a cleverly designed logo, get in line – my mom has already lectured me on this topic. Today, we’ll look at the logo for EIGHTY20.
Tim Keane
JULY 2, 2010
'Startups and angels: Along the way to success. By Tim Keane, Angel Investor, Golden Angels Investors, LLC. Home. Archives. Profile. Subscribe. « People are the whole game | Main. | The Qualities of a Leader » July 02, 2010. Choosing the right corporate form for your enterprise. Every entrepreneur should read this article on choosing the correect type of corporate form for an enterprise: [link].
Growthink Blog
JUNE 28, 2010
Last week I was finishing up the development of a new money raising product about Crowdfunding (an extremely exciting new way to fund any company). I wanted to have a logo designed for the product, so on a friend’s advice, I decided to try Hatchwise.com. Hatchwise.com is very cool. You go to the site and set up a “contest” to get your logo designed.
Feld Thoughts
JULY 1, 2010
I’ve been quiet on my reaction to Bilski because I’ve got an OpEd floating around that might get published in the next few days. It’s been rejected by one major publisher because according to the senior editor &# it didn’t fit their opinion on the case&# and another major publisher because “no one really cares that much about patents.&# Ok – whatever.
crowdSPRING Blog
JUNE 30, 2010
A few days ago, Gary Vaynerchuk and I exchanged a few thoughts on Twitter about customer service. Gary wrote the following: There’s much truth to Gary’s statement. Real relationships are nearly always better (and more important) than customer service. But what is a “real relationship&# ? Some think that real relationships are possible only offline, with your closest friends.
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