Both Sides of the Table
APRIL 4, 2011
You Manage What you Measure. One of the things I discuss the most with the portfolio companies I’m involved with is that “you manage what you measure.”. It’s a very important concept for me because in a startup you are constantly under pressure and have way too many distractions. Having a set of metrics that you watch & that you feel are the key drivers of your success helps keep clarity.
Steve Blank
APRIL 4, 2011
The Stanford Lean LaunchPad class was an experiment in a new model of teaching startup entrepreneurship. This post is part four. Part one is here , two is here and three is here. Syllabus is here. Week 4 of the class. Last week the teams were testing their hypotheses about their Value Proposition (their company’s product or service.) This week they were testing who the customer, user, payer for the product will be (and discovering if they have a multi-sided business model , one with both buyer
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Startup Professionals Musings
APRIL 6, 2011
I’m sure you have all been frustrated at least once at not being able to get the Internet domain name you want for your company. Who owns all of these names, and should you ever buy one for a premium? The simple answer is that if you want to be found and remembered on the Web, the perfect domain name can easily be worth several thousand dollars. Snagging an unclaimed great one is almost impossible these days because domain "squatters" gobbled up a lot of the catchy real estate several
crowdSPRING Blog
APRIL 7, 2011
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!
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
VC Cafe
APRIL 7, 2011
Ineze (“Here it is”-in Hebrew), is an Internet search-engine, which aims to reduce the amount of time people spend looking for products, by yielding fine-tuned results based on user needs. As part of a series of interviews with Seedcamp winners for VC Cafe , Startup Intelligence caught up with co-founder, Gil Rosenberg (CEO), to find out more. Gil, a specialist in information security, has spent the last ten years advising companies on which products, mostly technological, would best fit into th
ReadWriteStart
APRIL 5, 2011
In my last post on ReadWriteStart, I talked about how, in many cases, it wasn't an advantage to build your start-up in stealth mode. As a continuation of that theme, I thought it would be interesting to explore five tools you can use to iterate and improve your startup idea before writing one line of code. There is nothing worse than building a tool no one is interested in, so I'd encourage you to consider these options before starting down the path of building your next startup.
Start Up Roar brings together the best content for start up professionals from the widest variety of industry thought leaders.
deal architect
APRIL 3, 2011
Commenting on the acquisition of Radian6, Dennis Howlett says “Salesforce is becoming a company that I don’t understand”. To be honest, many enterprise observers, yours truly included, have been confounded by the company many a time. When Marc Benioff started.
VC Cafe
APRIL 8, 2011
VC Cafe asked entrepreneurs to tell us what type of help or support they wish they could get from the venture capital investors. What started originally as how can VCs differentiate themselves to stand out, quickly became an Entrepreneur’s wish list from its VCs. I would like to take the opportunity to thank all the entrepreneurs that took time to add, modify and improve this initial list with thoughtful feedback.
ReadWriteStart
APRIL 5, 2011
One of the best part of my jobs as a technology journalist is getting to hear founders' stories. I have some really great, memorable experiences of talking to entrepreneurs - not just about what they're building, but why. Sometimes these are stories that, in turn, end up in the articles I write. Sometimes they're not - off topic, off the record, and what have you.
Startup Professionals Musings
APRIL 4, 2011
After working with dozens of startup founders, I’m still amazed that some seem to be able to do the job easily and effectively, always in control, while others always seem to be struggling, out-of-control, and fighting the latest crisis. I am more and more convinced that it is the right founder behavior that leads to success, rather than some exceptional intelligence or training.
deal architect
APRIL 6, 2011
Ok, so the title may sound strange as we brace for another round of telecom consolidation via ATT-T-Mobile. But as I recently reviewed family and business telecom expenses for tax filings, I was impressed that AT&T and Verizon are on.
Steve Blank
APRIL 8, 2011
The team at True Ventures was kind enough to invite me to speak at their Founders Camp. They pull in the founders of all their startups for 24 hours of activities, speakers, and discussions. I was blown away by the raw talent of these teams. They had someone translating my words into a diagram as I spoke. (Click on it for the full effect.). Filed under: Venture Capital.
Professor VC
APRIL 7, 2011
ProfessorVC. The last blogger in Silicon Valley. Thursday, April 7, 2011. Why I Hate Convertible Debt.Let Me Count the Ways. My partner in Menlo Incubator , Gary Kremen , and I had a recent debate on which one of us hates convertible debt more. We werent able to declare a winner, but I did agree to write a blog post on the topic. This will also serve as a good pointer for all the entrepreneurs who ask why I am not interested in their company led convertible note financing round.
Startup Professionals Musings
APRIL 3, 2011
The measure of an entrepreneur used to be the number of real friends claimed, but times have changed. Now the measure is how many hits one has on a Google name search, factored by some formula, like the sum of all positive messages minus 100 for every negative message. If you don’t define yourself effectively, the Internet will do it for you in ways you never imagined.
deal architect
APRIL 3, 2011
It’s fashionable to point to Blockbuster and Borders and predict the death of retail stores at the hands of the technologically savvy NetFlixes and amazons. What is impressive is in reverse how many tech companies have discovered the importance of.
Small Business Force
APRIL 3, 2011
Obviously, small business success begins and ends with the customer. Especially in difficult economic times like these.every qualified prospect is a potential customer and every current customer has the potential for more sales, to be viewed as "precious gold" to the entrepreneur's business. Yet many small companies, as their success brings growth beyond "every customer on a first name basis" stage, unwittingly, make it extra difficult for prospective or even current customers to do business wit
For Entrepreneurs
APRIL 7, 2011
Introduction This post aims to help startup CEOs optimize their funding strategy by examining how investors value startups, and explaining how to avoid the common cash management pitfalls. (Note: The concepts in this post will likely be obvious to experienced CEOs and entrepreneurs. Despite that, our experience indicates that entrepreneurs frequently make costly, avoidable mistakes [.].
Startup Professionals Musings
APRIL 8, 2011
If your first startup fails, you are about average. Most entrepreneurs fail on at least one attempt. Investors agree that an entrepreneur who has never failed probably hasn’t pushed the limits. What investors look for is not that you never fail, but that you learn from the failure, maintain a positive attitude, and work with integrity on the next one.
deal architect
APRIL 2, 2011
on the innovation blog The history of the technology teardown Vending machines go wireless 1968 – a great tech vintage year Now playing in MLB stadiums A battery that charges in seconds Ushahidi: indispensable in crisis situations.
Feld Thoughts
APRIL 3, 2011
“Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and caldron bubble.&# – Macbeth. Every time I hear the word “bubble&# I think of that quote from Macbeth. I also think of Tulip Mania and the South Sea Company which purportedly was the source of the concept of an economic bubble. And then I remember Charles Mackay’s classic book “ Extraordinary Popular Delusions & the Madness of Crowds.&#.
Rembrandt Communications
APRIL 4, 2011
Your phone stops ringing. You don’t get a response for your proposals. The competition steals your business. Yep. We’ve all been there. It’s not fun, but frustration is a part of business. Instead of taking it personally, you need to move on to the next opportunity. And this can be easier said than done so [.].
Startup Professionals Musings
APRIL 5, 2011
You are an aspiring entrepreneur, eager to dump the corporate grind, and work to the beat of your own drummer, but you can’t come up with that killer idea to save the world. What are the alternatives that will give you the independence you crave, and challenge your business acumen? Technically, I believe an entrepreneur is anyone who manages his own profit and loss, and doesn’t meet the government tax definition of an employee.
deal architect
APRIL 6, 2011
on the innovation blog Stan Ovshinsky’s Solar Revolution Lufthansa FlyNet The Bose VideoWave The GE Wattstation.
Feld Thoughts
APRIL 6, 2011
I was at an board meeting yesterday morning for a new seed deal that we’ve done that will be announced next week. I love the product vision – it’s in an area that I’ve been working in for a while across a variety of companies and will take a new approach to a very old and persistent problem. The entrepreneurs have been living the specific problem for a long time and believe they have a unique and very informed way to solve it.
Occam's Razor
APRIL 4, 2011
Someone asked me this very simple question today. What's the difference between web reporting and web analysis? My instinct was to use the wry observation uttered by US Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart in trying to define po rn: " I know it when I see it. " That applies to what is analysis. I know it when I see it. : ). That, of course, would have been an unhelpful answer.
Startup Professionals Musings
APRIL 7, 2011
I realized a while back that creating a new company for the first time is a lot like whipping up a great dinner entree for the first time – you need a recipe, even though it may look simple. You know the basic ingredients, and you can visualize the results you want. Yet you may not be so sure where to start, and how to put it all together. In all cases, don’t skip the basic training.
ReadWriteStart
APRIL 7, 2011
Since 2002, the law form of Fenwick & West has conducted a venture capital survey, a response to "the burst of the 'dot-come bubble' and a desire to provide the entrepreneurial community with objective information about the status of the venture environment." But recognizing that the funding landscape has changed - more angels, more Web startups - this year the firm conducted its first Angel/Seed Financing Survey.
Feld Thoughts
APRIL 2, 2011
While I was on vacation Founder Labs announced their New York program this summer. I’m a big fan of Shaherose Charania and Baat Enosh and agreed to help support the program along with Fred and Joanne Wilson and a number of other folks that support entrepreneurship in New York. Founder Labs fits in the “pre-accelerator&# category – it’s aimed at people that want to experiment with entrepreneurship.
Start Up Blog
APRIL 4, 2011
The good people at Ibis World just released a report on which industries are facing the biggest declines. You can probably guess a few of them, and the major culprit behind the decline is another mainstay of change: Technological Development. The numbers are from the US economy over the past decade, but I think it’s a fair representation of what is occurring in most first world developed economies.
Growthink Blog
APRIL 6, 2011
We all know that Facebook has massive growth goals. In fact, last month, Facebook was valued at $75 Billion on SecondMarket (a secondary market for private company shares). And its current revenues don't nearly support that. But, Facebook is doing something that it hopes will allow it to continue to grow like wildfire and grow into its $75 Billion valuation.
ReadWriteStart
APRIL 7, 2011
At this week's One Million by One Million roundtable, we announced a very important partnership with MAD Incubator, Malaysia for entrepreneurship development in the region. This is our first major partnership with an incubator whereby MAD will adopt the 1M/1M methodology to foster Silicon Valley-style technopreneurship in Malaysia. Andrew Wong, CEO of MAD, has been working with us for almost a year, and we have made a mutual choice to deepen the partnership by making MAD a premiere value-added r
Feld Thoughts
APRIL 5, 2011
On April 11th, I’ll be the interviewee at CU Silicon Flatirons Entrepreneurs Unplugged. The event will be held at ATLAS Room 100 from 6:15pm to 7:30pm; Brad Bernthal and Jill Van Matre will be interviewing me. If you’ve come to an Entrepreneurs Unplugged event in the past, you know that I’m usually the interviewer with help from Brad Bernthal.
Entrepreneurs-Journey.com by Yaro Starak
APRIL 5, 2011
Every morning, we wake up and get ready to do some things. Often those things revolve around our job, our business or our hobbies. Day after day, week after week, year after year, we do them. Why? What drives you to do what you do? Sometimes it is necessity. Sometimes it is passion. Even curiosity, compulsion or coercion. But when you take a closer look, it becomes obvious that all this is driven by something more abstract, that is unique and special to the human state.
This is going to be BIG.
APRIL 8, 2011
When I was a junior at Regis High School, I had Mr. Murphy, who had a certain way of emphasizing different phrases at a deeper pitch that made for high scores on the Unintentional Comedy Scale. The best all-time exchange in his class that I got to witness was with my friend Gian, who was caught, like a deer in headlights on one particular question. Undaunted, as any true Regian would be in a situation where he had to speak on a topic he knew nothing about, words started to flow out of his mouth.
BeyondVC
APRIL 5, 2011
Every 3 months I dig through my "passed company" folder to look at what investment opportunities we passed on and why. Inevitably, there are a few companies that are near-misses, but we end up passing on for whatever reason. Did we pass because we didn't think the team was great or because we didn't believe that they could get a product launched? Did we pass because of lack of traction in the beta release or because of concerns on valuation?
Gregg Fraley, Author of Jack's Notebook
APRIL 4, 2011
I watched a wonderful HBO movie last evening, Temple Grandin. It’s been out in the USA, the illustrious, talented, and ever-refreshing Clair Danes won an Emmy for her role. She was fabulous in the part, you made it live Clair – but enough already — this is not that kind of review, look for more [.].
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