Sat.Jul 31, 2010 - Fri.Aug 06, 2010

article thumbnail

Beware of Premature Merge Elation

Both Sides of the Table

There is a telltale sign of an inexperienced startup entrepreneur. They get premature merge elation. You know, they get so excited about doing deals all the time instead of doing the hard work of figuring out their businesses. I understand this. I was a premature merge elater once. Here’s what I learned: 1. As a startup you shouldn’t focus on buying other companies until you’ve figured out your own business.

Merger 276
article thumbnail

Building Bootstrapping into Business Models

The Entrepreneurial Mind

The myth still exists that it takes outside funding, sometimes massive outside funding, to launch a successful high growth firm. If you have a very capital intensive or labor intensive business model you will need a large base of funding to get off the ground. But for most start-ups, you may be able to adjust your business model enough to cut the funding you need, while still making a successful launch.

Insiders

Sign Up for our Newsletter

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

article thumbnail

“Start Small, Stay Small” Now Available in Kindle and ePub Formats

Software By Rob

Software by Rob Passionate about Startups and MicroISVs Lessons Learned by a Serial Entrepreneur home about press micropreneurs archives ← Why Startup Founders Should Stop Reading Business Books Why Free Plans Don’t Work → “Start Small, Stay Small&# Now Available in Kindle and ePub Formats About this Blog , Micropreneurship , Startups If youre trying grow your startup youve come to the right place.

article thumbnail

Immigration policy and the future of work

deal architect

It is tough to ignore immigration talk given all the noise coming out of Arizona and Washington. But I have been thinking even more about it, with a recent trip to Ireland and the GigaOm event last week on the. Tags: Globalization and Technology.

Ireland 257
article thumbnail

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

article thumbnail

Understanding a VC’s Seed Funding Policy is Critical

Both Sides of the Table

There has been much discussion about VCs doing seed funding in the past year. I’ve written about it myself (Is VC Seed Funding Dead?) and (Is There Really a Signaling Problem with VC Seed Funding?). Short summary of my posts: 1. There is a structural reason that VCs are investing at early stages, 2. Many (Union Square Ventures, Foundry Group, True Ventures, GRP Partners, Mike Hirshland at Polaris Ventures) do it the right way – we treat it as a normal investment and we don’t h

article thumbnail

The Rise of the Lean VC – Consumer Internet Gets Its Own Investors

Steve Blank

Consumer Internet investing seems to have split off from traditional Venture Capital, and is creating a new category of VC’s: Lean VC’s. I think you can blame Customer and Agile Development for a small part of it. Here’s why. Electron-based Venture Capital. When I first came to Silicon Valley the world of Venture Capital looked pretty simple.

Lean 258

More Trending

article thumbnail

Eight Business Processes Every Startup Must Have

Startup Professionals Musings

Even when your startup is a one-man show, you will soon find that you are “out of control,” unless you start organizing and writing down how and when key things need to get done. Like it or not, you are now entering the dreaded realm of “formal business processes.” The right question is “What is the minimum that I need?” The simple answer is that you need to implement one process at a time, starting with those things that are most critical to your business, until you feel a relief that things ar

Startup 239
article thumbnail

SAP-Oracle legal moves

deal architect

Ever wonder why a baseball manager keeps a pitcher deep into a game even when he is getting pounded early on? Unlike us fans, they are thinking of impact on bullpen and rotation for the next week, not just a. Tags: Enterprise Software (IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, SAP).

Software 218
article thumbnail

What Qualities Does One Need to Succeed as a Venture-Backed CEO?

Pascal's View

The National Venture Capital Association and executive recruiting firm SpencerStuart recently released a white paper, “Emerging Best Practices for Building the Next Generation of Venture-Backed Leadership” One of the key points from the paper is the increasing preference by VCs for CEOs who have ‘been there and done that’: When seeking talent for emerging sectors (such as clean technology) with a limited CEO pool, 2010 survey. respondents clearly favored proven venture-

article thumbnail

Facebook Consulting Australia: hire my services

Aymeric Gaurat-Apelli

Skip to content Follow: RSS Email Twitter Aymeric Gaurat-Apelli On building profitable web applications Home Contact me Creations Blog Books Entrepreneurship & Startups General Online experiments Programming tips and tricks Startup tips and tricks Tags facebook , facebook consulting Facebook Consulting Australia: hire my services by Aymeric on August 6th, 2010 Note: I tailored this message around ‘Facebook Consulting Australia’ to help people find me in Google.

article thumbnail

The Best Startup Incubators Have the Best People

Startup Professionals Musings

Business incubators for sharing services were all the rage back in the days of the dot-com bubble (700 for profit, many more non-profit). About that time the bubble burst, causing more than 80% of them to disappear. Now they are coming back, and the best even provide networking, technical leadership, and seed funding, as well as shared facilities and space.

Incubator 233
article thumbnail

The GM IPO: How about some innovation?

deal architect

Bill Hambrecht makes a persuasive case on CNBC for a Dutch Auction for the GM IPO. In my book, his bankers David Marcus and Jim Dohonue explain how it works and why it is usually better for the issuer –. Tags: The New Polymath.

IPO 210
article thumbnail

Your Competitors Are Doing This, Are You?

Rembrandt Communications

You smell the freshly cut grass and the tangy barbeque sizzling on the grill. You sip a nice, cool beverage by the pool and start to fall asleep. Ah…summer. It’s time for rest, relaxation and fun. But wait a minute…Wake up! It’s also a time to be aware of your business. Why? Well, while you’re [.].

Restful 159
article thumbnail

Facebook Consulting Australia: hire my services | Aymeric Gaurat.

Aymeric Gaurat-Apelli

Skip to content Follow: RSS Email Twitter Aymeric Gaurat-Apelli On building profitable web applications Home Contact me Creations Blog Books Entrepreneurship & Startups General Online experiments Programming tips and tricks Startup tips and tricks Tags facebook , facebook consulting Facebook Consulting Australia: hire my services by Aymeric on August 6th, 2010 Note: I tailored this message around ‘Facebook Consulting Australia’ to help people find me in Google.

article thumbnail

Don’t Confuse Business Motion With Momentum

Startup Professionals Musings

Too many entrepreneurs confuse motion with momentum. We all know someone who repeatedly tells us how “busy” they are, when it’s hard to see what they get done. Momentum is moving things forward (mass x velocity). Founders or employees in constant motion, but with no momentum, will kill any startup. It is true that motion in any direction is often better than no motion at all.

Hiring 226
article thumbnail

Burning Questions: Do telcos understand variable cost economics?

deal architect

Somewhere from my fuzzy recollection of economics classes, I seem to remember that as products evolved in their lifecycles, you moved from “charge what market will bear” to “variable cost pricing “ – i.e. make sure price covers your variable. Tags: Burning Questions.

Cost 199
article thumbnail

How I Think About Seed Investing As A VC

Feld Thoughts

Last week saw an explosion of discussion around seed investing, including plenty of negative comments around VCs as seed investors. While I agree that many VCs are crummy seed investors, I think there are some that are excellent seed investors. This prompted me to write a post titled AngelList Boulder and Some Thoughts on Seed Investing where I promised to write up some of my thoughts on how and why VCs could be good seed investors.

article thumbnail

Facebook Consulting Australia: hire my services

Aymeric Gaurat-Apelli

Skip to content Follow: RSS Email Twitter Aymeric Gaurat-Apelli On building profitable web applications Home Contact me Creations Blog Books Entrepreneurship & Startups General Online experiments Programming tips and tricks Startup tips and tricks Tags facebook , facebook consulting Facebook Consulting Australia: hire my services by Aymeric on August 6th, 2010 Note: I tailored this message around ‘Facebook Consulting Australia’ to help people find me in Google.

article thumbnail

Who is Getting Venture Capital Money This Year?

Startup Professionals Musings

I’m a strong believer that investors invest in people, before they invest in a business plan, or an idea. But until now, I’ve never seen a study of exactly how that plays out for startup founders for current venture-backed companies, specifically: race, age, experience and the number of founders per company. A new study, just published by CB Insights, titled Venture Capital Human Capital Report , summarizes these three characteristics for private early-stage Internet ventures funded in the US du

article thumbnail

Stupid GSA. They should have been able to figure that one out (about Oracle) with a few phone calls.

deal architect

Is a comment from a reader on a WSJ article about the US Justice Department suing Oracle for allegedly not honoring what is called the “most-favored nation” clause in most government contracts. The commenter feels the US General Services Administration. Tags: Enterprise Software (IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, SAP).

article thumbnail

For Micro VCs, Quick Diligence Is Not Less Diligence

Genuine VC

Critics of Micro VCs have been quick to point out one primary difference vs. the traditional VC model as a significant flaw: the rapid capital deployment velocity. In other words, if Micro VCs are investing in an accelerated pace where they make at least a handful of investments each year per investor, then perhaps they aren’t doing the sufficient amount of diligence to truly vet these opportunities.

article thumbnail

Zimride: Software Engineer - K9 Jobs - Posterous

K9 Ventures

article thumbnail

Seven Startup Co-Founder Partnerships From Hell

Startup Professionals Musings

Most entrepreneurs who start a company alone soon come to the conclusion that two heads are better than one – someone to share the workload, the hard decisions, and the costs. In a moment of crisis, you may be tempted to take on the first person expressing interest. This would be a mistake, and could easily cost you your startup. If you think about it, you should realize that not everyone is ‘ideal partner material.

Cofounder 207
article thumbnail

Now That’s How You Do An Angel Pitch Event

Feld Thoughts

I attended the second Open Angel Forum in Boulder tonight. Simply put, it was dynamite. This is an intense week for seed stage stuff in Boulder as TechStars Demo Day is tomorrow where 11 new companies are having their coming out party. The Boulder New Tech Meetup had a special double header (Tuesday and Wednesday) where six teams practiced their pitches to a room of 300+ people on Tuesday followed up by the other five on Wednesday.

article thumbnail

I’m In Logo Love: Goodwill Logo Design

crowdSPRING Blog

“I’m In Logo Love” is a series on the crowdSPRING blog. Periodically, we 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 Goodwill. Goodwill is a non-profit organization that provides job training, employment assistance and other services to people who have disabilities, inadequate education or job experience

Design 126
article thumbnail

Your Competitors Are Doing This, Are You?

Rembrandt Communications

You smell the freshly cut grass and the tangy barbeque sizzling on the grill. You sip a nice, cool beverage by the pool and start to fall asleep. Ah…summer. It’s time for rest, relaxation and fun. But wait a minute…Wake up! It’s also a time to be aware of your business. Why? Well, while you’re [.].

Restful 100
article thumbnail

Company Spin-offs Can’t Compete With Startups

Startup Professionals Musings

A spin-off is merely a startup spawned by a mature parent (company), and conventional logic would dictate that it has a survival advantage over the lowly startup. Yet spin-offs seem to most often fail to launch in the real world. I was part of one myself a few years ago, and felt the pain, so the phenomenon has intrigued me ever since. My first thought is that spin-offs are like struggling adolescents with over-protective parents.

Startup 199
article thumbnail

The House Advantage

Feld Thoughts

As I watch Amy scurry around and put the final touches on our Homer house before we leave to go home to Boulder, I thought I’d stay out of the way and write a quick final book post on The House Advantage. I read a bunch more books the past two weeks but ran out of gas reviewing them all – see my Shelfari bookshelf if you are interested.

article thumbnail

The tale of two offices

Start Up Blog

I once worked in a consumer goods company which went from Individual offices to open plan. I now work in an advertising agency where we have moved from individual offices to open desks. What happened at these two firms is interesting. The first office (consumer goods marketing) sent out a mass email banning iPods (and any other brand of personal music device – this is seriously what the email said).

article thumbnail

Should every startup get funded?

This is going to be BIG.

First off, let me be clear that the opinions expressed here are solely my own and not that of my employer, or anyone else. The other day, Ron Conway said at an event that “ he hopes that any entrepreneur that has “the guts” to start a company gets funded.” Fred Wilson seconded that opinion , citing that “We need more entrepreneurship, not less.

Startup 101
article thumbnail

Six Keys to Increasing Startup Change Readiness

Startup Professionals Musings

Change is about the only thing constant in the world of startups. Despite their own focus on changing the world, they often forget that they too have to change rapidly and often as the market evolves. Too many find that out too late, and are left chasing a rabbit that is long gone. The solution is to establish and maintain a culture and processes that don’t view change as a discrete event to be spotted and managed, but as an ongoing opportunity to improve competitiveness.

Startup 195
article thumbnail

Biting Lemons to Get Investors to Fund Your Company

Growthink Blog

The 4-minute video below gives an important lesson about concept versus reality and how to convince investors to fund your company. Comments? Thoughts? Questions? Do you think I've lost my mind? Please post them below. read more. Tags: Dave Lavinsky.

Video 102
article thumbnail

I’m in Logo Love: Toblerone Logo Design

crowdSPRING Blog

“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 Toblerone. Toblerone is a Swiss chocolate company known for their triangle shaped candy bars.

Design 93
article thumbnail

Startups are Personal

This is going to be BIG.

At the AOL/SeedStart event last week at the Bowery Hotel, I got in a conversation about hugging. I’m more apt to hug female friends of mine from the startup world than I am in any other industry. That also goes for NoNeck. I don’t usually hug other dudes (except for my high school buddies… but all boys Jesuit prep schools are kind of like that), but NoNeck is well worth a squeeze.

Startup 87
article thumbnail

Gatecrashing into someone’s heart…

Life Beyond Code

Can you gatecrash into someone’s heart? It can happen in movies, for sure. In real life? The chances for that are the same as the chances of winning a lottery. Possible but rarely practical. Make a place in someone’s heart and the you change the relationship completely. Once someone allots a place for you in their heart, the way they look at you will change.

Naming 83
article thumbnail

The Three Blind Mice & Your Business Plan

Growthink Blog

We've all hear the nursery song "Three Blind Mice." It goes like this: Three blind mice, Three blind mice See how they run, See how they run! They all ran after The farmer's wife, She cut off their tails With a carving knife Did you ever see Such a sight in your life As three blind mice? But have you heard the "more educated" version called "A Trio of Sightless Rodents.