A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks
FEBRUARY 22, 2010
I'm sick of being admonished that success is predicated on spending the next 10,000 hours of our lives becoming "an expert.". I'm sick of hearing about how I should be molding my life in the image of Michael Phelps or Albert Einstein, because the only thing that separates me from genius is identifying my strengths and working really really hard. I'm calling bullshit.
Steve Blank
FEBRUARY 25, 2010
Customer Development is a technique startups use to quickly iterate and test each part of their business model. How you execute Customer Development varies, depending on your type of business. In my book, “ The Four Steps to the Epiphany ” I use enterprise software as the business model example. Ash Maurya , the CEO of WiredReach, has extended my work by building a model of Customer Development for Web Startups.
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SoCal CTO
FEBRUARY 25, 2010
I just got done reading a post by Roger Ehrenberg Advice for CTO Founders: Don't Let Business Kill the Business where he suggests that CTO Founders should not move too early in finding a business cofounder: Too often, however, I have found CTO / Founders paired with business people who not only don't add value, but frequently detract from the value of the business.
Startup Professionals Musings
FEBRUARY 25, 2010
The traditional mode of starting a company is to plan a serial process, where you complete only once all the steps, leading to the “big bang” launch of the company. I strongly recommend a dramatic departure from this model, called “planned iteration,” where you assume you won’t get it right the first time. This idea was well articulated by Paul Graham in an old essay, called “ Startups in 13 Sentences ” in which he talked about “making a few people really happy rather than making a lot of people
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
This is going to be BIG.
FEBRUARY 22, 2010
A week or so ago, we launched the Key Hire Wire at First Round. We realized that there were certain open positions in our portfolio we wanted to call extra attention to. Over 1,000 senior professionals have since signed up for the mailer, which goes out on Fridays. I tried to make it a little more entertaining than your average job RSS feed. If you know of senior level business and technical professionals looking for exciting startup opportunities, they can sign up here.
Feld Thoughts
FEBRUARY 21, 2010
I have a number of friends who are patent attorneys. Some have strong negative feelings about software patents that mirror mine while others keep me entertained by arguing both sides of the situation with themselves while I sit around and listen. One of my friends – let’s call him Sawyer – has very strong negative opinions as he’s spent most of his time recently defending his clients against software patent suits including an increasing number from patent trolls (non-practicing entities).
Start Up Roar brings together the best content for start up professionals from the widest variety of industry thought leaders.
Entrepreneurs-Journey.com by Yaro Starak
FEBRUARY 26, 2010
Tyrone Shum has participated in both my Blog Mastermind and Membership Site Mastermind programs. He’s special because not only did he study the materials (which is rare enough!), he went on and has built himself a successful blog and last year launched a membership site too, so he’s a real action taker. Part of the reason he’s one of the unusual people who actually gets stuff done is because Tyrone knows how to outsource, in fact that is his specialty.
This is going to be BIG.
FEBRUARY 26, 2010
If you know of senior level business and technical professionals looking for exciting startup opportunities, they can sign up here: [link]. **Correction: Last week's CTO position at Modcloth is actually a San Francisco opportunity, not Pittsburgh. VP of Business Development, DNAnexus - Palo Alto, California In the not too distant future, everything will be determined by your DNA--your job, what retro 50's decor you'll buy, how tightly you'll slick back your hair, whether or not you can date Uma
Austin Startup
FEBRUARY 25, 2010
Earlier this year, Derek Williams and Paul Terry Walhus combined their efforts to launch Texas Coworking , an addition to the already growing trend of co-shared workspaces for entrepreneurs, business people and creative folk. After the continued success of Conjunctured , it’s quite clear that co-working is not only a viable solution for many, but a great means to bring everyone together under one roof and connect.
Feld Thoughts
FEBRUARY 24, 2010
I love the Pogoplug. We’ve been investors in the company for about a year and it has been a blast working with the team. Pogoplug is in our Digital Life theme and has a lot of conceptual similarities to our previous investment in Sling Media (now part of EchoStar). We love products like the Pogoplug and the Slingbox “software that ships with a little plastic box that does magic stuff” that, in Pogoplug’s case, provides you access to any of your external hard drives from anywhere in the world on
Cracking the Code
FEBRUARY 24, 2010
Cracking The Code. Thoughts from a Venture Capitalist on Software, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), Cloud Computing, Internet and more. Wednesday, February 24, 2010. A funny perspective on Google innovation. Posted by Philippe Botteri. at 6:01 PM. Labels: anecdotes. 2 comments: Brian P. said. Haha, love it Phillippe! Hope you don't mind if I reblog. 12:49 AM.
Entrepreneurs-Journey.com by Yaro Starak
FEBRUARY 22, 2010
Over the weekend I attended Ed Dale’s 30DC Coming Home three day event in Melbourne. Ed Dale, if you don’t know him, is one of Australia’s most well known and likable Internet marketers, who adds a uniquely Australian flavour to the industry. Currently he is most well known as one of the founders of the 30 Day Challenge , an introductory program that aims to take any person from absolute beginner to making their first few dollars online, and beyond, within 30 days.
Both Sides of the Table
FEBRUARY 21, 2010
One of the investment themes I’ve been focused on in the past 3 years has been Performance-Based Marketing. When I started investing the US advertising market was $300 billion with only 10% of it ($30 billion) of it being online and measurable. One recession later and the US advertising market is about $245 billion – but still only 10-12% is online and measurable.
Feld Thoughts
FEBRUARY 24, 2010
I love the Pogoplug. We’ve been investors in the company for about a year and it has been a blast working with the team. Pogoplug is in our Digital Life theme and has a lot of conceptual similarities to our previous investment in Sling Media (now part of EchoStar). We love products like the Pogoplug and the Slingbox “software that ships with a little plastic box that does magic stuff” that, in Pogoplug’s case, provides you access to any of your external hard drives from anywhere in the world on
Steve Blank
FEBRUARY 22, 2010
Startups that are searching for a business model need to keep score differently than large companies that are executing a known business model. Yet most entrepreneurs and their VC’s make startups use financial models and spreadsheets that actually hinder their success. Here’s why. Managing the Business. When I ran my startups our venture investors scheduled board meetings each month for the first year or two, going to every six weeks a bit later, and then moving to quarterly after we found a pro
www.informationarbitrage.com
FEBRUARY 24, 2010
Home About Press IA Capital Partners Archives After 17 years in M&A, Derivatives and Trading, Im spending my time with young entrepreneurs in and around financial technology and digital media. Read more » Recent Press The New York Times April 22, 2009 - A Company Plans to Market Illiquid Assets CNBC.com April 8, 2008 - Social Stock Picking Reuters April 6, 2009 - Bit.ly tries to expand beyond Twitter roots Blogs Im Reading Andrew Corn Barry Ritholtz Fred Wilson FT Alphaville Howard Lindzon
deal architect
FEBRUARY 25, 2010
I blogged recently about The Outsourcing Famine – little innovation in “business models and global delivery models and their partnering with interesting new technologies” with exceptions in firms like Cognizant and emerging ones like appirio and Corefino. Jon Reed highlights. Tags: Outsourcing (other vendors).
A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks
FEBRUARY 26, 2010
Help me spread the word about this program! I'm a mentor and investor in CapitalFactory , a seed-stage startup mentorship program in Austin, TX. Each year we pick 5 companies to participate in a 10-week summer program which includes: 20 real mentors. Twenty entrepreneurs who have actually been in your shoes — creating companies from scratch, growing to millions in revenue, and often selling them.
Feld Thoughts
FEBRUARY 24, 2010
Today, Senator John Kerry (D-MA) and Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN) introduced the StartUp Visa Act of 2010. The group of us behind the Startup Visa project have been working closely with key members of each Senators’ staff on this and we are incredibly pleased with the proposed bill. Following is the text from the press release announcing the bill: “Senators John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), the Chairman and Ranking Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, today introduced
www.subelsky.com
FEBRUARY 25, 2010
Mike Subelskys Blog Wednesday, November 11, 2009 Lean startup tools for Rails apps A few months ago I was invited to dinner with the Geeks on a Plane crew when they stopped in Washington, and had the opportunity to meet one of my heroes, Eric Ries , author of the Startup Lessons Learned blog. His descriptions of lean startup techniques and philosophies have had a big influence on the way I design and build software.
deal architect
FEBRUARY 26, 2010
Marc Benioff asks “Why isn’t all enterprise software like Facebook?”. And Charles Zedlewski of SAP responds a better question should be “Why isn’t all enterprise software like amazon?” Hey, it is good that enterprise software is looking to more consumery. Tags: Enterprise Software (IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, SAP).
Startup Professionals Musings
FEBRUARY 26, 2010
Business success begins in the mind of the startup founder and his team. A winning startup is a team of entrepreneurs who build and run the business as an extension of who they are, rather than some extrapolation of the Google or Facebook model. It’s not so easy to fake the important attributes when the going gets rough. So before you risk it all by jumping into a startup, do a reality check on your own mind to see if you can find a majority of the following attributes, based on the book “ You C
Feld Thoughts
FEBRUARY 21, 2010
I’m extremely impressed with Vivek Wadhwa’s posts on TechCrunch. He’s been blogging periodically for them since last fall and has shown that he’s willing to take on difficult, controversial, and complicated issues and discuss them in data driven and systematic ways. Recently, Vivek wrote a post titled Silicon Valley: You and Some of Your VC’s have a Gender Problem that resulted from a research project he did with the National Center for Women & Information Technology (I’m chairman).
Rembrandt Communications
FEBRUARY 25, 2010
Do you think of social media first when it comes to word-of-mouth-marketing? Well, before you start tweeting, posting photos on Facebook and adding videos to YouTube, tell your story to the media. After all, if your business is featured in a major news-story on radio, television, print, or online, you can build buzz while obtaining [.].
deal architect
FEBRUARY 22, 2010
They come in threes, they say. Three things in the last 24 hours make me wonder if industry observers are not bringing too much attention to ourselves. Larry Dignan at ZDNet writes about an InfoWorld columnist’s conflict of interest Phil. Tags: Industry Commentary.
Startup Professionals Musings
FEBRUARY 23, 2010
For survival, the objective of every business should be to garner revenues which exceed their costs. Even non-profits have to do this to cover overhead costs, unless they rely totally on donations. Yet I continue to see business plans, or even talk to founders, and can’t find a clear business model. As Guy Kawasaki says in his book “ The Art of the Start ,” if you can’t describe your business model in ten words or less, you don’t have a business model.
Feld Thoughts
FEBRUARY 22, 2010
Every day I get emails from folks either raising money or telling me about their new idea and asking for feedback. The conventional wisdom is that VCs rarely invest in things that reach them randomly (or “over the transom” in someone’s VC vocabulary – I can’t for the life of me figure out why that phrase hangs around.) However, this isn’t the case for us as 10% of the companies we’ve funded in the past two years were initially from “cold call” email inquiries ( Brightleaf and Organic Motion ).
Startup Lessons Learned
FEBRUARY 22, 2010
Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, February 22, 2010 Why diversity matters (the meritocracy business) Diversity is the canary in the coal mine for meritocracy. As entrepreneurs, more than any other industry, we’re in the meritocracy business. The companies that make decisions based on merit, rather than title, politics, or hierarchy execute faster and learn faster than their competitors.
deal architect
FEBRUARY 22, 2010
Ray Wang has published recent data on third party maintenance. Two things stand out. Customers are hungry for third party maintenance. They cannot find too many public choices for third party maintenance (I know on a one off basis they. Tags: Enterprise Software (IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, SAP).
Startup Professionals Musings
FEBRUARY 22, 2010
Being a risk taker in business is not the same as being reckless. Nevertheless, the word “risk” has a negative connotation to most of us, implying danger and possible loss. For true entrepreneurs, risk is viewed as a positive, with its implied challenge to overcome the unknown and hitting the big return. In fact, risk is an integral part of life, as well as every business, yet so few people learn to manage it properly, or even want to think about it.
Feld Thoughts
FEBRUARY 22, 2010
I love the stuff that ya’ll email me (or comment) after I write a post that challenge my thinking. While occasionally the notes are hostile (which is mostly just entertaining), they are usually really thought provoking even when I disagree. And, when they give me a new way to think about something, they are really satisfying. For all of you out there that read this blog – you guys are great – thanks for helping me think!
VC Cafe
FEBRUARY 22, 2010
A growing trend in the online shopping category is social shopping. Two interesting well-funded companies operating in this space are Curatemedia (owner of ThisNext and Stylehive ) and Polyvore. Both add a social layer to the online product discovery experience. Despite this activity, however, there is still a lot of online shopping which doesn’t incorporate social elements, with traditional comparison shopping engines maintaining a focus on search engine marketing arbitrage rather than building
deal architect
FEBRUARY 25, 2010
Jeffrey Word of SAP and I were discussing the other day pricing for ebooks on the iPad and Kindle. He is an author of many books and has been extremely valuable a coach as I go through my own publishing. Tags: Industry Commentary.
Growthink Blog
FEBRUARY 25, 2010
Last night at dinner, amongst my kids saying "I want this" and "I want that," I said something that you should never tell your kids. What did I say? I said, "you know, money doesn't grow on trees." Why is this so bad? Well the goal of my saying this was to try to show them the value of money. And that we have to work to make money to spend on the things we want.
Feld Thoughts
FEBRUARY 24, 2010
Jon Hansen has started interviewing me periodically on his show on BlogTalkRadio as part of his Thought Leaders Series. Yesterday’s interview focused on my experience of investing in Rally Software and included short discussions on how Rally got started, how and why I decided to invest, and the role various factors play in my decision making process.
VC Cafe
FEBRUARY 22, 2010
E ntrepreneurship is like riding a bicycle. You are going to fall and get hurt before you learn to do it right. Having recently attended an event on common mistakes made by entrepreneurs, I thought you would benefit from learning some of the lessons from people who got it wrong the first time. 1. We have no competition - if that’s really the case, perhaps you’re in the wrong business. 2.
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