Both Sides of the Table
MARCH 6, 2010
One of the questions I’m most often asked is, “what’s it like being a VC?&# I’ve been a VC for nearly 3 years now. Since I answer this all the time anyway I thought it might make an interesting blog post. I always start my answer to this question with, “you’d have to be a pretty big baby to complain about being a VC.&# That’s true.
SoCal CTO
MARCH 9, 2010
In my post, Technology Roles in Startups , I described some of the different ways I engage with startup companies such as CTO Founder , CTO , Part-Time CTO , Acting CTO , Consultant, Advisor and Advisory Board Member. The last two categories are quite variable on their own and there’s quite a bit to those kinds of engagements as they often are not as well defined.
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Feld Thoughts
MARCH 11, 2010
Over the years, a number of companies I’ve been an investor in have had hackathons. These are typically day long events where everyone in the company works on whatever cool new ideas they have. On Monday night I got a note from a company I’m on the board of about a hackthon they just completed. As I looked through the list of things that the various teams created, I got chills of excitement.
Startup Professionals Musings
MARCH 11, 2010
Starting a business is a lot like starting a marriage. At first, all parties are in dreamland, with a vision of changing the world, having lots of fun, and raking in the profits. But all too soon, reality sets in. Product development is stuck at that 90% mark, a key person leaves, and customers are talking but not buying. In his book Reality Check , Guy Kawasaki summarizes some of the key issues.
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
MARCH 6, 2010
W hile we increasingly adopt the social tools such as Facebook and Twitter as a method for connecting with other users to post and ask for information on products and services, companies are finding it hard to catch up with the fast paste of the social web. As a result, they continue to see customer attrition and get left out of the conversation. In the newly published report “Social CRM: The New Rules of Relationship Management&# , Jeremiah Owyang and Ray Wang of the Altimeter Group adv
SoCal CTO
MARCH 11, 2010
Tim Berry has a great post on Why I Hate Those Huge Market Numbers tells us that he doesn’t like to see business plans with multi-billion market numbers used as the basis for projections. It’s the old – 5% of massive market gives us a big number. I agree completely: If it makes you feel better to give me that number in passing, okay, go ahead, but don’t put any emphasis on it.
Start Up Roar brings together the best content for start up professionals from the widest variety of industry thought leaders.
Cracking the Code
MARCH 12, 2010
Cracking The Code. Thoughts from a Venture Capitalist on Software, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), Cloud Computing, Internet and more. Friday, March 12, 2010. State of the SaaS 13: Q1 2010 Sentiment. As we are entering a new year, I thought it would be interesting to publish every quarter an update on the state of the 13 public SaaS/Cloud companies in the Index.
Austin Startup
MARCH 8, 2010
There’s a little piece of chaos at SXSW for everyone; and every year, some folks navigate the flood of people and sensory overload a bit better than others – the difference between a SXSW veteran and noobie is noticeable at first glance. In an effort to reduce apparent nerd-ism, I’ve put together some helpful tips and found some neat tools for first-timers at SXSW.
Entrepreneurs-Journey.com by Yaro Starak
MARCH 11, 2010
I recently received this unsolicited email from Craig Shinney (slightly edited to protect identities) – I just wanted to write to tell you that about one year ago, I started getting into Internet marketing and experimenting with all sorts of different methods of the various types of blogs and tools that all the different marketers recommend. It was an amazing journey.
andrewchenblog.com
MARCH 10, 2010
@AndrewChen New here? Check out my list of featured essays Product design debt versus Technical debt View Comments Amazon’s tabs are a classic example of product design debt and the refactoring process to pay it down Incrementalism creates Technical Debt, and also Product Design Debt Most startups these days build products using the various philosophies of agile – both in the formal sense but also the informal sayings of “deploy early and often,&# “fail fast,&# “shi
Both Sides of the Table
MARCH 11, 2010
This is part of my ongoing series on Raising Venture Capital. Recently I’ve been debating with a number of young startup companies that are raising money in the next few months, “what is the right about of capital to raise at a startup?&#. It’s a tricky question with no clear answer. There are trade offs. And it obviously depends on the kind of business you’re building.
deal architect
MARCH 9, 2010
The last few months have been joyful. I have had a chance to mingle with a number of innovators as I wrote my book. Many are focused on the Grand Challenges the word faces - environmental, engineering etc. It is. Tags: Industry Commentary.
Entrepreneurs-Journey.com by Yaro Starak
MARCH 10, 2010
It was early 2006. I had been blogging for over a year and felt I had achieved something. My blog had recently surpassed 1,000 RSS subscribers ( what is RSS ), making it at the time the most popular website I had ever built. The income was solid – up to $2,000 a month at best – and it was growing. I loved what I was doing. My plan, based on all the Internet marketing advice I studied from the experts to “create a product&# , was to start by releasing an ebook to test the waters
adamac.blogspot.com
MARCH 9, 2010
Adamac Attack! Adam MacBeth Tuesday, April 07, 2009 10 Startup Red Flags Ive worked on a number of startups: from seed-stage through IPO, as a founder, employee, advisor, and consultant, as well as evaluating a bunch from the outside, so Ive seen my share of screw-ups. There are some obvious warning signs, but sometimes these are hard to recognize except in hindsight or without prior startup experience.
Both Sides of the Table
MARCH 10, 2010
File this under entrepreneurial advice. I know that this will sound like a random post topic for startup advice but I promise it’s relevant. You actually need to give advice to nearly every employee whom you offer a job to on how to best quit their job. This is important to improve conversion rates of accepted offers / joiners, shorten the time-to-join ratio and the improve the ability of that employee to maintaing good relations with their former employer.
A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks
MARCH 8, 2010
(P.S. Are you going to SxSW? If so, drop me a line and we'll coordinate.). Most people start their first company while they still have a day job. It makes sense: You don't need loans, and you don't need funding. If you "fail" all you've lost is time, but considering the fun, the stories, and everything you'll have learned, that's hardly a failure. You just need to give up all your free time which, if you've caught the "founders" bug, is A-OK with you.
Steve Blank
MARCH 11, 2010
One of the classes I teach in the engineering school at Stanford is E145: the Fundamentals of Technology Entrepreneurship , an introduction to building a scalable startup. While the class is open to everyone at the University, we want to teach science and engineering undergraduates how they can take a technical idea and turn it into a profitable and scalable company.
semanticuniverse.com
MARCH 9, 2010
Home Articles News Blogs COMPETITION Learning Events Resources Login Home » Groups » TopQuadrant Monthly Column Print Building Competency in Semantic Web Technology Group Blog | 12.01.09 | By Dean Allemang In part I of this two-part series, Dean Allemang & Scott Henninger draw on years of teaching TopQuadrants introduction course on the Semantic Web to make some observations on teaching Semantic Web concepts to a wide variety of students.
Both Sides of the Table
MARCH 8, 2010
I guess let’s file this under sales & marketing advice. I recently wrote a piece for Mashable on how to create a company blog. Since it’s already written (and since I promised not to republish on my blog other than a summary) if you’re interested please have a read over there. I have a very detailed article that covers stuff I won’t cover in detail in this post.
The Startup Lawyer
MARCH 8, 2010
TechWildcatters is a mentorship-driven microseed fund and startup accelerator in Dallas, Texas. Applications for the first 12-week accelerator “bootcamp” are due March 19. The selected startups will get up to $25,000 in seed funding, intensive top-notch mentorship, and the opportunity to pitch to angel investors, venture capitalists and corporate dev teams at their biannual “Demo Day”.
deal architect
MARCH 6, 2010
Altimeter issues a sobering report on how companies cannot keep up with the social customer. Hey, how about the social citizen? Unfortunately, the 2 scenarios below happen way too often in local government: “ Before we invest any more we.
Startup Professionals Musings
MARCH 6, 2010
The common feedback from investors is that startups must expect a continued squeeze on new funding during the economic recovery. I subscribe to the "glass is half full" wisdom which says that startups with the right stuff can win big in these tough times. The big question is, "What is the right stuff?" Here are some key elements that will always get their attention: Play where you are the expert.
Both Sides of the Table
MARCH 8, 2010
I’ve been enjoying using Plancast over the past month or so. I’m not an investor and though I wouldn’t rule it out in the future I’m not currently looking at the company. Just wanted to get that out of the way up front so I won’t look like a vested-interest fanboy. In fact, for the research of this post I just noticed that they announced funding today – congrats.
The Startup Lawyer
MARCH 8, 2010
TechWildcatters is a mentorship-driven microseed fund and startup accelerator in Dallas, Texas. Applications for the first 12-week accelerator “bootcamp” are due March 19. The selected startups will get up to $25,000 in seed funding, intensive top-notch mentorship, and the opportunity to pitch to angel investors, venture capitalists and corporate dev teams at their biannual “Demo Day”.
deal architect
MARCH 6, 2010
I have started a series of excerpts from my upcoming book.first set is on the New Florence blog here. Tags: The New Polymath.
SoCal CTO
MARCH 10, 2010
Steve Blank wrote a great post recently entitled Perfection By Subtraction – The Minimum Feature Set where he explains the real goals around defining a minimum viable product: Founders act like the “minimum” part is the goal. Or worse, that every potential customer should want it. In the real world not every customer is going to get overly excited about your minimum feature set.
Startup Professionals Musings
MARCH 12, 2010
I don’t have an MBA. I used to fear that this would put me at a disadvantage in starting my own company, but now I’m convinced that it may be the other way around. More importantly, as a parent or mentor, what should you advise young potential entrepreneurs about getting an MBA? In some recent surveys, as many as two-thirds of entrepreneurs felt that their entrepreneurial spirit was more ingrained than learned, so maybe the education level is irrelevant.
deal architect
MARCH 8, 2010
on the innovation blog The Bloom Box Sketch Interpreting Software MIT Tech Review’s 50 Most Innovative companies 20 Years of Adobe Photoshop.
Feld Thoughts
MARCH 8, 2010
I’ve been an Amazon Associate (Amazon’s affiliate program) for many years. Today I got the following notice in my Amazon Associates account. and I woke up to the following email. Dear Colorado-based Amazon Associate: We are writing from the Amazon Associates Program to inform you that the Colorado government recently enacted a law to impose sales tax regulations on online retailers.
Pascal's View
MARCH 12, 2010
This is the fifth in our series of ten frequently asked questions from investors in venture capital partnerships. Susan Mangiero , CEO of Investment Governance’s Fiduciary X , asked me the following: Question: Please differentiate between the governance of a VC fund versus the governance of companies in a VC fund’s portfolio? Is one more important than the other?
Steve Blank
MARCH 8, 2010
This post is the latest in the “ Secret History Series.” They’ll make much more sense if you read some of the earlier ones for context. See the Secret History video and slides as well as the bibliography for sources and supplemental reading. ———— By the early 1960’s Lockheed Missiles Division in Sunnyvale was quickly becoming the largest employer in what would be later called Silicon Valley.
Startup Professionals Musings
MARCH 10, 2010
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. That’s the reason every good parent should be coaching their child from birth to avoid posting all the naughty things on social networks that can come back to haunt them later.
Startup Lessons Learned
MARCH 9, 2010
Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, March 9, 2010 Startup Lessons Learned - the Conference (April 23, 2010 in SF) Today we are opening up registration for the first ever Startup Lessons Learned Conference on April 23, 2010 in San Francisco. Im incredibly excited. The event is being produced in partnership with Charles Hudson, who puts on many of Silicon Valleys top events, including the forthcoming Freemium Summit.
Pascal's View
MARCH 10, 2010
This is the third in our series of ten frequently asked questions from investors in venture capital partnerships. Susan Mangiero , CEO of Investment Governance’s Fiduciary X , asked me the following: Question: Given recent instances of VC-backed company fraud and questions about the management team, how can institutional investors protect themselves from key person risk?
Rembrandt Communications
MARCH 11, 2010
If you want new business, here are three quick tips that may help you boost your customer-list fast… 1. Make a list. Check it twice. Look through all of your contacts and review the people you’ve met in your industry or at various conferences, local business meetings, presentations, etc. Then, make a list. Research each [.].
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