Startup Professionals Musings
JUNE 25, 2012
Money to build the business is the number one challenge for most startups. Don’t believe the urban myth that you can sketch your idea on a napkin, and professional investors will throw money at you. In reality, only 3 out of 100 companies who apply are successful with Angels, and the success rate with VCs is even lower. A large percentage of startups never apply to either.
YoungUpstarts
JUNE 27, 2012
Online cloud-based load testing service Load Impact has released its The State of Web Readiness 2012 report at the just concluded O’Reilly Velocity Conference with a conclusion that should worry website administrators. According to the report – which analyzed data from 8,522 load tests executed across 3,968 websites in 132 different countries – found that most websites overestimate their ability to handle large numbers of visitors by 3.4 times.
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Occam's Razor
JUNE 25, 2012
Privacy is a very important issue when it comes to digital. The way data is collected online and what happens to it is a much-scrutinized issue (and rightly so). Digital data collection is also exceedingly complex, perhaps a reflection of the organic nature, and subsequent explosion, of the internet. Hence even sophisticated users find it difficult to know everything, one can hardly expect normal digital users to know what's really happening.
David Teten
JUNE 25, 2012
I have a great idea for a product. I’m looking for an entrepreneur to start a company to provide this product, or a development shop which wants to bid on this project. The big vision: one of the reason for the high valuation of Box and Dropbox is that they render the underlying hardware irrelevant; you trust them with their data. I envision a software tool which makes your underlying software irrelevant, by standardizing the UI across all different products.
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
Startup Professionals Musings
JUNE 29, 2012
If your startup is great enough to get a term sheet from angel investors or a venture capitalist, the next step for the investor is to complete the dreaded due diligence process. This is the last step of the process, where surprises in the evaluation of the management team, documentation, and personnel problems can derail the investment. Some startups do nothing to prepare for the due diligence process, assuming the people and business plan documents will speak for themselves.
Feld Thoughts
JUNE 25, 2012
Last night Amy and I watched the first episode of Aaron Sorkin’s new TV show The Newsroom. It started out strong but by about 30 minutes in I said to Amy “this isn’t going to last for us – this is Sports Night, but less interesting.” By the end I realized Sorkin was simply following “The Formula” which many people, both creatives and professionals, fall into.
Start Up Roar brings together the best content for start up professionals from the widest variety of industry thought leaders.
David Teten
JUNE 25, 2012
I have a great idea for a product. I’m looking for an entrepreneur to start a company to provide this product, or a development shop which wants to bid on this project. The big vision: one of the reason for the high valuation of Box and Dropbox is that they render the underlying hardware irrelevant; you trust them with their data. I envision a software tool which makes your underlying software irrelevant, by standardizing the UI across all different products.
SiliconHills
JUNE 25, 2012
Who is this guy in this picture that doesn’t have a positive opinion of cloud computing? San Antonio-based Rackspace today released a survey of information technology decision makers showing that nine out of ten have a positive opinion of cloud computing and customer service and technical support were their top considerations when choosing a cloud [.].
Startup Professionals Musings
JUNE 24, 2012
At some point in their life, hopefully everyone strives to be the best in their chosen profession. Most people think that being the best requires more intelligence, more training, and more experience. In reality, in business or even in sports, the evidence is conclusive that it is as much about how you think, as what you do. I saw this illustrated well recently in a sports excellence book called “ Training Camp: What the Best Do Better Than Everyone Else ”, by Jon Gordon.
deal architect
JUNE 27, 2012
On the New Florence blog The viral success of a humble bracelet Fabrege and Design Thinking Digital Mourning FPL’s simulated hurricane GE and Big Data MIT Technology Review’s Top 10 Technologies.
YoungUpstarts
JUNE 26, 2012
Anyone who has ever tried to lead people will tell you leadership is more like art than science. And as with art, perfecting the craft of leadership requires studying under a master. Of course, an aspiring leader must have a foundation of communication, decision-making, and problem-solving skills, but owning the tools and knowing how to use them to maximum effect are two different things.
A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks
JUNE 26, 2012
Pin It How do you know if your startup idea is a good one ? Even after twenty customer interviews? How do you know when to hang up the towel and try another idea? The usual answers: It’s a balance. Trust your gut. But your gut is wrong so trust data. But you don’t have enough data so trust your gut. Don’t give up just because it’s hard.
Startup Professionals Musings
JUNE 28, 2012
Success in a startup is not possible as a “one-man show.” An entrepreneur has to engage with team members, partners, investors, vendors, and customers. In my experience, the joy of positive engagement is sometimes the only pay you get in an early startup. Amazingly, many successful startups are built on this basis alone, with almost no money. I will talk here primarily about building the internal team of a startup, but the same principles apply outside to your “extended team” and customers.
deal architect
JUNE 26, 2012
Much as I admire Apple and have profiled them favorably in my books, our household has no iPhones. Plenty of iPods/iPads/iTunes but no iPhones. I refused to pay the AT&T premium for the iPhone, and then the Verizon premium. The.
Genuine VC
JUNE 27, 2012
One of the things that surprised me most about venture capital when I got into the business is how much VCs seem to like to meet for breakfast. VCs usually typically reserve dinners for portfolio companies’ CEOs and board members. And “doing lunch” doesn’t happen that often because VCs don’t like going out of the office mid-day much. But breakfast for venture capitalists is an open free-for-all for all sorts of networking meetings and conversations.
YoungUpstarts
JUNE 25, 2012
Steve Jobs, co-founder, chairman, and chief executive officer of a little company called Apple Inc., who passed away from cancer in October 2011, was a jerk. But really, who among us isn’t at least occasionally unreasonable, petty, and petulant for a few minutes out of every workday? What’s more interesting is what Jobs learned over time as a result of the trauma some say he brought upon himself.
Startup Professionals Musings
JUNE 26, 2012
I’ve long believed that entrepreneurs are different. We all know successful entrepreneurs who dropped out of school, and people with high IQs that cannot manage a business. I used to call this “street smarts,” but recently I found a better explanation, called multiple intelligences. Successful entrepreneurs always seem to have several good intelligences.
deal architect
JUNE 27, 2012
Is it just me or is it the season for all large vendors to start praising the cloud? From Verizon’s Uppernet commercials to John Chambers at Cisco Live, it is a mandatory sound bite for every industry marketing event. Every.
Altgate
JUNE 25, 2012
Re-posted from post co-authored with Prof. Noam Wasserman on Inc. —————– Dead equity — equity held by employees and founders no longer working at the company — is a large and growing problem. Facebook’s IPO minted many millionaires and even billionaires. One who attracted much attention is David Choe, the graffiti artist hired to paint the company’s first headquarters.
Campus Entrepreneurship
JUNE 27, 2012
Really interesting piece on the high rate of churn in our economy and how great companies survive long term. Most don’t however. We have been studying companies that seem to be able to endure and adapt for longer periods of time, and have come to the conclusion that the extinction of once-great innovators is less often caused by technological or market evolution, and more often by self-inflicted wounds and slow cycles of decision and adaptation.
Startup Professionals Musings
JUNE 27, 2012
I often recommend business networking as the most effective way for a startup founder to find investors, advisors, and even key executive candidates. But what if you are an introvert, or new to this game, and don’t know where or how to start? I have learned over the years that there is an etiquette to this process, just like there is for social networking.
deal architect
JUNE 25, 2012
In New York today, Oracle announced its Customer Experience (CX) strategy. It has been evolving nicely in several Oracle briefings a few analysts have had over the last few months. It reflects several realities organizations face – homogenizing customer relations.
YoungUpstarts
JUNE 28, 2012
Business is not for the overly cautious or the faint of heart. If you’re going to run a business or invest in a company, you have to be willing to take risks, big and small. Sometimes these risks become regrets, but sometimes they turn out to be the best decision you’ve ever made. Here are eight risky business investments that paid off big. 1. Target.
SoCal CTO
JUNE 26, 2012
I've done four Free CTO Consulting Sessions in the past month with startup founders who all had run into variations of the same problem. They didn't feel they had visibility into timelines and costs for development of their software. They couldn't plan their business. Investors and early customers were becoming worried about the ability of the founder to deliver.
Startup Professionals Musings
JUNE 23, 2012
I’ve noticed a great tendency among startup founders to ignore the essentials of business accounting in the early stages of their startup. Just because you are not profitable yet, doesn’t mean you can skip the record keeping. In fact, just the opposite is true. When you anticipate losses for the first year or two, it is more important to properly document all expenses, including tricky ones like business travel, business meals, and your home office.
deal architect
JUNE 29, 2012
What a pleasant surprise to see Business Insider wake up to enterprise tech, and even say “it’s really the stuff that’s changing the world” as it lists the “50 Most Powerful People in Enterprise Tech”. The cloud is well represented.
YoungUpstarts
JUNE 27, 2012
Most entrepreneurs truly love what they’re doing, according to the most recent 2012 Small Business Report by Wave Accounting. The report , which surveyed 250,000 micro and SMB customers to shed light on their perspectives on the current state and future of business in North America, found that 86-percent of small business owners agree they love what they do for a living, and 56-percent declared they’d never work for someone else again.
Startup Lessons Learned
JUNE 27, 2012
I’m pleased to announce that I am once again hosting a Lean Startup Conference in San Francisco this fall. (The eagle-eyed among you will note that for the past two years, the conference has been called SLLCONF, after Startup Lessons Learned. I think it's time to rename it since that's the phrase people actually use.) Although we’ve changed the name, the format will be the same as the past two years.
Rembrandt Communications
JUNE 27, 2012
If you are worried about finances and slow sales at your business, it’s not the time to reduce your PR, SEO and marketing budgets. It’s time to increase them! While these areas may not seem important to the core of your business, it’s essential to put more money, time and effort into them… especially when [.].
deal architect
JUNE 24, 2012
on the New Florence blog Summer Innovations – Cordina frozen drink pouches OneCognizant: System of Engagement meets System of Record Mobile Innovators Rapid Charging EVs Mobile apps for the bottom of the pyramid A millennium of math.
YoungUpstarts
JUNE 24, 2012
Making it as a writer can be hard, no matter what kind of writer you aspire to be. That’s why it’s so important to reach out to other writers and people in the publishing industry to learn all you can, get support, and gain an understanding of how the business works. One of the best places to do that is on LinkedIn, and with the plethora of groups hosted by the site it’s easier than ever to build a seriously great network of those in the industry.
ReadWriteStart
JUNE 29, 2012
There are a lot of consumer-facing Web startups out there - maybe too many. Now that it’s easier, faster and cheaper to launch a Web business than ever before, entrepreneurs are under increasing pressure to differentiate. Great design and even great service just aren’t enough anymore. The key is to establish a niche that’s narrow enough to own - but broad enough to support a successful business.
Feld Thoughts
JUNE 26, 2012
Today’s guest post from Chris Moody , the COO of Gnip , follows on the heels of the amazing Big Boulder event that Gnip put on last Thursday and Friday. To get a feel for some of the speakers, take a look at the following blog posts summarizing talks from leaders of Tumblr, Disqus, Facebook, Klout, LinkedIn, StockTwits, GetGlue, Get Satisfaction, and Twitter.
deal architect
JUNE 28, 2012
I spent several months on a project in Holland in the late 80s. That meant several drives and train rides along the countryside and tulip fields like the one below. The New Florence blog feels as lush, and as diverse.
YoungUpstarts
JUNE 28, 2012
Even as EURO 2012 reaches fever pitch, “traditional” terrestrial and pay TV broadcasters should be worried – according to the latest analytics from Experian ‘s online competitive intelligence tool Experian® Hitwise® , soccer fanatics in Singapore are increasingly turning to peer-to-peer (P2P) streaming sites for their live soccer fixes.
ReadWriteStart
JUNE 28, 2012
Remember the good old days? When a startup founder could draw up his own clunky logo, slap it on a Web page and call it a day? Now every startup needs to spend time, attention and money on slick branding and design sophistication - just to get in the game. Design as a Differentiator. 99designs , a marketplace for crowdsourced graphic design, polled more than 1,500 entrepreneurs, startup founders and small-business owners and found that 80% of them think the design of their logos, websites, marke
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