Gust

JUNE 17, 2012

Exchanging equity for services is worth negotiating with legal counsel, accountants, engineers, and even sales people. An example would be getting free office space by agreeing to be the property manager for the owner. Partner with distributor or beneficiary.

Technical Review 164

Technical Review Bootstrapping Venture Capital Incubator 164

Gust

FEBRUARY 10, 2013

Emphasis on engineering robustness. At some point it becomes compulsive engineering, rather than engineering to increase value for the average user. However, each increase in control that you hand over to the users also increases user interface complexity, and the opportunity for pitfalls for the average user.

Marketing 178

Marketing Engineer Technology Product 178

Gust

NOVEMBER 30, 2013

For example, the site Noodle.org is a vertical search engine for the education industry. For example, Google.com is a search engine that can be used to find polka classes…as well as ball bearings and hippopotami.

Vertical 136

Vertical Marketing Engineer Search 136

Gust

AUGUST 22, 2012

Silicon Arabia has engineers in Russia as well as Egypt.) Unlike a manufacturing or other bricks-and-mortar business, if a hostile government were to take over, there is no enormously valuable equipment or land that could be expropriated.

Technical Review 172

Technical Review Egypt Morocco Russia 172

Gust

JUNE 18, 2014

“Do I need to understand the concepts of things such as cloud computing, APIs and Search Engine Optimization, be able to craft a basic query on Google and know the key differences between LinkedIn, Facebook, Yahoo and Quora?” ” No. ” Yes! original post can be found on Quora @ [link] *.

API 133

API Cloud Engineer Search 133

Gust

AUGUST 27, 2014

To find one or more local angel groups near you, use the industry’s official investment group search engine at [link] stors. As a very rough idea of what these groups are like, the typical member invests in one or two companies each year, putting in $25,000 to $100,000 in each one.

Angel Investor 133

Angel Investor Accredited Investor Angel Groups Syndicate 133

Gust

OCTOBER 7, 2012

In addition, a website needs several weeks of presence for indexing by search engines, search engine optimization, blog activity, and link building. Most startups need funding before shipping, and investors expect to see your website to validate your business plan. These things can’t be done while in stealth mode.

Stealth 131

Stealth Entrepreneur Incubator Engineer 131

Gust

JULY 19, 2014

I’d suggest that you browse through the Gust investor search engine for investment groups (and accelerators, incubators, business plan competitions, et al) that are relevant to your startup (by location, industry, type of organization, etc.), and read their detailed profiles to see if they would be a good match for your venture.

Angel Groups 142

Angel Groups New York Deal Flow Incubator 142

Gust

MARCH 5, 2014

This was fine as long as one was making computer hardware and the other was running a search engine, but when the business models started converging, they had no choice but to go their separate ways. A parallel case is that of Apple and Google, which had extremely close relations and shared board members.

Portfolio 121

Portfolio Business Model Engineer Search 121

Gust

JANUARY 9, 2013

I’ve seen very little evidence that an undergraduate business degree increases likelihood of startup success more than a good undergraduate degree in science, math, engineering, or — yes, I’ll stand by this one — even liberal arts.

Startup 165

Startup Angel Groups Angel Investor Cofounder 165

Gust

JUNE 23, 2014

Whereas Google and other search engines may take two or three weeks to list your new website in search results, new blog sites and new blog entries are indexed every day. Trying to write something down for someone else to understand quickly, will tell you if you really understand it yourself. Your Google ranking will go up dramatically.

Startup 174

Startup Cofounder Social Media SEO 174

Gust

MARCH 9, 2014

Use social media and Search Engine Marketing (SEM) to start. There are multiple low-cost website tools available, like Adobe Dreamweaver, which allow you to do your own work and save thousands of dollars, but a budget of $10,000 is a good starting point. A blog is critical, and essentially free (your cost is creating content).

Marketing 146

Marketing SEM Viral Social Media 146

Gust

JANUARY 13, 2013

But a depth of knowledge in a specific discipline, like computer science or engineering, allows you to understand that business as well as run it. ” Study entrepreneurship, but major in something else. Many colleges offer courses on entrepreneurship, to help you think like one. An MBA is helpful, but not required.

Entrepreneur 180

Entrepreneur Seed Money Social Network Business Plan 180

Gust

JULY 29, 2012

Exchanging equity for services is worth negotiating with legal counsel, accountants, engineers, and even sales people. An example would be getting free office space by agreeing to be the property manager for the owner. Most experienced investors are convinced that too much money is a bigger risk than too little money.

Bandwidth 155

Bandwidth Bootstrapping Equity Startup 155

Gust

JUNE 22, 2014

Whereas Google and other search engines may take two or three weeks to list your new website in search results, new blog sites and new blog entries are indexed every day. Trying to write something down for someone else to understand quickly, will tell you if you really understand it yourself. Your Google ranking will go up dramatically.

Startup 125

Startup Cofounder Social Media SEO 125

Gust

JUNE 10, 2012

Do basic Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Marketing (SEM), like cohort analysis , yourself. We all know how much costs have come down on computer hardware, computer software, printers, PDAs, high-speed internet access, servers, and security measures. Skip the IT consultants and build an entry website yourself to save $50K.

Cost 139

Cost Burn Rate SEM Startup 139

Gust

AUGUST 29, 2012

For online marketing, as a common example, you should be able to talk realistically about your search engine budget, pay-per-click budget, social media experts on staff or available as contractors and budgeted into the plan, targets for page views, unique visitors, and conversions.

Marketing 119

Marketing Social Media Sales Cycle Angel Investor 119

Gust

JUNE 24, 2012

Use social media, search engine optimization, blogging, and mobile media. Everyone must have a web site that is complete, inviting, and easy to use. Create and maintain your own database of targeted prospects, and don’t rely on generic email lists for marketing. These will beat word-of-mouth any day. Proactively deal with naysayers.

Marketing 136

Marketing Database Social Media Media 136

Gust

NOVEMBER 28, 2011

Even Jim Clark started as just another associate professor of electrical engineering, but he teamed with some bright people, and proved he could beat the odds. Everyone loves that dark horse who comes from the rear to lead the pack and win the race, but very few people will bet on him up front. But don’t let that discourage you.

Startup 147

Startup Bootstrapping Social Network Internet 147

Gust

NOVEMBER 18, 2012

Back in the “heyday of the dot.com startups,” it was not uncommon to see a valuation incremented by $1M or every paid full-time professional programmer, engineer, or designer. Assign value to all paid professionals, as their skills, training, and knowledge of your business technology is very valuable. NewCo doesn’t have any of these yet.

Valuation 187

Valuation Pre-Money Valuation NPV Intellectual Property 187

Gust

OCTOBER 14, 2011

Obviously, a frantic reaction to someone else’s move will damage the way your biz dev, sales, product managers, engineers, PR people, and strategy teams interrelate. Your customers should feel the same way. It reinforces processes. And that’s hard enough to get right already!

Product 70

Product PR Matching Engineer 70

Gust

JULY 27, 2014

Search engines. You can find web sites like the Comprehensive List of Search Engines , which is nothing but a list of 250+ available search engines. But then, this is an emotional need every single seems willing to spend money on (not to mention the 40% more who are already married).

Entrepreneur 182

Entrepreneur Aggregator Engineer Social Network 182

Gust

NOVEMBER 25, 2012

Pivots come in many different flavors, each designed to test the viability of a different hypothesis about the product, business model, and engine of growth. Engine of growth pivot. Most startups these days use one of three primary growth engines: the viral, sticky, and paid growth models. Channel pivot.

Silicon Valley 187

Silicon Valley Architecture Startup Channel 187

Gust

NOVEMBER 20, 2014

Technology, innovation, and entrepreneurship are proven engines of economic growth, and are paramount to addressing high global unemployment. In 2013, the global youth unemployment rate was estimated at 12.6%, or 73 million people. Unfortunately, many of the world’s unemployed youth are concentrated in emerging countries.

.Net 152

.Net Morocco Silicon Valley Global 152

Gust

OCTOBER 22, 2014

In particular, getting to critical mass (of entrepreneurs, angel investors, engineers, et al) is perhaps the most important thing you can do. Sebastien Eckersley-Maslin makes some excellent points, most of which are ones that I would have made.

Australia 130

Australia Community Silicon Valley Angel Investor 130

Gust

SEPTEMBER 21, 2014

Not so much that it slows you down, but enough so that you smoothly run and grow the engine. “Time to get organized” – Your CFO should take a leading role in bringing operational excellence into your company. It means installing just the right amount of process, reporting and structure. Running a company can be lonely.

NDA 147

NDA CPA SEC Startup 147

Gust

DECEMBER 31, 2012

Of course, there are other positions were Boomers are sometimes not the best fit: Leading-edge technology architects, designers, consultants, and engineers. They have the maturity and sophistication to deal with your demanding executives and partners. High-travel sales and buyer positions. Retail sales to Gen-X and Gen-Y.

Advisory Board 177

Advisory Board Angel Investor Startup Equity 177

Gust

SEPTEMBER 17, 2014

Engineer Irwin Cantor (the coder)? And that it is the critical piece that ultimately (if things work out) gets the big bucks. Who do you think got the biggest relative return from the development of Trump Tower? Architect Der Scutt (the IA)? Broker Louise Sunshine (the sales gal)? EVP George Ross (the biz dev guy)?

Coder 147

Coder Web Startup Salary 147