Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 2, 2017

Even in this age of globalization and virtualization, the geographic area where you choose to live and work can still make or break your startup business. I still have to tell some entrepreneurs that even with the best idea, they have to move to Silicon Valley to find the investors they need, or they need to move to the U.S.

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Silicon Valley Las Vegas Arizona Montana 149

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 7, 2013

Even in this age of globalization and virtualization, the geographic area where you choose to live and work can still make or break your startup business. I still have to tell some entrepreneurs that even with the best idea, they have to move to Silicon Valley to find the investors they need, or they need to move to the U.S.

Silicon Valley 256

Silicon Valley Las Vegas Phoenix Montana 256

David Teten

DECEMBER 2, 2019

You’ve decided to launch a technology-enabled startup with a positive social impact! Nearly every major Silicon Valley venture-capital firm has now invested in a B Corp ; maybe you will be one of them! I’m now researching non-dilutive funding for Action Tank , a startup I’m gestating to “Make America Functional Again”.

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Technical Review SBIR Dilution Silicon Valley 60

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 5, 2014

Last week a company we enthusiastically backed, uBeam , led by a very special entrepreneur, 25-year-old Meredith Perry , announced a $10 million round of financing. uBeam’s tech does work and I have safely seen it demo’d in the real life many times. It’s just being driven by people working on it and being ambitious ” .

Technical Review 417

Technical Review South Korea San Francisco Software Review 417

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 22, 2012

I think I’ve read Paul Graham’s post on “ Startup = Growth ” three or four times now. “The growth of a successful startup usually has three phases: There’s an initial period of slow or no growth while the startup tries to figure out what it’s doing. I talked about some of that here.

Silicon Valley 390

Silicon Valley Venture Capital Startup Technical Review 390

Steve Blank

APRIL 11, 2013

I just spent a few weeks in Japan and China on a book tour for the Japanese and Chinese versions of the Startup Owners Manual. The previous post described how China built its science and technology infrastructure. This post is about the how the Chinese government engineered technology clusters. All the usual caveats apply.

Programming 280

Programming Technical Review SBIR China 280

YoungUpstarts

NOVEMBER 15, 2017

Insurance is the next big industry due for a disruption. But wait, before letting your eyes glaze over or clicking out of here entirely, give me just two minutes of your time to explain – because the opportunity is big and the technology is really cool. The technology existed; it just needed to be deployed for an insurance purpose.

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Technical Review Los Angeles Artificial Inteligence San Francisco 183

YoungUpstarts

MAY 12, 2016

If you are an aspiring entrepreneur, launching your startup will be everything you have ever dreamed of. You may look to Silicon Valley for inspiration, where hyped tech startups have investors vying to get their money in the stocks. Technology is a booming industry; therefore everyone prefers to invest there.

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Technical Review Silicon Valley Startup Business Plan 100

Steve Blank

JANUARY 21, 2015

Just before the holidays I had coffee with Anne, an ex MBA student running a fairly large product group at a search engine company, now out trying to raise money for her own startup. The Columbia Startup Lab is a visible symbol of how the university is making entrepreneurship an integral part of all colleges at the university.

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Silicon Valley New York City New York Venture Capital 120

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 16, 2015

Even in this age of globalization and virtualization, the geographic area where you choose to live and work can still make or break your startup business. I still have to tell some entrepreneurs that even with the best idea, they have to move to Silicon Valley to find the investors they need, or they need to move to the U.S.

Las Vegas 120

Las Vegas Silicon Valley Phoenix Montana 120

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 1, 2011

Not understanding and agreeing what “Entrepreneur&# and “Startup” mean can sink an entire country’s entrepreneurial ecosystem. ——— I’m getting ready to go overseas to teach , and I’ve spent the last week reviewing several countries’ ambitious attempts to kick-start entrepreneurship. Who’s an entrepreneur?

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Government Silicon Valley Startup Venture Capital 335

Steve Blank

APRIL 11, 2013

I just spent a few weeks in Japan and China on a book tour for the Japanese and Chinese versions of the Startup Owners Manual. The previous post described how China built its science and technology infrastructure. This post is about the how the Chinese government engineered technology clusters. All the usual caveats apply.

Programming 172

Programming Technical Review SBIR China 172

VC Cafe

FEBRUARY 6, 2011

VC investors rely heavily on referrals, but what should a non US startup do when looking to raise funding in Silicon Valley? I found a question on Quora that relates to European startups, but found that some of the advice may be very relevant to Israeli startups as well. Read Venture Hacks ( [link] ).

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Silicon Valley Startup Seed Stage Delaware 104

The Next Web

FEBRUARY 23, 2014

From Silicon Valley to Silicon Alley, and Berlin’s hip coffee shops to East London’s Silicon Roundabout , the world is well versed in the global innovation boom towns. And this is just one of the many pioneering technologies surfacing out of this mid-sized Southern city of the Netherlands. Pune, India?.

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North Carolina Technical Review Cyprus Raleigh 168

The Startup Magazine

MARCH 10, 2018

A business runs on diligence, passion, and creativity — but it also needs a whole lot of legal help. Regardless of your industry, your startup needs legal assistance to ensure its growth remains safe and secure. For example, one of the most significant time-sucks for lawyers is document review or finding documents relevant to a case.

Software Review 70

Software Review Technical Review Artificial Inteligence Software 70

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 24, 2017

A version of this article is in the Harvard Business Review. — Unremarked and unheralded, the balance of power between startup CEOs and their investors has radically changed: IPOs/M&A without a profit (or at times revenue) have become the norm. The startup process has become demystified – information is everywhere.

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Founder Technical Review CTO Hire IPO 252

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 17, 2017

Our defense department and intelligence community owned proprietary advanced tools and technology. We and our contractors had the best technology domain experts. We used these tools to keep pace with the Soviet threats and eventually used silicon, semiconductors and stealth to create an offset strategy to leapfrog their military.

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Community Silicon Valley Technical Review Incubator 218

ReadWriteStart

DECEMBER 29, 2010

The Internet might be truly global then, but the world of startups still revolves much around Silicon Valley. Together with 40 Nordic entrepreneurs , we decided to take a trip to the startup mecca, looking for opportunities and lessons to learn. Startups are keen on business development and will seek partnerships.

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Silicon Valley Finland Sweat Equity Entrepreneur 156

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 23, 2015

But not everybody has the right skills to build a highly successful and valuable startup from scratch. For some aspiring to be tech entrepreneurs, I often suggest a two-step process, as I argued in this post that “ The First Startup Founder You Need to Invest in Is You.”

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Technical Review Liquidation Preference Silicon Valley IP 150

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 13, 2011

The $30 billion trade surplus in advanced technology products that America enjoyed just one decade ago has now become a $56 billion deficit. Startups in the U.S. We need a regulatory regime that nurtures startups, rather than penalizing them like giant corporations. The innovation engine that powered the U.S.

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Technical Review Taiwan Silicon Valley Ireland 230

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 5, 2014

It seems to be part of the “ fail fast, fail often ” mantra often heard in Silicon Valley. As an advisor to many startups, I’m convinced it’s an expensive and painful approach, but I do see it used all too often. Never underestimate the importance of due diligence. entrepreneur failure MJ Gottlieb startup'

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Technical Review Entrepreneur Advisory Board Due Diligence 274

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 14, 2018

It seems to be part of the “ fail fast, fail often ” mantra often heard in Silicon Valley. As an advisor to many startups, I’m convinced it’s an expensive and painful approach, but I do see it used all too often. Underestimate the importance of due diligence. Grow too quickly for your finances and staffing.

Technical Review 158

Technical Review Advisory Board Due Diligence Silicon Valley 158

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 16, 2010

But VC is an “illiquid asset&# so funds didn’t disappear quickly - In 2000/01 the stock market quickly adjusted punishing investors in the NASDAQ and in individual public technology stocks. The best and most consistent funds in Silicon Valley (e.g. Team must be purely technical. Others will, too.

LP 311

LP Technical Review Early Stage Silicon Valley 311

David Teten

MARCH 18, 2021

A typical VC thesis: “we invest in tech startups in Europe at an early stage” However, our experience shows that in many cases: . “Tech” means B2B Saas/Fintech or Consumer apps. Technical” Companies (i.e. any mention of a focus on tech companies). Technical founders . Occurrences.

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Technical Review Cofounder Venture Capital Deal Flow 78

Mucker Lab

AUGUST 27, 2014

As an entrepreneur himself, founding and operating printed circuit board factories in Taiwan, my father was debating between two places to immigrate to and build his next new venture: Los Angeles (“The Valley” aka San Fernando Valley) and Santa Clara (“Silicon Valley”).

Los Angeles 138

Los Angeles Southern California Silicon Valley Technical Review 138

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 13, 2011

My initial desire to blog came from something that’s always been my approach to investing – I’m a nerd and I love to play with the technology and part of my approach has really been to understand things both at a user level and at a reasonably deep tentacle level. Brad on blogging. How did you start blogging? “My Human Computer Interaction.

Technical Review 288

Technical Review Venture Capital Silicon Valley Software Review 288

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

JANUARY 4, 2018

The Silicon Valley-oriented technology press outlets don’t cover us because we’re not in San Francisco, even though we’re more successful than most of the startups they cover. This week we closed $250M in financing from Silver Lake , the premier technology private equity firm.

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Engineer Revenue San Francisco Security 152

Professor VC

JANUARY 27, 2011

The last blogger in Silicon Valley. How Much Diligence is Due.Or Ive addressed the due diligence question in previous posts, but this came up again in a debate we were having at a recent meeting of the Sand Hill Angels. Not exactly extensive diligence. ProfessorVC. Thursday, January 27, 2011.

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Technical Review Due Diligence Silicon Valley San Jose 31

Austin Startup

SEPTEMBER 23, 2017

Wired in partnership with Goldman Sachs wrote an article called “The Four Disruptive Technologies Behind the Growth of Fintech” which I found to be generic fluffy clickbait content. QR Codes QR codes are machine-to-machine computer vision technology which will be key in the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

Technical Review 54

Technical Review Technology Artificial Inteligence Software Review 54

Steve Blank

DECEMBER 7, 2009

Posted on December 7, 2009 by steveblank In my 21 years of startups, I had my ideas “stolen” twice. I was out and about in Silicon Valley doing what I would now call Customer Discovery trying to understand how marketing departments in large corporations worked. See part one for the first time it happened.

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Silicon Valley Non-disclosure Agreement NDA Startup 232

Austin Startup

MARCH 4, 2019

The SXSW Startup Crawl! Grab a group of friends and tour the latest and greatest of Austin’s startup community. Grab a group of friends and tour the latest and greatest of Austin’s startup community. Come check out tech through a military lens. Wednesday, March 13 Every day 10:00am-5:00pm. GEAR UP, Y’ALL. don’t worry ?—?we’ve

Silicon Valley 50

Silicon Valley Technical Review Texas Venture Capital 50

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 5, 2009

Unfortunately in early stage startups the drive for financing hijacks the corporate DNA and becomes the raison d’etre of the company. Chasing funding versus chasing customers and a repeatable and scalable business model, is one reason startups fail. The goal of their startup in this stage becomes “getting funded.”

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Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 264

Gust

AUGUST 22, 2012

How spoiled we are, taking for granted a system of government with relatively stable, transparent laws and regulations, consistently applied (at least in theory), and subject to judicial oversight with appellate review. The risk-reward tradeoff in finance should hold true in developing and unstable regions as well.

Technical Review 172

Technical Review Egypt Morocco Russia 172

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 28, 2015

Craig Schmitz, a partner in the Technology Companies Group at law firm Godwin Proctor LLP who works on corporate, governance, board and fundraising issues, and Erika Fisher, an associate in the firm’s Business Law Department who deals with IP, fielded questions about the legal issues startups face. ” The Cost of Financing.

Convertible Security 100

Convertible Security IP Technical Review Software Review 100

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 5, 2011

2 preamble issues having read the comments on TC today: 1: I know that the prices of startup companies is much great in Silicon Valley than in smaller towns / less tech focused areas in the US and the US prices higher than many foreign markets. This article originally appeared on TechCrunch. They are pretty illiquid.

Pre-Money Valuation 336

Pre-Money Valuation Valuation Silicon Valley Stock 336

David Teten

AUGUST 19, 2019

Since 2017 we’ve managed $3 million in revenue-based financing, which helps cash-strapped technology companies grow. Investment Criteria: B2B SaaS or tech-enabled services with proven, recurring contracts. According to John Borchers, Co-founder, Decathlon is the largest revenue-based financing investor in the US.

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Revenue Technical Review Software Review Equity 60

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 6, 2014

Reviewing financial & operational performance. Over time you start to figure out who you customers are and how to sell to them or how to get them to adopt your products if you’re a consumer-oriented startup. And I’ve also been convinced that it can be quite useful to have another startup company CEO on your board.

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Technical Review Early Stage Software Review Los Angeles 325