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6 Tips for Coming Up With Your Million-Dollar Business Idea

Up and Running

Voices.com , an online marketplace that matches voice actors with advertising agencies and TV and radio stations, began in 2004 as an idea scribbled down on a napkin by newlyweds David and Stephanie Ciccarelli. David sold his recording equipment for $50,000 and they borrowed the rest of their seed money from a bank.

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Should Startups Focus on Profitability or Not?

Both Sides of the Table

If you spent the 3 years perfecting some hugely differentiated technology IP that may also be different. They both raised angel / seed money of $1.5 ” You can be profitable while losing money. I thought profitable meant you were making money? ” Harsh, but reality. ” Quick examples: 1.

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Instead of sticking a fork in the venture market, realize. there is no fork

This is going to be BIG.

How else can you explain this headline matching a story about a professional social network still trying to explore revenues raising $17mm on an $80mm valuation? The industry has made it very easy for companies to raise seed money through online marketplaces like Angel List, accelorators. Perhaps I need to rethink that.

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10 Types of Nonprofit Grants: Does Your Organization Qualify for Funding?

Board Effect

Start-up Grants or Seed Money Grants — Start-up grants are hard to come by, but they exist. Technical assistance grants can pay for experts or consultants in a particular field such as accounting, financial management, legal, fundraising, technology, marketing, or some other aspect of managing the nonprofit.

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Understanding a VC’s Seed Funding Policy is Critical

Both Sides of the Table

They either do too many seed investments (for which they can spend no quality time with any) or they treat it as an option (“if you succeed come back and see us and we’ll match any term sheet you get&# ) – they view it as a sort of “right of first refusal.&#. The signaling affect is overrated.

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How to Start a Startup

www.paulgraham.com

They all use the same simple-minded model.They seem to have approached the problem by thinking about how todo database matches instead of how dating works in the real world.An Andyet theres a lot of money at stake. Its not what people learn in classes at MIT and Stanford that has made technology companiesspring up around them.

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To Follow On or Not to Follow On

This is going to be BIG.

I'm sure an entrepreneur would like to think that they came a lot closer than they did, but I think the reality is that if you're already into down rounds within the first year of your companies existance, your future is probably pretty bleak and the VCs seed money is probably best spent elsewhere.