January, 2010

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What Can You Learn from the 4-Hour Workweek?

Both Sides of the Table

A couple of years ago I read the popular book, “The Four Hour Workweek &# by Tim Ferriss. It was recommended to me by my friend, Net Jacobsson , who was trying to do some basic Life Hacking. If you’re not familiar with the term it’s basically trying to help all of us who are deluged with technology to find ways to cope with the masses of information without having it ruin our lives.

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Startup CTO or Developer

SoCal CTO

I’ve been having discussions with several people recently about the role of the CTO (Chief Technology Officer) in very early stage companies. In December 2007, I described how I commonly take on an Acting CTO Role in a Start-up. I used an image from Roger Smith that describes the varying roles of a CTO as the company matures. However, I’ve now begun questioning how and what an early-stage / startup CTO should be.

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Why I feel like a fraud

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

" I feel like a fraud. I've been at this for 16 years and I still feel like a fraud. I'm just waiting for the day they see through the façade, but they keep coming back every year." -- Jason Young. Ah yes, the awe-inspiring words of confidence from the seasoned entrepreneur. My friend Jason intended this as soothing words of solace during (one of my) periods of personal freak-out while Smart Bear was in its infancy.

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Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases non-events

Startup Lessons Learned

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, January 18, 2010 Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases non-events The following is a case study of one entrepreneurs transition from a traditional development cycle to continuous deployment. Many people still find this idea challenging, even for companies that operate solely on the web. This case presents a further complication: desktop software.

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Building Healthy Innovation Ecosystems for Your Projects

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

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Thoughts on being a startup in Chicago: 3 tips for entrepreneurs

crowdSPRING Blog

In March, Ross and I will be hosting a talk at South by Southwest; it’s called “ Third Coast: How to be a Startup Outside of Silicon Valley.&# We have been thinking a lot about this lately and discussing the challenges we have faced on our own path. When we first conceived of the idea that would ultimately become crowdSPRING, we never even discussed the possibility of starting the company anywhere but Chicago – it never occurred to us that we might have an easier go of it els

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Five Sweet Web Analytics Resolutions To Kick It Up A Notch

Occam's Razor

The new year is such a wonderful time. Wonderful smells in the air. The world is full of hope. Unachievable things seem achievable and are being polished into shiny resolutions. World peace seems within grasp. As we spring to action full of passion I wanted to share with you all a short list of things that will expand your little world of online marketing & web analytics.

More Trending

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Technology Jobs in Southern California – a Rebound?

SoCal CTO

This is purely anecdotal, but it seems like a lot of companies are hiring technology talent here in Southern California. I’ve recently seen several tweets from software development companies looking for talent. And I’ve heard from several people looking for Startup Software Developers. And we have been looking to hire several positions (but are being really picky as is normally the case).

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Startup Marketing: The Nine Levels of Traffic Quality

Software By Rob

Software by Rob Passionate about Startups and MicroISVs Lessons Learned by a Serial Entrepreneur home about press micropreneurs archives ← The Two iPhone App Stores, Lessons from a “Pay What You Want&# Sale, Lessons of Failure, and more… Why You Should Re-architect Your Career to Amplify Your Strengths → Startup Marketing Part 3: The Nine Levels of Traffic Quality Micropreneurship , Startups If youre trying grow your startup youve come to the right place.

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Amazing lean startup resources

Startup Lessons Learned

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, January 12, 2010 Amazing lean startup resources A year ago, there was no lean startup movement. The term was known by maybe a few dozen people. Being an evangelist for these ideas earned me a regular diet of funny looks and patronizing comments. At that time, my wildest dreams did not include even a fraction of whats happened since.

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What The iPad Means For Media Distribution In The Future

Entrepreneurs-Journey.com by Yaro Starak

Many years ago (almost five years ago in fact) I wrote an article about what the music industry might look like in a digital distributed world. My premise was that thanks to networked portable devices and the Long Tail , bands would survive because distribution networks would allow them to reach their fans much easier. In effect, I was preempting the arrival of the iPhone and stating something similar to Kevin Kelly’s concept of 1,000 true fans being enough for a creator (like an artist, a

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BREAKING: iTablet product warnings leaked

This is going to be BIG.

I can’t tell you how I got this, but I hear that the iTablet user manual comes with a whole host of unexpected disclosures: Warning: Pregnant women, the elderly, and children under 10 should avoid prolonged exposure to The Apple iTablet. Caution: The Apple iTablet may suddenly accelerate to dangerous speeds. The Apple iTablet contains a liquid core, which, if exposed due to rupture, should not be touched, inhaled, or looked at.

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Digital Health Becoming a Reality

Both Sides of the Table

Bill Gates once famously said that people tend to overestimate the impact of technology in the 1-year timeframe and underestimate its impact in the 10-year timeframe. That’s always stuck with me. I tend not to go into heat when I hear the latest buzz on the tech blogs about the latest gadgets. But when I read thoughtful pieces on the future of technology I start to imagine where our lives will be in 10 years.

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Los Angeles Web Developer

SoCal CTO

Yesterday, I met with someone at the early stage of a startup. He has a great concept with some complexity to it. He was struggling to find high quality developers in Los Angeles. Just the kind of person I like to meet. :) But I was a bit surprised when he emphasized how hard it had been for them to find a web developer in Los Angeles. My flippant comment was, “If you do a Google search for Los Angeles web developer, you’ll find a LOT of people and firms.

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Term-sheets and Valuations: Thinking about Negotiations - Startups.

Tim Keane

'Startups and angels: Along the way to success. By Tim Keane, Angel Investor, Golden Angels Investors, LLC. Home. Archives. Profile. Subscribe. « Power of Angel Investing in Milwaukee | Main. | Bottom Up Market Sizing » January 12, 2010. Term-sheets and Valuations: Thinking about Negotiations. Please see later version of this post on May 16, 2010 Entrepreneurs are often not experts in the area of term-sheet negotiations and all of the surrounding issues.   Investors sometimes “

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Is Entrepreneurship a Management Science? (for Harvard Business.

Startup Lessons Learned

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Thursday, January 7, 2010 Is Entrepreneurship a Management Science? (for Harvard Business Review) Im excited to have just published the first of several articles on entrepreneurship for the Harvard Business Review online. Although much of it will sound familiar to readers of this blog, whats new is my first step towards the " new entrepreneurship " that is my goal for 2010.

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Personal Theme Review: A WordPress Theme For Bloggers Who Get Personal

Entrepreneurs-Journey.com by Yaro Starak

Joel from BlogTechGuy.com is fast becoming one of the best WordPress experts around. He has already reviewed two premium WordPress themes on my blog, so when Kevin Muldoon offered a review copy of his theme, Joel was happy to check it out and then write this review. Here’s what Joel thinks of the “Personal Theme&# for WordPress… What is the Personal Theme?

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Cracking The Code: Happy New Year 2010!

Cracking the Code

Cracking The Code. Thoughts from a Venture Capitalist on Software, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), Cloud Computing, Internet and more. Thursday, January 14, 2010. Happy New Year 2010! A bit of French humor. so much for Cleantech! "Bloody ecologists!". Posted by Philippe Botteri. at 5:00 PM. Labels: anecdotes. 1 comment: Netsuite Services. said. Great article, thank you for sharing!

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How to Work with Lawyers at a Startup

Both Sides of the Table

I recently read a post over on VentureHacks titled, “ Top Ten Reasons Entrepreneurs Hate Lawyers &# written by Scott Walker (who blogs on legal issues for entrepreneurs ). I know that people have an allergy to lawyers out of fear of being screwed. Much of this is unfounded – some is not. If you’re a startup and you don’t have a close relationship with a few law firms you’re really missing one of the most important relationships that any entrepreneur can have.

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What’s A Startup? First Principles.

Steve Blank

Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm. Winston Churchill. Everyone knows what a startup is for – don’t they? In this post we’re going to offer a new definition of why startups exist : a startup is an organization formed to search for a repeatable and scalable business model. A Business Model. Ok, but what is a business model ?

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Oracles New Deal

deal architect

On a day when President Obama acknowledged he had to think much smaller than the 60s “Great Society” vision of Lyndon Johnson, Larry Ellison actually went the other way and said “Our vision for the year 2010 is the same. Tags: Enterprise Software (IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, SAP).

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Two Ways to Hold Entrepreneurs Accountable (for Harvard Business.

Startup Lessons Learned

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Friday, January 15, 2010 Two Ways to Hold Entrepreneurs Accountable (for Harvard Business Review) The next part in the series I am writing for Harvard Business Review is online. This time, Im discussing the challenge for corporate CFOs and VCs alike in holding entrepreneurs accountable. Of course, the method I recommend, that of using quantified learning as a yardstick, is of equal interest to disciplined entrepreneurs.

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Mobile Internet Apple Facebook

SoCal CTO

The analysts at Morgan Stanley have produced a report that’s quite good reading on some of the major trends concerning mobile web. The report consists of: The Mobile Internet Report Summary Slides – a 92-slide presentation that provides highlights on the key themes The Mobile Internet Report Key Themes – a 659-slide presentation that drills down a bit more The Mobile Internet Report – a 424 page report which explores 8 major themes in depth and includes the two aforementioned slide presentations

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A tour of my Wordpress plugins

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

I don't write many meta-posts, but I was just asked for the forty-seventh time which Wordpress plugin I use for this or that. I know I recently said your blogging platform doesn't matter , but it's not that it doesn't matter at all , just that it's not the primary driver of success and shouldn't be the first thing you spend time on. But still I take pride in my work, and that means attention to detail, and that means customizing the blog for both appearances and utility.

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What Makes an Entrepreneur (7/11) – Detail Orientation

Both Sides of the Table

This is part of my series on what makes an entrepreneur successful. I originally posted it on VentureHacks , one of my favorite websites for entrepreneurs. The full list is now posted there if you want a sneak preview. I’ll try to add a few extra comments in my posts to keep in interesting. I started the series talking about what I consider the most important attribute of an entrepreneur : Tenacity.

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Make No Little Plans – Defining the Scalable Startup

Steve Blank

Make no little plans. They have no magic to stir men’s blood …. Daniel Burnham. A lot of entrepreneurs think that their startup is the next big thing when in reality they’re just building a small business. How can you tell if your startup has the potential to be the next Google, Intel or Facebook? A first order filter is whether the founders are aiming for a scalable startup.

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SAP Customers: I want you to get up right now, sit up, go to your windows.

deal architect

…but unlike in the movie Network, don’t open the window, don’t stick your head out and don’t yell “I am mad as hell.” Instead make a phone call…more about that it a minute. SAP today announced “that it will reinstate. Tags: Enterprise Software (IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, SAP).

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Seven Lessons I've Learned Organizing Events

Genuine VC

For the past five years, I’ve been organizing a regular event here in Boston called the Web Innovators Group (aka “WebInno”). Every couple months, 700-1000 web & mobile entrepreneurs, techies, startup junkies, and investors gather for one big meetup of the community. It’s been personally fulfilling to start something which begun as a small informal gathering grow into a real component of the local startup scene (and now drawing people from New York and Washington DC).

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How to Protect Yourself From Bernie Madoff

Startup Professionals Musings

OK, so they tell me that Bernie is safely tucked away in prison for the next 150 years, but there are clones out there who look and act just like him. See this LA Times article from last year about a likely scammer closer to startups, and an ongoing saga of events from the victim’s perspective. Most frauds are not on the scale set by Bernie, but even a few thousand dollars lost would hurt you and me as much as a few million did for some of his victims.

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Challenges Associated With Legislating Cybersecurity– Some Perspectives on Senate Bill 773, the “Cybersecurity Act of 2009?

Pascal's View

I recently chaired a panel at the Stevens Institute of Technology cybersecurity conference in Washington D.C. and was asked by the conference organizers to develop an agenda based on a review of pending Senate Bill 773, the “Cybersecurity Act of 2009″ Our panel, which included two security experts– former National Security Agency Deputy Director Bill Crowel l and Ted Schlein of KPCB , focused on some of the challenges to the passage of effective legislative solutions aimed at

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Productivity Hacks: Voicemail, Folders & To-Do’s

Both Sides of the Table

I recently wrote a post about avoiding the “ Deferred Life Plan &# and some related thoughts about personal productivity that came from Tim Ferriss’s book, The Four Hour Workweek. I would love to say that I’m the productivity guru. Unfortunately my wife reads my blog and she’d log in and add comments to dispel this rumor (she keeps me honest.

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Balloon Wars

Steve Blank

In the 1950’s the U.S. Military and the CIA enlisted balloons (some as tall as a 40-story building) as weapons systems targeting the Soviet Union. Throughout the decade they launched a series of Top Secret/ codeword balloon projects and thousands of balloons, to gather intelligence about the Soviet Union. The stories of these programs are interesting but the unexpected consequences of their secrecy created a mythology that outlasted the missions.

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The Real Promise of Tablet PCs

deal architect

As the Apple Tablet speculation grows to a fever pitch I thought I would share views from one of the most adept tablet users I have ever encountered. John Dean used to be CIO at Steelcase, the innovative office furniture.

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Majority of both Drivers and VCs are Above Average

Genuine VC

Whenever I am navigating through the notorious Boston traffic, I am often reminded of the cognitive bias of illusory superiority. That is, the “above average effect,” which “causes people to overestimate their positive qualities and to underestimate their negative qualities, relative to others.” The Wikipedia article on the subject cites the classic study where a full 93% of U.S. drivers put themselves in the top half of the driving population.

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Entrepreneurs Need Multiple Intelligences

Startup Professionals Musings

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.

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Are You Using This Six-Letter Word?

Rembrandt Communications

Times are tough right now, and the recent earthquake in Haiti really makes us stop and think about our blessings. With this in mind, have you thanked your customers, partners, associates, and media contacts lately? If not, here are three simple ways to use this six-letter word to improve your relationships – and your business: [.].

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Building Products for Mass Adoption

Both Sides of the Table

Chris Dixon wrote a blog post last week titled, “ Techies and Normals &# in which he defined “Techies&# as people who are not just “early adopters&# but also have more of a geeky, technical, product bent. Normals (or “Muggles&# as Catarina Fake called them) are people who, unlike Techies, don’t just use products simply because they’re infatuated with them and with showing the world how cool it is that they’re using the latest tech product.

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