October, 2009

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Choose Your VC Investor Carefully

Both Sides of the Table

Beware of VC Seagulls, who shit on you and then fly away (or worse yet leave you with Red Herrings). This is part of my ongoing series Startup Advice. I write this post as a warning to pick your VC’s carefully. I like to say to first-time entrepreneurs, picking a VC is more permanent than marriage. If you pick the wrong spouse at least you can get divorced.

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Ardent War Story 5: The Best Marketers Are Engineers

Steve Blank

Home Books for Startups Secret History-Bibliography Steve Blank Startup Resources Steve Blank Entries RSS | Comments RSS Categories Air Force (9) Ardent (9) Big Companies versus Startups: Durant versus Sloan (29) California Coastal Commission (3) Conservation (2) Convergent Technologies (1) Customer Development (98) Customer Development Manifesto (22) E.piphany (6) ESL (7) Family/Career (21) Market Types (9) Marketing (17) MIPS Computers (1) Rocket Science Games (7) Secret History of Silico

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Product Management for Startups in Los Angeles – Steve Gilison

SoCal CTO

It was great to hear from a long, lost colleague the other day. Steve Gilison worked as a market researcher and product manager at a startup where my company, TechEmpower , did the software / web development. Of course, I immediately gave him the whole spiel on Visible Networking and Steve was totally game to make our networking visible. Remind me about your background Steve?

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A real Customer Advisory Board

Startup Lessons Learned

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, October 26, 2009 A real Customer Advisory Board A reader recently asked on a previous post about the technique of having customers periodically produce a “state of the company&# progress report. I consider this an advanced technique, and it is emphatically not for everyone. Many companies seek to involve customers directly in the creation of their products.

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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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Cracking The Code: Impact of the recession on SaaS.

Cracking the Code

Cracking The Code. Thoughts from a Venture Capitalist on Software, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), Cloud Computing, Internet and more. Friday, October 09, 2009. Impact of the recession on SaaS Sales&Marketing productivity. The SaaS 13 Index representing the 13 major public SaaS companies has recovered very strongly (up 82.36%) since the beginning of the year, outperforming strongly the NASDAQ (up 29.5%).

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Are Twitter and Facebook Killing Blogs?

Software By Rob

Software by Rob Passionate about Startups and MicroISVs Lessons Learned by a Serial Entrepreneur home about press micropreneurs archives ← Memorable Postcard from a New Mechanic My Report on StackOverflow DevDays → Are Twitter and Facebook Killing Blogs? Micropreneurship , Startups If youre trying grow your startup youve come to the right place.

More Trending

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Ardent 1: Supercomputers Get Personal

Steve Blank

Home Books for Startups Secret History-Bibliography Steve Blank Startup Resources Steve Blank Entries RSS | Comments RSS Categories Air Force (9) Ardent (9) Big Companies versus Startups: Durant versus Sloan (29) California Coastal Commission (3) Conservation (2) Convergent Technologies (1) Customer Development (98) Customer Development Manifesto (22) E.piphany (6) ESL (7) Family/Career (21) Market Types (9) Marketing (17) MIPS Computers (1) Rocket Science Games (7) Secret History of Silico

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Marketing, Startups and Networking in Los Angeles – Cliff Allen

SoCal CTO

Cliff Allen is someone I've known for quite a few years and he's a go to person for me when I'm thinking about issues around marketing, sales, technology, startups and networking. Of course, when I started thinking about Visible Networking , I immediately went to Cliff to check in to see how he's doing and to get his feedback, thoughts and ideas on the concept.

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Popular Posts

Altgate

@altgate Startups, Venture Capital & Everything In Between Skip to content Home Furqan Nazeeri (fn@altgate.com) ← Words of widsom from my youth Everything I Need to Know About Entrepreneurship I Learned at the University of Michigan → Popular Posts Posted on October 8, 2009 by fnazeeri Once again, here is a list of some of the more popular posts on this blog.

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Cracking The Code: Laughing Out (c)Loud

Cracking the Code

Cracking The Code. Thoughts from a Venture Capitalist on Software, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), Cloud Computing, Internet and more. Thursday, October 08, 2009. Laughing Out (c)Loud. A funny video of Larry Ellison, the CEO of Oracle on Cloud Computing. It was taken at a Churchill Club event last month. But does Larry hate cloud computing that much or is he hiding a potential future acquisition of Salesforce.com?

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Crowdsourcing Your Product Name

Software By Rob

Software by Rob Passionate about Startups and MicroISVs Lessons Learned by a Serial Entrepreneur home about press micropreneurs archives ← Hear me on the Startup Success Podcast RSS Troubles (FeedBurner) → Crowdsourcing Your Product Name Micropreneurship , Software Development If youre trying grow your startup youve come to the right place.

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Retro: My Favorite Blog Post on Raising VC

Both Sides of the Table

On December 2nd, 2006 I wrote the blog post published later in this post when I was CEO of startup Koral about my experiences in pitching VCs. After my company was acquired by Salesforce.com I was asked to stop blogging and they took over my blog as an asset in the sale of the company. My blog was wiped out. I am very grateful to my friend Zoli Erdos for finding this retro posting for me at web.archive.org.

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Durant Versus Sloan – Part 1

Steve Blank

Home Books for Startups Secret History-Bibliography Steve Blank Startup Resources Steve Blank Entries RSS | Comments RSS Categories Air Force (9) Ardent (9) Big Companies versus Startups: Durant versus Sloan (29) California Coastal Commission (3) Conservation (2) Convergent Technologies (1) Customer Development (98) Customer Development Manifesto (22) E.piphany (6) ESL (7) Family/Career (21) Market Types (9) Marketing (17) MIPS Computers (1) Rocket Science Games (7) Secret History of Silico

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Software Development Companies in Southern California

SoCal CTO

I've helped organize the Los Angeles CTO Forum for almost 10 years. As part of doing that, I've had the opportunity to interact with a wide variety of different chief technical officers from different kinds of companies over those years. This is a private group of CTOs who are responsible for software development within their companies. They are generally the senior most person responsible for custom software development, database design, database administration, web development, etc.

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Lessons Learned: Inc Magazine on Minimum Viable Product (and a.

Startup Lessons Learned

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, October 19, 2009 Inc Magazine on Minimum Viable Product (and a response) Inc Magazine has a great new piece up about the increasing use of the Minimum Viable Product by businesses (and not just startups). Heres an excerpt; some of my comments are below: One of the most gut-wrenching moments for a company is the rollout of a new product.

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Does Your Web Site Sing This Song?

Rembrandt Communications

There are a lot of performing arts shows out there today (“Fame,” “Glee,” “So You Think You Can Dance,” “Dancing with the Stars,” etc.), and I love watching the good dancers and singers. But it made me think about public relations and SEO copywriting. For example, you know how some of the performers warm up [.].

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Micropreneur Spotlight: Online Mind Mapping Software ThoughtMuse

Software By Rob

Software by Rob Passionate about Startups and MicroISVs Lessons Learned by a Serial Entrepreneur home about press micropreneurs archives ← The Most Challenging Part of Becoming a Freelance Developer Memorable Postcard from a New Mechanic → Micropreneur Spotlight: Online Mind Mapping Software ThoughtMuse Micropreneur Spotlight , Micropreneurship If youre trying grow your startup youve come to the right place.

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2010 VC Funding Outlook for Startups – Prepare for Winter (Part 3/3)

Both Sides of the Table

In the first post in this three part series I described why I believe the VC market froze between September 2008 – April 2009. In the second post I argued that as of September 2009 the pace of VC investments has increased rapidly (at least for software / Internet investments – the only sector on which I’m competent to comment), but only for those remaining VCs who have new enough funds and aren’t plagued by “the triage problem.&# This is a direct result of innovat

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The Googlization of IT

BeyondVC

Today I took a sales team from a portfolio company to meet with a couple of senior IT executives at a major retail company. Towards the end of the meeting, it started to become quite clear to me the effect that Google and the web has had on IT to date and where it was going. In an oversimplified way, it seems that there have been 3 distinct phases to how the web and Google have impacted the enterprise, first starting at the app layer and increasingly diving deeper into the core infrastructure.

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Networking Events in Los Angeles and Southern California

SoCal CTO

Great post by John Shiple. He talks about a bunch of the different networking events that occur in Los Angeles and other parts of Southern California. In his post, he mentions the following events / event organizers, and you should visit his post for a bit more on each of them. LA CTO Forum Dealmaker Media Digital Family Reunion Startups Uncensored Social Media Club, LA Twiistup Mindshare LA LA Hadoop Meetup Dorkbot Geek Dinners LA Cloud Computing LA Web Application Developers LA PHP Developers

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A large batch of videos, slides, and audio

Startup Lessons Learned

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, October 6, 2009 A large batch of videos, slides, and audio Ive been trying very hard to avoid turning this blog into a travelogue. Normally, I try to make my post-event writeups more than just a transcript, by including reactions and comments. On this speaking tour, thats been simply impossible, so Ive decided to let the following collection of videos, podcasts, and slides batch up for a little while.

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How to Turn Your Luck Around

Rembrandt Communications

If you have been watching or listening to the news lately, it is packed with negativity concerning the latest unemployment rates, stock market upsets and violence overseas. It’s enough to make your blood pressure soar. Well, I’m not going to let it get to me. What about you? Instead of focusing on all of the [.].

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Hear me on the Startup Success Podcast

Software By Rob

Software by Rob Passionate about Startups and MicroISVs Lessons Learned by a Serial Entrepreneur home about press micropreneurs archives ← Work Less, Get More Done, Convenient Open Source, What a Startup is Really Like, and more… Crowdsourcing Your Product Name → Hear me on the Startup Success Podcast Cool News, Links & Reviews , Micropreneurship , Startups If youre trying grow your startup youve come to the right place.

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Should Your Startup Have an Advisory Board?

Both Sides of the Table

This is part of my ongoing series Startup Advice. Many startup companies hire advisory boards. It’s very tempting. It’s mostly done by first-time entrepreneurs who want to persuade (bribe?) prominent industry luminaries to be closely associated with the company. It’s done partly in hopes of gaining their wisdom but it’s also done to portray the company in a positive light through association.

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Google Redefines Disruption: The “Less Than Free” Business Model

abovethecrowd.com

[Follow Me on Twitter] I like to think of myself as an aficionado of business disruption. After all, as a venture capitalist it is imperative to understand ways in which a smaller private company can gain the upper hand on a large incumbent. One of the most successful ways to do this is to change [.].

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Startup Metrics

SoCal CTO

A post by Fred Wilson pointed me to Dave McClure's Startup Metrics presentation. This is a great presentation and one that I'm going to point out to startup / early stage company CEOs. Normally, when I am talking to the founder of any startup trying to figure out what they need to do, one of the things I always try to do is understand their business at its core.

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Links for 2009-10-18 [Digg]

VC Cafe

New Amdocs initiative invests in Amobee and other startups. Amdocs introduced its new Open Innovation program recently that will help it connect with startups that relate to its technology. Part of the initiative is Amdocs Venture, an investment fund that has already invested in the mobile technology companies, Amobee and Trivenet.

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The curse of prevention

Startup Lessons Learned

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, October 5, 2009 The curse of prevention Beware! I have detected a secret virus in your CPU. Due to an interaction effect between your hardware, solar flares, and quantum flux, this virus will crash your computer and erase your hard drive sometime soon. There is only one way to prevent disaster: you must click the subscribe button over on the right there.

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Work Less, Get More Done, Convenient Open Source, What a Startup.

Software By Rob

Software by Rob Passionate about Startups and MicroISVs Lessons Learned by a Serial Entrepreneur home about press micropreneurs archives ← My Report on StackOverflow DevDays Hear me on the Startup Success Podcast → Work Less, Get More Done, Convenient Open Source, What a Startup is Really Like, and more… Cool News, Links & Reviews If youre trying grow your startup youve come to the right place.

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Good Times Ahead for VC-backed Tech Companies?

Both Sides of the Table

Montgomery & Co Projects Deal Volume to Grow by 167% in Just 2 Years with No End to Growth in Sight. On the third Wednesday of every month I co-chair a meeting called the SoCal VCA (venture capital alliance), which represents participants from all of the top venture capital firms in Southern California as well as prominent members of the Tech Coast Angels (TCA).

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Figure out your story

Eric Friedman

I recently read an article about 3 ways to pitch yourself and it got me thinking about processing and bottling up your story. The gist of the post are these three key elements: 1. Think relevant, not recent. 2. Focus on skills-based versus situation or industry-based qualifications. 3. Connect the dots — what ties it all together? The third seems to be the most important to me as it indicates why and how you got to this exact spot.

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Los Angeles Social Media Starters

SoCal CTO

I'm hoping you can help me figure out who I should be connecting with on this. I find myself speaking at various venues in Los Angeles to tell people (most often service providers) about how I've used social media and particularly my blogs, LinkedIn, twitter and topic hubs as part of my own services business. These presentations always inspire people to do more with LinkedIn, create or improve their blog, and maybe do more with Twitter.

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Stanford Roundtable discussion on US Immigration Policy #startupvisa

K9 Ventures

On Saturday, October 24th, Stanford University hosted the Stanford Roundtable. The renowned interviewer Charlie Rose moderated a discussion titled: ‘The Road Back: From Economic Meltdown to Renewal’ The archived webcast video is available on iTunes and on YouTube. At one point in the discussion Charlie Rose asked about the education system.

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Innovation inside the box

Startup Lessons Learned

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Sunday, October 11, 2009 Innovation inside the box I was recently privy to a product prioritization meeting in a relatively large company. It was fascinating. The team spent an hour trying to decide on a new pricing strategy for their main product line. One of the divisions, responsible for the company’s large accounts, was requesting data about a recent experiment that had been conducted by another division.

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My Report on StackOverflow DevDays

Software By Rob

Software by Rob Passionate about Startups and MicroISVs Lessons Learned by a Serial Entrepreneur home about press micropreneurs archives ← Are Twitter and Facebook Killing Blogs? Work Less, Get More Done, Convenient Open Source, What a Startup is Really Like, and more… → My Report on StackOverflow DevDays Cool News, Links & Reviews If youre trying grow your startup youve come to the right place.

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3 Sales Tips for Startups – Creating a Burning Platform

Both Sides of the Table

This is part of my ongoing series Startup Advice. Many entrepreneurs who start technology companies are product people, technologists or savvy business people who worked previously for a larger company. Most start-up entrepreneurs have little or no sales experience. I know I didn’t. But through nearly a decade of startups I learned that sales comes down to three essential elements: 1.

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