May, 2013

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8 Tips To Get the Most Out of Your Investors and Board

Both Sides of the Table

'Rob Bailey is the CEO of DataSift. He wrote a post this long weekend on how he manages the board of DataSift. You should read it. In his post he asserts, “You get the VCs you deserve” and the corollary “You get the performance out of your board that you deserve.” His argument is as follows. Spend time building investor relationship long before you raise money. .

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10 Tips From Entrepreneurs Who Made Their Own Luck

Startup Professionals Musings

'Did you ever wonder why some entrepreneurs always seem to have all the luck and success, while others never seem to catch a break? As an Angel investor, I quickly learned that luck has very little to do with it, and I now look for some personal characteristics and leadership styles that separate the potential winners from the losers. These differences are the reason that investors say that they invest in people, rather than ideas.

Insiders

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First Mover Fallacy

Agile VC

'When we meet with entrepreneurs and ask about their competitive advantage or special sauce, one of the common responses is first mover advantage. ”We’re the first company to do X in an rapidly growing market” or similar. I’ve always felt being the first mover is a comparatively weak advantage and have been thinking about this more recently.

Cloud 205
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Using crowdfunding to validate demand

The Equity Kicker

'There is a good post up today on Segment.io describing how they used Kickstarter as a lean startup tool to validate demand. First the background: Kickstarter is the perfect way to validate an idea. By definition, a successful Kickstarter campaign has a ton of people who’ve already put their money where their mouth is. It’s really similar to the popular suggestion of “throwing up a fake landing page” and letting people sign up, or to the strategy of running AdWords before you have a product.

Demand 156
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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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TechStars Patriot Boot Camp: Calling All Veterans

Feld Thoughts

'TechStars Patriot Boot Camp is an intense three-day program that will educate and mentor Veterans and Service Members to innovate, build technology companies, and create jobs. TechStars hopes that participation in the Patriot Boot Camp will be the catalyst for Veterans and Service Members to kickstart their company, find co-founders and advance as entrepreneurs.

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Veterans – Check out TechStars 3-day Patriot Boot Camp – just for you

David Cohen

'Veterans give so much in their service to our country, it’s always an honor to be able to give something back no matter how small. That’s why at TechStars we’re very excited to be offering another TechStars Patriot Boot Camp from July 17-19 at George Washington University in Washington D.C. This will be the second year for the event, an intense three-day program designed to teach and mentor Veterans and Service Members about entrepreneurship and help them build and develop innovative technology

More Trending

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10 Tips For Entrepreneurs on How to Hang Tough

Startup Professionals Musings

'In sports, mental toughness is defined as the ability to focus on and execute solutions, especially in the face of adversity. If anyone in business ever needed mental toughness, it’s an entrepreneur. Investors tell me that startup success is all about execution, all while facing determined competitors and overcoming customers’ resistance to change.

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European startups: Here’s how to (not) raise capital in the US

The Next Web

'Editor’s note: This is a guest post by Stefano Bernardi, who is on the founding team of Betable , where he heads Customer Development. Previously, he worked in venture capital in Europe. He is a part-time hacker, angel investor, and product advisor, and was selected from more than 300 people to “shadow” Dave McClure at 500 Startups. You can check out his blog and follow him on Twitter.

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Flashpoint New York Demo Day, Friday, June 14

David Teten

'The Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech), ff Venture Capital, and The Harvard Business School Alumni Angels of Greater New York are once again co-sponsoring Flashpoint’s upcoming New York Demo Day, on Friday, June 14, 2013, 9:30 AM to 11:30 AM. The event will be held at SUNY Global Center, 116 East 55th Street, New York, NY. Flashpoint is a startup accelerator at Georgia Tech.

New York 114
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Bolt – Making Hardware Easier

Feld Thoughts

'Over the past few decades, the most compelling engineers and entrepreneurs I’ve met have tended to be working on problems that can be solved with software. Software has some great advantages but it comes with a few big drawbacks, namely it’s tied to a few standard types of input, although we are trying to impact that with some of our investments in our HCI theme.

Software 141
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Twitter Link Roundup #179 – Small Business, Startups, Innovation, Social Media, Design, Marketing and More

crowdSPRING Blog

'Every day on the crowdSPRING Twitter account and on my own Twitter account , I post links to posts or videos I enjoyed reading or viewing. These posts and videos are about logo design , web design , startups, entrepreneurship, small business, leadership, social media, marketing, and more! Here are some of the links that I’ve liked and shared this past week!

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Why Online Video Just Took One More Big Step to Legitimacy

Both Sides of the Table

'Anyone who reads this blog frequently will know that I am a big believer in low-cost video content and specifically the power of YouTube as a content creation & distribution platform. Our industry just took one big step towards legitimacy with the hiring of renowned media exec Ynon Kreiz to run Maker Studios. The industry finally has one of their own at the helm of the largest YouTube network.

Video 320
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8 Key Focus Elements Will Attract Startup Investors

Startup Professionals Musings

'One of the most common failures I see in startups is lack of focus. Unfocused entrepreneurs boast that their new technology will generate multiple disruptive products for consumers as well as enterprises around the world. Investors hear this as trying to do too many things with limited resources, meaning the startup will not shine at anything, and will not survive the competition.

Startup 257
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Why Communication with Investors is Important

This is going to be BIG.

'Board meetings are a pain in the ass. Unless you''re a well funded, growth stage company that has lots of hands on deck--tons of instrumentation that easily dumps out pretty charts and metrics, or luxury emenities like, well, time, most entrepreneurs probably feel like they could be doing more productive things than telling their investors what they did last month.

Metrics 118
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Flashpoint New York Demo Day, Friday, June 14

David Teten

'The Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech), ff Venture Capital, and The Harvard Business School Alumni Angels of Greater New York are once again co-sponsoring Flashpoint’s upcoming New York Demo Day, on Friday, June 14, 2013, 9:30 AM to 11:30 AM. The event will be held at SUNY Global Center, 116 East 55th Street, New York, NY. Flashpoint is a startup accelerator at Georgia Tech.

New York 114
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Tomorrow on TNW: Your chance to ask Ciplex founder Ilya Pozin your entrepreneurship questions

The Next Web

'Streaming live on The Next Web, Ciplex founder Ilya Pozin will answer questions from readers at 3 p.m. ET (12 p.m. PT) Thursday, May 9th. As part of the Young Entrepreneur Council ’s #StartupLab initiative, a virtual mentorship program, Ilya will appear live via video chat broadcast on this site. Ilya Pozin is an entrepreneur, writer and investor. He is the founder of Ciplex, a digital marketing agency, and a columnist for Inc., Forbes and LinkedIn.

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Twitter Link Roundup #180 – Small Business, Startups, Innovation, Social Media, Design, Marketing and More

crowdSPRING Blog

'Every day on the crowdSPRING Twitter account and on my own Twitter account , I post links to posts or videos I enjoyed reading or viewing. These posts and videos are about logo design , web design , startups, entrepreneurship, small business, leadership, social media, marketing, and more! Here are some of the links that I’ve liked and shared this past week!

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Should You Consider Replacing Yourself as CEO?

Both Sides of the Table

'My internal compass has always steered me strongly toward the belief that founders who can scale with their startup companies are better to back that founders who eventually need to hire a CEO. I have talked about this publicly a great deal – how I prefer “missionaries” over “mercenaries.” But lately I’m more swayed by the wise words of Reid Hoffman.

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What is Your Entrepreneurial Leadership Potential?

Startup Professionals Musings

'Entrepreneurs inherently understand that they have to be the initial leader of their startup, but often they don’t have the experience or the training to know where their leadership competencies lie, or how to build a leadership team. For new entrepreneurs, leadership development efforts may be more valuable for achieving startup success than business skills development.

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Frameworks Round 4

TechEmpower

'We’ve posted Round 4 of our ongoing project measuring the performance of many web application frameworks and platforms. As with previous rounds, the developer community has contributed several additional frameworks for Round 4, bringing the total to 57! This round adds Bottle (Python), Dancer (Perl), Kelp (Perl), MicroMVC (PHP), Mojolicious (Perl), Phalcon (PHP), RingoJS (JavaScript), Spark (Java), and Wai (Haskell).

Framework 552
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Should a Startup Spend VC Funding on a Domain Name?

David Teten

'This is part 1 of a 2-part series on domain names and startups; part 2 will be “ Build Your Startup on a Vacant Domain Name ”. (This bench at Cathedral Lawn is engraved with country domain names such as.uk,us,nz etc. (credit: Wikipedia)). It is no coincidence that companies with the best domain names often tend to rise to the top of their space. Foursquare won vs.

Naming 114
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Live now: The founder of The Muse answers your entrepreneurship questions via video. Get involved!

The Next Web

'Got a question for Kathryn? Use the chat feature above to get it answered live. Kathryn Minshew is the CEO & Founder of The Muse , a career platform and job discovery tool serving more than 4 million professionals worldwide. Kathryn has spoken at MIT and Harvard, appeared on CNN and Fox, and contributes on career and entrepreneurship topics to the Wall Street Journal and Harvard Business Review.

Malawi 115
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Twitter Link Roundup #178 – Small Business, Startups, Innovation, Social Media, Design, Marketing and More

crowdSPRING Blog

'Every day on the crowdSPRING Twitter account and on my own Twitter account , I post links to posts or videos I enjoyed reading or viewing. These posts and videos are about logo design , web design , startups, entrepreneurship, small business, leadership, social media, marketing, and more! Here are some of the links that I’ve liked and shared this past week!

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Why Early-Stage VCs Should Be Careful About Intros from Bankers

Both Sides of the Table

'When I was new at Venture Capital I was trying to figure out the business. It was a fun period for me because everything was new and I was curious. What kind of deals should I be doing? What stage? What price? With which other investors? Should I focus on geographies or industries? Should I trust my instincts for founders and products or should I be more focused on the market size or business plan?

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Finding the Best Web Development Firm for Your Startup

Early Growth Financial Services

'Originally published in SoCalCTO by Tony Karrer. I’ve written before about finding Web Development Firms in Los Angeles. What I didn’t discuss was how you should go about selecting the right company. I just got an email asking about exactly this: “I’m with a new company that needs some software built, but doesn’t need (or have the resources for) a large staff of software developers.

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Frameworks Round 5

TechEmpower

'We have posted Round 5 of our ongoing project measuring the performance of web application frameworks and platforms. In this round, we''re very happy to announce that a community member has contributed tests for ASP.NET running on native Windows. We''ve included Windows on EC2 results as a separate set of data within the results view but caution that the results should be considered preliminary.

Framework 524
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How Infosys lost its sheen

deal architect

'N.R. Narayana Murthy is a revered figure in India. So, not surprising he is hearing murmurs to return, Steve Jobs style, to Infosys, the firm he co-founded. Reading this interview with him though it struck me how little of a.

Offshore 367
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Live now: The founder of Ciplex answers your entrepreneurship questions via video. Get involved!

The Next Web

'Got a question for Ilya? Use the chat feature above to get it answered live. Ilya Pozin is an entrepreneur, writer and investor. He is the founder of Ciplex , a digital marketing agency, and a columnist for Inc., Forbes and LinkedIn. In 2012, Inc. Magazine recognized Ilya as a 30 Under 30 Entrepreneur. In 2013 LinkedIn selected Ilya as one of 100 Influencers, along with the likes of Richard Branson, Barack Obama, Tony Robbins and Mark Cuban.

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The 6 Metrics That Determine Your Success On Facebook

Duct Tape Marketing

'Thursday is guest post day here at Duct Tape Marketing and today’s guest is Emeric Ernoult – Enjoy! Feeling a bit lost with your Facebook Page insights? Good. Facebook Insights terminology ( https://www.facebook.com/help/336143376466063/ ) was not built for humans, and now that we know you are not a killer robot from Mars, we’ll help you measure your Facebook Page’s performance without drowning in all that robotic Martian muck.

Metrics 76
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The Importance of Proprietary Deal Flow in Early-Stage VC

Both Sides of the Table

'When I was new at Venture Capital I was trying to figure out the business. It was a fun period for me because everything was new and I was curious. What kind of deals should I be doing? What stage? What price? With which other investors? Should I focus on geographies or industries? Should I trust my instincts for founders and products or should I be more focused on the market size or business plan?

Deal Flow 347
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An eBook pricing model that resulted in $100,000 in sales

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

'This is a guest post by Nathan Barry, in response to two other posts that previously appeared on this blog. Nathan is the author of Designing Web Applications , The App Design Handbook , and Authority: A Step-By-Step Guide to Self-Publishing. His most recent company, ConvertKit , makes email marketing suck less. How you price a product can have a radical impact on the revenue you make from it.

Sales 335
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Key Techniques From Startup Leaders Who Get-It-Done

Startup Professionals Musings

'The universal challenge of every startup founder is to get everything done that needs to get done, and still have a life. Even outside of business, everyone wants to accomplish more, while working less. I’ve been a student of these techniques for some time, but some time ago I saw a great summary that seems to pull all the key principles together. Stever Robbins, known on the Internet as the Get-It-Done Guy, outlines his strategies in his book “ 9 Steps to Work Less and Do More.

Startup 334
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Free Reprints of “Why the Lean Startup Changes Everything”

Steve Blank

'The Harvard Business Review is offering free reprints of the May 2013 cover article, “ Why the Lean Startup Changes Everything “ Available here. Filed under: Big Companies versus Startups: Durant versus Sloan , Business Model versus Business Plan , Customer Development , Customer Development Manifesto , Lean LaunchPad , Teaching , Venture Capital.

Lean 330
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Bill McDermott and Boston

deal architect

'I caught a replay of Bill McDermott''s pitch at SapphireNow last week. Loved it. How could you not with acronyms like B2B2C?:) Seriously, tough to not like his sports talk and see him surrounded by sports world luminaries you see.

Boston 281
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How I Write and How I Decide What To Write

Duct Tape Marketing

'People seem fascinated with routines – how other people get things done and the like. While you do need to develop your own way of getting it all done, it can be inspiring and reassuring to hear how others are doing it. (Yesterday I wrote – 7 Things I Did Not Know About Writing Before I Started ). How I decide what to write about. photo credit: Sven Van Echelpoel via photopin cc.

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Come Check Out a Very Important LA Tech Event on June 1st

Both Sides of the Table

'Tomorrow LA is hosting an important tech event - please consider registering and coming by. A special thanks to Jason Lehmbeck , founder & ceo of DataPop , a great LA startup of which I have been a long-standing fan, for championing this event and bringing it to my attention. A couple weeks back I laid out the tech case for Eric Garcetti for LA mayor.

Coder 295