Both Sides of the Table
OCTOBER 30, 2014
'When I first met Meredith Perry she was 24. That was three months ago this week. Today I’m handing her the largest A-round check I’ve ever written as a VC as we lead her $10 million A-Round at uBeam. As I’ve written about recently, at Upfront Ventures we started talking a couple of years ago about wanting to fund stuff with more meaning.
Startup Professionals Musings
OCTOBER 5, 2014
'Cashflow is a basic survival metric for every startup. Investors check your burn rate to assess your efficiency, and project your remaining runway before you run out of money and into a brick wall. Don’t wait until you are almost out of cash before managing every dollar spent, or looking for the next refueling from investors. Desperate entrepreneurs lose their leverage and die young.
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YoungUpstarts
OCTOBER 2, 2014
'By Malcolm Stewart, CEO of YouEye. Green ketchup, bottled water for pets, airport security “action figures”, yogurt shampoo – there have been some pretty epic product failures over the years. From our vantage point decades later, it is easy to wonder “what were they thinking?”. However the reality is that a significant majority of products don’t succeed.
Feld Thoughts
OCTOBER 15, 2014
'Guest Post By William Hertling – williamhertling.com (Author). William Hertling is a web strategist, programmer, father, short-order cook and the author of two award-winning and best-selling techothrillers: Avogadro Corp: The Singularity is Closer than It Appears and A.I. Apocalypse. You can follow him at @hertling or on his blog, williamhertling.com.
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
Up and Running
OCTOBER 21, 2014
'Are you taking our day-by-day #30DayChallenge to start a business? We’d love to hear from you if you are. Skip ahead and leave us a comment or share your progress with us on Twitter. Don’t forget to use the hashtag! Every time I think about the topic of ‘starting a business’, I recall a book I read years ago: “Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway”.
Gust
OCTOBER 19, 2014
'Image via Flickr by Joshua Gajownik for opensource.com. I always advise software startups to file patents to protect their “secret sauce” from competitors, and to increase their valuation. The good news is that a patent can scare off or at least delay competitors, and as a “rule of thumb” patents can add up to $1M to your startup valuation for investors or M&A exits (merger and acquisition).
Start Up Roar brings together the best content for start up professionals from the widest variety of industry thought leaders.
Startup Professionals Musings
OCTOBER 27, 2014
'I always advise software startups to file patents to protect their “secret sauce” from competitors, and to increase their valuation. The good news is that a patent can scare off or at least delay competitors, and as a “rule of thumb” patents can add up to $1M to your startup valuation for investors or M&A exits (merger and acquisition). The bad news is that patent trolls (non-producing companies that make their money from licensing patents) can squeeze the lifeblood out of unsuspecting entr
YoungUpstarts
OCTOBER 12, 2014
'by Deepak Chauhan, CEO and founder of VOCSO Web Studio. The current trends in technology dictates many things in today’s life, when it comes to businesses with an online presence website design is everything at first sight, long are the days when any type of a website could attract so much human traffic, While the current technological mind of most people is very technical to please, there are specific ways and methods of making a user friendly website to attract ever increasing traffic
Version One Ventures
OCTOBER 1, 2014
'Finding the right engineer, UX designer or marketer can make all the difference for your start-up. After all, the caliber of talent makes or breaks a company, no matter its size. But recruiting is hard, particularly in these bubbly times when top tech talent can pretty much go wherever they choose. This hiring challenge has pushed several startups to get creative and take an innovative approach to recruiting.
Up and Running
OCTOBER 2, 2014
'There are plenty of popular business-advice websites that make it on these kinds of “best of” lists, but I wanted to take a different approach. The problem with many of the popular sites is that they often offer little more than fluff pieces that don’t actually help you improve your business. They’ll share entrepreneur success stories, but the details of how exactly they achieved that success is frequently vague and unhelpful.
Gust
OCTOBER 5, 2014
'Corporate boardroom image via Wikipedia. Mid-level or even top executives who “grew up” in large companies often look with envy at startups, and dream of how easy it must be running a small organization, where you can see the whole picture and it appears you have total control. In reality, very few executives or professional stars from large corporations survive in the early-stage startup environment.
Both Sides of the Table
OCTOBER 19, 2014
'We are often asked how companies get funded, why VCs make the decisions we make and what we’re looking for in entrepreneurs. I think this is a Seriously great example of how this process works for at least one VC – Upfront Ventures. But I’m guessing the narrative is similar elsewhere. I first met Andrew Stalbow , the founder & CEO of Seriously in August of 2013.
Startup Professionals Musings
OCTOBER 25, 2014
'Change is hard. I see entrepreneurs every day who are trying to change the world with a new idea, and startups that are trying to survive their hyper-growth phase by changing processes to meet demand. In both cases, it’s easy for them to become frustrated and give up, since most have never been trained in change management, and don’t even know what questions to ask.
YoungUpstarts
OCTOBER 6, 2014
'by Michael Houlihan and Bonnie Harvey, authors of “ The Entrepreneurial Culture: 23 Ways to Engage and Empower Your Peopl e “ We all know today’s companies need to be more nimble, more innovative, and more entrepreneurial, and that this shift begins with employees. Don’t we? Yes, we do. By now, so much ink has been spilled on the need for employee engagement and empowerment that our eyes glaze over when (yet another) expert starts in on it.
ConversionXL
OCTOBER 14, 2014
'When it comes to online imagery, it’s not so much about having images, as it is about making sure those images to give the visitor a sense of texture, size, scale, detail, context & brand. According to MDG Advertising , 67% of online shoppers rated high quality images as being “very important” to their purchase decision, which was slightly more than “product specific information”, “long descriptions”, and “reviews & ratings”: Joann P
Up and Running
OCTOBER 21, 2014
'Are you looking for advice on getting your business up and running quickly? Scroll down for expert tips. If you like them, share this on Twitter with the hashtag #30DayChallenge. Got a question for one of the entrepreneurs mentioned below? Skip ahead and leave it in the comments. Do you have questions about starting a business quickly? Ask an entrepreneur!
Feld Thoughts
OCTOBER 27, 2014
'Suddenly, there’s a lot of constructive conversation about women in technology and entrepreneurship. I’m glad, as there is a continuous mess of sexism, misogyny, hatred, anger, specious assertions, and general weirdness. This mess is from men to women, from women to women, from men to men, and from women to men. Basically, there’s gender equality in the awful parts of this.
Both Sides of the Table
OCTOBER 12, 2014
'Prorata rights are one of the most important rights of a private market technology investors and yet are seldom fully understood. They often create the biggest tensions between investors who are investing at different stages in the business. These tensions seep out in some angels or seed funds publicly or semi-privately deriding later-stage VCs for their “bad” behavior.
Startup Professionals Musings
OCTOBER 26, 2014
'Over 25 years ago, Michael E. Gerber wrote a best-selling business book called The E-Myth: Why Most Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It. The E-Myth (“Entrepreneurial Myth”) is the mistaken belief that most businesses are started by people with tangible business skills, when in fact most are started by “technicians” who know nothing about running a business.
YoungUpstarts
OCTOBER 9, 2014
'by Graeme Cowan, author of “ Back from the Brink: True Stories and Practical Help for Overcoming Depression and Bipolar Disorder “ Employers are far from powerless when it comes to helping employees develop and maintain mental health. Here are seven things to do when creating mental wellness programs and resources: 1. Make sure people can access resources anonymously.
crowdSPRING Blog
OCTOBER 10, 2014
'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!
Up and Running
OCTOBER 8, 2014
'For some people, coming up with ideas is as easy as spotting chewing gum on the sidewalk. For others, it’s nearly impossible. For me, new idea generation isn’t just easy, it’s something I’m doing all the time and often without trying. I do not believe this is an innate ability but rather, a ‘skill’ that I’ve learned and practiced over the entire course of my life.
This is going to be BIG.
OCTOBER 22, 2014
'I probably do some kind of speaking event at least every other week. This week, I''ve got three things on the docket. Needless to say, I have a fair amount of startup event experience. What I find a bit frustrating is how easily some people get onto panels and are put up in front of an impressionable crowd of new entrepreneurs as "experts". You''ll get a venture capital analyst from a brand name firm who has just recently taken his job talking about what makes a company successful.
Both Sides of the Table
OCTOBER 15, 2014
'Much has been written about when it is time to hire a “professional CEO” to run a startup company and of course that has long been a norm in Silicon Valley when founders find that their inexperience may be a limiting factor in company growth ( know as the Peter Principle ). Much less has been said about when the technical CEO is the best person to run the company.
Startup Professionals Musings
OCTOBER 19, 2014
'Everyone can recognize a great boss a mile away, so why is it so hard to find one? We all remember a few that are “legends in their own mind”, but that doesn’t do it. In fact, the clue here is that the view in your mind is the only one that matters, rather than the other way around. Almost every one of us in business can remember that one special manager or executive in their career who exemplifies the norm, who commanded our respect, and treated us like a friend, even in the toughest of person
Gust
OCTOBER 29, 2014
'On October 1st, 2014, after more than two years of partnership and development, Gust proudly joined the Mayor of the City of New York and IBM in announcing the launch of Digital.NYC , NYC’s new official hub for tech and startups. In the first 36 hours, mentions of the hub were viewed more than 42 million times on social media, and over 100,000 pages on the site were perused.
crowdSPRING Blog
OCTOBER 24, 2014
'Every day on the crowdSPRING Twitter account and on my own Twitter account , we post links to posts or videos we 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 we’ve liked and shared this past week!
Up and Running
OCTOBER 7, 2014
'You’re going to need a bigger bank. Saving money as a small business can be tricky- if you’re a startup especially, money might be tight already. You probably don’t have a big portion of your income that you can tuck away as savings, and you welcome opportunities to make your operations more cost-effective. We’ve compiled a list of money saving tips: ways for you to trim overhead here, and increase efficiency there, until you’re on your way to better financial heal
ConversionXL
OCTOBER 30, 2014
'83% of clients were comfortable providing a referral, yet only 29% of clients actually gave one. That’s was what Advisor Impact found in 2010 when they surveyed more than 1,000 financial service clients to understand how customer satisfaction & loyalty was translating into new client referrals. What’s shocking about the relatively low 29% referral rate is that 93% of the people surveyed said they were somewhat or extremely likely to continue working with their advisor & near
Both Sides of the Table
OCTOBER 29, 2014
'I’m pretty on record as saying I don’t think many private-to-private tech mergers make sense. They are often done from a position of weakness. Something in both companies isn’t working, which is why they come together. I often don’t believe in the therm M&A because in my experience mostly A works. But of course there are always exceptions.
Startup Professionals Musings
OCTOBER 24, 2014
'Every startup lucky enough to get some traction gets to the point where they decide to hire some “regular employees” for sales, marketing, and administrative tasks. Then they are surprised to see productivity and creativity take a big dip. What they should be doing is hiring only “entrepreneurs,” meaning people who think and act as if this is their own business.
The Equity Kicker
OCTOBER 14, 2014
'The post below first appeared as a guest post by me on the Web Summit Blog. ———————————– If you ask most VCs what they look for in a startup they will say great team, great product and great market. Then, if you press them for more detail most will say that for them the team is the most important (although I think they say that at least partly because it’s what entrepreneurs want to hear).
crowdSPRING Blog
OCTOBER 17, 2014
'Every day on the crowdSPRING Twitter account and on my own Twitter account , we post links to posts or videos we 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 we’ve liked and shared this past week!
Up and Running
OCTOBER 20, 2014
'Are you toying with an idea for a business? A lot of people think about starting a business, but for whatever reason the idea never becomes a reality. If you’re an entrepreneur who is on the fence about starting a business, we have the encouragement you need to take the first step. We asked 30 business owners to offer persuasive reasons for entrepreneurs to launch a business.
Hunter Walker
OCTOBER 3, 2014
'I visit Facebook.com each morning to type “birthday!” onto friend’s profiles as appropriate. Earlier today I also noticed a post from a friend celebrating his 5th wedding anniversary. “One of the best decisions I ever made” was a partial description of the nuptials. Made me think – what are the most important decisions I’ve made in my life thus far?
Jeff Hilimire
OCTOBER 8, 2014
'This is my first “Google Docs” interview, which means I conducted it entirely over Google Docs. I realized that I enjoy interviewing startup friends about their business, but sending them a bunch of questions and having them reply didn’t allow for me to react to their answers, and honestly, if I actually interviewed them over Skype or something I think about eight people would actually watch the video.
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