September, 2011

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Equity for Early Employees in Early Stage Startups

SoCal CTO

I was asked by a reader how much equity he should give out to early employees and to service providers in a very early stage startup. I'll get to service providers in a later post. Founders vs. Early Employees To help with this discussion, let me start with a definition of "early employee." Steve Blank divides the individuals associated with startups as: Founders Early Employees (Employees # 1-25) Later Employees (Employees # 26-125) The reality is that the definition of founder and em

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How To Build a Web Startup – Lean LaunchPad Edition

Steve Blank

As part of our Lean LaunchPad classes at Stanford, Berkeley, Columbia and for the National Science Foundation, students build a startup in 8 weeks using Business Model Design + Customer Development. One of the problems they run into is building a web site. ——— If you’re an experienced coder and user interface designer you think nothing is easier than diving into Ruby on Rails , Nodes.js and Balsamiq and throwing together a web site.

Lean 333
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Why Reed Hastings Should be Applauded for Netflix Split

Both Sides of the Table

By now you probably know that Netflix is splitting its business into two parts: its digital streaming business (retains the name Netflix) and its DVD mailing business, which was its original business (to be called Qwikster). If you haven’t read Reed’s explanation of this split make sure you read it (of course, after you’re done with this post ) —> here.

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Don’t Let Paranoia Dampen Your Startup Spirit

Startup Professionals Musings

With the tenth anniversary of 9/11 upon us, and the recent financial woes, there seems to be a growing population out there worried about all the people and companies watching to hurt them. Why is everyone so paranoid these days? My plea to entrepreneurs is to recognize it as an opportunity, and go the extra mile to make people’s life better rather than stoke the fires.

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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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Household.sg – Groceries For Every Household

YoungUpstarts

Many of us have fond childhood memories of grocery shopping with the family during weekends; I still recall struggling to lug heavy bags of groceries home from the supermarket, as a young boy, just to prove to my parents I was grown up enough to help. It was character-building for sure, but it wasn’t exactly fun. For most people, shopping for household items and groceries is possibly one of the most troublesome, time-consuming and repetitive activities around.

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Strategy Roundtable For Entrepreneurs: How Do You Catalyze A Region's Entrepreneurship?

ReadWriteStart

I have thought a lot about the issue of how to stimulate a region's entrepreneurship over the years. Today, at the roundtable, we had a discussion around the topic, especially in the context of specific geographies that were represented at the session: Dublin, Ireland, and Kolkata, India. Today, building Internet businesses, or businesses that are primarily marketed through the Internet, is viable for entrepreneurs all over the world.

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Introducing the Cap Table and Hiring the CTO

Feld Thoughts

As Finance Fridays continues, we are introducing the concept of the Cap Table. We recognize that we are still at the very early basics stage, but as we are taking a case study approach to this we feel like we have to set up all of the pieces before we get into the messy guts. Hopefully you are staying with us and finding this useful – feedback welcome!

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Why Your Startup Doesn’t Need a COO

Both Sides of the Table

It’s very common for startup companies to have COO’s. So I know I’m getting myself into a bit of trouble by writing this. But … Startups don’t need – shouldn’t have – COOs. I have this conversation with every startup that comes to see me and has a CEO & a COO. I think usually a COO title at a startup is an ego thing.

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Adopt the New Startup Model: Nail It Then Scale It

Startup Professionals Musings

I see more and more entrepreneurs who seem to have everything going for them – vision, motivation, passion, even a good business plan, product, and money, and yet they can’t close customers. Maybe it’s time to look harder at the mantra of a new breed of gurus and successful entrepreneurs, including Steve Blank and Eric Ries , called “nail it then scale it” (NISI).

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The Lean Startup Book Tour

Startup Lessons Learned

Today, September 13, 2011 is launch day ! And, for me, it's literally a launch into a crazy amount of travel. For the next two weeks, I'm going to do as many events, interviews, and talks as I physically can. I hope you'll join me, either in person or virtually. A complete list of book tour stops for the first leg of my journey is below. To stay up-to-date, you can get the firehose of updates by following me on Twitter or for "just the facts" follow me on Plancast.

Lean 155
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Five Skills You Need for Startup Success, According to Ethernet Inventor Bob Metcalfe

ReadWriteStart

Ethernet inventor and generally accomplished tech super-guy Bob Metcalfe gave a great opening keynote talk at this morning's Capital Factory Demo Day in Austin, Texas. The event has been good so far and is live streaming online for free. Metcalfe offered a wide ranging talk to open the day but included some tasty tidbits in the form of two lists: five personal skills that entrepreneurs need to develop in order to succeed in building tech companies that scale and six types of people a startup eco

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How to Hunt Programmers for Your Startup - A Field Guide

SoCal CTO

This post is admittedly the outcome of a conversation with a few people over some beers. Some of it is a bit tongue-in-cheek and certainly we are greatly simplifying things. The people around the table included a bunch of us who would be prey in some situations. So, please take this in the spirit intended. The conversation centered around a founder who's key question is "Where Do I Find a Developer for My Startup?

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Sayahh’s Financial Statements For August 2011

Feld Thoughts

Now that Dick and Jane have added a CTO to SayAhh’s founding team, they’ve turned their full attention to working on their product. Today, we’ll look at the impact of the expenses to date on the P&L, Balance Sheet, and Cash Flow Statement. Since SayAhh is in the pre-launch development stage, the company doesn’t have any revenue yet. They also haven’t launched a product, so there is no corresponding “cost of goods sold” – the direct cost of delivering their product.

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Tips to Help you Think About Sales at Your Startup

Both Sides of the Table

Sales. It’s the lifeblood of any organization and yet most startups don’t have any sales DNA on their teams. It’s important enough that I dedicate a tab on my blog to startup sales & marketing. This week I had the chance to have an hour-long discussion with Vince Thompson (ran West Coast sales for AOL for 7 years – back in the day when AOL was what Facebook is today) and Mo Ali , who has the awesome Twitter handle @BornToCall – runs sales at This Week In.

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Most Entrepreneurs Should Never Bring On Investors

Startup Professionals Musings

There is so much written these days about how to attract investors that most entrepreneurs “assume” they need funding, and don’t even consider a plan for “bootstrapping,” or self-financing their startup. Yet, according to many sources , over 90 percent of all businesses are started and grown with no equity financing, and many others would have been better off without it.

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Twitter Link Roundup #102 – Small Business, Social Media, Design, Copywriting, 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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How Silicon Valley's Most-Connected Exec Does His Hiring

ReadWriteStart

Auren Hoffman is the CEO of Rapleaf , a personal-data aggregator that has been the subject of a remarkable amount of controversy but is wildly useful as a data provider to must-see apps like Rapportive and Gist. While Hoffman's company may know a lot about you as a web user and person, he knows a lot of people himself the old-fashioned way, in real life.

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Why you shouldn’t keep your startup idea secret

cdixon.org

cdixon.org - chris dixons blog. Follow @cdixon. About me. cdixon.org contents. Twitter: @cdixon. My posterous blog. rss. Hunch! hunch.com. Hunch API. Twitter predictor game. My Hunch Recommendations. Friends with websites. Eric Paley. David Frankel. Tom Pinckney. Caterina Fake. Zach Klein. Bill Trenchard. Elena Silenok. Rob Stavis. Matt Gattis. Bill Trenchard.

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4 Deadly Legal Mistakes That Startups Make

Scott Edward Walker

Introduction This post was originally part of the “ Ask the Attorney ” series I am writing for VentureBeat (one of my favorite websites for entrepreneurs). Below is a longer, more comprehensive version. Question My co-founders and I are working on a cool new site, and we’ll be ready to launch in a few weeks. I’ve been reading a lot on the web about incorporation and other legal stuff.

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Further Thoughts on Startup Operations

Both Sides of the Table

I recently wrote a post about why I didn’t think early-stage startups should have COOs. I expected it to be controversial and it was. To be clear, I said that most companies I see pitching have COOs & I don’t have a rule against it. I’ve had several COOs at companies in which I’ve invested. In bringing up the issue I wasn’t “hating on COOs&# – I’m just challenging you to think about whether your CEO + COO structure really provides the right amo

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Entrepreneurs Must Bridge Several Market Chasms

Startup Professionals Musings

Everyone in the business world has heard of the book by Geoffrey A. Moore titled “ Crossing the Chasm ” (1991), but most entrepreneurs have no idea how it relates to them. In fact, it’s all about the “focus” required to get early stage technology products across the deadly chasm from early adopters to mainstream customers. Most investors and startup professionals expand this concept of focus to apply to key issues of every aspect of strategic and tactical planning in a startup.

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Twitter Link Roundup #100 – Small Business, Social Media, Design, Copywriting, 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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5 Tips for Raising a Venture Round

ReadWriteStart

While certainly not every business needs to raise venture financing, it is the path for many high-growth technology startups. Therefore, going down the fundraising path is something many technology entrepreneurs will need to do and a critical step in the development of their business. This can be an intimidating experience so I've put together a list of five tips for raising a venture round.

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The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Boston Tech Community, Sept 2011

Rob Go

Boston is a great place to start and build a company. There is a wealth of resources that are unique to this town and a vibrant community of hackers, business people, and investors at various stages in their career. However, Boston is a transient town, especially for the student population that refreshes a large population each year. It’s also surprisingly difficult for students to get plugged-in to everything that is happening in the local tech ecosystem.

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What Can A Falafel Truck Teach Us About How To Do Business?

Entrepreneurs-Journey.com by Yaro Starak

My name is Bryan Clark and I am a professional writer and blog editor in the tech, entrepreneurship, finance and digital lifestyle fields. I have written before for Entrepreneurs Journey in 2007 and I’m happy to say I am back with a new column starting today. In this article I will talk about what is needed to produce a quality product, which includes four main elements: location branding marketing customer service I’m never sure what the appeal is, but every time the falafel truck p

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Why Pseudonymity Is Such an Important Concept

Both Sides of the Table

Fred Wilson wrote a blog post yesterday called “Real Names” in which he talked about a commenter on his blog who preferred not to comment because he didn’t want to use his real name. It’s all told through a graphic & very short so worth your having a quick read. It’s a powerful concept. The idea of not using one’s real name is something I’ve had to come to understand better through other people providing context.

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The Pay-It-Forward Culture

Steve Blank

Foreign visitors to Silicon Valley continually mention how willing we are to help, network and connect strangers. We take it so for granted we never even to bother to talk about it. It’s the “Pay-It-Forward” culture. ——-. We’re all in this together – The Chips are Down. in 1962 Walker’s Wagon Wheel Bar/Restaurant in Mountain View became the lunch hangout for employees at Fairchild Semiconductor.

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Do You Have the Mentality to Manage a Startup?

Startup Professionals Musings

A while back, when a startup founder mentioned to me that he wasn’t sure he had the personality to be an entrepreneur, I realized how important that insight was. My first thought is that if you are more annoyed than energized by expert advice, team suggestions, and customer input, then you should probably avoid this line of work. Actually, it’s more complicated than that, but that’s a good start.

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IBM: We need more innovators, less integrators

deal architect

First, some compliments. I am pleased to see so many IBMers comment on my post where I said we need more Apple/Google/Amazon moments, less IBM ones. Good on them for being proud employees of an iconic company celebrating its hundredth.

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Ballad of The Lean Startup

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

Tweet. --> With IMVU not growing. And revenue not flowing. And with piles of cash monthly burning, They asked “Is it a mess, Or is it progress?” Then measured by validated learning. With their customers confused. Eric’s ego was bruised – All his basic assumptions were nixed. They had to unload. All that beautiful code. Before the product could ever be fixed. “What’s the last six months for, Tossing my code out the door?

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Cake Over Heels – In Love With Baking

YoungUpstarts

If you’ve ever been to Singapore’s Midview City – one of the country’s newest “integrated business hubs&# – you’ll probably agree with me that it’s one dreary and depressing complex located in the middle of nowhere. But set amidst sprawling furniture stores and assorted commercial companies that occupy much of the industrial labyrinth is an unlikely gem that seems better suited in a premium Orchard Road shopping mall: Cake Over Heels , a cheery bou

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Why Email May Be Draining Your Company’s Productivity

Both Sides of the Table

Email. Ah, email. That great productivity drain that we somehow all buy into. I’ve taken to saying, “Email is our personal to-do list that anybody adds to – whether they know us or not.” I was lamenting it tonight when I saw the most brilliant response Tweet by Andrew Hyde . “inbox = tetris getting zero lines doesn’t win it just makes the next move easy.” Brilliant!

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Knowledge Is Power: Convertible Note Financing Terms, Part I

Gust

The most successful serial entrepreneurs in the world may found three or four, perhaps even eight or ten venture-backed startups over the course of their careers. By contrast, venture capitalists and angel investors typically make scores or even hundreds of investments over the course of their careers. It should therefore come as no surprise that an asymmetry of information exists, mostly gleaned from experience, between founders and investors in a venture financing deal.

Finance 178
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7 Ways For Entrepreneurs to Build Relationships

Startup Professionals Musings

Investors invest in people, not ideas. Customers buy from people, not companies. Employees rally for a great leader. As an entrepreneur, you need relationships to succeed. That means relationships with team members, investors, customers, and vendors. One of the best ways to build a good relationship with anyone is to make them feel important. One of my favorite authors, Brian Tracy, in his book “ No Excuses!

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Workday during Hurricane Dreamforce

deal architect

As kids in the Northeast found in the wake of Irene, there are Snow days even in the summer. Hurricane Dreamforce blew into San Francisco (what else can you call an event with an attendance of 45,000?) this week and.

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Episode 2: Smart Bear Live!

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

Tweet. --> It’s “ Loveline for startups ,&# if you like those kinds of phrases. Introduced a month ago as an event in Austin, this time we moved this live audio advice column to the web, taking phone calls from startups around the country. My co-hosts were Bob Walsh and Patrick Foley , hosts of the well-known Startup Success Podcast. It was awesome having podcasting experts on board, especially Patrick who was on-site with me at Cospace in Austin, interrupting a vacation with his fa

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