Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 7, 2013

Let me not bury the lede. I’m super excited to announce that GRP Partners led the investment in Ethan Anderson’s new company MyTime (link has LA-based merchants but will give you a good feel for the product). I am taking the lead from GRP and we also invested alongside a number of friends including Dave McClure, Dave Tisch, Ben Smith (Merchant Circle), Brian Lee (ShoeDazzle, LegalZoom), Jason Calacanis, Evan Rifkin, Jennifer Lum, Jay Weintraub and a whole host of other angels.

Southern California 359

Southern California San Francisco CTO Hire SEM 359

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 19, 2013

The “valley of death” is a common term in the startup world, referring to the difficulty of covering the negative cash flow in the early stages of a startup, before their new product or service is bringing in revenue from real customers. I often get asked about the real alternatives to bridge this valley, and there are some good ones I will outline here.

Intellectual Property 309

Intellectual Property Technical Review Venture Capital Startup 309

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

FEBRUARY 26, 2013

My fingers trembled as I fed page 34 of 72 into the fax machine, deftly pressing the head of each page into its creaky jaws so that this shitty cheap-o machine wouldn’t snag two pages at once, slantways, obscuring the precious scribblings adorning the footer of each page where it read: “Seller’s Initials: _” This is what the last six years were all for.

Software Review 295

Software Review Startup Cofounder Search 295

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 23, 2013

My friend Ron Ashkenas interviewed me for his blog on the Harvard Business Review. Ron is a managing partner of Schaffer Consulting , and is currently serving as an Executive-in-Residence at the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley. He is a co-author of The GE Work-Out and The Boundaryless Organization. His latest book is Simply Effective. For what I had thought were a few simple ideas about taking what we’ve learned about startups and applying it to corporate innovation, the post

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Business Model Technical Review Business Plan Search 332

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

Startup

YoungUpstarts

FEBRUARY 8, 2013

by Michael Houlihan, coauthor of “ The Barefoot Spirit: How Hardship, Hustle, and Heart Built a Bestseller “. It’s official: Email, texting, and social media are no longer just helpful supplemental business tools. They’ve taken over the whole game. Yes, technology has made many aspects of modern living more convenient and “connected,” but the pendulum has swung too far.

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Social Media Technical Review Non-Compete Email 263

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 5, 2013

Yes, there are Lean Startups even in the United States federal government. I know this is an unpopular thing to say, since it sounds so patently absurd. But I've seen the teams with my own eyes and witnessed their results first hand. For my take on how this is possible, you can see my previous post on Lean Government here. Today, I'm excited to share the latest round of startups that are being run by the Presidential Innovation Fellows program.

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Fractional CTO Government Technical Review Analytics 158

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 8, 2013

A while back I talked about how and where to find a co-founder in “ For a Startup, Two Heads are Always Better Than One.” The feedback was good, but some readers asked me to be a bit more specific on attributes that might indicate an ideal startup partner. Even if you are looking in all the right places, it helps to know what you are looking for. In this context, I’m broadening the definition of partner from co-founder to “business partner.

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Partner Software Review CTO Hire Equity 258

Up and Running

FEBRUARY 22, 2013

If you’re raising money for your company and you want to pitch to angel investors or venture capitalists , then there are a few important things to know that savvy investors care about. I’ve raised close to $1 million for my previous startups and the following questions were not what I had expected to hear from the investors I was pitching to.

Software Review 147

Software Review Technical Review Due Diligence Exit Strategy 147

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 26, 2013

“What’s gone and what’s past help. Should be past grief.” William Shakespeare - The Winter’s Tale. We give abundant advice to founders about how to make startups succeed yet we offer few models about dealing with failure. So here’s mine. ——– In my experience, living through failure has 6 stages: Stage 1: Shock and Surprise.

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Redemption Cofounder Silicon Valley Burn Rate 330

YoungUpstarts

FEBRUARY 18, 2013

Innovation – that strangely elusive quality that most businesses would kill for, but many struggle to attain or maintain. There’s plenty already written on the topic – for example, how animation company Pixar approaches innovation in “ Innovate The Pixar Way ” – but “ Unrelenting Innovation: How to Build a Culture for Market Dominance ” by Gerard J.

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Technical Review Southern California California Naming 209

Lightspeed Venture Partners

FEBRUARY 12, 2013

Almost a year ago, my partner Barry Eggers and I met with Craig Elliott and Scott Hankins to talk about their vision for a new company, Pertino. Over a coffee in a small office in Cupertino (yes, their name is related to their founding hometown), we talked about how it was the right time to build a new networking company due to the confluence of three major trends: cloud, software defined networking (SDN), and the consumerization of IT.

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Networking Technical Review Cloud Software Review 152

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 6, 2013

I am fond of quoting that about 70% of my investment decision of an early-stage company is the team. My rationale is simple: everything goes wrong and only great teams can respond to competitors, markets, funding environments, staff departures, PR disasters and the like. Final startup grind from msuster. How you build out your team in the first few years can have a huge impact on the trajectory of your company.

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Cofounder Early Stage Startup Silicon Valley 388

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 22, 2013

It’s your startup, so you can give early partners any title you want, but be aware of potential investor and peer implications. VCs and Angel investors like to see a startup that is running lean and mean, with no more than three or four of the conventional C-level or VP titles. More executives, or other more creative titles are seen as a big red flag.

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CTO Hire Fractional CTO Startup Angel Investor 244

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 23, 2013

Lean Startups require cross-functional teams working closely together. This is especially true when designing a great product. In this excerpt from the newest addition to the Lean Series , Jeff Gothelf and Josh Seiden discuss the idea of collaborative design -- an opening up of the product design process to all members of the team -- and why they feel this way of working produces not just better products but better teams as well.

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Lean Software Review Wiki Design 167

crowdSPRING Blog

FEBRUARY 15, 2013

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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Social Media Small Business Design Media 107

Version One Ventures

FEBRUARY 26, 2013

Guest post by Mischa Steiner-Jovic, founder and CEO of Awesense Wireless. You can follow him on Twitter. My skin thickens every time I hear a VC say “You’re building what? Why? You’re selling to whom?” or just a flat-out “that’s not a good idea.” Stepping outside the norm often elicits strong reactions and disbelief. Of course, there are quite a few No’s that go along with those reactions too.

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Founder Technical Review Early Stage Security 143

Feld Thoughts

FEBRUARY 25, 2013

I don’t invest in movies. Unless a long time friend, like Rajat Bhargava, asks me to join him for fun in an investment. Several years ago Raj asked me to invest with him in a movie a cousin of his – Prashant Bhargava – was making called Patang. I wrote a modest check without thinking twice. The result of Prashant and the work of his team is a beautiful movie.

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India Developer 133

Gregg Fraley, Author of Jack's Notebook

FEBRUARY 13, 2013

Pamela Menges, Phd CEO of Aerospace Research Systems, Inc. President Obama made mention in his state of the union address that he wishes to expand the National Netowrk for Manufacturing Innovation concept. I wholly applaud the idea, AND, there might be a more fundamental challenge that needs addressed first. I’ve made the acquaintance of a thought leader with her finger on the pulse of where the nation sits in terms of technological readiness to innovate.

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Technical Review Engineer United States Government 102

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 3, 2013

Most entrepreneurs have learned that it’s almost always quicker and easier to get cash from someone you know, rather than Angel investors or professional investors (VCs). In fact, most investors “require” that you already have some investment from friends and family before they will even step up to the plate. You see, investors invest in people, before they invest in ideas or products.

Technical Review 273

Technical Review Entrepreneur Elevator Pitch Due Diligence 273

ConversionXL

FEBRUARY 13, 2013

This is a guest post by Chris Hexton from Vero. Have you ever thought about how your customers actually read your emails? As in, how they approach them… mentally? How important is the subject line? Do headings in emails matter? Which links are customers most likely to click? Are links in body content distracting? Are images important? By considering questions like these and really investigating how customers actually read emails we naturally put ourselves in a better place to write emails that c

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Email Customer HTML Campaign 114

crowdSPRING Blog

FEBRUARY 7, 2013

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!

Social Media 106

Social Media Small Business Technical Review Design 106

SiliconHills

FEBRUARY 22, 2013

BY IAN PANCHEVRE Reporter with Silicon Hills News MetroHi.com , a San Antonio based startup in the review management space, started with humble beginnings but is now picking up momentum, and it’s all thanks to a unique approach to an enduring problem. Radu Istrate, the founder and CEO of MetroHi and a Boston College graduate, [.] The post MetroHi.com Embraces a Unique Approach for Reputation Management appeared first on SiliconHills.

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Reputation San Antonio Management Boston 102

Spencer Fry

FEBRUARY 12, 2013

I started learning to program in earnest at the beginning of February 2012. Since then, I've compiled the programming resources that got me to where I am today. Various books, screencasts, online documents, and forums have helped me along the way. I've listed them in the order in which I read them over the course of my development. I hope you find them as useful as I did.

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Programming Ruby HTML Web Development 75

Duct Tape Marketing

FEBRUARY 27, 2013

Today’s guest post is from Duct Tape Marketing Consultant Dan Kraus. – Enjoy! photo credit: jean-louis zimmermann via photopin cc. C O N T E N T. One little 7-letter word that makes marketers and business owners alike cringe a bit. We know we need new, fresh, content to attract prospects. The old world of outbound, hunt-down-a-prospect marketing isn’t working any more.

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Software Review Technical Review Small Business Web 68

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 17, 2013

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.

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Employee Entrepreneur Technical Review Hiring 244

deal architect

FEBRUARY 17, 2013

I have known Charles Phillips, CEO of Infor for going on 2 decades now. He was a polymath way before I wrote a book celebrating them. He has computer science and law degrees in addition to an MBA. He is.

Stealth 382

Stealth Software 382

crowdSPRING Blog

FEBRUARY 24, 2013

In addition to a desktop computer at work and a laptop for home and on the road, I also own an iPhone 4s and an iPad 2. I am not a Road Warrior type – I travel perhaps 20 days per year – but do need to work when I am on the road and I am constantly on the lookout for ways to improve my productivity when away from the office. When I first got the a few years back, I had high hopes that it would allow me to leave the laptop at home when making trips of just a few days.

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Product Social Media Finder Email 109

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 18, 2013

This article originally appeared on TechCrunch. By now many of you know the Harlem Shake but what you may not appreciate is the broader trend behind the video and it has mirrored my general views on how TV will work in the future. Harlem Shake is a YouTube phenomenon that in just 2 weeks has gone from nothing to on air on both Jon Stewart & Stephen Colbert and collectively the Harlem Shake has been viewed around 200 million times.

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Video Audience Global Distribution 380

Jeff Hilimire

FEBRUARY 9, 2013

Jason Calacanis just doesn’t get it, and I’m afraid his opinion is unfortunately not just his own but rather that of most successful white people (not just limited to those in the technology sector). All due respect to those of you that do get it, but my guess is if you look around at your other successful white friends, they’d likely share Jason’s feelings.

Silicon Valley 69

Silicon Valley Technical Review United States Restful 69

Duct Tape Marketing

FEBRUARY 14, 2013

Thursday is guest post day here at Duct Tape Marketing and today’s guest is from Josh Pigford – Enjoy! While the end result of a survey might make the conclusions look cut and dry, there are many ways that data can be manipulated or misrepresented to change the truth. However, the sloppiest (and probably most common) method of fumbling the truth is when data is simply misunderstood.

Software Review 63

Software Review Cofounder Matching Software 63

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 1, 2013

Many entrepreneurs think that diversity on their team just makes their job harder, since startups are all about making fast decisions, and executing efficiently. Often they assume that this is only a big-company issue, having more to do with the legalities of equal opportunity, hiring minorities, and moral imperatives. In reality, diversity in a startup can be your big competitive advantage.

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Advisory Board Silicon Valley Startup United States 228

deal architect

FEBRUARY 12, 2013

This continues a series of columns from practitioners I respect. The category "Real Deal" describes them well. The software industry is relatively young and there are few John Deeres which have revised its logo every few decades. So when I.

Software 377

Software 377

crowdSPRING Blog

FEBRUARY 6, 2013

“Content marketing” refers to creating information (content) that has value to others. The creator of the content ultimately wants to sell a product or service to prospective buyers who benefit from the content, but the goal of content marketing is rarely to sell directly. Instead, the goal of content marketing is to encourage people to read and perhaps engage with the content, and to begin developing a relationship with the person or entity that created that content.

Small Business 94

Small Business Marketing North America Distribution 94

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

FEBRUARY 12, 2013

This is part of an ongoing startup advice series where I answer (anonymized!) questions from readers, like a written version of Smart Bear Live. To get your question answered , email me at asmartbear -at- shortmail -dot- com. Frustrated Engineer writes: I’ve been writing code for ten years, recently promoted to a position where I have to talk to our non-technical customers.

Software 294

Software Engineer Naming Customer 294

Rob Go

FEBRUARY 24, 2013

Early stage companies are often refining their stories or narratives. It’s important for lots of reasons – inspiring team members, recruiting, creating focus, getting effective press, fundraising, etc. From a fundraising perspective, one of the challenges of telling one’s story is that as an early stage company, you are by definition very very small, but you are trying to convince an investor that you can be very very big.

Software Review 61

Software Review Due Diligence Early Stage Cofounder 61

The Startup Toolkit

FEBRUARY 15, 2013

false As a cheatsheet, the “normal” equity structure is: Founder terms: 4 year vesting, 1 year cliff, for everyone, including you. Advisor terms ( 0.5–2.0% ) : 4 year vesting, optional cliff, full acceleration on exit. Getting equity structures right. When it comes to equity terms, there are only 3 things to understand: vesting, cliffs, and acceleration.

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Vesting Equity Cofounder Technical Review 56