Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 30, 2012

All too many startups are founded simply on the basis of a new and exciting technology invented by an industrious technologist. This is the origin of the “solution looking for a problem” and “if we build it, they will come” syndromes, which result in surprise and frustration waiting for funding, and waiting for customers that don’t materialize. The right approach is to start by solving a problem causing real pain to a large number of customers willing to pay real money for a solution.

Intellectual Property 248

Intellectual Property Startup IP Finance 248

Feld Thoughts

MAY 3, 2012

Once again we are in a zone where hiring software developers is incredibly challenging. The market is fully employed and while there is some movement between companies, great developers tend to be decided to what they are doing for a while, especially in an entrepreneurial context. Last night I was at Angel Boot Camp in Boston. It was a dinner for about 50 angel investors – a mix of experienced ones and new ones – organized by Jon Pierce.

Software Developers 135

Software Developers Software Development Software Review Software 135

crowdSPRING Blog

MAY 3, 2012

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 94

Social Media Small Business Design Media 94

ReadWriteStart

MAY 3, 2012

The conflicting (frequently unsolicited) advice startup entrepreneurs too often hear is enough to make you tune it all out. Either you’re told that you need to go big and grab all the angel or VC money you can get your hands on, or that you should start small, do it on your own, and retain control of your company. But bootstrapping a startup is not easy, requiring discipline and fortitude, as well as ingenuity.

Bootstrapping 137

Bootstrapping Software Review Startup Equity 137

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

Up and Running

MAY 3, 2012

Entrepreneurship continues to be a sexy topic for governments, with every country worth its salt trying to create its own tech hub, mimicking Silicon Valley. The appeal of promoting entrepreneurship is obvious. After all, entrepreneurs can do many good things, not least to create wealth and employment, pay taxes and help the balance of trade through exports.

Entrepreneur 82

Entrepreneur Technical Review Silicon Valley Lean 82

SVPG

APRIL 28, 2012

The Product Marketing Contribution. Jane is supporting the launch of Product X, a new release her company is really excited about. She is on the marketing team. Armed with her launch checklist, she schedules a meeting with John, the product manager. At the meeting, John answers all of her questions, draws a market segmentation on the white board, and talks about the key features and why they are important.

Product 108

Product Technical Review Marketing Affiliate 108

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 28, 2012

When you work inside a startup with lots of clever and motivated staff you’re never short of good ideas that you can implement. It’s tempting to take on new projects, new features, new geographies, new speaking opportunities, whatever. Each one incrementally sounds like a good idea, yet collectively they end up punishing undisciplined teams.

Bandwidth 415

Bandwidth Management Startup Channel 415

Austin Startup

APRIL 30, 2012

Austin’s burgeoning ecosystem of startups is in high gear, buoyed by the rise of cloud-based infrastructure, mobile development, and cleaner technologies. Behind that growth is a vibrant tech community of software engineers, analysts and project managers.

Software 76

Software Software Engineering Hiring Cloud 76

www.startuplessonslearned.com

MAY 4, 2012

Lessons Learned. by Eric Ries. Home. Bio. Contact. Tuesday, April 24, 2012. Founders Dilemmas: Equity Splits. Tweet. The following is an excerpt from HBS Professor Noam Wasserman’s new book, The Founders Dilemmas: Anticipating and Avoiding the Pitfalls That Can Sink a Startup. Noam is one of a rare breed of business academics: he studies entrepreneurship using a rigorous empirical approach.

Equity 72

Equity Founder Technical Cofounder Cofounder 72

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

MAY 1, 2012

The results of a serendipitous live experiment were recently published as guest posts on this blog. Sacha demonstrated the benefits of selling many copies of an eBook at a low price, while Jarrod pointed out the advantages of higher prices, bringing in more revenue with 1/6th the number of units sold. The ensuing discussion swirled around the merits of selling more units (i.e. maximizing reach) versus selling more expensive units (i.e. maximizing per-unit profitability).

Customer 320

Customer Revenue Acquisition Cofounder 320

Duct Tape Marketing

APRIL 30, 2012

In a perfect world, every customer relationship would be steeped in a complete understanding of the customer’s current wants, needs and desires. The trick of course is that getting anything that looks like that at all requires three things – incredible planning, thoughtful technology and consistent execution. The entire category of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) technology inherently offers the promise of this kind of relationship management while often providing little more than a

Management 67

Management Customer Sales Cycle Technical Review 67

Diego Basch

APRIL 28, 2012

[Originally posted on July 25, 2011 on the IndexTank blog, now down. Reposting it here so I don't lose it.]. If you are reading this there is a chance you may not know who Steve Vai is. In my opinion, he’s the owner of the most gifted musical brain in the world. You may not like the style of music he plays or his guitar pyrotechnics. However, there is no question that most bands would kill to have someone like him on stage.

Engineer 66

Engineer Coder Software Engineering Java 66

deal architect

MAY 2, 2012

I read a fascinating article in New Scientist (sub required) which cites several academic projects to profile us based on social network data. These include: a) Work by Lars Backstrom, a researcher at Facebook, showed he could locate 2/3rd of.

Social Network 276

Social Network Networking 276

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 4, 2012

If you can’t solve problems and enjoy it, you won’t make it as an entrepreneur. By definition, an entrepreneur is the first to undertake a given business, and firsts never happen without problems and people frustrations. The toughest problems are people problems, like personnel issues, but there are tough operational problems as well, such as vendor delays.

Entrepreneur 290

Entrepreneur Customer Operations Email 290

Steve Blank

APRIL 28, 2012

We’ve taught our Lean LaunchPad entrepreneurship class at Stanford, Berkeley, Columbia and the National Science Foundation in 8 week, 10 week and 12 week versions. We decided to find out what was the Minimum Viable Product for our Lean LaunchPad class. Could students get value out of a 5-day version of the class? The Setup. At the invitation of Murray Low at the Entrepreneurship Center in the Columbia Business School, we went to New York to find out.

Lean 258

Lean Business Model Customer Development New York 258

YoungUpstarts

MAY 2, 2012

Buddhism is an ancient philosophical system that follows the teachings of the Buddha. The system — a meditative, esoteric practice that often functions as a religious system — has an estimated 350 and 500 million practitioners and believers worldwide. Buddhism emphasizes the cultivation of mindfulness and values a spiritually minimalistic worldview, eschewing dependence and worldly attachment.

Thailand 239

Thailand Restful Global Audience 239

deal architect

MAY 3, 2012

My friend and fellow EI Ross Mayfield has had a week which calls for multiple press releases. The company he co-founded, Socialtext has gained a strategic investment by Bedford Funding ($1.4B PE firm) and will integrate with Peoplefluent. The company.

PR 239

PR 239

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 28, 2012

I’m convinced that people who have fun at work are more innovative, as well as happier. I don’t have any big scientific studies to prove this, but in my considerable business experience, I haven’t seen many successes come out of a group of fearful pessimists or unhappy people. As I was looking through the literature, I did find evidence that many strong business leaders, like John D.

Entrepreneur 270

Entrepreneur Restful Product Startup 270

entrepreMusings

MAY 2, 2012

Following is a guest post by Amanda Green. Amanda writes extensively on the subjects of business and personal finance. 3 Quirky Business Ideas That May Just Be Brilliant. Great ideas come from anywhere. You can be standing in line for ice cream and voila—new business plan. That’s part of the glory and excitement of entrepreneurial thinking. It’s like magic sometimes!

Green 40

Green Algorithm Technical Review Internet 40

YoungUpstarts

MAY 1, 2012

For creative students with great ideas, Kickstarter sure sounds like a dream come true: people on the site are actually willing to give you money to see your creative ideas come to fruition. We’d love to say that using Kickstarter is an instant formula for success, but the truth is that not every project on the site takes off, and to see your project do well, you’re going to have to put in a lot of thought and hard work.

Video 225

Video Affiliate Cost Viral 225

deal architect

APRIL 30, 2012

so said Charles Phillips, CEO of Infor in one of his talks at his company event last week. Darn, I should have had the quote in my new book. I describe the trend as “the enterprising of consumer tech”. The.

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Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 29, 2012

I’m fully convinced that both inspiration and perspiration are always required in a startup. Yet many people seem to be stuck on one end or other of this equation – all perspiration with no dream, or all inspiration with no reality. Success is the right balance of both for fun and profit. Aspiring entrepreneurs ask me why their great idea hasn’t sold; they talk about it endlessly, and they expect others to do the development, finance, and marketing work for them.

Sweat Equity 256

Sweat Equity Intellectual Property Entrepreneur Viral 256

Feld Thoughts

MAY 1, 2012

Today SEOMoz announced that Foundry Group has led an $18 million financing and I’m joining the board. Rand Fishkin (The Wizard of Moz) has an incredibly detailed post up titled Moz’s $18 Million Venture Financing: Our Story, Metrics and Future describing the financing process and company history in great depth. In it, he includes all kinds of numbers that people writing articles about financing are always asking for but never getting – it’s an extraordinarily (in my ex

Flash 145

Flash Finance Metrics Reputation 145

YoungUpstarts

MAY 3, 2012

Shaker Heights, Ohio-based business incubator LaunchHouse is inviting ten technology startup teams from around the world to participate in a 12-week startup accelerator program. If selected, the teams will be required to relocate to Cleveland, Ohio and operate from LaunchHouse ‘s business incubator space for those 12 weeks. They will each receive $25,000 in funding and have the opportunity to be surrounded with experience-based lab sessions, world-class mentors from their specific industry

Programming 223

Programming Ohio Cleveland Incubator 223

deal architect

APRIL 29, 2012

I have been increasingly exasperated by the lack of wi-fi on most Southwest flights – either equipment not installed or their satellite based service (as different from the GoGo air-to-ground on other airlines) is spotty. To make up for that.

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Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 3, 2012

In my experience, inventors aren’t interested or aren’t very good at building a business, and entrepreneurs aren’t usually good scientists. These people need to find each other, and can jointly make a great team for a new startup. Historically, it’s also not often that a good inventor was also a good entrepreneur. Some now argue that even our entrepreneur heroes, like Thomas Edison, really cheated on the invention side.

Entrepreneur 250

Entrepreneur Startup Algorithm Business Plan 250

David Teten

MAY 2, 2012

Personal trainer Jake Koenig reached out to us to request to run a minimum viable product trial of his in-office fitness training service. We’re always glad to help entrepreneurs, and we are a bit obsessed with making our fitness office even more effective, so more than half of our office volunteered to be beta clients. We have a lot of people interested in fitness for geeks.

Venture Capital 141

Venture Capital Employee New York Entrepreneur 141

YoungUpstarts

APRIL 30, 2012

It wasn’t so long ago that the idea of teenagers earning “weekend money” typically involved taking out the garbage, having a paper route or asking, “Do you want fries with that?” Today, some teens are doing much more than earning roller skating money: they are creating wealth online and doing it on their own terms. Young entrepreneurs like Catherine Cook, co-founder of MyYearbook.com , Ashley Qualls, creator of Whateverlife.com , affiliate marketer Paul Bourque and Harrison Gevirtz, who has star

San Francisco 219

San Francisco Affiliate Entrepreneur Cofounder 219

deal architect

APRIL 29, 2012

on the innovation blog The Marvelous Marlins stadium Walmart’s Movie iCloud Match type offering The smart Rice Cooker The Scootercase John Lewis innovates home deliveries.

Matching 210

Matching Technology 210

The Equity Kicker

APRIL 30, 2012

Check out these NAO dancing robots from French company Aldebaran. If after 15-20s you think you’ve seen enough click forward to 50s and watch the robots get really funky. There is a lot more to NAO robots than being cute. The plan is for them to be assistants round the home helping with tasks ranging from playing games to helping with the cooking.

Video 134

Video Sales Startup 134

Rembrandt Communications

MAY 2, 2012

Spring is here, and it’s time to take action before the “slow days of summer” arrive (when you’d rather be outside than behind your desk). With this in mind, what actions are you going to take right away to make things happen with your PR and search engine optimization (SEO) activities? Here are 3 ideas [.].

PR 113

PR SEO Engineer Search 113

YoungUpstarts

MAY 3, 2012

Like death, work comes for us all. If you plan to go into business for yourself after getting your college degree, we applaud your pioneering spirit. For the rest of you, somewhere out there is a boss with your name on their payroll. Each one of these bosses will have his own particular things he asks of you that you’ll have to learn after you land the job.

Restful 209

Restful Email Hiring Internet 209

deal architect

MAY 2, 2012

On the New Florence blog The Silicon Valley airline? The FedEx EV Trial Mobile First? Reverse Innovation Inside Amazon’s Idea Machine.

Silicon Valley 239

Silicon Valley Mobile Technology 239

Feld Thoughts

APRIL 30, 2012

Last week President Obama played with a Sphero. This weekend you can win up to $5,000 at the Sphero Hackathon in Boulder. It starts Friday May 4th at 6pm with a Welcome Reception (which means beer and Spheros) and runs all day Saturday and Sunday where you can hack with Spheros and the Orbotix SDK. I’ll be around Sunday from 1pm to 3pm taking a look at what people have done, playing around with the apps, and answering any questions about why I think Sphero (and Orbotix – the company

API 123

API Flash Global Programming 123

ReadWriteStart

MAY 4, 2012

Want to know the second most comon question from startup entrepreneurs? (The first, of course, is “Where can I get money?”). It’s “What traits do successful entrepreneurs share?” They’re not asking about tangible things like good ideas, great teams and adequate funding, but, rather the inner characteristics that set apart the founders of successful startups.

Startup 128

Startup Entrepreneur Hiring Employee 128

YoungUpstarts

MAY 3, 2012

Singapore-based mobile professional social network Beepmo has announced a partnership with upcoming banking conference Next Bank Asia to bring its real-time, location-based professional networking service to the event held 9-10 May, 2012, making it the first event in Asia to incorporate mobile location-based social discovery and business networking.

Asia 199

Asia Singapore Networking Mobile 199