Both Sides of the Table
APRIL 13, 2011
Brad Feld is a fountain of knowledge & wisdom. I had the chance to sit down with him for an hour and ask him loads of questions that I thought you’d enjoy hearing. If you have time check out the video (or download on iTunes – Episode 27 - and listen at the gym or on your commute!). Or, as always, summary notes available below. Huge thank you to Steve De Long for the write up.
Startup Lessons Learned
APRIL 11, 2011
The Lean Startup Machine looks a lot like reality television for startups. It's intense, the teams go head-to-head, the protagonists live and learn, and it's all very entertaining. But there is something serious at work, too. I have written previously about how powerful the these events are as a teaching tool for Lean Startup principles. While I was in New York, I had another opportunity to witness this firsthand, and I wanted to share the results with you.
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crowdSPRING Blog
APRIL 13, 2011
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!
ReadWriteStart
APRIL 14, 2011
On Saturday, April 9, 2011, I arrived in Chennai at 3 a.m. after a 24-hour journey from California. At 11 a.m., a group of entrepreneurs from TiE Chennai gathered at the Indian Institute of Technology-Madras (IIT-M) Research Park campus, and we spent the next four hours discussing strategy and tactics of early-stage entrepreneurship. TiE Chennai organized a Startup Super Day, during which I delivered the keynote address followed by a live strategy roundtable.
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
Both Sides of the Table
APRIL 11, 2011
I recently had the pleasure of spending an hour with Jon Steinberg, president of Buzzfeed , a company who focuses on helping media companies make their content go viral. His words, “we find things on Sunday morning that will be on the Today show on Tuesday morning.&# That’s why people turn up to Buzzfeed. We talked about a lot of great stuff in the video including how to do sales calls and a how a new “culture of writing&# is emerging as a critical skill set in business today.
The Entrepreneurial Mind
APRIL 11, 2011
Many entrepreneurs talk about integrating their values into the vision for a new business. But some take it one step further and actually build a business model based on their values. Green Truck Moving Co. is a Nashville-based startup that is integrating the founders' commitment to the environment and the community into the mission of their company.
Start Up Roar brings together the best content for start up professionals from the widest variety of industry thought leaders.
A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks
APRIL 11, 2011
You already know that nowadays you’re invisible without some sort of social media presence. You already know the (alleged) benefits of having a personal or business blog. But you still don’t blog, and for good reason, right? Blogging is work, and ten other things are more important. Writing is hard and takes longer than you think it ought.
deal architect
APRIL 12, 2011
Steve Miranda, SVP used those words in his keynote yesterday as Oracle rolled out its more evolved cloud messaging at its Collaborate User conference in Orlando. I expect Oracle marketing to emphasize the choice theme a lot more rather than.
Startup Professionals Musings
APRIL 13, 2011
Friends tell you what you want to hear. Mentors tell you what you need to hear. When the message is the same from both, you don’t need the mentor anymore. In that sense, you should think of a mentor more like your advisor who has done all he can. You always need the friend. Also don’t confuse a business mentor with a business coach. A mentor’s aim is to teach you what to do and how, in specific situations, unlike a coach who helps you develop your generic skills for deciding what to do and how.
Steve Blank
APRIL 12, 2011
Om Malik runs Gigaom , probably the most interesting and accurate site on the blogosphere. Om was kind enough to have me in for an interview. We covered a wide range of topics. This talk on Risk and Culture in Silicon Valley is a small 1 minute snippet of a longer interview on his blog. Filed under: Family/Career , Teaching , Technology , Venture Capital.
Feld Thoughts
APRIL 11, 2011
I’ve got an entrepreneur focused deal on Brad Feld’s Amazing Deals today. The deal is for Udemy.com , a website that has online courses on a variety of interesting topics. When Udemy came to me, they were interested in offering a deal on one of their $99 courses that was pertinent to startups. After some negotiation, we decided to do an offer where you get their five top startup courses, priced at a total of over $400, for only $59.
deal architect
APRIL 15, 2011
As I continue my research and interviews for my next book, I am presenting an interim perspective at the Lexmark/In2Lex Startup Advantage event in Lexington on Monday (am also presenting separately on my last book, The New Polymath). Some of.
Startup Professionals Musings
APRIL 15, 2011
Many entrepreneurs work hard on the proof of concept (technical), but skip any proof of the business model (revenue flow). In other words, once they are convinced that the product works, they assume their price, sales channel, and marketing will bring in the customers. These days, the technical side may be the easy part. Proving the business model requires a different approach than proving the technical concept.
Steve Blank
APRIL 15, 2011
The Stanford Lean LaunchPad class was an experiment in a new model of teaching startup entrepreneurship. This post is part five. Parts one through four are here , Syllabus is here. . Week 5 of the class. Last week the teams were testing their hypotheses about their Customers (who are the users, payers, buyers, etc.) This week they were testing one of the most confusing sections of a company’s business model – Customer Relationships - the activities used to “Get, Keep and Grow” customer
Feld Thoughts
APRIL 10, 2011
I’ve had a number of interesting conversions about the intersection of the virtual and the physical world since I wrote the post Did Someone Ruin Foursquare For Me Yesterday? Kashmir Hill in Forbes did a quick email interview with me titled Venture Capitalist Gets Creeped Out by Foursquare which captured a few new thoughts and I spent some time the other night at a TechStars Mentor dinner talking with Alex Rainert, the head of product for Foursquare, who had spent some time digging into th
deal architect
APRIL 15, 2011
As I continue my research and interviews for my next book, I am presenting an interim perspective at the Lexmark/In2Lex Startup Advantage event in Lexington on Monday (am also presenting separately on my last book, The New Polymath). Some of.
Startup Professionals Musings
APRIL 11, 2011
Within the startup realm, there is a big difference between having an innovative product versus an innovative business. Some startups have a new technology, but stick to a tried-and-true business model. Others take an existing product, and give it new life with a creative business model. The most competitive startups do both, all the time and every time.
ReadWriteStart
APRIL 14, 2011
Entrepreneurs always seem to have great insights to share derived from their very real experiences. Unlike most people, many entrepreneurs are an open book, willing to share everything they know and have done with anyone willing to listen. They're thankful for all those other entrepreneurs they looked up to when they were just starting out, who were sharing all of their great, unfiltered wisdom.
Feld Thoughts
APRIL 11, 2011
I love watching our portfolio companies iterate on their products, especially when they are in the early days. Initial efforts often provide nothing more than learnings, but turning those learnings into an improved product offering is a huge part of what being an early stage company is all about. BigDoor has been going through that iteration process over this past year and this last week they quietly launched a pilot of a new feature called “Quests&# on UGO.com and a dozen other sites.
deal architect
APRIL 9, 2011
on the innovation blog Facebook’s “Open” Data Center Trailer “tails” Sensors to detect equine lameness Futuristic Fashion 20 years of Linux.
Startup Professionals Musings
APRIL 9, 2011
Success in a startup is not possible as a “one-man show.” An entrepreneur has to engage with team members, partners, investors, vendors, and customers. In my experience, the joy of positive engagement is sometimes the only pay you get in an early startup. Amazingly, many successful startups are built on this basis alone, with almost no money. I will talk here primarily about building the internal team of a startup, but the same principles apply outside to your “extended team” and customers.
Rembrandt Communications
APRIL 10, 2011
You spent hours researching, writing and optimizing your site for the search engines, and it’s finally up and running. Phew! That’s finished, and you can sit back and relax. Not so fast… As many of you know, this is just one piece of your overall marketing strategy, and your work has just begun. Now, you [.].
Feld Thoughts
APRIL 14, 2011
I spent a full day at MIT last month rolling around in a bunch of really cool tech. One of the meetings led to today’s Brad Feld Amazing Deal for OoOTies. I had just sat through three meetings with MIT-related entrepreneurs – two who showed me new human instrumentation products and one who walked me through a new way to develop Android apps.
BeyondVC
APRIL 15, 2011
OK, I may be biased having been an early stage VC based out of New York since 1996, but I must say that the vibe, energy, and people at the Techstars NYC Demo Day event yesterday was simply awesome. Dave Tisch and team simply did a fantastic job guiding the startups, recruiting the mentors, and organizing the event. I was quite honored to have been a mentor and to have had a chance to interact with so many high quality teams.
Startup Professionals Musings
APRIL 10, 2011
By Ernst Gemassme r Most of us have travelled abroad and experienced the challenges and frustrations of getting what we want without being laughed at or insulting our hosts. Similar issues prevail when doing business in other countries, cultures and languages. Even if you think your business is all local, multi-ethnic sensitivities are more relevant than you may think, including the US.
ReadWriteStart
APRIL 13, 2011
The investment analysts at CB Insights have released their quarterly report on venture capital activity, and in terms of deal-flow and funding levels, the news is good. The first quarter of 2011 saw these return to their pre-recession levels with financing for Internet companies up 83% from the last quarter of 2010. According to the deals tracked by CB Insights, 738 deals were funded in the first quarter, with a total of some $7.5 billion in VC investment.
Feld Thoughts
APRIL 9, 2011
I’m back home in Boulder about to head out for a long run in the mountains. As I was catching up on email from last week (not quite done yet) I was reflecting on the awesome week I had in New York. I had a couple of board meetings, spent a bunch of time at TechStars , gave some talks, had a pair of really fun late night dinners, had two strong runs (including one amazing one) along the east river, and stayed up until 1am drinking scotch with my partner Seth one night who was also in New Yo
BeyondVC
APRIL 15, 2011
OK, I may be biased having been an early stage VC based out of New York since 1996, but I must say that the vibe, energy, and people at the Techstars NYC Demo Day event yesterday was simply awesome. Dave Tisch and team simply did a fantastic job guiding the startups, recruiting the mentors, and organizing the event. I was quite honored to have been a mentor and to have had a chance to interact with so many high quality teams.
Lightspeed Venture Partners
APRIL 12, 2011
'There’s been some great discussions recently about the Lightspeed Summer Program ( [link] ) and at several of the sessions over the weekend at the Stanford E-Boot Camp ( [link] so I thought I’d do a quick post to help answer some of the recurring questions. Background. I started the program at Lightspeed 6 years ago because as an undergraduate and graduate student I, as well as many of my entrepreneurial classmates, took on “real” internships during the summers in order to pay the bills (rent,
ReadWriteStart
APRIL 12, 2011
In any growing business, one way to increase your market potential is by expanding to other countries; specifically, to those where you see little or no competition or which are crying out for the solutions your business is offering. Here are a few issues that companies should understand before expanding internationally. Sponsor. Creating Localized Websites.
Feld Thoughts
APRIL 15, 2011
If you support the Startup Visa and are in the congressional district for Congressman Lamar Smith (TX-21), Darrell Issa (CA-49), or Bob Goodlatte (VA-6) I’d like to talk to you – please drop me an email.
This is going to be BIG.
APRIL 15, 2011
Let's be clear, New York City is a big, tough place. It's crowded and there are a lot of distractions. People are busy here and it takes a lot for them to stop and notice something. Hell, some poor shlub jumped in front of a subway train the other day and people on Twitter blew up about how it made them late for work. When the ground explodes and 500 pound manhole covers get tossed into the air, we barely break stride to snap a photo and be on our way.
Start Up Blog
APRIL 13, 2011
There is no point being a successful entrepreneur, or selling a startup if we have no idea how to handle the money we get. So here is my top 10 financial life hacks. Spend less than you earn, no matter what that amount is. The net result is happiness. Allocate cash to savings & investments before anything the day you get your profits, pay or dividends.
Gregg Fraley, Author of Jack's Notebook
APRIL 11, 2011
Spring, Summer and Fall are the seasons for creativity AND innovation conferences. The guide I’m posting here isn’t meant to be comprehensive — but a quick glance at what’s on and why or why not you might want to go. Everybody has different criteria, so, take my thoughts with a grain of salt. And if [.].
Feld Thoughts
APRIL 12, 2011
Today Seth posted a new blog on the Foundry Group site titled Foundry Group’s AdTech Investing: Adhesive. While we’ve seen a billion AdTech related investments, we’ve only made a few of them over the past three years. We are huge believers in the macro of digital advertising, but we think the morass of much of the online ad world is just that – a morass.
This is going to be BIG.
APRIL 11, 2011
Back in 2005, when I was with Union Square Ventures, we changed our brochureware homepage into a blog. A few other VCs had been blogging before, but no one had gone as far as to make the whole front facing effort of their firm into something so interactive. It changed the way we worked with entrepreneurs. Last year, First Round Capital , my current firm, updated our page to make it even more interactive, pulling in shared links, Foursquare updates, and linking to our Twitter, LinkedIn, and Hones
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