View from Seed

JULY 31, 2014

'Two weeks ago, my partners and I here at NextView Ventures announced our second fund. And since we will continue to look proactively at new seed-stage tech startups over the next few years, the question becomes: What, then, will these companies look like? Rather than merely speculate, a more interesting exercise is to examine what we’ve actually seed funded at NextView recently as a reflection of our current investment interests.

Seed Stage 272

Seed Stage B2C Technical Review Disintermediation 272

Steve Blank

JULY 30, 2014

'Startups are not smaller versions of large companies, but interestingly we see that companies are not larger versions of startups. I’ve been spending some time with large companies that are interested in using Lean methods. One of the conundrums is why does innovation take so long to happen in corporations? Previously Hank Chesbrough and I have written about some of the strategic issues that impede innovation inside large corporations here and here.

Customer Development 335

Customer Development Design Developer Customer 335

YoungUpstarts

JULY 30, 2014

'by Nikole Haiar, Director, Marketing Campaigns & Programs at Hostway Services, Inc. The holiday season might seem distant today, but for e-commerce merchants, there’s no time like the present to get prepared for the annual rush. The peak selling season can be a stressful time for online merchants who are scrambling to get products to customers as quickly as possible.

Software Review 165

Software Review B2B Security Technical Review 165

Up and Running

JULY 31, 2014

'We all have goals for our business, but sometimes we forget how important it is to clearly define these goals. This is especially true when it comes to financial goal setting for small businesses, where often financial goals are only vaguely defined or based too heavily on assumptions. Many small business owners may keep a mental list of goals, but in order to learn from your goals and build your business through goal setting, it is important to understand why you should set goals, what sort of

Software Review 74

Software Review Sales Acquisition Small Business 74

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

ReadWriteStart

AUGUST 1, 2014

Nearly 10 years ago, Excite founder Joe Kraus, now an investor at Google Ventures, declared “there has never been a better time to be an entrepreneur.” Kraus was talking about the economics of startups—the cheapness of servers, networks, and other raw ingredients of computing. A decade later, Andreessen Horowitz investor Sam Gerstenzang has one-upped Kraus.

Engineer 60

Engineer Database Open Source Acquisition 60

Diego Basch

AUGUST 1, 2014

'“There is a small satellite orbiting an unremarkable planet 50 light years from Earth. In spite of its tiny size, this floating cube of metal and silicon carries a load of paramount importance to the infrastructure of our galaxy. Inside its computer resides the Big Developer Matrix. As you can infer from its name it is fairly large, and it contains information about developers.

Java 67

Java Ruby Software Developers Software Development 67

Up and Running

AUGUST 1, 2014

'No matter how profitable your company looks, it can still be in danger of going under without sufficient cash flow. Cash is your business’s lifeblood; its survival. Yet the world is full of “profitable” companies bleeding themselves dry and slowly — or sometimes not-so-slowly — going under because they haven’t paid due attention to cash flow. How does this happen?

Widget 90

Widget Balance Sheet Management Green 90

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 27, 2014

'I recently attended and presented at Dave McClure’s PreMoney conference in San Francisco. I go every year because I love events hosted & moderated by insiders involving discussions by insiders because it maximizes the amount of real discussions people have. What you’ll see if you watch the video is an unscripted and unfiltered look into how Scott Kupor & I see some of the changes and challenges of the venture industry. tl;dr version.

Valuation 309

Valuation Pre-Money Valuation Later Stage Non-Compete 309

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

JULY 29, 2014

'Everyone said this would be the most embarrassing moment in the band’s eight-year career. Depeche Mode had decided to play the Pasadena Rose Bowl — capacity 60,000 — for the 101st show of their 1988 tour. To sell out would make it one of the largest music concerts ever played in America — highly unlikely for an English electronic band.

Startup 299

Startup Metrics IPO America 299

Andrew Payne

JULY 28, 2014

'Earlier this year, Mario Costeja-González won the right to be forgotten. The Court of Justice of the EU ruled Google had to remove search results linking to a 1998 newspaper article about the foreclosure of his home (due to unpaid debts he later paid). In the ultimate irony, he’s now permanently and wide remembered for precisely what he wanted everyone to forget (the Streisand Effect ).

Technical Review 49

Technical Review Search Engineer Internet 49

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 27, 2014

'It wasn’t so many years ago that starting a new e-commerce business on the Internet was a complex custom development project, usually costing a million dollars or more. Now you can do it for free, or a few hundred dollars, with one of the many web building tools available, like Shopify or Weebly Store. A programmer can build a new smartphone app for a few thousand dollars.

Entrepreneur 260

Entrepreneur Burn Rate Social Media LLC 260

Steve Blank

JULY 28, 2014

'If you can’t see the video click here. Subscribe for more videos than you can ever watch here. Filed under: 2 Minute Lessons , Market Types.

Video 285

Video Startup Marketing 285

deal architect

JULY 31, 2014

'When I started to write the book on the SAP economy I had counted on customer, market watcher and competitor input. What’s been surprising – and actually inspiring – is how restrained competitor executives have been in their critique of.

Customer 191

Customer Marketing 191

Duct Tape Marketing

JULY 31, 2014

'Why Social Media is a Must for all Companies written by Guest Post read more at Small Business Marketing Blog from Duct Tape Marketing. It’s guest post day here at Duct Tape Marketing and today’s guest post is from Margaret Dawson – Enjoy! While younger demographic groups are higher users, all ages are on social media. Source: comScore. Social media is all around us and has become a daily part of people’s lives.

Social Media 37

Social Media Media Social Network Cloud 37

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 30, 2014

'It may not be as sexy, but starting a new business that builds on an existing technology or business model is usually less risky than introducing that ultimate new disruptive technology. There are many levels of innovation that go beyond copying someone else’s idea, but stop short of pushing the bleeding edge. Many of the major business successes started this way.

Technology 259

Technology Entrepreneur Business Model Social Media 259

YoungUpstarts

JULY 30, 2014

'by Mark Satterfield , author of “ The One Week Marketing Plan: The Set It & Forget It Approach for Quickly Growing Your Business “ Being a recognized expert is one of the best ways to promote your brand or your business. It isn’t terribly difficult, if you follow a well-tread process. 1. Have an opinion. Most people would rather go with the flow.

Social Media 188

Social Media Media Advertising Developer 188

Feld Thoughts

JULY 29, 2014

'I expect most of you know the fable of the scorpion and the frog , but if you don’t, it goes like this (quoted from Wikipedia): “A scorpion asks a frog to carry him over a river. The frog is afraid of being stung during the trip, but the scorpion argues that if it stung the frog, both would sink and the scorpion would drown. The frog agrees and begins carrying the scorpion, but midway across the river the scorpion does indeed sting the frog, dooming them both.

Cloud 176

Cloud Partner Hosting Cost 176

The Next Web

JULY 29, 2014

'This post originally appeared on the Crew blog. Have you ever felt like all you do is check your e-mail? Well, you may not spend ALL your time checking your e-mail but you do spend about 28 percent of your time doing it. That translates into about 13-hours a week or 650 hours a year of e-mail checking. For those of us who work in a job where e-mail isn’t our main responsibility, checking and responding to e-mails each day can take us away from our primary work, which results in less productivit

Web 167

Web Entrepreneur Product 167

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 1, 2014

'Startup founders are known for their passion for their startup idea, and for their passion to kill every competitor. Thus they often overlook the fact that their biggest growth opportunity may be a win-win collaboration with a serious competitor, known in the business as coopetition. Of course, this path involves some risk, but you never get anywhere unless you take a chance.

Non-disclosure Agreement 257

Non-disclosure Agreement Intellectual Property Startup Non-Compete 257

YoungUpstarts

JULY 28, 2014

'There’s an awful lot to think about when you’re starting up your own business; business plans, funding, partners, suppliers, premises, and that’s assuming you’ve already got your ideas and completed your market research. With so much to think about, where do you start? Starting a business is a little like eating an elephant, you have to go about it one bite at a time.

Security 181

Security SEO Business Plan Government 181

Gust

JULY 26, 2014

'If founding a startup was easy, there would be a lot more of them, and the percentage that are successful would be much higher. Unfortunately, it isn’t. The essence of entrepreneurship is creating a new venture where one does not already exist in the market as you find it. As such, the founding process is one in which the entrepreneur is competing with market forces.

Startup 156

Startup Entrepreneur Cost Marketing 156

The Next Web

JULY 31, 2014

'Gregory Ciotti is the marketing director at Help Scout. This post originally appeared on the Help Scout blog. One of the more iconic phrases in customer service is “give ‘em the pickle,” drawn from a story by Bob Farrell regarding an unhappy customer who couldn’t get extra pickles for his hamburger. The customer actually wrote a letter detailing the frustration he felt in his inability to get said pickles.

Customer 163

Customer Web Entrepreneur Marketing 163

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 28, 2014

'As an entrepreneur, your personal integrity is critical for getting and keeping the support of investors and team members, and your company’s integrity is critical for getting and keeping customers and vendors. But in a practical sense, what does that really mean? Most definitions of integrity include something like “the quality of being honest and morally upright.

Entrepreneur 255

Entrepreneur Leadership Business Plan Customer 255

YoungUpstarts

JULY 31, 2014

'by Kelly Smith of Career FAQs. We all like the idea of running our own business. We value the freedom, the possibility of unlimited income and the idea of spending our time working for ourselves – not for someone else. With owning a business, however, comes the kind of risk you will never experience at your regular job, which compared to running a business seems much less demanding.

Australia 174

Australia Leadership Social Media Developer 174

Feld Thoughts

JULY 31, 2014

'I know many entrepreneurs who feel that VCs have played them, gamed them, deceived them, or bullshitted them. But this doesn’t only happen to entrepreneurs. VCs play this game with VCs all the time. One of our deeply held beliefs at Foundry Group is that there is no value in b *g anyone. We screw up a lot of things, make plenty of mistakes, and often look back and say some version of “oops.” But we never b t each other or b t anyone we work with.

LP 155

LP Advisory Board Venture Capital Early Stage 155

The Next Web

JULY 30, 2014

'Json SurfrApp is the founder of IWearYourShirt.com. His new book, Creativity For Sale, is an in-depth look at how to turn passion into profit. You have an idea, now what? If you’re anything like me you have ideas all the time. Maybe your ideas come to you in the shower, while driving somewhere, while reading a book, or during some other activity. For many of us, it’s not coming up with an idea that’s the hard part, it’s what the heck to do next.

Web 163

Web Sales Founder Entrepreneur 163

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 26, 2014

'Every startup needs access to capital, whether for funding product development, for initial rollout efforts, acquiring inventory, or paying that first employee. Most entrepreneurs think first of bank loans as the primary source of money, only to find out that banks are really the least likely benefactors for startups. Thus “creative” really means maximizing non-bank financing.

Entrepreneur 254

Entrepreneur Finance Equity Early Stage 254

YoungUpstarts

JULY 28, 2014

'When a shopper is filling their cart, what makes them grab the 2-liter bottle of Coke vs. the 12-pack of Pepsi? Why pick up the Lays rather than the Golden Flake? Is Frosted Flakes really that much better than Sugar Smacks? What is the real criteria used to decide between Oscar Meyer and Ball Park Franks? All of these companies spend millions, if not billions of dollars in advertising their products to the public.

Sales 169

Sales Green Differentiation Design 169

Rembrandt Communications

JULY 30, 2014

'SEO copywriting is just part of a bigger, marketing picture Are you using BtoB Content Strategy to boost sales? “SEO is important. Be sure to optimize your site for the search engines.” “Update your content and social media postings on a regular basis.” “Send out SEO press releases to get noticed online.” Content is a […]. The post What is BtoB Content Strategy and Why Do You Need It?

SEO 140

SEO Public Relations Social Media Web 140

The Next Web

JULY 29, 2014

'Paul Jarvis experiments with words and design. His latest book is called The Good Creative: 18 ways to make better art. The internet isn’t a meritocracy, where we can just do good work, put it on a website and hope others will find it and buy it. Nothing will do this for you — not social media, not Kickstarter, not Medium, not Amazon, and not your blog.

Social Media 159

Social Media Web Internet Hiring 159

Version One Ventures

JULY 28, 2014

'Facebook , Google , Salesforce , Twitter…all the top players in Silicon Valley want to get their hands on the best talent around. That’s why we’ve seen example after example of “acqui-hires” in the past few years as well as some very large acquisitions where a big driver was the talent behind a start-up (e.g. Nest, Beats). However, only a few big companies have truly figured out how to keep founders around after the acquisition.

Acquisition 157

Acquisition Silicon Valley Founder Hiring 157

YoungUpstarts

JULY 28, 2014

'by Leah Rutherford, career development and entrepreneurial writer and blogger at JetFeeds. All successful small business owners – and there are more than 50 million according to the U.S. Small Business Administration! – faces a point when they have to make a big decision either to stay the course or try to expand their business. Unfortunately, many choose the former path rather than taking the latter, even when all signs point to the need for expansion.

Small Business Administration 166

Small Business Administration Chicago Small Business Reputation 166

Mike Michalowicz

AUGUST 1, 2014

'The formula for profitability has been established for ages. Every business owner, CEO, freelancer and entrepreneur knows it. It is even supported – scratch that, required – by Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP), which is enforced by the SEC in the United States and the International Accounting Standards Board internationally.

Guinea 155

Guinea SEC United States Matching 155

The Next Web

JULY 29, 2014

'Katie Burke is the Director of Media & Analyst Relations at HubSpot. Recently, a startup called Pressfarm launched, promising to provide the names, emails, and Twitter accounts for journalists so that entrepreneurs could get outstanding coverage for their business. There’s just one major problem with this business proposition: the hardest part of getting press for your startup isn’t getting reporter’s contact information at all.

Marketing 158

Marketing Social Media Startup Web 158

Feld Thoughts

JULY 28, 2014

'I woke up to an article in Daily Camera today titled Small Business Administration trying to bring SBIC funds to Colorado. There are so many things wrong in the article I felt compelled to write about it. This isn’t a knock on the writer (Alicia Wallace) – I like Alicia and think she does a good job. Rather, it’s an example of the difference between signal and noise in any kind of reporting around the VC industry.

SBIC 142

SBIC Venture Capital Colorado SBA 142

YoungUpstarts

JULY 31, 2014

'As a society that lives, works, shops and even socializes online it’s hard for most of us to imagine that there are some banks and other financial institutions that see e-commerce and all that goes with it as “high risk.”. To be fair, there are some types of e-commerce businesses that raise more eyebrows than others. That “adult” themed websites are considered high risk is not exactly a surprise.

eCommerce 165

eCommerce Security Customer Partner 165