Sat.Dec 18, 2010 - Fri.Dec 24, 2010

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Startups With Timely Action Get Investor Traction

Startup Professionals Musings

The official start date for your startup is the date you incorporate the business. This is obviously important for tax purposes, but may also dramatically influence how potential investors, customers, and competitors look at you. My rule of thumb expectation is that it should take two months to set up the legal entity, six months to finalize the business plan, and by the end of the first year have a prototype product ready for customers.

Startup 224
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Holiday Reading: 5 of This Year's Best Books for Startups

ReadWriteStart

Ideally, you'll find some time over the next few weeks to curl up with a good story. Or hey, at least that's what I look forward to on vacation. If you are looking for some books on entrepreneurship to read, or even to gift, here are some recommended books from 2010. There were a number of great business books published this year, many of which we reviewed here as part of ReadWriteWeb's " Weekend Reading " series.

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Twitter Link Roundup #66 – 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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3 Advanced Web Analytics Visitor Segments: Non-Flirts, Social, Long Tail

Occam's Razor

The last blog post shared custom analytics reports that you can use to find amazing insights faster, enabling you to create a focused, truly data driven organization. In this blog post I want to continue the let's help make your day-to-day life better path. I'll share three advanced segments that I personally find to be of value in the process of moving from data to actionable insights.

Analytics 118
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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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A Heart Surgeon and an Internet Marketer: Interview with Dr. Mani

Life Beyond Code

I am very inspired by the work of my friend Dr. Mani Sivasubramaniam. Dr. Mani is a heart surgeon. Dr. Mani is also an Internet Marketer. While I have not seen any other heart surgeon who is an Internet Marketer, Dr. Mani is more special than that. He sets aside part of the profits from his Internet Marketing initiatives to help young children with congenital heart diseases.

Internet 106
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Jason Fried is on Cloud Nine

Growthink Blog

If you aren't familiar with who Jason Fried is, you should be. Jason is the Founder of 37 Signals, makers of Basecamp, with over 3 million users and 2.8 million live projects, arguably the world's most popular project management software. Jason is also the author of Rework, a New York Times bestseller on entrepreneurship, technology, and design. Basecamp is the project management and collaboration tool of choice for the serious entrepreneur.

Cloud 72

More Trending

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Infor: We didnt start the fire

deal architect

This offer from Infor to earn referral fees for anonymously introducing them to potential customers has many industry analysts and influencers agape. It offends their sense of independence and the “anonymous” part goes against their desire for more transparency in.

Customer 258
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Vetting a startup (or two): The systematic birth of @WPEngine

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

Let me dispose of any lingering ideas that WPEngine was a great flash of insight , born perfect from conception like a Greek God emerging from the ocean, a once-per-decade occurrence sourced from unsystematic inspiration. Let me also dispel your doubts that you can't produce similar ideas with similar results using a similar process. You can, because there's nothing magical in how I got to this point.

Startup 239
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Body Language is Half of Business Communication

Startup Professionals Musings

Whether it’s a business or personal interaction, multiple studies show that as much as 50-90% of the communication is nonverbal. That means that people who are addicted to text messaging and email may be sending only half the message, and receivers often misinterpret even that half. Yet the use of text messaging for business purposes continues to grow, in concert with more of Gen-Y entering the workplace, and a continuing increase in the global rate of texting by everyone.

Global 236
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Making Next Year’s Holiday Cards More Effective

Both Sides of the Table

Like many of you, for me this was the year of the unsolicited eCards from random people I barely knew. Let’s be honest, much of this has become spam. I’m not the Grinch. I’m not anti holiday spirit. But if you ARE going to get into it then you ought to do it right. Make it count. Like the team at First Round Capital always does.

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Why tech advertising needs fine print

deal architect

Maybe I have been watching more TV recently, but tech vendors seem to be spending plenty on TV advertising – and I keep thinking as with pharmaceuticals, they need to spend at least 15 seconds on fine print. Like Verizon.

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From Startup Weekend idea to iPhone App

Sophia Perl of Wisdom

For quite some time, I really wanted to do a Startup Weekend. Finally, the stars were aligned and I got to attend one back in April at PayPal. The format is simple – Friday brainstorm ideas and form teams, Saturday and Sunday work on idea, and Sunday night pitch idea and show demo. Well, the idea that I pitched was an event finder app. We developed a prototype on top of Google’s app engine.

Finder 40
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Eight Tips to Help An Entrepreneur Just Say ‘No’

Startup Professionals Musings

Entrepreneurs have to know when and how to say ‘no,’ and be good at delivering the message. All startup leaders are besieged with requests for their time, attention, talent, money, or influence, and sometimes even good requests won’t fit into the time and energy you have available. Startups require focus, so you need to say ‘no’ to some things, in order to do the important things well.

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My Life Is Most Likely More Than Half Over

Feld Thoughts

After reflecting over the past few weeks on Turning 45 as well as Death and Dying , I’ve reached a conclusion that I’ve said out loud several times: “My life is most likely more than half over.&# The singularity not withstanding, the chances, at least today, that I’ll live to be over 90 aren’t great. Over the weekend, I saw two blog posts from friends – one from Joanne Wilson about her mom passing away titled Judy Solomon, Entrepreneur and one from Ken Smith

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Cash Cow Disease

deal architect

Ron Burk has a provocative post about Microsoft and Google at Silicon Alley Insider. He says they both suffer from “cash cow disease” which he defines as “Cash cow disease arises when a public company has a small number of.

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From Startup Weekend idea to iPhone App

Sophia Perl of Wisdom

For quite some time, I really wanted to do a Startup Weekend. Finally, the stars were aligned and I got to attend one back in April at PayPal. The format is simple - Friday brainstorm ideas and form teams, Saturday and Sunday work on idea, and Sunday night pitch idea and show demo. Well, the idea that I pitched was an event finder app. We developed a prototype on top of Google’s app engine.

Finder 40
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Startups are About Making Great First Impressions

Startup Professionals Musings

Entrepreneurs are all about firsts, and the most important is you making a great first impression – on investors, customers, new team members, and strategic partners. Poor first impressions can be avoided, but I’m amazed at the number of unnecessary mistakes I see at those critical first introductions, presentations, and meetings. The key message here is “preparation.

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I’m Creating A Platform For Platforms Of Platforms

Feld Thoughts

I nominate “platform&# for overused tech word of 2010. Yeah, I whined about this a few months ago in my post Your Platform Is Not In My Space. I hear the word “platform&# in over 50% of the short pitches I get. A friend of mine who is working on a new startup that isn’t even funded yet (and he’s grinding on the financing) described his goal of “creating a platform for a-phrase-that-only-73-early-adopters-will-userstand.

Lean 138
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Happy holidays!

deal architect

to all my readers… I have so much to be thankful for …my recovery continues well and I have been overwhelmed by the good wishes from so many of you. Here’s wishing each of you gets some rest, time with.

Restful 170
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Building a Sales and Marketing Machine Webinar

For Entrepreneurs

Slides and video on "Building a Sales and Marketing Machine", with a discussion on how to optimize your sales & marketing funnel.

Sales 164
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Six Tips to Maximizing Your Advisory Board Value

Startup Professionals Musings

If you are an entrepreneur for the first time, or entering a new business area, it’s usually worth your time to assemble an Advisory Board of two or three executives who have travelled that road before. But if you select the wrong people, or use them incorrectly, the impact will not be positive for your company or your image. For perspective, you need to remember that boards of advisors, unlike directors, have no formal power or fiduciary duties, but rather serve at the pleasure of you the busin

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Happy Holidays

Steve Blank

On Vacation until the New Year. Have have a happy holiday. Penguin in Patagonia.

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Happy 2011!

Rembrandt Communications

Since this year has been crazy with new business, Websites and all kinds of creative work, I’m going take a break for the holidays. And I’d like to take this opportunity to thank you for reading my blog and being part of my business. I hope you and your families have a wonderful holiday and [.].

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Boulder Edition of StartupDigest

Feld Thoughts

There are tons of startup events in Boulder. I get asked almost daily by folks what they should attend to get involved in the local Boulder startup scene. Fortunately, Tom Markiewicz (founder / CEO of StatsMix , a TechStars Boulder 2010 company) is now curating the Boulder Edition of StartupDigest. It’s a great resource for anyone that wants to know what is going on in the Boulder startup scene.

Curation 125
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Tips for Pitching in Person

ReadWriteStart

As an entrepreneur, you need to have a variety of pitches ready: the short and sweet elevator pitch that you can deliver on a moment's notice, the email pitch that you can send to prospective investors or journalists, the pitch-deck that you have prepped. And while, sure, many of these pitches can be done electronically - for better, for worse - you need to be prepared for the face-to-face pitch as well (again, for better, for worse).

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If Google can't get local merchants to self serve, you probably can't either

Lightspeed Venture Partners

'Local has been a category that has long attracted a lot of attention from internet startups. Not surprising given that it is a $130Bn market. Now that Groupon and Living Social (a Lightspeed portfolio company) are growing s0 fast, it is attracting even more attention from startups. Most of these startups focus on innovating on their product, and aim to have a “sales light” approach.

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Mass Relevance Launches with Funding

Austin Startup

A group of seasoned Austin technology entrepreneurs and executives are announcing the formation of their new company, Mass Relevance , to help consumer brand use real-time social content to drive engagement on television, the web, and in the mobile world. The team has already secured nearly $2 Million in Series A financing from Mike Maples new firm FLOODGATE, and Austin Ventures.

Curation 118
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Wired’s Gadget Lab Challenges Gizmodo To Sphero Marble Madness

Feld Thoughts

CES is just around the corner and I’m psyched to be going again this year. Toss in a BigDoor board meeting early in the week in Las Vegas and I’ll be getting my annual allotment of sin city in the first week of the new year. Lots of my friends and a number of our portfolio companies will be at CES this year. Lest you think it’s just a VC boondoggle, one of my favorite moments of all time happened at CES in 2009 when my dad bought the very first Pogoplug.

Las Vegas 115
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Survey Finds VCs Optimistic About 2011 Investments

ReadWriteStart

Venture capitalists say they plan to invest more next year, according to a survey released today by the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) and Dow Jones VentureSource. The survey polled 330 venture capitalists and 180 CEOs for their thoughts on where they see investment headed in 2011. 51% of VCs said that they expect investment to increase next year. 24% say they think it will remain the same, and the same percentage think investment will decrease.

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Pink and Grow Rich; Interview with Deepika Bajaj

Life Beyond Code

Deepika Bajaj has released her new eBook “Pink and Grow Rich&# I have seen Deepika working on the interview series for years and it is good to see that the book is finally out. I asked her a few questions about the book. Here is the quick interview: RS: What inspired you to write this eBook? DB: Rajesh, there is a lot of emphasis is our culture to fit in.

Framework 112
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Tips on Pitching in Person

This is going to be BIG.

Personally, I find pitch events to be a little bit contrived. It’s not how I want to encounter a company—I’d rather just sit across the table from someone and chat about their business and their vision. However, the innovation community seems to be in love with this format, so you can’t be a VC without watching a bunch of them. For the most part, while the companies may be interesting, the actual pitches are usually so-so.

Stock 110
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Do More Faster Book Excerpts

Feld Thoughts

David Cohen ( TechStars CEO and co-author of Do More Faster ) is blogging a chapter a week from the book on the TechStars web site. The first chapter he’s put up is “ Do More Faster &# (by David). TechStars is currently accepting applications for the Boston program in the spring of 2011. Do More Faster and go apply now if you’ve been thinking about it.

Boston 100
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Being an Entrepreneur During the Holidays

Growthink Blog

I just read an interesting story about a very successful entrepreneur. When he was 7 years old, he sold his Christmas presents to his brothers to make money. By the time he was 8, he got smarter.he rented his Christmas presents to his brothers for a month. He made the same amount of money and got to keep his presents. Pretty clever. read more.

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As you walk the extra mile…

Life Beyond Code

As you walk the extra mile, please ensure that you are not blocking somebody else in their journey. Sometimes people get so excited about over-achieving that they will step on the toes of other people who are just trying to get through their day. Today, there was a Budget truck in front of our gate. Yes, it’s a rental truck and FedEx was using that truck to deliver packages.

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Help Map the Austin Mobile Scene

Austin Startup

By nearly every account, mobile is the hottest area in tech. Looking at the data – from sales growth rates in hardware , led by Apple, to download volumes of software , represented by the ubiquitous app - the numbers are skyrocketing. Anecdotally, the man who coined ‘web 2.0′ for the last trend, Tim O’Reilly, remarked in a recent NPR story “ The biggest thing that’s next, that’s on everybody’s mind, is the transition to mobile.&#.

Mobile 88
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10 Winning Startups This Year

Up and Running

OK, doing a startup takes a whole lot of hard work, some vision, some luck. Getting one to go fast and generate millions of dollars with a big liquidity event, well, that’s gold. That’s the one-in-a-million win that makes the rest of us happy just to think about it. Which is not to say that there aren’t a lot of other good reasons, beyond just the big pot of gold, to start a business, and to work hard, grow it, and keep it healthy.