A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks
MAY 3, 2010
It's time to retire the following phrases. They should no longer be used, ever, in any context except derisive mocking: Fast and easy. Putting customers first. The Holy Grail of. The leading provider of. Legendary customer support. Also eschew these words, as devoid of meaning as a yogi's mantra and as useless as a simile that doesn't contribute new information: Authentic.
Feld Thoughts
MAY 6, 2010
As long time readers of this blog know, I’m strongly against software patents. Succinctly, I think they are (a) invalid constructs, (b) totally unnecessary, and (c) a massive tax on and retardant of innovation. More and more of my VC brethren are beginning to come out publicly against them as are many extremely well respected long time software innovators.
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Occam's Razor
MAY 4, 2010
The hardest kind of "analysis" to provide is in response to open ended questions. That is why I love asking open ended questions! They expose a person's critical thinking ability (something I highly recommend you test when you hire web analysts: Interviewing Tip: Stress Test Critical Thinking. Please ). They also help you understand if someone really grasps key concepts.
Start Up Blog
MAY 4, 2010
I was asked to give a list to Tim Reid on a few micro marketing / startup tips for his terrific podcast. I thought they were worth sharing in point form here. Project management is the key skil l (Outsource weaknesses, be blissfully unaware how to do technical things, manage the value chain.). Think micro (Start small, no tiny. think hyper-local, and expand out from there).
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
Software By Rob
MAY 3, 2010
Software by Rob Passionate about Startups and MicroISVs Lessons Learned by a Serial Entrepreneur home about press micropreneurs archives ← Catch Me at the 2010 Business of Software Conference in Boston Things I Wish I Knew When I Started Out → I’m Writing a Book: “Start Small. Stay Small. A Developer’s Guide to Launching a Startup&# About this Blog , Micropreneurship , Startups If youre trying grow your startup youve come to the right place.
Both Sides of the Table
MAY 4, 2010
Had a great chat with Jim Armstrong who is a General Partner at Clearstone Venture Partners today on TWiVC. You can watch the TWiVC episode with Jim Armstrong here. It was especially fun for me because we got the chance to talk about the VC industry and how entrepreneurs should think about the VC industry in addition to discussing deals. Clearstone currently invests out of a $200 million fund based in LA with offices in Menlo Park and in India.
Start Up Roar brings together the best content for start up professionals from the widest variety of industry thought leaders.
deal architect
MAY 5, 2010
This continues a series of columns from practitioners I respect. The category "Real Deal" describes them well. This time it is Phil Fersht, the Founder and CEO of the new analyst organization Horses for Sources, which specializes in helping senior. Tags: The Real Deal: Guest Columnist.
Software By Rob
MAY 4, 2010
Software by Rob Passionate about Startups and MicroISVs Lessons Learned by a Serial Entrepreneur home about press micropreneurs archives ← I’m Writing a Book: “Start Small. Stay Small. A Developer’s Guide to Launching a Startup&# StartupSchool Online A/B Testing Class Video is Available → Things I Wish I Knew When I Started Out About this Blog , Micropreneurship , Startups If youre trying grow your startup youve come to the right place.
Steve Blank
MAY 6, 2010
As an entrepreneur one of the most satisfying feelings was having an idea that few thought was rational, viable, or the common wisdom and building it into a profitable company. Though it’s over a decade since I’ve done a startup, I had that feeling again over the last few weeks. You Actually Did This? When I wrote the Four Steps to the Epiphany and invented the Customer Development process, my goal was to simply explain to myself what was broken in building a startup and propose an alternative p
Both Sides of the Table
MAY 1, 2010
Running the “Agile&# Board. Most early stage startups having monthly board meetings. I normally recommend 8 meetings per year. It makes no sense to meet in August or December due to travel schedules of most investors. You can do calls if need be. And I often recommend that board meetings be every 5 or 6 weeks rather than 4 to give enough elapsed time for stuff to actually happen between meetings.
deal architect
MAY 4, 2010
Mr. and Ms. CIO, over the next couple of years you will need a strong constitution as one after another of your big, “strategic” vendors line up to make acquisitions “in the cloud”. They have plenty of cash to do. Tags: Cloud Computing, SaaS.
Software By Rob
MAY 3, 2010
Software by Rob Passionate about Startups and MicroISVs Lessons Learned by a Serial Entrepreneur home about press micropreneurs archives ← Join My Online Split Testing Class on May 11th I’m Writing a Book: “Start Small. Stay Small. A Developer’s Guide to Launching a Startup&# → Catch Me at the 2010 Business of Software Conference in Boston Micropreneurship , Startups If youre trying grow your startup youve come to the right place.
SoCal CTO
MAY 7, 2010
On my eLearning blog, I recently predicted the Beginning of Long Slow Death of Flash. This got quite a lot of passionate response. I view the point of this blog to provide my thoughts and perspectives as an Acting CTO mostly concerned with Startup Development to entrepreneurs and other CTOs. The conversation around Flash is an important one for startups and CTOs.
Startup Professionals Musings
MAY 5, 2010
Last week at an angel investor forum I was privileged to meet Stephanie Spong, who is a Principal with EPIC Ventures, an increasingly rare early stage VC firm. Her experience includes helping startups for many years, and board positions on the Rocky Mountain and New Mexico Venture Capital Associations, New Mexico Angels, as well as several startups.
deal architect
MAY 6, 2010
It has been good to see many of my friends – James and company at Redmonk, Ray and partners at Altimeter, Phil and friends at Horses for Sources, Scott and Doug of the Black Book series - do well with.
Feld Thoughts
MAY 2, 2010
Following is an outstanding 30 minute presentation by Jesse Schell at DICE 2010 explaining how our life is just one big game. PS3 Games – E3 2010 – Guitar Hero 5. Points everywhere, followed by an optimistic call to use this to make us better. Tags: HCI gaming human instrumentation.
Rembrandt Communications
MAY 5, 2010
If you simply don’t have time to do your own publicity, you can generate new sales and awareness fast by hiring a professional. But what should you look out for, especially if you have a tight budget? Well, in addition to reviewing credentials and references, here are three, key warning signs to be aware of [.].
Startup Professionals Musings
MAY 6, 2010
Some people are not cut out to be entrepreneurs. This is a good thing, or the business world would be chaos, with everyone trying to do their own thing. So what about you? How do you know if you should be running your own company, or concentrating on that queue of work that someone else has built for you? Now is the time to put aside your fantasies, and take a hard look at who you really are.
Life Beyond Code
MAY 5, 2010
All smart people are brilliant – in their heads. MANY have a problem communicating that brilliance to others. Whether they are pitching something to their boss, getting a buy-in from their co-workers or making a case for their product or service with their prospects, they lose the listeners half-way and frustrate themselves. One explanation will be to say that people around them are not smart enough to “get&# what they are saying.
Feld Thoughts
MAY 3, 2010
For some reason I’ve been doing a lot of interviews lately. In many of them I get asked similar questions, including the inevitable “what makes a great entrepreneur?” When I’m on a VC panel, I’m always amused by the answers from my co-panelists as they are usually the same set of “VC cliches” which makes it even more fun when I blurt out my answer. “ A complete and total obsession with the product”.
crowdSPRING Blog
MAY 7, 2010
About one year ago, Erik Qualman, the author of Socialnomics , produced a popular video highlighting the impressive facts and figures about the growing popularity of social media. Erik has produced a follow-up video and the updated facts and figures show very clearly that social media continues to dominate many areas of our life. Some examples mentioned in the video: Over 50% of the world’s population is under 30 years old.
Startup Professionals Musings
MAY 2, 2010
Viral marketing and word-of-mouth are not enough these days to make your product and brand visible in the relentless onslaught of new promotional media out there today. Innovation in marketing is perhaps more important than product innovation. Yet in the business plans I see, the marketing content and budget are smaller than ever. More than just spending, you need to create an “experience” in this digital age which sets you apart from the banner ads, email blasts, and old-school websites out the
Rembrandt Communications
MAY 5, 2010
If you simply don’t have time to do your own publicity, you can generate new sales and awareness fast by hiring a professional. But what should you look out for, especially if you have a tight budget? Well, in addition to reviewing credentials and references, here are three, key warning signs to be aware of [.].
Feld Thoughts
MAY 7, 2010
I just got the following breaking news alert from The New York Times. “U.S. Economy Adds 290,000 Jobs in April; Jobless Rate Rises to 9.9%”. Let’s parse this. The first clause says “U.S. Economy Adds 290,000 Jobs in April.” This means to me that a bunch of people found new jobs in April. A bunch. Yay! Good economy. The second clause says “Jobless Rate Rises to 9.9%.
Startup Lessons Learned
MAY 2, 2010
Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Sunday, May 2, 2010 The Lean Startup Intensive is tomorrow at Web 2.0 Expo Im extremely excited that tomorrow is the Lean Startup Intensive at Web 2.0 Expo. This is basically your last chance to sign up, and if you do so, the fine folks at TechWeb have offered me a last minute 25% discount code that you can use: websf10lean25.
Startup Professionals Musings
MAY 7, 2010
I’m sure that every one of us who has been out in the business world for a few years can look back with perfect hindsight and name a few college courses that we should have taken. What’s more disconcerting to me is that I can name a few that weren’t even offered! I won’t even try to cover here the ones you didn’t find for your personal life, like managing personal finances and credit.
This is going to be BIG.
MAY 7, 2010
I’ve been organizing Product Management School for nextNY and I realized something today… A lot of new entrepreneurs and startup people think product management is something akin to cooking. Some people have a knack for it—and “real” cooks don’t follow recipes. They wing it, making adjustments as they go along to taste. If something is bland, they can spice it up midway.
Feld Thoughts
MAY 5, 2010
Over the weekend, Mark Suster wrote a great post titled How To Communicate with your Investors between Board Meetings. Mark continues to just tear it up with great advice for entrepreneurs. However, he left out one thing from the post – which is one of my favorite pieces of advice for entrepreneurs. Give your venture capitalists (and board members) assignments.
crowdSPRING Blog
MAY 2, 2010
You might have heard of Local Motors – a company leveraging crowdsourcing to design cars. Local Motors licenses a chassis and then looks internally to its own community to innovate and refine the design of the car (other than the chasis). Fiat Brazil has recently announced a project to crowdsource the entire car – including the mechanical components.
Startup Professionals Musings
MAY 3, 2010
One of the biggest myths I still see in the community of new entrepreneurs is assumption that “All I need is a good idea, and some investor will give me the cash I need to build the business.” In reality, investors fund good business plans, not good ideas. It’s all in the execution. A related myth is that it takes a lot of money to start a business.
VC Cafe
MAY 3, 2010
W ith the increasing socialization of the web there is an opportunity for publishers to improve the experience of their visitors by integrating functionality powered by third-party services. Facebook’s recent roll out of the Like Button is consistent with this evolution, and effectively positions Facebook to extend its reach across the web. Despite the already significant adoption of the Like Button, however, it is worth remembering that there are services beyond Facebook (Twitter and YouTube, f
Feld Thoughts
MAY 2, 2010
Andrew does a nice interview. We covered plenty of ground, including failure, when to really call it quits, the concept that “life is a fatal disease”, global vs. local failure, working on things that matter, what I think “fail fast” actually means, how to evolve your business (using Return Path and NewsGator as the examples), my obsession with product, how we decided to invest in Pogoplug , more on product and release tempo, a story about my grandfather, a story about Laura Fitton and why I car
Life Beyond Code
MAY 4, 2010
Hat tip to my friend Sally Pera for sharing this. This is a brilliant piece of writing by Souza. About Obstacles by Souza. For a long time, it seemed to be that life was about to begin – real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way. Something to be gotten through first. Some unfinished business, time still to be served. A debt to be paid.
Startup Professionals Musings
MAY 1, 2010
Starting and building a company is all about leadership – formulating an idea, building a unique plan based on vision and experience, and forging a path over and through all obstacles. Yet the image of leadership in business is at an all-time low, according to national leadership experts, considering the Wall Street collapse, record business bankruptcies, and executive fraud cases.
crowdSPRING Blog
MAY 3, 2010
Most companies leverage crowdsourcing by relying on external communities. For example, small businesses and startups looking for custom logo design leverage crowdSPRING’s community of 60,000 designers and writers. Companies looking for help with on-demand software testing can leverage the community at uTest. People looking for help with simple tasks can leverage Amazon’s Mechanical Turk.
Feld Thoughts
MAY 3, 2010
Over the years, I’ve occasionally thought about writing a book about how venture capital actually works. I no longer have to contemplate doing this as Jeff Bussgang has nailed it with his book Mastering the VC Game: A Venture Capital Insider Reveals How to Get from Start-up to IPO on YOUR Terms. If you are an entrepreneur who wants to understand how venture capital works, how VC’s think, and read some great stories about entrepreneurial arcs, this book is for you.
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