Startup Professionals Musings
MARCH 29, 2012
In sports, mental toughness is defined as the ability to focus on and execute solutions, especially in the face of adversity. If anyone in business ever needed mental toughness, it’s an entrepreneur. Investors tell me that startup success is all about execution, all while facing determined competitors and overcoming customers’ resistance to change. Dr.
A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks
MARCH 27, 2012
This is a guest post by Sacha Greif – a designer and entrepreneur who recently sold thousands of copies of a self-published eBook that shows how to design a user interface step by step. He’s worked with multiple startups and is also the founder of Folyo , a service that helps companies find vetted freelance designers. Here, Sacha explains how he set the pricing for his eBook — a critical step in its success.
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YoungUpstarts
MARCH 26, 2012
by Yi Ning Lim, marketing specialist at GMO GlobalSign. The Infosecurity World Exhibition & Conference 2012 ( ISWec 2012 ) was held at Putra World Trade Centre from 21 to 22 March 2012. This inaugural event was officiated by Y.A.Bhg Datin Paduka Seri Rosmah Mansor, wife of the Prime Minister of Malaysia (pictured right). The central theme of this event was the enhancement of information security against the rapid rise of cyber threats.
David Teten
MARCH 28, 2012
( This post co-written with Koen Bremer , Gyorgy Buslig , and Adham Hussein. Koen, Gyorgy, and Adham are all Columbia Business School MBA 2012 students and former consultants with McKinsey and BCG. I’ve also posted this at Betabeat.). Best Practices in Venture Capital Portfolio Company Value Creation. View more presentations from David Teten.
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
crowdSPRING Blog
MARCH 25, 2012
We write often about marketing strategies and tactics for small business and startups. These companies typically have limited budgets, thin resources, and strained capacity which combine to create a challenge for managers and owners: how to develop an effective marketing campaign using tactics that will work for their business. The Lean Startup movement provides a wonderful template, and Ross wrote a great post in which he discussed how managers can use these principles in their own marketing c
Austin Startup
MARCH 26, 2012
CopperEgg, Corp., a real-time monitoring and analytics company, today announced the release of RevealCloud™ v3, the leading, real-time monitoring service for cloud, virtual, physical and hybrid IT deployments. RevealCloudv3 delivers a number of new features, including support for thousands of simultaneous nodes across any deployment model, enhanced at-a-glance user interface and real-time system Process Monitoring.
Start Up Roar brings together the best content for start up professionals from the widest variety of industry thought leaders.
Startup Professionals Musings
MARCH 25, 2012
You have probably heard plenty of times that being an entrepreneur is a risky business, and investors talk all the time about reducing the risk. Yet everyone seems to have their own view of key risk drivers for startups, and I’m no exception. I don’t agree, for example, that the first priority is to avoid startups with a high attrition rate, like trendy restaurants and entertainment.
deal architect
MARCH 26, 2012
Dennis Howlett reporting from Australia picks up on worries about Oracle DB costs in SAP customers. For the 20 years I have dealt with SAP customers, it has been a line item in their TCO spreadsheet, but the accounting is.
YoungUpstarts
MARCH 29, 2012
Being a salesperson is tough – finding a great one to hire is even tougher. But what makes a top performing salesperson? There are certain qualities that leads to one excelling at sales – being results-driven, persistent, and having a strong ego, amongst others, for example. Here’s an infographic from Peak Sales that demonstrates what it takes to be a top performer in sales, and why employers struggle to find and recruit sales people who will consistently overachieve: This info
Genuine VC
MARCH 26, 2012
Over the past decade, VCs have been lamenting about the poor state of the IPO markets and that the number of real potential acquirers for consumer internet startups has dwindled down to a handful, if that. Many of formerly rich acquirers like AOL and Yahoo have long since faded past their heyday, and their appetite for acquisitions has subsided along with it.
Startup Professionals Musings
MARCH 28, 2012
A while back, I wrote about the value of Michael Porter’s Five Forces framework for analyzing the competitive environment, and using every opportunity to highlight and emphasize your relative advantages, whether they be price, features, or bargaining power. But once you start selling products, all of these pale in comparison to the level of customer experience you provide.
deal architect
MARCH 27, 2012
Pardon this retro post, but in the last week I have had many occasions to admire the role paper still plays in our lives a) Happened to catch our postman in person (how rare is that?). We exchanged pleasantries and.
YoungUpstarts
MARCH 26, 2012
Earlier this year, I commented during the launch of UOB’s mobile banking iOS application that mobile payment options such as that offered by Square would be a boon to small business owners. It seems that the wish has somewhat been granted, with last week’s launch of Swiff ( www.swiffpay.com ), a new mobile payment platform that allows cashless credit card payments using mobile phones and mobile tablet devices as credit card or debit card terminals.
Berkonomics
MARCH 25, 2012
For those of us who’ve invested in early stage companies, especially technology startups, we have confronted a universal problem. There are many ways to project the value of a company for purposes of pricing an investment, but all rely upon the revenue and profit projections of the entrepreneur as a starting point. Many formulas then discount those projections according to some set percentage or by assigning weight to elements of the enterprise.
Scalable Startup
MARCH 26, 2012
“Even in the quietest moments, I wish I knew what I had to do” – Supertramp. [This is about the loneliness of the CEO in a startup. A real startup, that has employees and funding and a going operation.]. It’s late on a Sunday night and you’re sitting alone preparing for the week ahead. It will include travel, employee issues, hiring, firing, product design, cash burn, a new facility, the next funding round and some client and partner visits.
deal architect
MARCH 28, 2012
Phil Fersht and his team wrote a pretty stern column recently : “Let’s cut to the chase here – “outsourcing”, for most buyers, is like purchasing a wedding dress – a one-time transaction followed by seven years of relationship struggles.
YoungUpstarts
MARCH 28, 2012
by Mike Richardson , author of “ Wheel$pin: The Agile Executive’s Manifesto “ Technology is constantly speeding up the pace of business: Decisions once delayed for weeks are now made in seconds thanks to internet communication. Computer analytics puts real-time market information at our fingertips. Transactions can occur anywhere, any time.
Rembrandt Communications
MARCH 28, 2012
You just finished updating your search engine optimization (SEO) with Google’s Panda update, and now you hear that Google is making another update. What do you do? Well, don’t’ stress out. You have no control over what Google does. But there is one thing you can do to ensure you maintain your top SEO rankings, [.].
Genuine VC
MARCH 26, 2012
Over the past decade, VCs have been lamenting about the poor state of the IPO markets and that the number of real potential acquirers for consumer internet startups has dwindled down to a handful, if that. Many of formerly rich acquirers like AOL and Yahoo have long since faded past their heyday, and their appetite for acquisitions has subsided along with it.
deal architect
MARCH 29, 2012
The first 15 seconds of AT&T’s “network of possibilities” commercials like the one below, always remind me of IBM’s long running Smarter Planet commercials. And they similarly raise in my mind the question: How much of the technology in the.
YoungUpstarts
MARCH 25, 2012
Online retail seems so simple – all it takes is a couple of clicks on a site like Amazon , and mere days later a package comes knocking on your door. But how does the entire e-commerce supply chain really work? It may surprise you that before a package is shipped to your door, it may have gone through the hands of dozens of warehouse workers who need to find, package and prepare your product for shipment.
Life Beyond Code
MARCH 25, 2012
Mini Saga #124 – Ubuntu. Anthropologist Rob placed a fruit basket near a tree. He asked kids from an African tribe to race to win it. The kids smiled, held their hands and ran together. They sat and ate fruits together. When questioned, one kid said, “how can one be happy when others are sad…”. This mini saga was inspired by a story shared on Facebook in a group called Raising Natural Kids.
Growthink Blog
MARCH 25, 2012
There's been a lot of talk about Facebook over the last few years, and many business owners feel overwhelmed trying to keep up with all the buzz and developments. What if you had a simple punch list of the "if nothing else, do this" items needed to get the most out of Facebook? I made the following list of action items to get you started with a minimum of things to do or learn.
deal architect
MARCH 27, 2012
My new book looks at the convergence of two mega-trends – the consumerization of enterprise technology, and the enterprising of consumer technology. I am pleased to have been invited to present those concepts at a panel at the Executive Forum.
YoungUpstarts
MARCH 30, 2012
Google+ has been getting a lot of attention since its launch in 2011, especially as the company has rolled out a variety of new features for the site like Hangouts and brand pages. While Facebook is still decidedly the king of social media, more and more businesses, professionals, and individuals are flocking to Google+ to take advantage of the new and innovative opportunities it offers for everything from marketing to professional development.
The Equity Kicker
MARCH 27, 2012
Bloomberg reported last week on a study by IHS Screen Digest which found that in the US legal online viewings of films will hit 3.4bn this year, up from 1.4bn in 2011, whilst viewings from DVDs and Blue-ray discs will shrink to 2.4bn from 2.6bn. The shift from physical do digital usually shrinks markets – look at what Wikipedia did to the encyclopedia market – but that doesn’t seem to be the case here, at least for 2012.
Up and Running
MARCH 27, 2012
Hi there! My name is Natalie MacNeil, the newest guest blogger here at Bplans. I’m an Emmy Award-winning Media Producer and the author of “She Takes on the World: A Guide to Being Your Own Boss, Working Happy, and Living on Purpose” (read to the end for a special offer!). When I was in high school I decided I would start my own business.
deal architect
MARCH 25, 2012
on the innovation blog The Auto-Mobile is here FastCompany’s 50 most Innovative companies Guest Column: Tom Chimera on RV Innovations – Part I Guest Column: Tom Chimera on RV Innovations – Part II.
YoungUpstarts
MARCH 27, 2012
A survey of Americans showed that almost 90-percent of them believe that people remove confidential company information from the office for various reasons, even though 78-percent of them acknowledge that this is grounds for termination (almost as high as sexually harassing a coworker). In the survey commissioned by online file storage provider FileTrek and conducted by research agency Harris Interactive , there are six reasons why people believe it is acceptable to remove confidential data from
The Equity Kicker
MARCH 28, 2012
I just saw this very interesting picture on Pinterest. It was followed by reams of comments (from other Pinterest users) saying how true and funny it was. I’m still working through what it means, but I wonder if it talks to something fundamental about life and what sort of people enjoy using Pinterest and Facebook. Specifically, I wonder if Pinterest is a place where people go to escape from real life whereas Facebook is real life, or in more detail, Pinterest is a happy place where people go to
Gregg Fraley, Author of Jack's Notebook
MARCH 29, 2012
It comes like clockwork, once a week, an HTML email letting me know about the latest edition of I nnovation Tools. . As I was thinking about what to post today related to innovation and reading Innovation Tools at the same time, I got one of those lovely “aha” moments (or maybe it was just an obvious but good idea hitting me over the head with a sledge hammer).
deal architect
MARCH 30, 2012
My wife and daughter are driving to Disney World today to take in the always fabulous Epcot celebration of flowers. If you find yourself in Orlando before May 20, put this on your must-do list.
YoungUpstarts
MARCH 27, 2012
by Jaynie L. Smith, CEO of Smart Advantage, Inc. and author of “ Relevant Selling: Research Proves Customers Value More Than Just Price “ What customers value most changes constantly, and the pace of change has increased exponentially with the economic recession. The businesses who become relevant by addressing what customers really value at any given time will be the first ones out of the recession.
The Equity Kicker
MARCH 26, 2012
For a while now I’ve been saying that large indigenous tech companies are a vital component of a healthy startup ecosystem. Large companies are important sources of entrepreneurs, executives that can help startups grow, partnerships, and exits and all these functions come from human relationships and work better locally. Smart companies like Google and Facebook recognise the value that comes to them from working with startups around the world and have made strong efforts to forge local relations
Gregg Fraley, Author of Jack's Notebook
MARCH 28, 2012
One of those wacky underlying myths about creativity is that it’s impractical. I don’t know how it got started. Perhaps it stems from that other myth, that creativity is all about art, and of course, art is impractical (and yet another myth). Some say they don’t have time for a “process.” I suspect that the expression of divergent ideas related to a problem might feel impractical, might feel like a waste of time.
deal architect
MARCH 26, 2012
SAP’s annual sustainability report is out. As usual it is prodigious and professional. In the past i have commented that it was too focused on internal SAP efforts and what its customers were doing broadly, not how SAP’s software contributes.
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