This is going to be BIG.
OCTOBER 25, 2012
A few times this week I've heard the term "Skin in the Game.". What it generally means is that you've put your own money into something--that you're risking something along side the people who are supporting you. I had an entrepreneur tell me that he put $75,000 of his own money into something because he thought it was important to have skin in the game.
Gust
OCTOBER 21, 2012
Apple NYC image via The Washington Post. A startup begins with a great idea, but all too often, that’s where it ends. Ideas have to be implemented well to get the desired results. Good implementation requires a plan, and a good plan and good operational decisions come from good people. That’s why investors invest in entrepreneurs, rather than ideas.
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Berkonomics
OCTOBER 25, 2012
In past insights, we’ve explored data gathering and dashboards for tracking the most important information to manage your company. Every good executive has a set of critical data points that best alert him or her to the changes in the flow of business most important to note and in many cases to curb a negative trend early in the game. There is a truism you should internalize: Most all big problems start off as small problems.
Tomasz Tunguz
OCTOBER 31, 2012
Ariel Diaz wrote an insightful post in PandoDaily yesterday outlining the state of affairs in online education. Ariel touched on the history of education, catalogued the problems of the status quo and pointed to a few innovative initiatives. Most Edu Innovation is Post-Secondary. Reading the post and reflecting on the startups I’ve seen, I concluded most of the innovation in education has occurred in post-secondary education instead of K-12, despite the fact that the K-12 market is about 50% lar
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Both Sides of the Table
OCTOBER 6, 2012
It all started in 2010 with Klout. I wasn’t a believer. I had always liked and respected CEO Joe Fernandez but could never get my head around the fact that the Klout was putting up charts showing who influenced me and it didn’t map to the reality I knew in my head. I had been trading emails & Tweets with venture capitalist John Frankel and we were to meet in person in March 2011 at SxSW to talk about Klout and other investments he had made.
Startup Catalyst Brief brings together the best content for the entrepreneurial ecosystem from the widest variety of industry thought leaders.
This is going to be BIG.
OCTOBER 16, 2012
RA Dickey of the New York Mets is the closest I've ever had to a sports hero. His story of overcoming child abuse, a missing arm ligament, a decade in the minors and going on to reinvent himself in his mid-30's using a pitch few have mastered is nothing short of inspirational. I took the afternoon off a couple of weeks ago to see him win his 20th game of the season at Citifield.
This is going to be BIG.
OCTOBER 5, 2012
Picture this: Your family builds a tremendous business in Nebraska over four generations making black socks. You make more black socks for more people in the western world than anyone. The next generation isn't interested in socks. One daughter is touring nationally with her punk band. The son is off in Africa combating disease with Doctors without Borders, and the other son. well. remember Woody Harrelson on Cheers?
Gust
OCTOBER 17, 2012
I began studying angel investing returns about 10 years ago as a result of a problem I couldn’t resolve: The investing world seemed certain that angel investors were rubes. Conventional wisdom dictated that they made reckless investments in very early-stage ventures mostly doomed to fail. And whenever they might come close to succeeding, savvy “professional” investors would just swoop in, cram them down, and win the real returns.
Gust
OCTOBER 7, 2012
Image via Facebook.com. Every time I hear about a new startup that is in stealth mode, I wonder what problem they are hiding from whom. Of course they pretend that they are trying to avoid alerting competitors prior to launch, but too often it becomes an excuse to move slowly in a world that’s all about getting to market fast. I believe stealth makes sense for large companies who can be sued for “pre-announcing” a new product to stall the market or kill a competitor.
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Gust
OCTOBER 14, 2012
Ryan Blair book image via Amazon. It’s a well-accepted axiom in the investor community that entrepreneurs learn more from their failures than their successes. Thus a well-explained startup failure often can actually improve your odds of funding in the next go-round. Yet, there is no doubt that the best strategy is to learn from someone else’s mistakes, so you can enjoy the millions that someone else lost in learning.
Gust
OCTOBER 15, 2012
An impromptu Twitter debate arose among Fred Wilson, Dave McClure, Mark Suster, Chris Dixon and others about convertible debt, priced equity rounds, and the nuances of early stage financing. It was such a good discussion that Fred asked that someone Storify it. I’ve done that here and expanded it with some additional references, background info and light commentary.
Gust
OCTOBER 4, 2012
People who tell you that VCs won’t look at a company with an even equity split are being silly. That has never once, in my experience, been even a slight hiccup, let alone a dispositive factor in a seed investment. That said, there is a core of truth in the concept that there always needs to be *some* way to make a decision. That’s why the Senate has the Vice President as the tie breaker, and why boards of directors are almost universally an odd number.
Gust
OCTOBER 11, 2012
While you will definitely need to be a corporate entity before you can accept funding from any investor (or issue stock options to any employees), the specific corporate status of the venture at this stage is much less important to investors than its functional status. That is, if all you have is a good idea, the reality is that you are highly unlikely to be able to get funding from anyone at all, even if you are a Delaware C corporation with gilt edge stock certificates.
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Gust
OCTOBER 25, 2012
The question should be “used for what?” Because convertible notes are designed to give investors an equity interest in a company that will eventually be worth much more than their investment, the intention on their part is always to convert into equity (after all, if they were just after the interest on a loan, they could find much less risky things to invest in than a startup.).
Gust
OCTOBER 16, 2012
I like this a lot. The executive summary: . Dropbox Co-Founder Drew Houston believes false mythologies about tech company founders do a disservice to aspiring entrepreneurs. While many people think all tech founders start with world conquering visions, says Houston, the reality is that founders learn one day at a time just like everyone else. This less-than-two-minute video comes from Stanford’s Ecorner , its online entrepreneurship center, which is a great resource. .
Gust
OCTOBER 2, 2012
True story: many long years ago I had founders’ stock in a video game company. At one point they were just a few weeks from going public, but that’s not the point of this story. It was about a “hit” business, meaning a business in which you had to have a lot of products in play to get one of the big hits that paid for the rest of the disappointments.
This is going to be BIG.
OCTOBER 23, 2012
What's your equity split of this business and why? Are we comfortable with the thinking behind that? What is the scope of our business? What is outside the scope of what we want it to do? Are we allowed to do anything outside of the business? What is the expected time commitment? What are my roles going to be and how might that change over time in 3 months, 6 months?
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Lack of digitalization decreases business competitiveness. To thrive, embracing modern solutions becomes essential. The approach to digitalization often aligns with a company's business model. This shift not only boosts productivity but also automates processes and improves security. The tech market offers a wealth of technologies tailored for management, planning, and forecasting, replacing outdated pen-and-paper methods.
Tomasz Tunguz
OCTOBER 16, 2012
The first mobile phones were purchased by corporations and given to employees. Thirty years ago, most people used computers at work but not at home. Most of the innovation flowed from the enterprise into the home. Today, it’s very much the opposite. The big trends in enterprise trace the opposite movement both at the software layer and the device layer: consumerization of IT means using consumer channels to acquire customers and bring your own device (BYOD) means 66% of employees bring their own
Tomasz Tunguz
OCTOBER 4, 2012
The flurry of media activity in entrepreneurship including the spate of new TV shows like X-Factor for tech and Shark Tank, the refocus of the NYTimes and WSJ on technology, and the number of entrepreneurs on mainstream magazine covers gave me the impression that entrepreneurship is on the rise. While this may be true in pockets like New York or California, entrepreneurship in the US is shrinking - at least according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics and a report from the NYTimes: When Job Creat
This is going to be BIG.
OCTOBER 2, 2012
Lately I've been going through this amusing little "Who's on first?" routine with servers at restaurants. "Do you have iced green tea?" "No, sorry we don't." "Well do you have regular green tea?" "Yes, we do." ".and you have ice.and a glass?" "Oh.yeah.I guess we do." Eureka! They get it after I ask for the ice. They have all the ingredients for what I asked for.
This is going to be BIG.
OCTOBER 22, 2012
I'm running the NYC Marathon this year to raise money for Camp Interactive. I'm about halfway to my goal, which about two weeks left--so I've come up with an idea. For four straight nights this week, I'm going to be answering questions live on Sprouter. I'm going to answer 50 questions per night starting at 10:30PM ET. The suggested price per answer is a $5 donation to my fundraising.
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Tomasz Tunguz
OCTOBER 30, 2012
Peter Senge has been called the most influential business strategists of the century and in my view Senge is the successor of Peter Drucker, the management visionary. Senge published a book in 1990 called The Fifth Discipline which I think every manager, founder and CEO should read. Great companies transcend their great products. Not defined by one product, these companies adapt, innovate and reinvent.
Tomasz Tunguz
OCTOBER 29, 2012
The Verge profiled Google Now, Google’s newest search technology which uses “predictive” queries to show users the information they want to see, before users ask. In a single app, the company has combined its latest technologies: voice search that understands speech like a human brain, knowledge of real-world entities, a (somewhat creepy) understanding of who and where you are, and most of all its expertise at ranking information.
Tomasz Tunguz
OCTOBER 25, 2012
Last week, a close friend, who is a product manager/designer, told me he’s starting a company. He asked me where I thought the biggest opportunity lay given his skills and his passions. He’s incredibly capable and driven, but he hasn’t yet found the right place to apply his energy. My friend is in search of a problem to solve. He’s in the right place.
Tomasz Tunguz
OCTOBER 23, 2012
I met the Electric Imp team in April. I had bumped into one of their engineers at a party and he pinged me a few weeks later to say he was working for a startup and the company was raising. The company came in to the office on a Monday at noon. Hugo, the founder, Electric Imp demoed their product to me. Ten minutes in, I stopped the pitch meeting, pulled 3 partners from their Monday partner meeting, and issued a term sheet that afternoon.
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