This is going to be BIG.
AUGUST 22, 2012
You have a million things to get done at your startup, yet you only have a handful of people to do them. How are you ever going to get it done? Who should you hire? What should be the makeup of a founding team? What is the Minimum Viable Team, if you will, for a startup? To make life simpler, I'll take a page from George Carlin, who masterfully widdled down the Ten Commandments down to two simple rules.
Both Sides of the Table
AUGUST 27, 2012
By now you probably know that David Sacks , co-founder of PayPal and founder of both Geni & Yammer made some observations on Facebook that Silicon Valley “as we know it” was coming to an end. He says. “In order to create a successful new company, you have to find an idea that. (1) has escaped the attention of the major Internet companies, which are better run than ever before; (2) is capable of being launched and proven out for ~$5M, the typical seed plus series A investmen
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Gust
AUGUST 26, 2012
Every first-time entrepreneur, or even an experienced founder stepping into a new business area, needs a mentor. Nothing you have ever done raises so many questions, or has the potential to be so fulfilling, or so risky, as starting a new business for the first time. A mentor is a confidant who has been there and done that, and is willing to guide your steps.
Berkonomics
AUGUST 16, 2012
It is hard to hide incompetence behind appearance or personality when you are a virtual manager. In a virtual environment, people measure you mostly by your actions, and remember only the most recent good work you’ve done for them and for the organization. Today, many companies hire great managerial talent who commute from a remote home location. Often, such senior managers start with a four-days-here, one-day-from-home plan that slowly degrades to two then sometimes three days operating remote
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Tomasz Tunguz
AUGUST 29, 2012
In every one of my conversations with Peter Lehrman, founder of AxialMarket, he always speaks about AxialMarket as “the business.” Never the company, the startup or any other word. At first blush I thought it was a trivial semantic difference, a New York-ism, but over time I’ve come to realize this word choice marks a significant difference that manifests itself in culture, product and go to market.
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.
AUGUST 20, 2012
Most entrepreneurs aren't qualified for their jobs--including about 100% of the first timers. Many times, they get backed just because they're smart people working in an interesting area. Sure, they had a demo or a prototype or something, but investors know the product will change. What they're really betting on is your ability to learn--and that starts with your willingness to admit the following: "I don't know what to do.".
Both Sides of the Table
AUGUST 29, 2012
Nate Redmond is the managing partner of Rustic Canyon Partners – he’s probably one of the youngest managing partners of a major fund you’ll meet. And no wonder, lately he and his partners are on a tear, investing out of their $200+ million VC fund. They recently exited their investment in Gaikai for $380 million while their rival OnLive (who had raised > $200 million) just went through bankruptcy.
Gust
AUGUST 22, 2012
At the threshold of one of the most recognizable landmarks in human history — the sole survivor among the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World , dating back nearly five thousand years — my host was engaged in heated debate with a rotating phalanx of functionaries. As our group sweltered in the July heat on the outskirts of Cairo , each of these purported minions of the state — none of whom wore a uniform or badge — in turn blocked our entry, determined to exercise the modest amount of authority b
Berkonomics
AUGUST 30, 2012
As we grow our businesses, we inevitably run into problems that seem for a time impossible to overcome. Our development team is stumped with a problem; or the marketing organization cannot come up with a theme for the next campaign; or the team has hit a wall where further speed, size reduction, or other constraint seems impossible to overcome. No one has the resources to solve all problems in all areas of the business.
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Large enterprises face unique challenges in optimizing their Business Intelligence (BI) output due to the sheer scale and complexity of their operations. Unlike smaller organizations, where basic BI features and simple dashboards might suffice, enterprises must manage vast amounts of data from diverse sources. What are the top modern BI use cases for enterprise businesses to help you get a leg up on the competition?
Tomasz Tunguz
AUGUST 28, 2012
Many of the promising marketing and media innovations of the past six years, daily deals, subscription ecommerce, social gaming and social media, have been struggling. This trend is plain to see from IPO performance and negative press cycles. I’ve been asked a few times whether there is consumer investment fatigue as a result. Fatigue is too strong a characterization.
Don Dodge
AUGUST 22, 2012
Most companies leave a lot of money on the table when they IPO. They price at $12 to $15 per share at the IPO and trade up to $20 - $25 on the first day, and up to $30 to $40 over the next few months. Investors are happy. The press is writing positive stories. Everyone is happy. But, the company left all that money on the table, the difference between the $12 IPO price and the $25 first day close.
This is going to be BIG.
AUGUST 13, 2012
If anything has held true about the progress of technology over the last 150 years, it is that one generation's bread and butter tasks become automated and the skill level requirement for participating successfully in the workforce is forced up. We've seen disruption by machines among all sorts of human labor, particularly in the area of "making stuff".
Both Sides of the Table
AUGUST 14, 2012
For the past several years I’ve undertaken many initiatives to “get more organized,” which basically means to make another attempt at implementing and running a solid task list that I can share with others with whom I collaborate. I seem to be really good at kicking off well-structured lists, but less good at “working them.” I know there’s no real point in creating a task list if you’re not actually going to open it up and parse through tasks.
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Gust
AUGUST 5, 2012
People ask me if they really need ANY business plan, unless they are looking for an outside investor. In fact, a business plan is needed more by you than investors, as the blueprint for your company, team communication, and progress metrics. Things that make it investment-grade for outside investors will also benefit you, since you are the ultimate investor.
Berkonomics
AUGUST 9, 2012
Over the years I have heard many stories from entrepreneurs, students, news reporters, even my children, all telling me that they could not get someone’s attention they wanted or needed until they used the words, “Help me.” The simple request is disarming, enlarging the object of the request to a status of importance in respect to the questioner that is difficult to ignore.
Tomasz Tunguz
AUGUST 25, 2012
Must content distribution platforms be reinvented every few years? Left to its own devices, the mob will augment, accessorize, spam, degrade and noisify whatever they have access to, until it loses beauty and function and becomes something else. Seth Godin. Given the noise and misinformation disseminated on Twitter both during the election and the Sandy disaster , I’ve been wondering how Godin’s thoughts apply to new information networks: blogs and feeds.
Derek Sivers
AUGUST 12, 2012
I’m 40 meters underwater. It’s getting cold and dark. It’s only the third dive in my life, but I’m taking the advanced scuba course, and the Caribbean teacher was a little reckless, dashing ahead, leaving me alone. The next day I’m in a government office, answering an interview, raising my right hand, becoming a citizen of Dominica. I’m backstage at the TED Conference, about to go on, but I can’t remember my lines.
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This is going to be BIG.
AUGUST 7, 2012
I've now been blogging for eight and a half years and it's undoubtedly my most valuable career asset--but not just for its reach. It has a number of ancillary benefits that a lot of people who don't blog might not realize. I was teaching a General Assembly class the other day on careers and I talked about what blogging does for me, and I don't think I'd really ever encapsulated it in a way that I could advocate to others.
Both Sides of the Table
AUGUST 15, 2012
I recently read Brad Feld’s thought provoking piece encouraging founders to sit on the board of another startup company. I found it thought provoking because I’ve always believed startup founders need extreme focus on only their company to succeed. We live in an era where the press espouses the entrepreneurs who have five startups. I’m not one who has subscribed to the “superman founder” narrative.
Gust
AUGUST 7, 2012
I really like Martin Zwilling’s post here yesterday, 10 things that make a business plan fundable. That made me think about this list, the opposite, things that make a plan not fundable. Before I start, though, I second Martin’s motion on the use of business plans: People ask me if they really need ANY business plan, unless they are looking for an outside investor.
Berkonomics
AUGUST 23, 2012
There is a major trend shaping up that is worldwide, already identified by hundreds of thousands of startup and small business CEOs. By carefully recognizing and focusing upon the very core of the business, these CEOs are allocating their scarce cash resources to hire the best talent they can find to support that core business, and then reaching out to partners, independent contractors, and other small businesses to provide all other functions.
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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
AUGUST 23, 2012
We negotiate every day in almost every conversation and exchange, whether it’s rescheduling a flight, asking for a product return or responding to a term sheet. I’ve been reading Getting More , a book by Stuart Diamond, who trains the military, Google and many others on negotiation. Everyone should read it. This book is set apart because it recognizes the nature of relationships, emotion and human nature, forgoing concepts like ZOPA and BATNA.
This is going to be BIG.
AUGUST 6, 2012
There are five people with more Twitter followers than the President of the United States: Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber, Katy Perry, Rihanna, and Britney Spears. We're a little short on heroes these days, if you haven't noticed--especially ones whose paths we probably want our kids to emulate. This isn't to take anything away from anyone pursuing an entertainment career--because what we have here is something entirely different.
Both Sides of the Table
AUGUST 16, 2012
It has always surprised me that founders were so quick to fight over how many board members there were and so quick to agree to have as many board observers as people wanted. I have always been vehemently against board observers and wrote some of the reasons in this previous post. But over the past couple of years I’ve slightly modified my views, which I’d like to explain: The Case Against Board Observers.
Both Sides of the Table
AUGUST 23, 2012
This is one of the best episodes of This Week in VC for a long time. I had the chance to speak with Andrew Siegel who runs corp dev & strategy for Condé Nast (aka Advance Publications). In case you don’t know, they are one of the biggest media companies in the world. They are best known for their magazine titles such as The New Yorker, Wired, Vanity Fair and Vogue.
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