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Seemingly to save face, Stanford pulled out of NYC's Applied Sciences initiative to build a world-class engineering school last week. At the same time, Cornell got an anonymous $350 million donation to move forward with it's proposal--and rumor has it that the Mayor will announce Cornell's victory as soon as today. I have no doubt that any new school dedicated to engineering will be a good thing in New York City--one that I will fully support.
Fred Wilson recently posted a great video on his blog with the CEO of Forrester Research, George Colony. The money slide is the graphic below. The chart shows three scarce resources and their improvements over time. The top line is available storage (S), the middle line represents processing power (following Moore’s law) or (P) and the bottom line is the Network (N).
Too many entrepreneurs develop a new product without regard for market demand , then build an entire strategy based on creating a need, rather than acting on an existing market need. Investors characterize this approach as a “solution looking for a problem.” These don’t get funded. The best startups find a way to drive the market with their technology, rather than push their new technology-driven ‘solution’ on the marketplace.
People argue over whether an entrepreneur with a sense of fairness, a desire for collegiality, a want to share the profits can succeed in the long run within a business world full of lions and tigers that eat timid entrepreneurs for lunch. First, let’s separate the “good heart” from the issue of whether an entrepreneur is driven to succeed. A sense of values that allows for sharing and fairness is not at odds with a ‘type A’ entrepreneur driven for success.
AI adoption is reshaping sales and marketing. But is it delivering real results? We surveyed 1,000+ GTM professionals to find out. The data is clear: AI users report 47% higher productivity and an average of 12 hours saved per week. But leaders say mainstream AI tools still fall short on accuracy and business impact. Download the full report today to see how AI is being used — and where go-to-market professionals think there are gaps and opportunities.
If you want another pair of hands to screw things up, how do you acquire resumes, pair them down, and identify someone who is going to work well in your company?
Here’s a great project, that will fill you full of gratitude and reminiscing: Try to write down all the friends you’ve ever had — from memory. No address book, no phone, no social media. Just memory. Remember all those people you met and connected with that made a difference in your life. It’s amazing how many are still in your head. childhood friends you haven’t seen since you were a kid. teachers. old crushes and flings. random encounters with great conversations.
Here’s a great project, that will fill you full of gratitude and reminiscing: Try to write down all the friends you’ve ever had — from memory. No address book, no phone, no social media. Just memory. Remember all those people you met and connected with that made a difference in your life. It’s amazing how many are still in your head. childhood friends you haven’t seen since you were a kid. teachers. old crushes and flings. random encounters with great conversations.
Tweet. One of the best things any investor can do is to pull back from the day to day of getting pitches and think about high level trends. What areas are going to change? What areas need to be disrupted? What types of things might happen in 2012, as opposed to needing another 3-5 years to come to fruition. The thing you need to be careful of, however, is only paying attention to big trends, because you never know when you're thinking big data and you miss the awesome direct sales jewelry compan
There are certain topics that even some of the best journalists can’t fully grok. One of them is profitability. I find it amusing when a journalist writes an article about a prominent startup (either privately held or preparing for an IPO) and decries that, “They’re not even profitable!” I mention journalists here because they perpetuate the myth that focusing on profits is ALWAYS the right answer and then I hear many entrepreneurs (and certainly many “normals”
The resources required to start a company vary significantly , depending on the type of company and growth rate anticipated by the entrepreneur. An experienced software engineer, for example, can develop a new mobile app with his or her own resources and market the product on the web with very little capital. A medical device company, on the other hand, may need cash resources to pay for FDA testing, designing the prototype, manufacturing the product, establishing an inventory of the devices and
Fifty percent of all businesses formed fail within the first two years. . There are many variations of this number since there are a number of ways to measure failure. But the number is a startling reminder that creating a business is not easy, nor is it any assurance of success. . After speaking with many entrepreneurs over the years, each defines success in his or her unique way.
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?
How many entrepreneurs started out by asking the question "How do I want my users and customers to feel when using my service?". Instead, many founders look at holes in the market, interations on existing ideas and tend to make feature lists of what things would make their offering better, more difficult to copy, or spread faster--but they often don't think about design until it comes time to "make it pretty".
With all of this news about Brooklyn 's tech scene , I've been thinking a lot about what made the NYC innovation community grow so quickly. Talk of buildings and incubators reminded me of the story of Building 20 from "Where Good Ideas Come From". ".Legendary Building 20, the temporary structure built during World War II that somehow managed to last fifty-five years, in part because it had an extraordinary track record for cultivating both breakthrough ideas and organizations like Noam Chomsky&r
I run into a lot of people trying to switch careers and join a startup. They're trying to get product positions and marketing jobs in particular, but they don't have any prior experience. That leaves them in the infinite loop of not being able to get the job because you don't have experience, but not being able to get any experience, etc, etc. It's a solvable problem.
I’m just as familiar with the New York Tech Meetup as anyone. I was one of the first 100 members, dating back to February 2005. I was also part of the original New York Tech Meetup board and participated on it until last year. I offered to step aside to bring a few more faces onto the board last year. Now that there are four open spots, I’d like to return and I have a few specific things I’d like to accomplish.
Gearing up for 2025 annual planning? Our latest eBook from the Operators Guild is your ultimate guide. Discover real-world solutions and best practices shared by top CFOs, drawn directly from discussions within OG’s vibrant online community. Learn from senior executives at high-growth tech startups as they outline financial planning strategies, align CEO and board goals, and coordinate budgets across departments.
I am a big believer in VC pitches that the bio slide should come up front. Actually, I think the advice in this post applies to any sales meeting also. The short answer is that by knowing the key members of the management team the VC firm can quickly identify strengths on your time and know whether you have some competitive advantage in your chose field relative to other people with whom you will compete.
A year ago I invested, along with Dana Settle at Greycroft Partners , in a startup company called Maker Studios. What excited me was that they had an immensely talented team that understood how to produce & distribute low-cost videos, initially via YouTube. It was founded by Danny Zappin, Lisa Donovan & Ben Donovan. They know this model of YouTube production & distribution better than anybody else that I’ve met in my 5 years in Los Angeles.
In the “good old days,” angels invested in seed-stage startups and teed up promising companies for subsequent venture capital financing. If the company was successful, this quickly led to an IPO – a very happy ending for the entrepreneur, the angels, and the venture capitalists. My, my…how the world has changed. The two major differences in the exit environment in the past decade are (1) the disappearance of the IPO market and (2) the rapidly increasing size of the average VC fund.
Mighty Financial specializes in supporting the financial aspirations of small businesses and entrepreneurs. With our comprehensive bookkeeping and precise accounting expertise with decades of experience across diverse financial roles, our team offers tailor-made services ranging from essential bookkeeping to strategic fractional CFO support, catered specifically to the unique challenges of technology companies, startups, and SMEs.
So you’ve chosen a name for your startup, product, or both. Having covered all the bases to ensure that your corporate name is available, the domain name can be acquired, and the name doesn’t infringe any existing trademarks (as we discussed last week ), now is a good time to look at the categories of intellectual property (IP) that are relevant to most startups.
In Part I , I gave a quick summary of the who, when and why of forming and documenting a new startup company. This week we’ll delve into what , exactly, is necessary or desirable to lay a solid legal foundation for a startup to build upon. I’m reluctant to give legalistic disclaimers, but in this instance, I do need to emphasize that the material in this article is legal information , not legal advice.
Sure, you want investors. But sometimes the outsiders most capable of helping your business are those who invest time, not money. And I don’t mean because they lend a credible name to an investor pitch: way too many entrepreneurs look at names on Advisory Board as just a way to expedite a raise. If that’s all you really expect of the Board, you’re cheating yourself as well as the investors before whom you dangled the names.
A gigantic percentage of startup literature concerns how to raise capital. But before you start on that PowerPoint, let’s ask this: do you really have to? Or is it still possible to bootstrap and build a company organically? Strategically, the advantage outside capital provides is obvious: you can go faster. And since speed of iteration is often the factor that separates success from failure, access to adequate cash is indeed often critical.
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.
After the idea, it’s all about execution. I often hear from investors that a great idea is necessary, but not sufficient. The most important thing is a proven team , meaning one who has built a startup before, and has experience with the execution process in this domain. I’ve talked before about the best personality traits for a good entrepreneur, but I’ve never talked about the importance of process.
Due diligence should always be a two-way street. A while back, I published an article on “ Startup Due Diligence Is Not a Mysterious Black Art ,” describing what investors do to validate your startup before they invest. Here is the inverse, sometimes called reverse due diligence, describing what you should do to validate your investor before signing up for an equity partnership.
What is a startup really? When meeting with early stage entrepreneurs for the first time, after reviewing a demo or hearing their pitch, I often ask them to articulate what they’re most focused on building. In most cases, the answers are (1) an outstanding product or technology; (2) a successful growth business built around that product; and (3) a top-notch team to build and execute the business.
Having taken stock of the main legal documents and actions involved in forming and operating a new startup, let’s crack open the “case” (disregarding the warnings about voiding your warranty) and examine a few of the steps, documents and key decisions to be made in getting a new startup ready for business. Most startup lawyers have checklists (at least in their heads) and will interview a new client to gather a wide range of relevant information before moving forward with business entity formati
CAPTARGET presents a masterclass in M&A deal sourcing. Learn to cast a wide net, embracing seller self-identification. Consistency is the linchpin: keep the origination process steady for a reliable flow of opportunities. Diversify your tactics, employing various tools and vendors. Tech matters! Understand DNS settings, domain authority, and brand presence for optimal outreach.
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