This is going to be BIG.

DECEMBER 19, 2011

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.

creativity 382

creativity communities innovation energy 382

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 19, 2011

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).

networking 355

networking frameworks development innovation 355

Gust

DECEMBER 5, 2011

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.

technology 167

technology disruption entrepreneurs education 167

For Entrepreneurs

DECEMBER 15, 2011

Today’s application developers are faced with a broad set of architectural decisions that can make or break their company going forward. This presentation, which was given as a keynote for the MassTLC application development conference, highlights the major changes that are taking place in the world of application development. The Application Development Landscape – 2011 [.].

development 159

development startup 159

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strategy

Berkonomics

DECEMBER 3, 2011

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.

entrepreneurs 67

entrepreneurs 67

This is going to be BIG.

DECEMBER 26, 2011

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

innovation 321

innovation technology peer-to-peer communities 321

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 27, 2011

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”

startup 418

startup VC venture capital investing 418

Gust

DECEMBER 6, 2011

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

angel investing 179

angel investing entrepreneurs venture capital investing 179

This is going to be BIG.

DECEMBER 5, 2011

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.

venture capital 365

venture capital VC construction consulting 365

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startup

This is going to be BIG.

DECEMBER 7, 2011

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".

creativity 278

creativity entrepreneurs startup investing 278

This is going to be BIG.

DECEMBER 23, 2011

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

incubation 250

incubation VC communities innovation 250

This is going to be BIG.

DECEMBER 12, 2011

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.

board 244

board communities creativity leadership 244

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 17, 2011

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.

VC 296

VC advice pitching investing 296

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financing

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 25, 2011

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.

disruption 291

disruption networking investing investment 291

Gust

DECEMBER 13, 2011

I’ve recently taken a look at seed stage funding by venture capitalists (VCs) and angel investors over the past five years. For VCs, I chose to look at all seed stage VC deals (from MoneyTree©) as well as those in five of the most active regions in the country. Note that I merged the two Southern California regions (LA/Orange County and San Diego) into one.

entrepreneurs 162

entrepreneurs angel investing VC venture capital 162

Gust

DECEMBER 28, 2011

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.

entrepreneurs 153

entrepreneurs VC venture capital angel investing 153

Gust

DECEMBER 22, 2011

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.

startup 149

startup real estate consulting creativity 149

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technology

Gust

DECEMBER 8, 2011

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.

board 139

board consulting real estate entrepreneurs 139

Gust

DECEMBER 3, 2011

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.

board 119

board construction entrepreneurs advice 119

Gust

DECEMBER 23, 2011

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.

capital 127

capital ventures networking angel investing 127

Gust

DECEMBER 12, 2011

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.

strategy 114

strategy entrepreneurs innovation startup 114

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opportunity

Gust

DECEMBER 27, 2011

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.

entrepreneurs 119

entrepreneurs peer-to-peer networking investing 119

Gust

DECEMBER 1, 2011

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.

entrepreneurs 114

entrepreneurs advice pitching board 114

Gust

DECEMBER 15, 2011

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

startup 141

startup entrepreneurs founder technology 141

Gust

DECEMBER 21, 2011

Silicon Valley is a very special place – the nucleus of high-growth, high technology entrepreneurship in the US, indeed, in the world. The Valley produces world-class entrepreneurs, angel investors, venture capitalists and successful high-tech companies – all growing and creating jobs on one relatively small peninsula. The Valley has been a unique place for over half a century.

entrepreneurship 107

entrepreneurship communities entrepreneurs economic development 107

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