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Every so often I find myself caught up in a really hectic 3-4 week schedule where it seems like I float endlessly betweens meetings. Pitches. Intros. Board Meetings. Conferences. And I get flooded with legal docs, end-of-quarter financial administration, recruiting, whatever. I get sucked up in “Do” mode. Startups Are for Doers. Now, I’m pretty on the record that being an entrepreneur is about being great at The Do.
As we prepare for Black Friday and Cyber Monday, I think a lot about the future of the physical retail landscape. As I walk around my neighborhood in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, I count every storefront whose products or services could be better delivered over the internet. The count is unfortunately high. Pretty much anywhere you buy items that aren't food, you could probably get them cheaper on the web, with a wider selection.
Google's Larry Page image via Coolspotters.com. A while back, when a startup founder mentioned to me that he wasn’t sure he had the personality to be an entrepreneur, I realized how important that insight was. My first thought is that if you are more annoyed than energized by expert advice, team suggestions, and customer input, then you should probably avoid this line of work.
Since Benchmark’s investment in Ebay 15 years ago, we have been fascinated by online marketplaces. Entrepreneurs accurately recognize that the connective tissue of the Internet provides an opportunity to link the players in a particular market, reducing friction in both the buying and selling experience. The arrival of the smartphone amplifies these opportunities, as the Internet’s connective tissue now extends deeper and deeper into an industry with the participants connected to the marketplace
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.
Dictators are not great leaders in the long run. People follow such leaders by fear, rarely by devotion. Employees want to have a stake in their own destiny, and above all want to understand why actions are taken which affect them, even if the outcome is not in the employee’s favor. The best leaders are those who share problems and alternative solutions with their direct reports, then seek consensus in decisions as a result.
Call it what you like. The Series A Crunch or Silicon Valley’s Financial Cliff, there’s a lot of talk about the challenge seed stage companies facing insurmountable odds raising Series A investment - PandoDaily’s analysis pegs the odds at 20% based on anecdotal data. The three horsemen of the seedpocalypse. In the past 3 years, the three major trends influencing the seed market are: The decreasing cost of starting a company is balanced by growing labor costs.
Call it what you like. The Series A Crunch or Silicon Valley’s Financial Cliff, there’s a lot of talk about the challenge seed stage companies facing insurmountable odds raising Series A investment - PandoDaily’s analysis pegs the odds at 20% based on anecdotal data. The three horsemen of the seedpocalypse. In the past 3 years, the three major trends influencing the seed market are: The decreasing cost of starting a company is balanced by growing labor costs.
I recently wrote about the 12 tips to building successful startup communities. After a recent discussion I had with Steve Blank it made me remember that I had left off one of the most critical factors – a culture of failure. I remember this lesson well. I lived in London from 1997-2005 and for 6 of those years ran my startup based out of London.
I can't take credit for this meme, even though I've already invested in it.twice. (Once with Docracy, once with a super cool company launching in the first quarter of 2013.). I was chatting with Thor Muller a couple of weeks ago about web trends--and he made a very insightful point as I talked about how I see more and more models around getting people to work together in different ways.
As I write this, days after the 2012 presidential election, I’m probably not alone in feeling relieved that the political jeering and soapboxing that reached a feverish pitch during the seemingly endless campaign season has finally subsided. Yet amidst all the partisan cheerleading and name-calling, there has been some discussion of substance.
Earlier today, DogVacay, an exciting new startup in Los Angeles, announced that Benchmark Capital has led its most recent round of financing. DogVacay is an online marketplace that links dog owners with passionate dog care providers who open up there own home as an alternative to the traditional cage-oriented kennel. At first blush, a web site that allows owners to book a “Dog Vacation” for their esteemed pet may seem like an unusual choice for a venture investment.
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?
Most of us are driven by the competitive spirit, the desire or need to win. It reinforces self-worth, provides closure at the end of a good effort, and energizes us during the effort to achieve. Many of us as managers – and our employees as workers – are driven by process, actions required to achieve a result. And many of these actions are repetitive to a fault, contributing to boredom and ultimately to restlessness and desire for something new, in or out of the company.
Yesterday, I showed the increasing share of venture capital investments consumer companies represent. But examining the trends at a category level may mask patterns by consumer category and also by stage. So, I’ve created two charts: the first is a bar chart of consumer investment by segment and the second is a heatmap of of sector and stage. I categorized the consumer investments by 10 leading firms over the past 18 months into six buckets of my choosing.
For the past three years I have been pounding the table as loud as I can about the future opportunities in digital video. The concise guide is here. My narrative has stayed pretty simple: People in the US watch 5.3 hours of TV per day. People read for less than 30 minutes. You will not fundamentally change consumers media consumption habits. So you tell me what the future of the Internet will be?
Yesterday, I sat in a conversation with a potential investor in Brooklyn Bridge Ventures and he asked me "How do you get dealflow?". I know I've gotten asked this question a million times over during this process, but for some reason, it just sounded different this time. I usually talk about being visable, knowing a lot of folks, etc. but in a moment of clarity, I realized that everything I get--dealflow, fund investors, opportunities to hire people, etc.
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.
Eric Ries image via Fast Company. The popular view of a real entrepreneur is someone with a big vision, and a stubborn determination to charge straight ahead through any obstacle and make it happen. The vision part is fine, but successful entrepreneurs have found that the extreme uncertainty of a new product or service usually requires many course corrections, or “pivots” to find a successful formula.
This article originally appeared on TechCrunch. It is election season. So it’s tempting to think this is going to be a partisan post – it is not. I use George Bush vs. Al Gore as allegory and I’ve been using it with entrepreneurs for years to sink in a simple point about how to communicate with the market. I use it because I believe in the power of visual and memorable stories to sink into the consciousness.
I wrote this post a long time ago. When I did it was a little too close to home for a company to have me publish it. Much time has passed. And I felt it was instructive still so I thought I would publish. I decided to water down some details to protect the innocent. But both stories are still accurate. I hope it still resonates. A while back I received a frantic phone call from the CEO of a company in which I invested.
Later today I’m presenting at the annual Rincon Ventures Summit in Santa Barbara. Startup Exits: A Primer from msuster. I thought you might like to see an advance copy of what I’m going to cover. I speak privately a lot about getting an exit at a startup. I haven’t spoken publicly about it much but since Rincon asked – I agreed.
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Yesterday, I posted about the Collaborative Web --which I suppose you could call Web 3.0, even though we all agreed that versioning for web software is stupid. But wasn't Web 3.0 supposed to be the "Internet of Things"? Sensors, objects, all sorts of non-desktop computer-like stuff that collected info and connected us to our physical world in a more interactive way was supposed to be the next big thing.
It is statistically possible for a manager to pinch hit for his best player in Game 7 of the World Series and have the scrub off the bench win the game with a hit. That doesn't mean it was a good move. Good outcome, bad decision. In the entrepreneurial world, there are lots of examples of great teams being funded for good ideas that still don't make it.
When I was in high school, I got pretty intimidated right off the bat. I went to a scholarship school and I felt like I was the last guy they let in. As early as freshman year, everyone seemed to know what they were good at and had already found lots of interests. The best and brightest rose to the top quickly and I didn't believe I would ever break into that crowd.
In very general terms, roughly 1,500 startups get funded by venture capitalists in the US, and 50,000 by angel investors. VCs look at around 400 companies for every one in which they invest; angels look at 40. There are several million “startups” that are formed each year, so one way of looking at it is that there are several million “great people with a good idea who give up because they just cannot get initial funding” On the other hand, those VCs and angel investors sp
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.
Image via eHow.com. Once you have a potential investor excited about your team, your product, and your company, the investor will inevitably ask “What is your company’s valuation?” Many entrepreneurs stumble at this point, losing the deal or most of their ownership, by having no answer, saying “make me an offer,” or quoting an exorbitant number. I’ve written about this before, but it’s a mysterious subject, and I’m always learning more.
Steve Jobs and Bill Gates image via Facebook.com. Every entrepreneur should spend plenty of time thinking about competitors, and how they relate to your business, but you need to be very careful what you say out loud about them to your team, your investors, and your customers. What you say speaks volumes about how you think about your startup, how smart you are, and your personal integrity.
One reason is that because of rapidly changing nature of business, today’s competitive advantage can easily become tomorrow’s disadvantage…or at least irrelevancy. Think about how useful the name Tote.com would be for a shopping site developing a social-sharing universal shopping bag/cart. Pretty cool, huh? But what happens when that doesn’t work particularly well so they pivot to socially-sharing images?
Parts of the answer are that (a) there are enormous regulatory requirements relating to secondary markets, and (b) there are no analysts tracking private company stocks. But by far the biggest issue is that the very essence of public markets (and what makes them “public”) is that the SEC mandates an enormous amount of transparency, including complete quarterly financial statements, complete publication of the company’s cap table including all significant shareholders, and so fo
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