Both Sides of the Table

JULY 6, 2016

I talk about failure a lot because I think it can be tremendously instructive and I think that success without failure often masks underlying lessons. I even prefer to fund entrepreneurs who have experience some level of set-backs in their careers or startups because I think it brings a humility to decision-making that I find healthy. I have experienced many first-time entrepreneurs with too much hubris if fund-raising came easily and press was fawning and employees joined in droves and customer

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This is going to be BIG.

JULY 28, 2016

I'm a founder. Sure, I'm an investor, too, but I started Brooklyn Bridge Ventures , the firm I invest out of. That means that in addition to thinking about what kinds of investments I'm going to make, I need to think about where I'm going to work, payroll, business cards, all that stuff. As we've seen, the "business stack" of a variety of services entrepreneurs run on everyday has changed dramatically over the last few years.

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Entrepreneurs' Organization

JULY 31, 2016

In entrepreneurship, opportunities can present themselves in various ways. For participants of the Global Student Entrepreneur Awards (GSEA), EO’s flagship program for nurturing the next generation of entrepreneurs, opportunities for leadership and business growth are boundless. Just ask Violeta Martinez, winner of the 2016 EO GSEA Global Finals and founder of VAIZA, an El Salvador-based, luxury brand crafted from the heart.

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Berkonomics

JULY 21, 2016

Business unit managers are under lots of pressure to perform, and occasionally are tempted to step over the line finding ways to look better than reality reflects. Of course, this has never happened to you, and you have never done this in your past. So we are speaking of a theoretical manager here. Of course. Here’s a way to prevent such behavior and create a tool for organization – and transparency at the same time.

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strategy

Tomasz Tunguz

JULY 26, 2016

McKinsey released a study of high growth software companies entitled Grow Fast or Die Slow. One salient conclusion: If a software company grows at 20% annually, it has a 92 percent chance of ceasing to exist within a few years. In other words, software companies must grow quickly to survive. Slow growing businesses suffer from the lack of oxygen that fuels growth.

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Both Sides of the Table

JULY 27, 2016

Density laser tracking above a doorway As I’ve written before I believe Computer Vision will become a major factor as a Human-Computer Interface (1) as sensors and cameras help us make sense of our physical world. There is so much in the media about “The Internet of Things” that it has lost meaning and for many for some strange reason it became a short-hand for wearables.

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This is going to be BIG.

JULY 25, 2016

Someone asked me recently if they should raise a fund, because they had access to investments that were being made by "top, brand name investors". Whether there even is such a thing relies heavily on your perspective. It is absolutely true that many of the firms you've heard of being called the "top" funds consistently perform in the top quartile, even decile, of all funds, over time--Sequoia, Accel, etc.

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Entrepreneurs' Organization

JULY 27, 2016

By Annmarie Lanesey, EO Albany member and co-founder of Greane Tree Technology . When Annmarie Lanesey co-founded a software development business in Troy, NY in 2008, she saw business ownership as a means to successful living. Her commitment to a flexible, yet powerful software development approach has fueled a broader passion: a more inclusive pipeline for developing STEM talent.

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Berkonomics

JULY 14, 2016

Want the best way to create your core competency quickly and inexpensively? Think like a startup, with little resources, a limited window of time, and few dollars to spend on expensive experts. This insight comes from a fellow CEO who explains that he leverages his financial resources for growth by dividing his hiring decision into these two boxes.

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startup

Tomasz Tunguz

JULY 23, 2016

Where is the budget to pay for your SaaS startup’s software coming from? There are three possible pockets. First, they are dollars the competitor you displaced used to collect. Second, the company enlarges the current budget to finance the purchase. Third, the company creates a new budget. Which budget is an important question. The answer informs product, marketing and sales strategy.

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OnStartups

JULY 14, 2016

Confession: For the past several months I've been furiously coding away on a new project as part of HubSpot Labs. It's called GrowthBot. It's a chatbot for marketing and sales people -- and anyone looking to grow a company (like startup folks). The launch has gone well, and my bot is currently happily handling thousands of messages. Things like "show me companies in california that use HubSpot" and "who are the top influencers about landing pages".

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Both Sides of the Table

JULY 23, 2016

I was in France and the UK for business last week so I was a bit out of the tech news cycle and more focused on the world events that were happening nearby. But one tech news story stood out for me — the fact that LA-based Dollar Shave Club (DSC) was sold to Unilever for $1 billion. This continues to solidify Los Angeles’ place as a major player in the global tech ecosystem and while any one success doesn’t define a city — the number of high-profile startups and exits has definitely increased.

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This is going to be BIG.

JULY 18, 2016

The best pitches have a hook. The very first sentence gets me leaning forward, not back. They have an unrelenting storyline--and they don't let a boring team slide get in the way if your team isn't the most exciting part of what you're doing. They mostly talk about where you're going, because the what you've done up until now in a seed pitch usually isn't that much.

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financing

Entrepreneurs' Organization

JULY 15, 2016

By David Mammano, and EO Western New York member and f ounder and CEO of Next Step Education Group. The Latin word for heart is “cor.” The Italian word for heart is “cuore.” The French word for heart is “coeur.” The Spanish word for heart is corazón.” . Are you beginning to understand where the English word “core” comes from and how it relates to your values?

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Berkonomics

JULY 7, 2016

In my early journalism classes, I was taught the five “W’s” of good news stories, and that most should be in the first paragraph at that. Who, what, when, where and why are the five, with sometimes a “how” thrown in for those followers of the macabre. But of the five, “why” is by far the most important for business leaders to consider and communicate.

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Tomasz Tunguz

JULY 20, 2016

What is the smallest price point at which a SaaS startup can justify building an inside sales team? This is a natural question that many SaaS startups raise as they begin to complement bottoms-up, product-led adoption with assisting customers through the sales process. There are publicly traded SaaS companies at nearly every price point - even very small ones.

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Thomas Grota

JULY 31, 2016

Some months ago I was arguing the end of the unicorn era?—?meaning startup companies driven to +1bn.

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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.

technology

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 24, 2016

Meetings. The bane of many of our existence. They suck up time and are often unproductive or don’t yield the results we expect. I want to talk about a specific type of meeting today — a Board Meeting — but this could easily apply more broadly. A find many board meetings highly unproductive in that they are often just a date in the calendar where management is set to update its investors and other board members of its performance over the past time period.

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Unvalidated Learnings

JULY 25, 2016

Curious as to why you’re not mentioning mattermark/cbinsight + angellist/crowdfunding as significant new takes? To me, radical information transparency + open and automated investment process have the potential to be much bigger game changers for the industry than YC or A16Z, who may have added a platform / community layer but remain old school closed partnership at heart.

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Entrepreneurs' Organization

JULY 8, 2016

Asking these questions just may spark your next big idea. Andy Bailey is an Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO) member from Nashville and lead entrepreneur coach with Petra , a business-coaching firm. Andy also serves in an advisory role on the Gazelles Council, the leaders of the scale-up movement. We asked him about his thoughts around innovation and the best ways to inspire it.

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For Entrepreneurs

JULY 4, 2016

“Software is eating the world” – Marc Andreesen Companies thriving in the new world order have technology as a core competency. They build complex cloud applications. They constantly bring new capabilities and features to the market. And despite the constant iteration and updates to their cloud application, their software is rock-solid reliable. How do they.

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opportunity

Tomasz Tunguz

JULY 18, 2016

Over the last year, the amount of series A investment in US startups has fallen by nearly 33% from a high of $6 billion to about $4 billion in Q2 2016. Later stage investments have followed a similar path. Curiously, the series B/Expansion stage market has witnessed remarkable resilience, continuing to increase despite volatility. The series a market is also seen a similar drop in the total number of investments, indicating a slower investment pace.

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Thomas Grota

JULY 3, 2016

Earlier this year I was giving my view on the development of Corporate Venture Capital markets with.

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Both Sides of the Table

JULY 26, 2016

Many first-time founders seek advice when thinking about what ideas would be great for a startup company and receive the wrong advice that you need to focus on a billion-dollar idea. There are very few ideas that are obviously a billion-dollar idea from the start. So what should you do? I advise founders to focus on what I call “basecamp,” which is the first level of success or validation at a startup.

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Berkonomics

JULY 28, 2016

One of the CEOs I coach starts his day by walking the floor of his extended facility and checking in with managers and employees of the various departments, especially the call center. He tries to feel the pulse of the company by the intensity of motion, the metrics of backlog, and the stated problems brought to him as he asks. Is he a relic of bygone times, when employees worked in a single facility, managed directly by people who could see and speak to them in person?

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