Both Sides of the Table
MARCH 30, 2011
This post originally appeared on TechCrunch. I’m a very big proponent of the “lean startup movement&# as espoused by Steve Blank & Eric Ries. The part of the movement that resonates the most with me (in my words) is that entrepreneurs should keep their capital expenditures really low while they’re experimenting with their product and determining whether there is a large market for what they do.
This is going to be BIG.
MARCH 17, 2011
I just back from my fifth SXSW and if my voice is any indicator, I had a great time. In the days to come, there will be a lot of back and forth analysis over who "won" SXSW and whether or not there was a breakthrough technology to watch out for. It stems from the Austin conference's reputation for being a kingmaker. But where did that come from and is it well deserved?
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Berkonomics
MARCH 28, 2011
Every entrepreneur has that moment of truth – the one that marks the decision to take the path to entrepreneurship or the path to job security with a larger employer. And down the road a bit, most of us face another when deciding whether or not to go for growth, requiring new investment and increased risks. My moment of self-confrontation came many years ago when deciding whether to leave behind the relative comfort of a good income from my one person operation or hire my first employee to allo
For Entrepreneurs
MARCH 25, 2011
Here is the slide deck that I presented last night at the Boston Lean Startup Circle. The slide deck describes how to build a Sales & Marketing Machine that is predictable, scalable, automated, well instrumented, and cost efficient. Building a sales & marketing machine View more presentations from David Skok.
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abovethecrowd.com
MARCH 25, 2011
[Follow Me on Twitter] “People get ready, there’s a train a comin’” - The Impressions From Zacks via Yahoo: Mark Vickery, On Thursday March 24, 2011, 4:58 pm EDT “BlackBerry maker Research In Motion (NasdaqGS: RIMM – News) beat its fiscal 4Q EPS estimates by 2 cents per share, but missed slightly on quarterly revenues and [.].
Startup Catalyst Brief brings together the best content for the entrepreneurial ecosystem from the widest variety of industry thought leaders.
Both Sides of the Table
MARCH 27, 2011
This post originally ran on TechCrunch. Blogs. We all read them to get a sense of what is going on in the world, peeling back layers of the old world in which media was too scripted. By definition, you read blogs. But should you actually write one if you’re a startup, an industry figure (lawyer, banker) or VC? Absofuckinglutely. This is a post to help you figure out why you should write and what you should talk about. 1.
Both Sides of the Table
MARCH 17, 2011
This post originally ran on TechCrunch. Startups. We know the mantra: Team matters. Is this philosophy exaggerated? Overrated? Cliché? No. Team is the only thing that matters. Whatever you’re working on now, the half-life of innovation is so rapid now that your product will soon be out-of-date. Your existence is irrelevant unless you continue rapid innovation.
This is going to be BIG.
MARCH 28, 2011
There's nothing that used to make me feel more like a pompous VC than when I would respond to an entrepreneur by saying their idea isn't big enough--that a success for them would likely be too small for what our firm was looking for. Even though First Round is a small, seed stage fund and we don't have the kind of approach that forces more money on an entrepreneur than they need, the idea of calling something too small made me feel uncomfortably close to that mindset.
This is going to be BIG.
MARCH 10, 2011
It has never been so easy to get a startup up and off the ground these days. Scaling and succeeding is hard, but just to get from napkin to prototype and some users is so much less of a hurdle than it was previously. From a technology perspective, so many parts of the stack have been made easier--from spinning up servers on EC2 and S3, to getting hosted Rails infrastructure on Heroku.
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Both Sides of the Table
MARCH 22, 2011
The most common questions I’ve gotten over the past week have been a variant of: Was SXSW worth it? Was it just one big party? Should I go next year? Why do your eyes still look so bloodshot? (And I’ve learned a new term, I arrived home with SxSARS). As you may know I outlined my rules for maximum impact at events / conferences before SXSW began.
Both Sides of the Table
MARCH 6, 2011
I was hanging out the other day with my buddy Jody Sherman, founder & CEO of EcoMom. I was an angel investor in his company, made a bunch of calls on his behalf and then I personally sent it out on AngelList. Through this process he raised $2 million. When I described to people why I initially invested my calls went something like this, “He’s taken kicks to the face for nearly 2 years and is still standing.
This is going to be BIG.
MARCH 1, 2011
Investments in innovation can often have unforeseen positive ripple effects. Back at the end of 2008, when the economy was in the tank, and funding was tough to come by, NYC Seed, a small local fund with some government and local academic backing supported my startup, Path 101. Owen Davis, the fund manager, didn’t get the return we were hoping for when we pitched and we had eventually closed up shop.
Both Sides of the Table
MARCH 1, 2011
This is an interview you’re not going to want to miss, I promise. Mike is a no BS guy, has all the attributes I look for in a founder and says things like, openly shares knowledge and opines without a filter including this one, “whoever invented uncapped convertible debt should be spanked!&# Love it. Mike Yavonditte is the founder of the “super hot&# Hashable , a startup out of NYC that has been described as a “ Mint.com for Social Capital ” Mike sold his previous company, Quigo , t
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This is going to be BIG.
MARCH 21, 2011
If there’s a jobs startup within 2000 miles of NYC, I will see it. Everyone sends me startups in this space because of my experience with Path 101 and my passion for helping people with their careers. I feel terrible, because I hate these meetings and couldn’t be less interested in this space. I love helping entrepreneurs and want to add value, but I just can’t help but say the equivalent of “RUN!!
Both Sides of the Table
MARCH 13, 2011
This post originally appeared on TechCrunch. For the next four days if you’re in the tech industry you’re going to hear a non-stop stream of information about SXSW. It’s the time of year when many new startups are struggling to rise above all the noise and be heard. And when everybody is shouting it becomes overwhelming. I’m actually in Austin at the moment.
Both Sides of the Table
MARCH 2, 2011
After the weekend kerfuffle over AngelList I was reading Brad Feld’s post on Signal vs. Noise. It’s apropos because there is so much noise these days with email, Twitter, Facebook, blogs, web shows, etc. that it’s sometimes hard to know when to pay attention and when to keep your head down. Mostly during the day I’m in meetings or doing work.
Both Sides of the Table
MARCH 1, 2011
This article originally appeared on TechCrunch. I know what you’re thinking – link bait title, right? Wrong. I will stand 100% behind my assertions in this post. Justin Bieber is unbelievably entrepreneurial and most of you will never know it because he serves a target demo that doesn’t include you. I promise you can learn from him and this movie.
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This is going to be BIG.
MARCH 18, 2011
I have to move my flight back to NYC on Sunday, so I called them today to cancel and try to recoup the fare, at least as credit. The fare cost $199 one way. First thing I have to deal with is the automated computer IVR that spends ten minutes trying to understand my confirmation number. Then, when it finally gets it right, a real human tells me the cancellation fee is going to be $150.
Both Sides of the Table
MARCH 7, 2011
I’ve written before about my love for Disqus. I’m not an investor – I just love the product. So now Facebook has a new commenting system. They’ve been around for a while and when they first announced this initiative I knew the day would come when people would start saying, “should I replace Disqus?&# I started telling people privately that I thought Google should buy Disqus for the same reasons Facebook wants to own commenting in the first place.
This is going to be BIG.
MARCH 9, 2011
When I was down at Startup Riot in Atlanta, someone handed me their business card. I didn’t even have any on me. He asked, “So, are you guys over business cards in New York?” Funny thing is, we kind of are. It’s rare when anyone hands me a business card these days. Nine times out of ten, I’m meeting someone in person because we already got each other’s contact info somehow.
This is going to be BIG.
MARCH 28, 2011
Give me your phone number and I’ll text you about my brand. You can’t text back and you’re going to have a heck of a time passing it on. Who forwards text messages? Sound interesting? Yeah, I didn’t think so. Now imagine that I’m a Mets fan. (Ok, so I am… but it’s really kind of unbelievable given the way things have gone, so you might have to just imagine it…) I don’t go to games by myself.
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This is going to be BIG.
MARCH 24, 2011
I've written a bunch about Hashable and I use it more now than I ever have before--for one simple use case: sending you my business card. Carrying around business cards is an archaic waste of time, yet adoption of Hashable for solving this is going slower than I'd expect given it's usefulness. The problem is that the people who know about Hashable, even a lot of the people who use it, identify it with the introductions feature.
This is going to be BIG.
MARCH 3, 2011
I’m a fanboy of our own portfolio… and so was the media this week. Let’s see… Gmail’s magical disappearing emails caused huge traffic and signsups at Backupify , thanks in no small part to the 100’s of articles that mentioned the company as a way to protect your data, like this how to from Business Insider and coverage in Time. One King’s Lane got nice coverage in Venture Beat on how social features make e-commerce hot again.
For Entrepreneurs
MARCH 21, 2011
Many entrepreneurs have a strong suspicion that there is an opportunity in a particular market, but lack the detailed understanding of customer pain needed to design an appropriate solution. The following guest post by John Raguin, ex-CEO, and co-founder of Guidewire Software, describes how he and his co-founders tackled this problem. Recently, David Skok and [.].
Berkonomics
MARCH 21, 2011
This insight is one that is so important to the continued health of a growing company that it cannot be overstated. First, let’s be sure we know what is short in term and what is long in term. Long term debt is taken on for the acquisition of fixed assets such as equipment, cars, facilities and acquisitions of companies or their assets. Short term debt is often composed of accounts payable to the trade or employees for expenses, payroll liabilities, accrued but unpaid vacations, customer dep
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