Tag Archives: Startups

August 17, 2012 · 12:12 PM

Access your Free Membership Today | Startup America Partnership

Entrepreneurs and small business owners are you a member or aware of the Startup America Partnership.  Check out site and explore their other pages for information and help.

Excerpt Introduction:
Join now and accelerate your startup’s growth!

The Startup America Partnership is a passionate community of founders, investors and executives helping each other acquire customers, recruit top talent and attract investors. It’s free to join and you’ll immediately gain access to:

  1. A network of local and national relationships dedicated to helping you succeed
  2. Unique opportunities and deals packaged to help your startup scale
  3. Access to and advice from iconic entrepreneurs, experts and thought leaders

Today’s the day to accelerate your startup’s success. You are just a minute away from unique opportunities, unmatched deals, and access to an amazing community of thousands of high growth-startups like Dwolla, WildFire, and TourWrist, as well as iconic founders like Steve Case, Reid Hoffman, Tory Burch and Michael Dell.

Thousands of startups focused on growth are leveraging Startup America every day….can you afford to wait?

Access the free membership page  Access your Free Membership Today | Startup America Partnership.

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· 12:03 PM

Does Your Startup Pitch Suck? Call PitchPhone And Practice

Check this out — how is your “pitch”?    This definitely falls under “find a need and fill it”.   A place where you can “practice” and improve your business pitch.  How cool is that?

Excerpt:  Created by DidThis and Addy founder Francis Dierick, who quit his job last year to work on startups, PitchPhone is a service that helps you practice your pitches over the telephone. (<— See what I did there? Be concise!) The service works in one of two ways: either you call PitchPhone and answer the question it asks you, or you can have PitchPhone call you at random times during throughout the day to ask you questions about your startup. Each time, you have 30 seconds to answer.

Read full article via Does Your Startup Pitch Suck? Call PitchPhone And Practice | TechCrunch.

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August 10, 2012 · 6:32 PM

Service Helps Start-Ups See Where They Stand

This sounds like a cool help for startups.  Any of you try it, please let us all know how you rate.

Excerpt:  Max Marmer is trying to increase the survival rate of young companies. His weapon: a database of metrics on tech start-ups world-wide.

The 21-year-old Stanford dropout is the founder of his own start-up, an online benchmarking service called Startup Compass, based in Palo Alto. The data enables start-up founders to figure out how their nascent firms compare with others in areas such as customer acquisition, Mr. Marmer says, and to diagnose whether their companies are at risk of pitfalls that can doom them to failure.

Read full article via Service Helps Start-Ups See Where They Stand – WSJ.com.

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August 2, 2012 · 4:16 PM

Start-up Seed Funding Cash Management

Within the article story of one startup are great takeaways for entrepreneurs and all startups.  
Excerpt:  The key to handling the seed money, Palmer says, is not a secret: you try to keep expenses down. For instance, Pingup is located in the Innovation District — a heretofore largely undeveloped and unprepossessing slice of South Boston’s waterfront — because rent is cheap. “We try to be as efficient as we can with every single dollar,” says Palmer, who includes herself in that efficiency. She works at Pingup part-time.

Read full article start-up seed funding cash management.  From CFO.com

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July 31, 2012 · 5:06 PM

Agile Vs. Waterfall Product Engineering

Great information especially for newbies (entrepreneurs and startups) as well as a reminder for all small business.

Excerpt: Author and entrepreneur Eric Ries unpacks the difference between waterfall and agile product development theories, and outlines when each are best employed. Waterfall – the linear path of product build-out – is best used when the problem and its solutions are well-understood. However, its hazard is that it can also lead to tremendous investment without guarantee of its success. Agile development, on the other hand, is a less-risky model of what can happen when the product changes with frequent user feedback and minimal waste. Without an authoritative solution clearly in sight, which is often the case of the startup, agile programming allows the growing enterprise to build-out quickly and correct itself often.

See video via Agile Vs. Waterfall Product Engineering | Innovation Management.

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July 30, 2012 · 12:01 PM

Hidden Genius Project Provides Tech Mentorship for Young Black Men

This is pretty cool!   We need more of this kind of effort on behalf our future.    Entrepreneurs and startups

Excerpt:  The Hidden Genius Project’s mentors say demand has far exceeded the amount of space they’re able to provide at this point for students after the program first became a kernel of an idea just three months ago. But, they say, businesses and non-profits are eager to contribute money and resources to help the project grow.

How exactly it grows reamins to be determined, but the mentors know they want to expand to a year-round setup, increase to up to 20 students and possibly add chapters in other cities

Read full article via Hidden Genius Project Provides Tech Mentorship for Young Black Men.  From Mashable

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July 25, 2012 · 1:07 PM

VCs’ Strange, Instinctual Need to Replace Founders – HBR

A must read for all entrepreneurs and startups — need-to-know.    Due diligence of VC before seeking funding is important but not fail safe in this instance of CEO replacement.

Excerpt:  The weirder, more important instances come when a company is doing well. Frequently, VCs disagree with a key element of strategy, often how aggressively monetize the company at the expense of other growth. The downsides to doing so are several-fold. ….

Read full article via VCs’ Strange, Instinctual Need to Replace Founders – Bruce Gibney and Ken Howery – Harvard Business Review.

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· 12:55 PM

Reputation and Opportunistic Behavior in the VC Industry — The Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance

Entrepreneur and startups need-to-know study on venture capitalist (VC).

Excerpt: … we use a hand-collected database of lawsuits filed against U.S. venture capitalists (VCs) to examine the role of reputation in limiting opportunism in the VC industry. The lawsuits in our sample serve as a proxy for alleged opportunistic behavior by the defendant VCs. Based on the lawsuit plaintiff, we further identify whether the defendant VCs allegedly behaved opportunistically against founders, limited partners, other VCs, buyers of VC-backed startups, or other parties (angels, creditors, employees, etc.).

Read full article via Reputation and Opportunistic Behavior in the VC Industry — The Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation.

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July 18, 2012 · 12:27 PM

Reversing the Decline in Big Ideas – HBR

This is an interesting read.  A very frank opinion heads-up world.   Small business take note.

Excerpt: But now I believe the designer-led team is on the verge of irrelevancy, too. The Internet has the necessary infrastructure and achieved the global ubiquity to be able to reimagine and disrupt nearly every industry in the world. But Silicon Valley seems to think that all that is required for disruption are a few “rockstar engineers” and “superstar designers.” This team type used to be able to lock themselves in a room, come up with a big idea and start executing on it. Now, if you throw two engineers and a designer together and tell them to come up with a new startup idea, you’ve got better than 50% odds they will come up with another mobile local social photo sharing app. This team competency was exactly what the doctor ordered when the next evolutionary step of the digital world was just creating software that was actually intuitive to ordinary consumers. But now these teams seem to continually run into a creative roadblock.

Read full article via Reversing the Decline in Big Ideas – Max Marmer – Harvard Business Review.

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July 9, 2012 · 5:24 PM

6 Online Legal & Business Tools for Forming a Company

Another reminder of the “necessaries” your startup has to have and a means of gathering at least some of them online — just don’t forget you do need an attorney to watch your back.

Excerpt: When you’re in the dreaming stage of forming a company, it’s only natural to spend most of your time thinking about things such as your logo, the company name, the marketing plan, etc. That’s the fun stuff. Few entrepreneurs sit around dreaming about obtaining the correct licenses, filing trademark paperwork, or naming a registered agent in an LLC filing.

But those mundane steps are necessary evils–and state and federal requirements. Fortunately, there are a number of online services that can streamline those processes, guiding you through the steps one by one. One word of warning: Even with these sites, you should consult an attorney.

Read full article via 6 Online Legal & Business Tools for Forming a Company | Inc.com.

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July 6, 2012 · 12:00 PM

Getting Organic Growth Right

Small business heads-up.  It is not about, “oh, yeah, that is something we need to do when we have time and resources”.   Organic growth is now, startup time, small business need and the business return is equally important.

Excerpt:  Organic growth is the lifeblood of every company. While acquisitions are a path to growth, Booz & Company research shows that few acquisitions can be justified on cost synergies alone; buyers must be able to grow organically what they acquire. Yet most companies struggle with organic growth, especially when their business models and markets have matured. There are many reasons for this. For example, short-term pressures to produce profits can stunt investment, and typecasting some businesses as cash cows and others as growth engines can become self-defeating. One very common problem is chasing rainbows that will never be caught, while the best opportunities are hiding in plain sight. In an economy still facing massive headwinds, the ability to grow organically is more crucial than ever; companies can no longer see organic growth as an everyday task best left to the operating units.

Read introduction, download paper, access related links via Getting Organic Growth Right.  From Booz&Co

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July 4, 2012 · 5:05 PM

10 Online Marketing Tools For Startups On A Budget

Most startups are on a tight budget —  this list of marketing tools that can fit your needs AND budget in the beginning is a “good thing”.

Excerpt: Some of these tools will be more useful than others depending on your industry and marketing goals and there are many, many more great low-cost tools are out there, but this is a good start.

Read full article via 10 Online Marketing Tools For Startups On A Budget | Alex Lawrence.

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June 26, 2012 · 4:03 PM

Google Shows Startups How to Master SEO in 10 Minutes [VIDEO]

So, if you are saying – just WHAT is the most important, read this and see this video.  Google is going to make it easy!!!   Yippee comes to mind!

Excerpt:  Worried about how to fill out your meta keywords tag so your startup ranks best in Google results? Don’t bother, the company says. Google search ignores it.

Google released on Tuesday a video that provides startups tips and suggestions about how to master search engine optimization in just 10 minutes.

The video features advice catered to small businesses with main web content on less than 50 pages looking to rank only a handful of related search terms. From how to add the best keywords and including analytics code on your site to how to approach marketing in general, Google aims to make it easier for startups to get their brands ranked higher on search result pages.

See video and read article here via Google Shows Startups How to Master SEO in 10 Minutes [VIDEO].  From Mashable

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June 18, 2012 · 10:20 AM

Greiner Curve – Surviving the Crises of Growth – Strategy Tools Training

More today on business strategy.  The article describes phases you may expect in your fast growing startup.  Regardless of whether the order of your phases are exactly the same as described, the tips and how-to manage and survive the levels are important.  Leadership and management

Excerpt: Greiner’s Growth Model describes phases that organizations go through as they grow. All kinds of organizations from design shops to manufacturers, construction companies to professional service firms experience these. Each growth phase is made up of a period of relatively stable growth, followed by a “crisis” when major organizational change is needed if the company is to carry on growing.

Read full article via Greiner Curve – Surviving the crises of growth – Strategy Tools training from MindTools.com.

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· 10:18 AM

How to Take a Social Venture to Scale -HBR

Business strategy for the startup social venture.  Good advice, and although it may seem to be obvious steps, seeing a list and knowing the steps are how others have succeeded, helps the newbie.

Excerpt: A scaling strategy, in short, is a plan for creating a special blend of capabilities that fit well with an organization’s theory of change and its surrounding ecosystem. Most social entrepreneurs want to maximize their ROI, even though the “social returns” they seek have more to do with jobs created, lives saved, or cleaner water. A well-thought-out scaling strategy is the best assurance —not only to them but to their many stakeholders —that they have the potential to make a real difference in the world.

Read full article via How to Take a Social Venture to Scale – Paul Bloom – Harvard Business Review.

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