December, 2009

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What Makes an Entrepreneur (3/11) – Ability to Pivot

Both Sides of the Table

This is part of my new series on what makes an entrepreneur successful. I originally posted it on VentureHacks , one of my favorite websites for entrepreneurs. If you haven’t spent time over there you should. I started the series talking about what I consider the most important attribute: Tenacity. I then covered Street Smarts. 3. Ability to Pivot – I don’t like to invest in people that I’ve never met before who come through my office wanting to have a term sheet within 30

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Set a realistic goal. When reached, set another.

Berkonomics

There’s a big difference between your vision for your company, your mission and your goal. Your vision tells the world what you want to be as you contemplate in advance how you will change the world for the better. Your mission merely states who you are and what you do. It is used to limit and sift your opportunities to keep you from using resources for projects outside of your core, your mission.

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What Makes an Entrepreneur (5/11) – Inspiration

Both Sides of the Table

This is part of my new series on what makes an entrepreneur successful. I originally posted it on VentureHacks , one of my favorite websites for entrepreneurs. If you haven’t spent time over there you should. I started the series talking about what I consider the most important attribute of an entrepreneur : Tenacity. I then covered Street Smarts , Ability to Pivot and Resiliency.

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Protect Your Parents from Avis Budget: Direct Marketing Scumbags

Both Sides of the Table

This has been a year where people got mad in mass at financial institutions. It’s hard not to when you think about the amount of money that flowed into their coffers and the size of expected bonuses this year – of all years. Frankly, it disgusts me. But I’m not one to take on the big investment banks – I’ll save that for somebody else.

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Digitalization: 5 Tech Updates That Will Help You Survive The Recession & Thrive

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.

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What Makes an Entrepreneur (2/10) – Street Smarts

Both Sides of the Table

This is part of my new series on what makes an entrepreneur successful. I originally posted it on VentureHacks , one of my favorite websites for entrepreneurs. If you haven’t spent time over there you should. I started the series talking about what I consider the most important attribute: Tenacity. 2. Street Smarts - OK, so you’re a tenacious person – you never give up.

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Hiring at a Startup? Know Thy Weaknesses

Both Sides of the Table

This is part of my ongoing series on Startup Advice. I was reading one of my favorite websites for entrepreneurs, VentureHacks, this weekend and noticed that they are running a long piece on how to pick a co-founder. If you’ve read my blog for a while you’ll know that I’m a fan of starting businesses in a non-traditional way. I recommend that you start a company by yourself and own 100% of it.

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Is Strategic Money an Oxymoron?

Both Sides of the Table

This is part of my ongoing Raising Venture Capital (VC) series. Yesterday I had lunch with a really interesting and capable serial entrepreneur who is raising his A round. The topic of &# strategic&# investors came up. It felt like Groundhog Day because I have this conversation again and again – literally dozens of times each year. And I had 2 “strategic&# investors in my first company.

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Comments are the New Black

Both Sides of the Table

I’ve been thinking a lot about comments lately. I recently wrote a post about how to get access to people at conferences and how to connect with people on social networks. These posts encouraged groups of people to provide their thoughts on these topics. As usual we began a dialog with lots of people sharing their points of view. Arnold Waldstein , who stops by periodically on my blog and always leaves relevant comments, made the observation that, “if I want to connect with you, I

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Fewer words, greater effect.

Berkonomics

I have a business friend, an experienced manager and teacher with a Harvard MBA, whose creativity and intelligence are admired by many. But he dilutes his effectiveness with wordy PowerPoint presentations. It has become a long running joke between us, as I often remind him that most of us have a very limited attention span and ability to recall important points from a presentation.

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The Big Payoff of Application Analytics

Outdated or absent analytics won’t cut it in today’s data-driven applications – not for your end users, your development team, or your business. That’s what drove the five companies in this e-book to change their approach to analytics. Download this e-book to learn about the unique problems each company faced and how they achieved huge returns beyond expectation by embedding analytics into applications.

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How to (re) Approach People (Advice on the Eve of LeWeb)

Both Sides of the Table

Business Etiquette Tips for dealing with VCs and Corporates at Conferences. This is part of my ongoing series with Startup Advice. With the LeWeb conference about to start in Paris I thought the timing of this post would be appropriate. Right after Techcrunch50 Michael Arrington wrote this great post on how to interact at business events and conferences.

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How to Connect on Social Networks

Both Sides of the Table

I sometimes think that certain advice is BGO (blinding glimpse of the obvious) and doesn’t warrant mentioning. But then people’s actions tell me otherwise. I wrote recently about etiquette when you meet people at conferences or events so now that I have this done I feel I need to say some words about connecting on social networks. Let’s start with a discussion of existing social networks and then how to approach people on them.

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Entrepreneur DNA

Both Sides of the Table

If you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed, follow me on Twitter, or subscribe via email. Thanks for visiting!

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What Makes an Entrepreneur? (1/11) – Tenacity

Both Sides of the Table

This is part of my new series on what makes an entrepreneur successful. I originally posted it on VentureHacks , one of my favorite websites for entrepreneurs. If you haven’t spent time over there you should. I wanted to also post the series here to have it as a resource on my blog for future entrepreneurs who stop by. I wanted to get the conversation going in the comments section around each topic because I think as much value comes from the comments section as comes from the original p

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PE Mastery: CAPTARGET's Playbook for Quality Lead Flow

CAPTARGET presents a masterclass in M&A deal sourcing. Learn to cast a wide net, embracing seller self-identification. Consistency is the linchpin: keep the origination process steady for a reliable flow of opportunities. Diversify your tactics, employing various tools and vendors. Tech matters! Understand DNS settings, domain authority, and brand presence for optimal outreach.

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Strong strategies and tactics support your goal.

Berkonomics

Now we’re getting organized. There are many ways to express the roadmap for your enterprise. One of the most popular was used by the U.S. Army late in World War II, and adopted by a number of high profile businesses such as Texas Instruments after the War. The structure combined the listing of the goal with a series of strategies and then tactics, each designed to support each other, each measurable and made public throughout the organization.

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Strategic planning: Strategies and tactics

Berkonomics

In past insights, we explored the need for a tangible goal and strategies that are measurable as steps toward achievement of the goal. This insight calls to account tactics to accompany each strategy, and even suggests a number for each. . Tactics support strategies and allow your individual managers and departments to contribute to strategies in measurable ways that are more short term and procedural than are the strategies they support.

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Map your goal and use your map.

Berkonomics

It’s time to speak of some sort of business plan. As a professional investor in early stage companies, I have long discounted long, detailed business plans in favor of a concise “executive summary” followed by a believable spreadsheet-based financial forecast projecting three to five years into the future. . Yes, everything does change between drafting that plan and its successful execution.

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What Makes an Entrepreneur (4/11) – Resiliency

Both Sides of the Table

This is part of my new series on what makes an entrepreneur successful. I originally posted it on VentureHacks , one of my favorite websites for entrepreneurs. If you haven’t spent time over there you should. I started the series talking about what I consider the most important attribute: Tenacity. I then covered Street Smarts and Ability to Pivot. 4.

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How to Stay Competitive in the Evolving State of Martech

Marketing technology is essential for B2B marketers to stay competitive in a rapidly changing digital landscape — and with 53% of marketers experiencing legacy technology issues and limitations, they’re researching innovations to expand and refine their technology stacks. To help practitioners keep up with the rapidly evolving martech landscape, this special report will discuss: How practitioners are integrating technologies and systems to encourage information-sharing between departments and pr