Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 27, 2012

By now you probably know that David Sacks , co-founder of PayPal and founder of both Geni & Yammer made some observations on Facebook that Silicon Valley “as we know it” was coming to an end. He says. “In order to create a successful new company, you have to find an idea that. (1) has escaped the attention of the major Internet companies, which are better run than ever before; (2) is capable of being launched and proven out for ~$5M, the typical seed plus series A investmen

VC 299

VC media entrepreneurs energy 299

Gust

AUGUST 26, 2012

Every first-time entrepreneur, or even an experienced founder stepping into a new business area, needs a mentor. Nothing you have ever done raises so many questions, or has the potential to be so fulfilling, or so risky, as starting a new business for the first time. A mentor is a confidant who has been there and done that, and is willing to guide your steps.

startup 172

startup construction entrepreneurs leadership 172

Berkonomics

AUGUST 30, 2012

As we grow our businesses, we inevitably run into problems that seem for a time impossible to overcome. Our development team is stumped with a problem; or the marketing organization cannot come up with a theme for the next campaign; or the team has hit a wall where further speed, size reduction, or other constraint seems impossible to overcome. No one has the resources to solve all problems in all areas of the business.

creativity 59

creativity leadership networking enablement 59

Tomasz Tunguz

AUGUST 29, 2012

In every one of my conversations with Peter Lehrman, founder of AxialMarket, he always speaks about AxialMarket as “the business.” Never the company, the startup or any other word. At first blush I thought it was a trivial semantic difference, a New York-ism, but over time I’ve come to realize this word choice marks a significant difference that manifests itself in culture, product and go to market.

creativity 40

creativity culture sustainability innovation 40

Advertisement

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 The tech market offers a wealth of technologies tailored for management, planning, and forecasting, replacing outdated pen-and-paper methods.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

AUGUST 29, 2012

Nate Redmond is the managing partner of Rustic Canyon Partners – he’s probably one of the youngest managing partners of a major fund you’ll meet. And no wonder, lately he and his partners are on a tear, investing out of their $200+ million VC fund. They recently exited their investment in Gaikai for $380 million while their rival OnLive (who had raised > $200 million) just went through bankruptcy.

VC 279

VC culture incubation venture capital 279

For Entrepreneurs

AUGUST 28, 2012

Summary This article describes in detail how to use on-line survey tools to validate your key startup assumptions, and gain actionable insights into topics such as pricing, target demographics, messaging, etc. Introduction By now pretty much every entrepreneur knows the basics of Lean Startup methodology: start by searching for product/market fit. Get out of the [.].

startup 167

startup entrepreneurs 167

Tomasz Tunguz

AUGUST 28, 2012

Many of the promising marketing and media innovations of the past six years, daily deals, subscription ecommerce, social gaming and social media, have been struggling. This trend is plain to see from IPO performance and negative press cycles. I’ve been asked a few times whether there is consumer investment fatigue as a result. Fatigue is too strong a characterization.

investing 40

investing investment social gaming incumbents 40

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 28, 2012

This is a hot topic I’ve been asked a lot about recently. You’re on a first date with a VC – how much should you tell them? You’re heading into a full partner meeting and you’ve been asked for a full data pack before – should you give it? When is it appropriate for a VC to call your customers? There is no universal answer and my discussions with various VCs on these topics have yielded many differing opinions.

VC 316

VC strategy advice entrepreneurs 316

Gust

AUGUST 29, 2012

Somebody asked me in email what investors look for in the marketing portion of a business plan and/or business pitch. What works? What’s credible? What are investors looking for? . Caveat: generalizations are dangerous. And I’m generalizing here from what I’ve seen in the three dozen or so pitches and plans I’m exposed to in a year, plus my discussions with other angel investors in my group, and investors I meet as fellow judges in business plan competitions. .

pitching 119

pitching media 119

Advertisement

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.

development

Tomasz Tunguz

AUGUST 25, 2012

Must content distribution platforms be reinvented every few years? Left to its own devices, the mob will augment, accessorize, spam, degrade and noisify whatever they have access to, until it loses beauty and function and becomes something else. Seth Godin. Given the noise and misinformation disseminated on Twitter both during the election and the Sandy disaster , I’ve been wondering how Godin’s thoughts apply to new information networks: blogs and feeds.

accelerator 40

accelerator networking founder 40

Tomasz Tunguz

AUGUST 30, 2012

In 2010, Gaia Online started a user acquisition campaign to grow their user base. To simplify the on boarding process, they launched the Big Red Button home page below. It worked. Conversion rates from the home page spiked. Simple user experiences, like this big red button, are effective because users understand what is expected of them. There is just one flow.

board 40

board 40

Tomasz Tunguz

AUGUST 26, 2012

Two weeks ago, James Reinhart, founder and CEO of ThredUp , led his company through a branding exercise. The team spent an afternoon comparing and contrasting the brand attributes of Starbucks and Peets, Whole Foods and Safeway and a few other competitive pairs. The team quickly distilled each company’s brand into one word. Long ago, each of these brand selected the value that would define their brand.

culture 40

culture founder 40