This is going to be BIG.

SEPTEMBER 22, 2014

'This list needs no explanation: 1) You need a technical co-founder. 2) We''re really interested in what you''re up to, but would love to see just a little more traction before we fund it. 3) No one else can do this. 4) We decided not to charge our initial customers. 5) It''s easier to get funded on the west coast. 6) This is projected to be a $54 billion dollar industry by 2019. 7) Google can''t do this. 8) We''re oversubscribed in this round. 9) We wouldn''t take $30 million if someone offered

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startup venture capital accelerator technology 400

Unvalidated Learnings

SEPTEMBER 26, 2014

“Businesses that disrupt/create huge markets with a non-replicable product offering a must-have service , which gets better the more people use it.” Jean de la Rochebrochard ( @jlr ), a partner at TheFamily , recently published a very good piece on Medium titled “ Here’s my investment thesis. What’s yours? ”?—?below is my answer to his question. When thinking about investment thesis, one has to ask oneself: what is the outcome I am aiming at for the companies I invest in?

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investing investment peer-to-peer disruption 52

Berkonomics

SEPTEMBER 25, 2014

'It doesn’t happen by accident. Not every new game site is a Club Penguin or Minecraft. Not every social network is a Facebook or Instagram. Not every texting application is a Twitter. What are the elements needed to focus upon in making the attempt to take a product viral? Intrigued by the thought, I recently made a list. It was as much in reaction to my getting blank stares from entrepreneurs when I asked that question as it was for me to better understand the problem itself.

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education networking opportunity entrepreneurs 71

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 20, 2014

'Recruiting. It is the bane of every startups existence because it takes up so much time, it is so competitive to sign people and it feels like unproductive time because it’s not moving the ball forward on product, engineering, sales, marketing, biz dev, fund raising. It consumes time and energy and the payoff doesn’t come for a long time.

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technology

Tomasz Tunguz

SEPTEMBER 25, 2014

The startups that build and retain the best teams develop a huge competitive advantage. It’s no surprise that managers are the most important influencers of team development and retention. The most frequent and consequently most powerful tool for managers to coach, develop and lead their teams are one-on-ones, weekly meetings between a manager and his or her individual reports.

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peer-to-peer startup collaboration leadership 40

This is going to be BIG.

SEPTEMBER 23, 2014

'The Cost of a College Education. I just looked up how much my alma mater costs in tuition. Fordham University, the 56th best college in the country, is now $44,000 a year. That''s a 6% annual increase since 1997 when I started and it was $16,000 a year. Take that forward to when my future kid might be going to school and you''re talking $141,000 a year tuition.

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education enablement 334

Derek Sivers

SEPTEMBER 20, 2014

One of the most important concepts I’ve learned is the difference between the “fixed” mindset and the “growth” mindset. It’s a little bit like “nature vs nurture”: People in a fixed mindset believe you either are or aren’t good at something, based on your inherent nature, because it’s just who you are. People in a growth mindset believe anyone can be good at anything, because your abilities are entirely due to your actions.

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Tomasz Tunguz

SEPTEMBER 21, 2014

This post is part of a continuing series evaluating the S-1s of publicly traded SaaS companies in order to better understand the core business and build a library of benchmarks that might be useful to founders. All of the businesses we’ve looked at in the past have been purely SaaS businesses. Today, we’ll examine Tableau, the market leader for data visualization software.

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SaaS data analysis collaboration strategy 40

Gust

SEPTEMBER 24, 2014

'There is a saying in the not-for-profit world that your board members should all fall into one or more of three categories in which they can deliver: Wealth, Work or Wisdom. In my experience, those same qualities also apply to for-profit boards: Wealth , as in investors who can write checks and help with fundraising in future rounds; Work , as in directors with specific skills who can be helpful in recruiting, business development, customer introductions, exit analyses, etc; and finally, Wisdom

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board advice development 125

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development

Tomasz Tunguz

SEPTEMBER 23, 2014

I remember many the great TED talks I’ve watched. Sir Ken Robinson’s ,“How Schools Kill Creativity” and the story of a little girl whose genius was unrecognized in school until she was allow do dance, and ultimately became a prima-ballerina, is simply unforgettable. In most of my meetings, I remember Amy Cuddy’s “Body Language” talk for a split-second.

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frameworks pitching construction creativity 46

Gust

SEPTEMBER 21, 2014

'Indra Nooyi, CEO and former CFO, PepsiCo, via Wikipedia. Every investor is looking for the “dream team” of executives to put money on. Often I find that experienced investors scan ahead to the management page of a business plan, even before they read the product description. That’s how important the people are. The Chief Financial Officer (CFO) role is usually considered second only to the CEO, because financials are critical.

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startup financing finance leadership 147