Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 18, 2015

We are experiencing a frenetic time. I rarely talk to any startup entrepreneur or VC who doesn’t feel it and somehow long for simpler times despite the benefits we all enjoy from increased enthusiasm for our sector. For entrepreneurs there’s too much money sloshing around. One would think entrepreneurs would never want less available cash – until such time as their competitors ridiculously and unnecessarily all raise $50 million in the name of a “land grab” thus mak

advice 398

advice VC entrepreneurs transportation 398

The Entrepreneurs Library

JUNE 19, 2015

A summary of things you should know about The Four Steps to the Epiphany according to Steve Blank. Introduction (0:34). I am an eight time serial entrepreneur. I’ve done eight different start ups in a series of ever increasing roles and after I retired I became an educator and started teaching at Berkley in the business school, Stanford in the engineering school, and now at Columbia and NYU as well.

entrepreneurship 51

entrepreneurship advice education entrepreneurs 51

This is going to be BIG.

JUNE 15, 2015

I was chatting with a friend about going to work for startup companies, and told her that career development really came down to two simple things: 1. Do you know what you do? Do you offer a clear deliverable , best suited for a particular segment of customers or clients, that aligns with their near term goals ? In other words, do you "do marketing" or do you "help seed and Series A backed companies test and optimize their marketing content, deploy it across multiple channels, and analyze the cu

leadership 337

leadership VC opportunity development 337

Tomasz Tunguz

JUNE 15, 2015

Open Source Software started the movement in the late 1990s. Since then, open source software has transformed the software industry. Today, many infrastructure software startups employ open source strategies to market their software and win dominant market share. Open source is a disruptive distribution strategy. It allows potential users and buyers of a software to try it, evaluate it, and understand exactly how it works because the source code is freely available.

disruption 40

disruption startup SaaS financing 40

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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

JUNE 19, 2015

Business leaders have many tasks to accomplish and prioritizing stuff can be hard. Yesterday I wrote about the need to “ do fewer things, more often ” in which I described that frenzied world we live in and why the shiny objects and distractions stop us from living up to our true potential. Today I’d like to give that advice in more tangible terms and with a framework to think about your tasks – the funnel.

frameworks 419

frameworks board leadership advice 419

Berkonomics

JUNE 18, 2015

If you could predict a crisis within your business before its occurrence, wouldn’t you move to prevent or reduce its impact? Making such predictions is a skill that can be developed, and here’s one method of doing so. There are five basic kinds of internal risks than a business faces over time. Of course, there are external risks that cannot be controlled or predicted, but can be planned for as well –. natural disasters, sudden political or economic events that rattle the entire economy, and mo

disruption 105

disruption financing finance strategy 105

Tomasz Tunguz

JUNE 17, 2015

There’s a “new” $4B startup today. A consumer hardware company called FitBit started trading on the Nasdaq this morning and it’s an impressive success story. We’ve examined the tremendous revenue growth GoPro experienced in a previous post. Impressively, FitBit is growing faster. As the chart above shows, FitBit grew from $14M to $76M to $271M to $745M in revenue in four years, generating astounding growth rate of 170% per year.

sustainability 40

sustainability development ventures investing 40

Tomasz Tunguz

JUNE 18, 2015

When deciding to open source software, one of the key questions teams must answer is the license under which they will distribute their software. There are a wide variety of different alternatives. But, the three most common are GPL, Apache and MIT. I was curious if there was any relationship between type of license used by startup commercializing open source software, and their ability to raise capital, and exit.

venture capital 45

venture capital capital ventures sustainability 45

WSJ - The Accelerators

JUNE 17, 2015

— Audiencebloom. Initial public offerings are a sort of Holy Grail for entrepreneurs. Introducing your business as a public enterprise seems like the ultimate statement of success. As an exit strategy on paper, it’s perfect — you turn your company over to the masses, collect your profits as your stock price runs up, and step into the shadows, counting your money and reading countless articles about how you and your business got to this point.

consulting 28

consulting mix-use entrepreneurs capital 28

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development

Tomasz Tunguz

JUNE 13, 2015

Financial discipline is a hallmark of great companies. It’s what enables businesses to build exceptional go to market models, weather difficult times, and ultimately succeed. Sometimes, financial discipline in startups is imposed by financial markets, like in 2008 when the total amount of venture capital investment plummeted after Lehman imploded.

startup 40

startup strategy enablement venture capital 40