2012

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Entrepreneur’s Don’t Think Enough. Here’s What You Can Do About It …

Both Sides of the Table

Every so often I find myself caught up in a really hectic 3-4 week schedule where it seems like I float endlessly betweens meetings. Pitches. Intros. Board Meetings. Conferences. And I get flooded with legal docs, end-of-quarter financial administration, recruiting, whatever. I get sucked up in “Do” mode. Startups Are for Doers. Now, I’m pretty on the record that being an entrepreneur is about being great at The Do.

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The Future of Brick and Mortar

This is going to be BIG.

As we prepare for Black Friday and Cyber Monday, I think a lot about the future of the physical retail landscape. As I walk around my neighborhood in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, I count every storefront whose products or services could be better delivered over the internet. The count is unfortunately high. Pretty much anywhere you buy items that aren't food, you could probably get them cheaper on the web, with a wider selection.

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6 Clues That You May Be Cool as an Entrepreneur

Gust

Google's Larry Page image via Coolspotters.com. A while back, when a startup founder mentioned to me that he wasn’t sure he had the personality to be an entrepreneur, I realized how important that insight was. My first thought is that if you are more annoyed than energized by expert advice, team suggestions, and customer input, then you should probably avoid this line of work.

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Pacific Crest’s 2011 SaaS Survey

For Entrepreneurs

Pacific Crest, an investment banking firm with a strong focus on SaaS, has surveyed a 70 SaaS companies with very interesting results. There is some great data on topics such as growth rates, cost of customer acquisition, churn/retention, expense models, capital efficiency, etc. The full survey, which was put together by David Spitz and his team [.].

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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Outdated or absent analytics won’t cut it in today’s data-driven applications – not for your end users, your development team, or your business.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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Is it the jockey or the horse?

Berkonomics

Early stage investors have been arguing over this for years. Do they bet on the entrepreneur (jockey) or the business idea and plan (the horse)? This is serious stuff. If you are looking for money, this question will certainly come up in one form or another when you approach professional or organized angel or VC investors. My answer always varies as I examine each deal, sometimes deferring and passing on an investment because of an uneasy feeling about the ent

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Is Going for Rapid Growth Always Good? Aren’t Startups So Much More?

Both Sides of the Table

I think I’ve read Paul Graham’s post on “ Startup = Growth ” three or four times now. And of course on Twitter I’ve seen the Tweets, ReTweets and superlatives on what a great post it is. Viewing the article through the lens of a venture capitalist there’s much to agree with under the mantra of “growth!” And when you read the article carefully it allows for a period of discovery in your business.

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What Makes a Successful Startup Community? Is it Possible to Build One Where You Live?

Both Sides of the Table

This article originally appeared on TechCrunch. Recently I wrote a post arguing to make the definition of a Startup more inclusive than that to which Silicon Valley, fueled by Venture Capital return profiles, would sometimes like to attach to the word. Today I’d like to talk about what startup communities outside of Silicon Valley look like, how they emerge and what makes them take hold.

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To Be Successful You’ll Need to Shake Hands and Kiss Babies.

Both Sides of the Table

It’s Wednesday late afternoon. I’m aboard Delta flight 1833 from Cincinnati (actually, Northern Kentucky for what it’s worth) to Los Angeles. I had a very enjoyable day in Cincinnati meeting many local entrepreneurs, angels and accelerators. I was here to see one of our LPs (limited partners are the people who invest money in VC funds) called Fort Washington.

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Why “The Culture of Failure” is Imperative to Startup Communities

Both Sides of the Table

I recently wrote about the 12 tips to building successful startup communities. After a recent discussion I had with Steve Blank it made me remember that I had left off one of the most critical factors – a culture of failure. I remember this lesson well. I lived in London from 1997-2005 and for 6 of those years ran my startup based out of London.

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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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Why Silicon Valley and Hollywood Don’t Get Each Other and Who Will Win the Future

Both Sides of the Table

For the past three years I have been pounding the table as loud as I can about the future opportunities in digital video. The concise guide is here. My narrative has stayed pretty simple: People in the US watch 5.3 hours of TV per day. People read for less than 30 minutes. You will not fundamentally change consumers media consumption habits. So you tell me what the future of the Internet will be?

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Why Startup Entrepreneurs Need to Communicate More Like George Bush Than Al Gore

Both Sides of the Table

This article originally appeared on TechCrunch. It is election season. So it’s tempting to think this is going to be a partisan post – it is not. I use George Bush vs. Al Gore as allegory and I’ve been using it with entrepreneurs for years to sink in a simple point about how to communicate with the market. I use it because I believe in the power of visual and memorable stories to sink into the consciousness.

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How This Entrepreneur Raised $28,000 Using Airbnb to Fund Her Startup

Both Sides of the Table

Tracy DiNunzio isn’t your typical Silicon Valley startup founder. She’s a painter and a self-proclaimed Bohemian. She did her first tech startup after the age of 30. And she didn’t start her company in Northern California. Tracy built her company, Recycled Media , out of necessity. She hasn’t raised any venture capital. She drove her company to profitability before paying herself a modest salary.

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The Collaborative Web: Github is the New Flickr

This is going to be BIG.

I can't take credit for this meme, even though I've already invested in it.twice. (Once with Docracy, once with a super cool company launching in the first quarter of 2013.). I was chatting with Thor Muller a couple of weeks ago about web trends--and he made a very insightful point as I talked about how I see more and more models around getting people to work together in different ways.

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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

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Minimum Viable Team

This is going to be BIG.

You have a million things to get done at your startup, yet you only have a handful of people to do them. How are you ever going to get it done? Who should you hire? What should be the makeup of a founding team? What is the Minimum Viable Team, if you will, for a startup? To make life simpler, I'll take a page from George Carlin, who masterfully widdled down the Ten Commandments down to two simple rules.

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My Pal Dave: A Triumph of Substance Over Style

Both Sides of the Table

My pal Dave has blogger Tourette’s. He has it on stage, too, at conferences. He can’t help himself: He’s Dave. My pal Dave has problems. Not the ones you’d imagine. His biggest problems are with language, colors, fonts and spacing. Not much more. I think he could say “no” a bit more. I’ve told him that if a vet just clipped his wings a little bit I think it would be good for his health.

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Some Thoughts on Branding Startups and Communities

Both Sides of the Table

Brad Feld visited Los Angeles this past week. I always enjoy spending time with Brad as the antidote to the eco chamber. He is a unique human being with original thoughts & ideas and very limited concern for having to fit into other people’s narratives. And I’ve always remembered a quote from high school, “Non Conformity is the Highest Form of Social Attainment.” That always stuck with me.

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How VCs, Accelerators, and Coworking Spaces Put Communities in Buildings vs. Buildings in Communities

This is going to be BIG.

I'll bet you don't know where the Center of NY's Tech Community and Center of Creativity is. Give up? It's in the Financial District--right at 55 Broad Street. It says so right on their website. In fact, it is "well-known internationally as the original home of New York's technology community.". I'll bet you didn't know that--mostly because it never was.

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Statement of Cash Flows vs. Cash Flow Statement

Speaker: Wayne Spivak - President and Chief Financial Officer of SBA * Consulting LTD, Industry Writer, and Public Speaker

The old adages that "cash is king" and "you can’t spend profits" still hold true today. But however well-known these sayings might be, it requires a change in mindset to properly implement a cash flow management system that predicts your business's runaway as accurately as possible. Key to this new mindset is understanding the difference between the Statement of Cash Flows, a historical look at the source and uses of cash, and the Cash Flow Statement, which uses transaction history and forward-l

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Why Docracy is the Most Revolutionary Company of Our Time

This is going to be BIG.

Tweet. Note: I led First Round's investment in Docracy in 2011, but I do not have any financial ties to the company and will not benefit or suffer, other than emotionally, based on the outcome of that investment. Docracy, born out of Techcrunch Disrupt's 2011 Hackathon, just brought legal negotiations into the cloud with their new Super Signing feature release.

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Is Silicon Valley Really Coming to an End?

Both Sides of the Table

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

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A Seed Fund Grows in Brooklyn: Announcing Brooklyn Bridge Ventures

This is going to be BIG.

Tweet. I am ecstatic to announce the creation of Brooklyn Bridge Ventures --my new seed investment fund. It is the first venture capital fund based in Brooklyn--the city’s most exciting and creative borough. It is home to cool startups like Etsy, Makerbot, Pontiflex, HowAboutWe, Energyhub, and Loosecubes. Gilt Groupe maintains a significant presence there, as does scores of creative agencies and design firms.

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Anatomy of an Innovation-friendly School

This is going to be BIG.

University research is a big business for many schools. It certainly worked out pretty well when Stanford licensed the search technology that Larry and Sergei had been working on back to them at Google. They netted more on that deal than Fordham has in it's whole endowment (but still, go Rams!). On top of that, most of a school's major donors are likely to be entrepreneurs in some way.

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How to Avoid the Pain and Cost of PCI Compliance While Optimizing Payments

Speaker: P. Andrew Sjogren, Sr. Product Marketing Manager at Very Good Security, Matt Doka, Co-Founder and CTO of Fivestars, and Steve Andrews, President & CEO of the Western Bankers Association 

PCI compliance can feel challenging and sometimes the result feels like you are optimizing more for security and compliance than you are for business outcomes. The key is to take the right strategy to PCI compliance that gets you both. In this webinar, we have a great set of panelists who will take you through how Zero Data strategies can be used as part of a well-rounded compliance and security approach, and get you to market much sooner by also allowing for payment optimization.

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Instead of sticking a fork in the venture market, realize. there is no fork

This is going to be BIG.

The other day, I noticed an eye-catching headline: "Internet Funding Boom Ends as Fast as It Began". It was from the Wall Street Journal--a publication I count on for emphasizing quality journalism over empty linkbaity headlines above hollow stories. Perhaps I need to rethink that. How else can you explain this headline matching a story about a professional social network still trying to explore revenues raising $17mm on an $80mm valuation?

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Don't ask "Why Brooklyn?" Ask "How?"

This is going to be BIG.

Since I launched Brooklyn Bridge Ventures , a lot of people have asked me why I put the fund in Brooklyn. Even to those who said it was "obvious", all of them seem to have different reasons why they believe that was a good idea. To me, there are a couple of basic reasons: 1) If nothing else, it's geographically closer to more startups than midtown firms like RRE, Greycroft, and Firstmark.so, *why not* put my office here?

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In Which We Pay Attention to Something Else

This is going to be BIG.

I'm watching CNBC right now and they're featuring two top stories: Facebook's 30% drop since the IPO and SpaceX completing the first commercial space supply mission. Could it be that the future of innovation lies in driving mankind forward and not getting people to click more ads? Does the Facebook IPO mark the end of our eight year infatuation with social networking that began with Flickr and del.icio.us?

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The Screwy Logic of Crowdfunding and Venture Fund Regulation

This is going to be BIG.

Fact: Thanks to the new crowdfunding legislation, it will soon be easier for any entrepreneur trying to build Instagram for Cats to raise $10 million than it is for an experienced investor to raise a fund to invest in the next 25 new businesses as well as support their growth with strategic advice, help with hiring, PR, business development, and connections to future capital.

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Building Healthy Innovation Ecosystems for Your Projects

Speaker: Nick Noreña, Innovation Coach and Advisor, Kromatic

Every startup and innovation project exists within an ecosystem that either helps or hurts that project. As innovation managers, we need to keep a pulse of that ecosystem and make sure we're helping those innovation projects we're managing every step of the way. In this webinar, Nick Noreña will walk through an Innovation Ecosystem Model that he and his team at Kromatic have developed to help investors, heads of product, teachers, and executives understand how they can best support innovation in