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Besim DonmezThe Next Billion-Dollar Startup Will Address a Basic Human Need
How do you build the next billion-dollar company? Easy. Think of a basic human need and put it online. “I had this stupidly simple observation that maybe everyone else under 30 has already had,“ says Steve Blank. “And the big observation is that we talk about social networking and we talk about Facebook and Twitter but we never talk about the big picture. And the big picture is that these billion-dollar companies are doing nothing more than mediating basic human...
ReadWriteStartWhy Every Startup Founder Needs a Mentor - And How to Find One
Why does founding a startup sometimes feel like the loneliest journey on the planet? Yes, you may be surrounded by family and friends who want to support you emotionally, but do they really understand what you’re going through? The answer: Find yourself a mentor. No "Yes Men" Surrounding yourself with “yes men” is a stupid startup move. Instead, “all” you need to do is find someone who’s “been there, done that,” and is willing to tell you the truth. Don’t scoff....
Will Crowdfunding Crowd Out Venture Capital?
Venture capitalists have been getting a black eye to go with their blue shirts. A recent report from the Kauffman Foundation slammed VCs for “shortchanging” investors, pointing out that public markets deliver better returns. The next day, Fred Wilson, general partner at Union Square Ventures and prominent VC blogger, suggested that a flood of crowdfunding money unleashed by the JOBS Act could sweep away venture capitalists altogether. It could happen. “The game has...
7 Ways to Motivate Your Startup Team — Without Giving Away Equity
Startup entrepreneurs live, eat and breathe their companies. Catching a quick catnap under your desk counts as a good night's sleep. But how do you get the same level of commitment from mere employees? Typically, the answer has been to award them significant chunks of the company in the form of stock and options. It’s not just greed. Sharing equity in your business early on can lead to complex problems as your company grows. Luckily, there are ways to motivate workers without giving away the...
The Most Sought-After Silicon Valley Startups for Engineers
On LinkedIn's blog today is a post about the top 10 most sought-after engineering startups in Silicon Valley. And no, Facebook and Google didn't make the cut because this was a list of companies with fewer than 500 employees. (Pinterest was number 6.) To compile the list, the company looked at nearly a quarter million engineer profiles on its service and tracked where they were searching for jobs. Four of the top 10 spots go to companies that are heavily involved in...
The Pros and Cons of IT Outsourcing: Globally, Nationally and Locally
Outsourcing is pretty much de rigueur for modern startups looking to conserve capital. But making outsourcing work for your startup isn’t always easy. One of the first steps is figuring out where to outsource. There are a lot of choices. The first major decision is geographical. Should you outsource locally, nationally or internationally? My company, GrowBiz Media, has outsourced Web design and development, both internationally and locally. Believe me when I tell...
Can the Go Daddy Girls Convince You They're Serious?
Go Daddy wants to be known for more than domain names and racy Superbowl ads. The company has built large businesses around Web hosting and other services for companies of all sizes. But can it really have it both ways? At a recent meeting in ReadWriteWeb’s San Francisco headquarters, new Go Daddy CEO Warren Adelman delighted in reeling off the company’s impressive numbers: almost $1.4 billion in sales, 53 million domains registered, 5 million websites hosted, and...
Startup Swingers: Swapping Founders to Generate Fresh Ideas
Remember "swinging"? Two people in a committed relationship go to a party with a bunch of other people in committed relationships. They all separate, find new partners for the evening and get jiggy. It may sound lurid and gross, but it’s the cool new thing for startup founders. Swapping Ideas, Not Spouses First, let’s be clear. We’re not talking about sex. We’re talking about Founder Swap, a June 1 event in New York where teams from six different startups will get...
9 Ways to Convince Your Parents to Support Your Startup - Not Just Financially
For many young entrepreneurs, getting their parents’ support for a new venture can make a huge difference - emotionally, practically and even financially. But it’s not always easy to explain to Mom and Dad why, instead of getting a “real job,” you’re putting everything on the line to create a new technology startup. It can be done, though, and these youthful startup veterans explain how: Tip #1: Don’t get too full of yourself. “Show your parents that you have...
How to Keep Red Tape From Strangling Your Startup
Hell, there are no rules here - we’re trying to accomplish something. - Thomas Edison Many people consider Edison America’s greatest inventor - ever. But he never had to deal with the reams of rules and regulations today’s startups need to heed just to stay out of trouble with federal and state governments. Red tape is likely the last thing you want to think about when you’re in the throes of a startup, but there are some things you really need to consider:...
Stop Flying Blind: Use Big Data to Benchmark Your Startup
Most startups fail. Nine out of 10 never amount to anything more than fond memories and a forgotten Facebook page. One reason is that they often lack a clear picture of exactly how they’re doing until it’s too late. But there are tools designed to help you assess your startup's progress compared to similar companies. The best way for startup founders to improve their chance of success is by learning to make better decisions. But if you want to make better decisions,...
How and Why Your Startup Should Go Virtual
Working virtually sounds like heaven to many startups. After all, not having a central office staffed with employees saves money on rent, utilities, parking, etc., freeing you to invest in research, development or marketing. On the other hand, operating virtually is no panacea. Before you make the virtual leap, you need to figure out exactly what working virtually means to your business. The concept of virtual work has many names, from telecommuting and teleworking...
Find the Perfect Co-Founder for Your Startup
Stewart Butterfield and Caterina Fake in 2005, one year after they co-founded Flickr. A lot of founders out there are looking for their significant others. No, we’re not talking about love among the cubicles. We mean the search for a co-founder - someone to share your dreams, frustrations and late-night microwave popcorn. If you’re a single founder, this is crucial. You need an Allen to your Gates, a Brin to your Page, because “starting a startup is too hard for...
Is Entrepreneurship for Everyone?
Not long ago, serial entrepreneur and founder of the Young Entrepreneur Council Scott Gerber offered his prescription to Fix Young America. In short, Gerber believes entrepreneurship can cure a lot of what’s wrong with the American economy. Yesterday on Salon.com, those ideas came under attack as an Occupy imposter - instead of representing American’s youth, the post contended, they’re shills for “the most noxious aspects of the bipartisan status quo.” Gerber can defend himself, but in...
Taking Your Startup Back to the Business Basics
Mentoring startups has a lot of benefits: It gives something back to the community and helps other entrepreneurs avoid some of the mistakes that you've already made. And it's also a lot of fun to meet entrepreneurs who are so passionate about their business. Sometimes, though, that passion can make it hard for startups to focus on the business basics, like pricing, market research and finding your niche. I have had the opportunity to mentor quite a few startup...
Developer Bootcamp Teaches Regular Folks To Code - and Maybe Get a Job at a Startup
Learning to code is becoming the key skill for anyone who wants to launch a tech startup, or even just get a job working at a hot tech company. That may seem intimidating, but programming is not some monumental skill that only specially gifted people can learn. Really, it it isn't all that different from learning to speak another language. If you can pick up the rudiments of Spanish or French in a couple of weeks, how hard could it be to get started with Ruby On Rails? The Developer Bootcamp is...
From Founder to Alchemist, Why Titles Aren't Trivial
The current technology boom is, on most fronts, quite unlike the dotcom boom of the late 1990s. But one aspect that both seem to share is a fascination with titles - both yours and your teams’. Many startup entrepreneurs are returning to the creative titles of the 1990s. Is that really a smart move? Ranjith Kumaran, founder and CEO of PunchTab (which creates instant loyalty platforms), and co-founder of YouSendIt, where he was the Chief Technology Officer (he’s...
8 Hard-Earned Insights Into Raising Startup Capital
Approaching investors for the first time is a daunting exercise for any startup. Regardless of whether you’re raising venture capital, approaching angels or still trying to figure out where to get started, it’s critical to stay level-headed about what you’re really pitching - and what it’s actually worth. The best way to do that is to leverage the hard-won experience of real-world startup. So we asked a panel of eight successful young entrepreneurs from the Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC)...
4 Stupid Legal Mistakes That Can Kill Your Startup
Everyone knows Dickens’ famous opening from A Tale of Two Cities. But “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times..." is only the beginning of the line. The sentence continues: “it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness…” It’s that second part that makes the quote an apt metaphor for life in a startup - and a dire warning to entrepreneurs. When you’re starting a company, your job is to be super-smart and achieve the best of times, while...
In Boston, a School to Learn How to Work at a Startup
Have you thought about joining a startup, but have no idea what you could possibly offer? Perhaps you are looking forward to graduation and want to pick some skills that will help you work for a startup when you leave school. Maybe you want to change your career and get into the exciting world of tech startups, but do not know what it takes to succeed in that type of high-pressure environment. Perhaps it is time to look into Startup School. The Boston Startup...
VC Victor Hwang: How To Create The Next Silicon Valley
As Managing Director of T2 Venture Capital, a Silicon Valley venture firm that helps build “innovation ecosystems” around the globe, Victor Hwang knows quite a lot about what it takes to create an environment where high-tech startups can grow and thrive. In fact, it’s the subject of his new book - The Rainforest: The Secret to Building the Next Silicon Valley, with co-author Greg Horowitt. We asked Hwang to share some of those insights: Q: What are the essential...
The Pivot: The Moment Where Startups Change or Die
The software venture that switched to a dog-walking service. The dating site that morphed to data storage. The e-commerce play that transformed itself to make board games. We’ve seen them all. Actually, we’re lying. We just made them up. But you get the picture: There are times in the life of a startup - especially in its early life - when change is necessary. “A startup is a temporary organization designed to search for a scalable and repeatable business model,”...
6 Startup Lessons From the Complexity of Cell Phones
Back when we first started using PCs, we all wished that they would become as easy to use as a telephone. Well, we got our wish, not because computers got easier to use but because phones are now so darn complicated. If we examine the process and story by which phones became so complex, we can uncover a variety of lessons that startups can learn - and hopefully avoid. The Phone's Transformation First, the landline...
For TechStars Startups, Life Beyond the Pitch
As a startup, “if you cannot nail a presentation, you’re done.” That is what Katie Rae, managing director of TechStars Boston, said after the accelerator’s Demo Day yesterday. 13 TechStars companies went on stage to pitch their products to investors, and every single pitch passed with flying colors. Getting the pitch right is one of the most important parts of a startup's life cycle. It is vital to nail the Demo Day pitch, of course, but learning how to give a thoughtful, dynamic presentation...
The 3 (or 4) Character Traits it takes to Create a Successful Startup
Want to know the second most comon question from startup entrepreneurs? (The first, of course, is “Where can I get money?”) It’s “What traits do successful entrepreneurs share?” They’re not asking about tangible things like good ideas, great teams and adequate funding, but, rather the inner characteristics that set apart the founders of successful startups. No doubt you’re motivated, but that’s not even close to enough. And there’s no doubt you have to be...
Reverse Engineering: Gautam Gupta Goes From VC to Entrepreneur
Gautam Gupta had it all. He was just 26 and a rising venture capitalist with a bright future and a big salary. An associate at General Catalyst Partners, he’d sourced six deals, deployed $65 million and had just opened General Catalyst’s Palo Alto office. Then he threw it all away to launch a startup. And not some cool startup with a mobile-social app poised to be acquired for $1 billion. An e-commerce startup. Even his mother began to wonder. “My mom’s first...
5 Ways to Bootstrap Your Startup
The conflicting (frequently unsolicited) advice startup entrepreneurs too often hear is enough to make you tune it all out. Either you’re told that you need to go big and grab all the angel or VC money you can get your hands on, or that you should start small, do it on your own, and retain control of your company. But bootstrapping a startup is not easy, requiring discipline and fortitude, as well as ingenuity. But entrepreneurs who have done it have discovered some best practices to increase...
VCs Muscle Back Into Startup Funding - Some Call It a Bubble
After several years spent watching angels, super angels and incubators move in on their turf, VCs are flexing back. A new survey of startups shows venture capitalists are reasserting themselves in the funding game. The reemergence of traditional VCs can make a big difference in how prospective startups look for funding - and could also signify a bubble. The survey, by Palo Alto law firm Dorsey & Whitney, polled 336 startup CEOs and founders around the country...
Angel vs. VC: Which Investor Is Best for Your Startup?
Getting financing for your startup is rarely easy, but if you approach the wrong investor, you can make it even harder than it has to be. “How can there be a ‘wrong investor’?” you might be thinking. “Don’t I just go with whoever is willing to give me the money?” It’s not quite that simple. Approaching the wrong investor is kind of like asking someone who’s married out on a date. Not only will they turn you down, but they’ll probably think you’re an idiot. Many...
Game Startups Eye Zynga Bling
The big news in the world of tech acquisition may be Facebook’s $1 billion acquisition of Instagram. But startups that make games are more interested in a deal that happened back in March: Zynga’s $210 million purchase of OMGPop, the company behind Draw Something. For entrepreneurs in the gaming field, being bought by Zynga is the new exit strategy. As frantically as technology giants like Facebook and Google have been flashing their cash to buy startups, big-game...
3 Ways to Stop Fighting With Your Startup Team!
Conflict between founders and team members is among the most insidious problems that can cripple a startup company. Problems can arise on teams of just two or three people, and even in startups that work with regular freelancers or independent contractors. Often, conflict starts so subtly you hardly notice it. But if you don’t take steps to stop the problems, these clashes can hurt your authority, your team’s morale and ultimately your business. There are several...
Top 5 Ways To Freak Out Potential Investors
No one believes they have an ugly baby. And all entrepreneurs are convinced that their businesses are better than the other guy’s. So chances are you’re sure (or at least really hopeful) investors will be lining up, eager to put money into your business. Angels, VCs and banks take a more clear-eyed approach. If they see any of these five warning signs, they’re likely to put away their wallets and head for the hills. Whether you’re looking for private equity,...
Meet EvoNexus - the Country's Only Free Startup Incubator
There are more than 1,000 business incubators in the U.S. But there’s only one pro bono incubator. No, not a professional startup camp run by the U2 frontman. Which is probably a good thing, since Bono was named the 2010 worst investor in America. (OK, that was before he hit home runs with Facebook and Dropbox.) Pro bono as in free. EvoNexus (which does sound kind of like a U2 album), is a project of San Diego tech industry association CommNexus, which launched the incubator in 2009 to...
Bullpen Capital's Duncan Davidson on VC Funding and "The Era of Cheap"
For a technology startup company to launch an initial product and survive long enough to gauge its success, requires two-orders-of-magnitude less money today than at the start of the previous decade. This from a man who knows from having made bigger investments that are smaller: Duncan Davidson, Managing Director of Menlo Park-based Bullpen Capital. Bullpen is one of a growing number of early-stage funds - or, perhaps more accurately, "earlier-stage," since even his...
Good News! Angels Are Getting More Optimistic
If you’re looking for angel investors, there’s good news afoot. The latest 2011 Angel Market Analysis, recently released by the Center for Venture Research at the University of New Hampshire, shows not only that there are more angels around, but that they are investing more money in more companies. Here’s a closer look at what angels are thinking and doing - and some ideas on how you can leverage their growing confidence to fund your business. Overall, angel...
How One Startup Managed Its Investment Cash Flow
Backblaze, a leader in cloud storage, just celebrated its fifth anniversary. While the company is now profitable and its seven founders are getting paid salaries, that wasn't always the case. We got a chance to look deep into the company's balance sheet and see exactly how it managed its cash flow over the past five years. The tale offers insights for all kinds of entrepreneuers. Contrary to popular belief, the road to startup success isn't always paved in gold: Instead, founders often work for...