Jessica Wilson
Curt Despres
VC folks 
Yossarian
VC blog posts A VC: Open Garden
I was on the panel of judges yesterday at TechCrunch Disrupt to select the top startup of the conference. The finalists were a very impressive group: gTar, OpenGarden, UberConference, Ark, Babelverse and Sunglass. The winner was UberConference. gTar came in a close second. Both of those companies are impressive and I support the wisdom of the judges: Fred Wilson, Roelof Botha, Marissa Mayer, Mike Arrington, Chris Dixon, Eric Eldon and Chi-Hua Chien The choice of the winner and the runner up...
A VCA VC: Mastery And Mimicry
The Internet is an amazing place. Last weekend an email arrived in my inbox with the subject line "Hello From MIT". That got me to open it. Turns out it was from Sep Kamvar, a faculty member at the MIT Media Lab, and before that the Stanford computer science department. I don't know Sep and was not familiar with his work. I am now. Sep pointed me to a series of essays he has written called Mastery and Mimicry. He describes them as: In this series of vignettes, I describe some design principles...
Want to Hangout With the SBA Chief? Join Us
As part of National Small Business Week, we'll be moderating a live chat with SBA chief Karen Mills and winners of the SBA's video contest Wednesday in a Google+ hangout.
Entrepreneur Updat...Will It Always Be Fun and Gamification?
The future of gamification could include 'playbor' (play plus labor) and 'weisure' (work plus leisure).
Why Facebook Is Killing Silicon Valley (Opinion)
With venture-capital investment flocking to social-media startups, who will back nascent startups innovating in such critical industries as material science, sensors, robotics, medical devices and life sciences?
For SBA Award Winner, Success Means: 'Do the Right Thing'
This year's Small Business Person of the Year discusses the challenges of managing rapid growth.
What Small Businesses Care About This Election Year
New data reveals business owners' top concerns and confusion.
How Ads on Your Site Can Affect SEO (Video)
Your search rankings could be suffering if there are a number of advertisements above the content on your website.
SBA Seeks to Boost Small-Dollar Loans With New Push (Video)
The SBA is looking to increase the number of smaller loans in underserved communities with a new push.
Setting The Record Straight
The new media world has its pros and cons. The pros are that I've got a blog to set the record straight and that everybody is recording everything. The negatives are that bloggers don't feel compelled to write accurate headlines and twitter can amplify the inaccuracies when those headlines get tweeted and retweeted. Let's take the interview I did with Mike Arrington yesterday to kick off Disrupt NYC (starts at 51.09 in the stream). We had a great chat. Mike asked a bunch of interesting...
Want the Right Stuff? Start With Your Help-Wanted Ad
A top-performing team starts with writing a thorough and accurate job description. Consider these five tips.
Business Owners Take SBA Chief to Task
At a town hall at National Small Business Week, some entrepreneurs complain to Karen Mills about access to credit and high health insurance costs.
How the 'Little Guy' Can Partner With Big Companies
If you're a little guy, there are plenty of ways to partner with a much larger company. Here are seven.
Next Generation NikeID Goes Beyond Colors: Patterns & Logos
I spend a lot of time writing about next generation commerce… and we invest in compelling companies and models like ShoeDazzle and Wantful (as examples). For years, people have pointed towards NikeID as an example of true product customization atop a great web interface. I believe I bought my first pair of custom Nike’s in 2003 (Nike Air Max 95′s). You can even create, buy and share your sneakers from their iPhone app. It continues to evolve and the newest iteration is interesting for two...
RyanSpoon.comTony Hawk on Giving Back and Inspiring Change (Video)
The skateboard icon and entrepreneur shares the vision for his foundation, which donates millions to fund skateparks.
Lean Startup Machine Boulder
I judged Lean Startup Machine Boulder yesterday afternoon. I had a blast and thought the program was really impressive. I didn’t really know what I was getting myself into and usually protect my weekends pretty aggressively from stuff like this so I can spend time with Amy and recover / catch up from the week but for some reason Trevor Owens (Lean Startup Machine CEO) and Ray Wu convinced me to come out and play. I’m a huge Eric Ries / Lean Startup fan and believe that the methodology can be...
Feld ThoughtsSEO vs. PPC: Knowing Which Is Right for Your Website
Your choice will depend on your budget and how fast you want to build traffic.
Gaps Persist Amid Small-Business Lending Comeback (Video)
In 2011, SBA lending hit a record level. SBA Administrator Karen G. Mills explains why.
MBA Mondays: Culture And Fit
Kicking off our series on People, I am going to talk about the importance of culture and fit in the hiring process. What I have to say on this topic is mostly aimed at companies that are going from five employees to five hundred employees, but I do believe it is applicable to companies of all sizes. I want to start with something I wrote in another MBA Mondays post, on the management team: Companies are not people. But they are comprised of people. And the people side of the business is harder...
Pitching: How to Paint a Quick Picture for Investors (Video)
To persuade investors to back your business, you must first start by conveying your belief in your message. The Esquire guy explains.
Do More Faster Top 12 Tips At RailsConf 2012
If you are a developer, I encourage you to carve out an hour and watch TechStars CEO David Cohen’s presentation at RailsConf 2012 (30 minute presentation and outstanding 30 minutes of Q&A). He starts out with the assertion that “developers are the new investors” - how could you not be interested in hearing more about that? David and I wrote a book last year called Do More Faster: TechStars Lessons to Accelerate Your Startup and this is his riff to a room full of developers about some of...
How Industry Clusters Can Spur Small-Business Growth (Video)
One way the SBA has sought to foster entrepreneurial growth is through industry clusters.The SBA's Karen Mills explains how.
Never Give Up, Never Surrender
Today’s post is a guest post from my friend Nicholas Napp. We first met five years ago and while I’ve never invested in anything he’s done, I’ve tried to be helpful along the way. Nick is currently running a company called MoveableCode and has a great Kickstarter campaign going for his latest product Incantor (Magic Made Real). Go check out the campaign and support him if you are interested. In the mean time, enjoy his story about Never Giving Up and Never Surrendering. And yes, I recently...
Disrupt Hackathon
Two years ago Steve and Jared spent a couple days hacking at the Disrupt Hackathon and ended up with GroupMe which went on to great success and an eventual sale to Skype. For the past 24 hours, developers have been busy hacking away at Pier 94 trying to do the same. The demos will take place at Pier 94 from 11am until roughly 2pm, when the awards will be given out. If you have a few hours free today and can resist the Party In Prospect Park or some other outdoor event on a beautiful spring day...
The Darwinian Evolution of Startup Hubs
This weekend finds NYC in between Internet Week (which I largely missed because of my London trip) and Disrupt NYC (which I will be at on and off this coming week). So the development of NYC as a startup hub is very much on my mind. And so I thought I'd post about the development of startup hubs. This theory, which I like the call The Darwinian Evolution of Startup Hubs, is not new and I certainly didn't come up with it. But I think it is important for everyone to understand and so I'm going to...
Three Things You Must Know Before Pitching Investors
Consider these tips before you seek funding for your startup, whether from angel investors or VCs.
Jobs or Zuckerberg: Who'd Make the Better Boss?
With the Apple founder's death and the Facebook IPO, there's been a changing of the guard in Silicon Valley. Here's how the two leaders' styles compare.
What Makes Facebook Worth So Much
After Facebook's IPO, the social network is being valued at more than $100 billion. Here's how you can try to emulate that success.
Five Ways to Organize Your Office--Stylishly
How to make your office project a professional image for your business, and a look at products to help you do it.
What the Facebook IPO means: 10 things
1) Expect the angel and seed stage market to continue to stay hot. Newly wealthy Facebookers will likely contribute massively to early stage companies, which means building relationships with companies early and actually rolling up sleeves to add value will be a must for investors. If you're just money, you are toast.2) Facebook will be hungry for growth in its ad business, and since it is running out of internet connected humans to connect to, it will need tools to make more out of each...
Thisisgoingtobebig...Monthly Financials, Quarterly Board Meetings, Continuous Communications
I’ve been writing about boards of directors some lately – both changing my behavior as well as thinking out loud as I explore reinventing how boards work for the book “Startup Boards” that I’m working on with Mahendra Ramsinghani. All fit in the context of continuous communications as I believe three things about early stage companies and their boards. 1. Board members should be actively engaged with the company on a continuous / real time basis. 2. Existing board meeting dynamics are often an...
4 Mistakes to Avoid When Applying for a Bank Loan
Two leading banks, honored for National Small Business Week, offer their best advice to business owners seeking credit.
Hiring and the Disaggregation of Labor
Michael Galpert wrote a post on hiring for startups, which he summarized cleanly in one sentence: “Everyone is hiring and nobody wants a job.” In the internet startup world, that says it all. The problem is exacerbated in the startup world because of the availability of remarkably inexpensive angel capital and the extreme capital efficiency of the early phase of building a product. Ramen, a case of Red Bull, lots of open source tools, and AWS can take you a long way (millions of users) these...
Angels, Equity and a Shark of One's Own
Many small-business owners who hope to land angel funding have expectations that are wildly unrealistic. Here's a reality check.
The SBA's Karen G. Mills on the Small-Business Recovery (Video)
SBA Administrator Karen G. Mills travels the U.S. talking with business owners and bankers. She says she's hearing more talk of expansion compared with three years ago.
The SBA's Karen G. Mills Answers Her Agency's Critics (Video)
Some critics have called for dismantling the U.S. Small Business Administration. The agency's leader says demand for its services is only growing and is a good value to tax payers.