May, 2011

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The Co-Founder Mythology

Both Sides of the Table

I spoke at Stanford last year about starting a tech company. They really cleverly chopped the video up into small bite-sized segments. So for anybody who reads my “This Week in VC&# transcripts but doesn’t watch the video – this one’s for you! It’s only 3 minutes, 44 seconds. I covered what I call “the co-founder mythology.&# So embedded is this conventional wisdom in Silicon Valley that it feels like heresy to even question it.

Startup 393
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Delegate and empower! Regain control of your time.

Berkonomics

All of us are pressed for time, always attempting to balance the overwhelming demands of business with the basic wants and needs of family. In earlier insights, we have examined the need for and care of your corporate vision, and how to develop and nurture that vision through to creation of a corporate culture, goals, strategies and tactics. Now we get personal.

Press 257
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Interview with Elizabeth Amini, Anti-Aging Games

socalTECH

Earlier this week, Los Angeles-based Anti-AgingGames (www.Anti-AgingGames.com), a new online game startup, announced a new service to help users improve their memory and concentration, as well as improve brain function. The firm notably has Atari founder Nolan Bushnell as an advisor and serving as its chief game designer. We spoke with co-founder and CEO Elizabeth Amini , to hear more about what the firm is doing, how Bushnell got involved, as well as the firm's unique outlook and dedication to

Study 252
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Contract Traps Entrepreneurs Should Avoid At All Costs - Sweet Sixteen Kisses of Death

InfoChachkie

Note: This is part I of a three part series. Access part II HERE and part III HERE when they are posted. Agreements with Big Dumb Companies (BDCs) are like DC Comic’s evil villainess, Poison Ivy. Both are seductive and alluring and both are potentially fatal. A startup’s most meaningful agreements are often struck with BDCs. You will no doubt craft agreements with companies of similar or even smaller size to your own.

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Can You Ask for Office Rent Relief? How to Manage Your Lease During COVID-19

Office leases are one of companies’ largest expenses, and if your whole team is working from home with no clear end in sight, you may be wondering what to do about your lease.

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Investors Expect Ten Essentials in a Business Plan

Startup Professionals Musings

People ask me if they really need ANY business plan, unless they are looking for an outside investor. In fact, a business plan is needed more by you than investors, as the blueprint for your company, team communication, and progress metrics. Things that make it investment-grade for outside investors will also benefit you, since you are the ultimate investor.

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Vizio and the Story of the Sleeping Giant

Tech Zulu Event

I am currently at the annual VC in the OC program held in Irvine CA by OCTANe , an organization that connects people and ideas to resources and capital in Orange County. Over 600 people came to this event to listen share and network, including entrepreneurs, VC’s and investors. The keynote speech was delivered by Vizio CEO William Wong and VP & Co-Founder Ken Lowe.

More Trending

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You are watched, mostly when decisions are tough.

Berkonomics

If you have been in management or an entrepreneur long enough, you will have experienced the gray area of decision-making where ethics, the law, your needs and expediency all collide. This is the time when you are paid the big bucks, and when others aware of your plight will be watching most carefully. It is also the time when you demonstrate your true courage to your contemporaries.

Course 240
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Interview with Jake Winebaum, Brighter

socalTECH

Jake Winebaum is a veteran of the Southern California technology industry, having run and sold a number of successful, Southern California startups. His last success was Business.com, which he sold to R.R. Donnelly, and he also was behind eCompanies, which invested in such companies as JAMDAT Mobile, Boingo Wireless, and USBX. He's also on the board of hot Silicon Valley startup Gigya.

Startup 249
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Interview: Jason Nazar of Docstoc

InfoChachkie

This article originally appeared on Technorati: You can watch my 14-minute interview with Jason Nazar, Founder and CEO of Docstoc below. If you prefer to read a summary of Jason’s responses, they are included below. If you have questions for Jason, please include them in the comments section. Messenger: Jason Nazar, Founder and CEO, Docstoc. Value Prop Twitter Style : Docstoc’s mission is to: "Make every small business better" If you haven’t already subscribed yet, subs

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How to Have a Thousand Friends and Still Be Alone

Startup Professionals Musings

The Internet and social media have totally destroyed the meaning of the word “friend” and even changed it from a noun to a verb. On Twitter and MySpace, many young people follow hundreds of friends before age twenty, all without ever having said or heard a word from most of them. Top Facebook users proudly proclaim their “whale” status, with 5,000 friends or more.

Study 112
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PayDivvy to Launch at Finovate Conference

Tech Zulu Event

The best part about being a writer who covers startups is seeing revolutionary ideas take shape from their infancy. To examine disruptive technology and prognosticate on the effects on society as a whole is fascinating. What makes this even more exciting is I am out of the echo chamber of Silicon Valley. In fact, I am in Newport Beach a small beach town in Orange County CA, but for the purpose of this article the home to PayDivvy.

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The Importance of The Narrative

Both Sides of the Table

I went to undergrad at UCSD, which is not a place known for its Greek institutions and my father grew up in South America and had know idea what a fraternity was. So I went to college with no expectation that I would ever join a fraternity let alone aspire to become president one day. Yet being in a fraternity was one of the most transformative experiences I had in college and prepared me better for becoming an entrepreneur than any class that I took.

Startup 365
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Never handle a document twice!

Berkonomics

We are not dealing with personal time management with this series of insights, except when it helps immensely to make a better manager of you and me. All of us have time management tips and tricks to help us get through the day. I have a mantra I try to live by, and it has helped me more than you know over the years. “Never handle a paper twice” may be extended to include reading and acting upon emails, messages, and any written distraction. .

Email 189
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Interview with Vic Caretti, Loudvine

socalTECH

Southern California--and particularly, Los Angeles--has always been a center of the music business, which makes it unsurprising that there are many, music-focused startups which end up starting here. One of them is online music events site Loudvine (www.loudvine.com), which was co-founded by Vic Caretti , who gave us the scoop on what the site is all about.

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Now Is Never Too Early For An Entrepreneur - Start Small, Start Now

InfoChachkie

“The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is right now.”. Chinese Proverb, borrowed from Scott Dinsmore’s Reading For Your Success. In the 1930’s, when Max Fleischmann (of yeast fame) brought his yacht into the Santa Barbara harbor, the local laundry trucks did the sensible thing. They lined up on the dock and patiently waited for the ship to arrive, so they could get their “share” of its dirty laundry.

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Ten Learning Steps from Entrepreneur to Manager

Startup Professionals Musings

Entrepreneurs often have formidable technical expertise, key to developing a new product or service, but a great naïveté in management skills. They run into difficulty when their business reaches the $1-2 million annual sales range, or their employee count exceeds 5-10. It’s here that entrepreneurs must shift their thinking from tactical and operational, to strategic and managerial.

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LeanLA Presents: Beware of False Prophets

Tech Zulu Event

The message was clear, beware of false prophets when dealing with your young and budding startup. This particular evening, we attended the LeanLA meet-up located at Coloft, a swank professional co-op/work space in the heart of Santa Monica, known as the epicenter of the LA startup scene. The venue was lined with vibrant and inviting decor, a spacious loft style presentation room, and plenty of mini-workstations for the motivated and social entrepreneur; a great setting for the presentation at

Startup 86
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Startup Mantra: Hire Fast, Fire Fast

Both Sides of the Table

This post originally appeared on TechCrunch. I have often said that what separates real entrepreneurs from pundits and bystanders is a bias towards getting things done versus over analyzing things. My credo has always been JFDI. It’s the hardest thing to teach people who come out of big companies, out of conservative jobs. At the big consulting firms, investment banks and established large technology companies we’re taught to produce long reports, make sure that every document is perfect quali

Startup 335
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You are your company’s moral compass.

Berkonomics

Years ago, when I was CEO of my record manufacturing company in Hollywood, I happened to walk around the plant into the press room just as Bobby, one of the employees’ favorite coworkers, was offering stolen merchandise to his fellow pressmen from a bag he was carrying. He halted, and waited for me to react, obviously caught in the act. Everyone loved Bobby, a hard worker and good friend.

Press 184
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GotCast Plans Spinoff Website For Social Media Contests

socalTECH

Santa Monica-based GotCast , the online casting site run by Alec Shankman, told its users today that it is gearing up to launch a new, spin-off website for its social media contest platform. GotCast said the platform--MediaBlastr--is the softare it uses to power its casting community on GotCast, as well as its various social media contests it has been running for TV networks and brand clients.

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Why A Cellular Carrier Did Not Buy Skype - Watching A Big Dumb Company Fail In Real Time

InfoChachkie

The recent purchase of Skype by Microsoft for $8.5 billion caused me to recall an awkward meeting I had in 2005 with a particularly clueless group of cellular executives. Their utter stupidity is a bit disheartening, but highly instructional. Witnessing The Idiot’s Dilemma. I recently had lunch with a good friend with whom I have a shared experience.

Company 193
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Ten Quotes Never Spoken By a Happy Entrepreneur

Startup Professionals Musings

Some people are not cut out to be entrepreneurs. This is a good thing, or the business world would be chaos, with everyone trying to do their own thing. So what about you? How do you know if you should be running your own company, or concentrating on that queue of work that someone else has built for you? I’ve hit this before, but I still hear from too many unhappy entrepreneurs.

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Paving The Way For Future Women Entrepreneurs | Technovation LA Pitch Night

Tech Zulu Event

There’s one thing that I find to be extra inspirational to witness even over watching successful professionals speak about pursuing their passions, and that is to see younger individuals following similar paths to success. At the Technovation Challenge LA Pitch Night hosted by Iridescent , we saw six teams of high school girls from various Los Angeles City Schools pitch a number of mobile app ideas to a panel of venture capitalists and entrepreneurs.

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You Need to Win the Battle for Share of Mind

Both Sides of the Table

This article first appeared on TechCrunch. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the proliferation of starutps in the past 2 years. It seems almost incomprehensible that only 2.5 years ago we read the “ RIP Good Times &# presentation from Sequoia. But what does this all mean? Are we headed for a long era of innovation in which startups are the new norm?

Startup 309
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The New Power of Parents on the Web – Soon

Alon Schwartz

The proposed California bill SB 242 below attempts to change the way minor’s information is displayed on social websites as well as what rights do parents have, which is quite earth shaking. The bill will allow the parents of any kid under the age of 18 to request any social networking web site like Facebook to remove ANY personal information from the site, within 48 hours upon request.

Web 56
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BUZZMEDIA Tops Facebook On Young Adult Usage

socalTECH

Los Angeles-based BUZZMEDIA , the online entertainment blog and web publisher, is trumpeting its ranking today by comScore as one of the sites with the highest young adult reach. BUZZMEDIA said that 18-34 year olds are more likely to be found on its site than on Facebook and other sites. The firm also said it was ranked the third highest site of used by users between 18-24 and 18-49.

Buzznet 225
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ConTraps Part IV – Avoid Exclusion From Future Revenue Opportunities

InfoChachkie

Note: This is part IV of the four part series. Access part I HERE , part II HERE and part III HERE. Marketers have long known that people are drawn to exclusivity. As discussed in Jedi Mind Tricks , scarcity and fear of loss are powerful principles of persuasion. Students expend small fortunes of their parents’ money to attend exclusive , private colleges.

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Five Legal Traps Every Entrepreneur Should Avoid

Startup Professionals Musings

Although every startup is unique, there are certain common avoidable mistakes that can lead to legal complications which jeopardize the long-term success of the business. I’m not suggesting that every startup needs a lawyer, but you should definitely pay attention, and not be afraid to consult legal counsel if any of these raise qualms for you. Like other environments, most legal issues don’t result from fraud, but from ignorance on specific requirements, or simply never getting around to doing

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LG LSB316 Speaker Sound Bar [Review]

Tech Zulu Event

I heard about the LG LSB316 Speaker Sound Bar at CES this year and jumped at the chance to review it when we received a demo unit. The unit arrived at my office in a large LG branded box. I wasted no time getting it set up to use it as my office jam station. It, surprisingly, wasted none of my time either. From box to shelf and playing my iTunes library took 3 minutes.

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A Few Key People Really Can Make a Huge Difference

Both Sides of the Table

This article originally ran on TechCrunch. I’m in Seattle this week. People keep asking me if I’ve “seen anything interesting.&# Of course I have. I’m an entrepreneur at heart so I’m always inspired when I hear stories about innovation. I really liked BigDoor, MediaPiston, OpsCode, BuddyTV, SEOMoz and much more. Can’t list them all.

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Startups Uncensored 21: How to Build a Great Internet Company

Alon Schwartz

Beginning of April we had an event in which we shared our ideas and experience with building the product, building technology and building the business. Some advise and some of the things we do wrong and need to improve. See the best team in LA talk.

Company 56
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SodaHead Signs Slurpee

socalTECH

Sherman Oaks-based SodaHead , the online polling and questions and answer site, said today that it has launched an integrated campaign with the Slurpee brand. SodaHead did not disclose details of the win, but said the campaign includes a poll question, skinned homepage, email newsletter and banner ads. SodaHead is venture backed by Mission Ventures and Mohr Davidow Ventures, and was founded by former MySpace exec Jason Feffer and friend Michael Glazer.

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Startup CEO 360-Performance Reviews – The Podcast - 12-minutes With Firas Raouf, Partner at OpenView Venture Partners

InfoChachkie

I recently had the pleasure to chat with Firas Raouf , Partner at OpenView Venture Partners regarding my Startup CEO Performance Review articles. If you have not had a chance to do so yet, you may want to scan Part I and Part II before you listen to my interview. The 12-minute podcast will likely make more sense if you first have a frame of reference for the approach I implemented.

Startup 173
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We Need More Gen-Y Entrepreneurs to Fuel the Wave

Startup Professionals Musings

The business world has been watching this emerging generation with trepidation, and a lot of us haven’t been sure who would be the winners, and who would be the losers. Can they survive as entrepreneurs, and do they have the passion it takes to run a startup and attract investors? My own perspective is that the recession has been good for Gen-Y (Millennials), because it has forced them to face reality, often for the first time in their life.

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3 Questions With ShareSquare | QR Codes & The Future of QR

Tech Zulu Event

Three questions with ShareSquare ’s CEO, Matthias Galica , on QR codes, ShareSquare, and the future of QR. Where do you see the QR code market progress towards in the next year? 5 years? In the next 6-12 months I believe we’re going to hit the “social tipping point&# whereby the average joe in St. Louis will be able to recognize a QR code and know what to do with it.

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Spolsky on Software on Both Sides of The Table

Both Sides of the Table

Sometime around 2003/04 my technology team turned me on to “Spolsky on Software&# a periodic newsletter served up blog style from Joel Spolsky of FogCreek Software, a maker of bug-tracking software. Blogs weren’t popularized yet so it was an oddity for me to read the founder of a software company spewing out advice. But I loved reading them and so did my team.