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If You Don’t Define Your Personal Brand the Market Will

Both Sides of the Table

I have long advised startup companies that if you don’t control your messaging somebody else will and your potential customers will form impressions of you shaped by somebody else or by nobody at all. I was 23 and had been programming computers, designing computer networks and selling software for 10 years. She was paid 15% more.

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The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly Of Software Patents

Startup Professionals Musings

I always advise software startups to file patents to protect their “secret sauce” from competitors, and to increase their valuation. Yes, the software patent process is a mess. Yes, the software patent process is a mess. I say this with conviction even after I survived the process, and have a software patent pending.

Patents 100
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Getting A Software Patent Is Valuable But Frustrating

Startup Professionals Musings

For a software startup, a patent can be the intellectual property providing the key competitive advantage, or it can be an expensive non-defensible bureaucratic nightmare -- or both. Some argue to simply eliminate software patents, while others put their hopes in U.S. Patent offices can’t keep up with software technology.

Patents 53
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Interview with Erik Rannala, MuckerLab

socalTECH

One of the biggest complaints you hear from both entrepreneurs and investors in Los Angeles, is the lack of a credible, visible startup accelerator in the Los Angeles area. Erik Rannala: MuckerLab is a new startup accelerator, focused on incubation stage Internet, software, services, and media businesses here in LA.

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Software Patents are Becoming a Tax on Innovation

Startup Professionals Musings

I always advise software startups to file patents to protect their “secret sauce” from competitors, and to increase their valuation. The bad news is that patent trolls can squeeze the lifeblood out of innocent and unsuspecting entrepreneurs, as exemplified by the current mess around Lodsys patent No.

Patents 91
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Software Patents Have Become a Startup Nightmare

Startup Professionals Musings

I always advise software startups to file patents to protect their “secret sauce” from competitors, and to increase their valuation. Yes, the software patent process is a mess. Yes, the software patent process is a mess. I say this with conviction even after I survived the process, and have a software patent pending.

Patents 93
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Business Complexity Goes Up Dramatically As You Scale

Startup Professionals Musings

Most of the entrepreneurs I advise today are ready to declare success when they get that first surge of traction with a real customer. Based on my software career with IBM and several startups, I experienced the challenges and failures of scaling a software project to a business many times.