Dave McClure shared this presentation with some lessons about start-ups incubators. The presentation is slides only, but worth a look. Some good information about the development cycle and the metrics that are important to young companies (keep clicking past the intro slides). The contextual blog post can be found here.
I jacked this content straight from a Tech Crunch article. In a nutshell, “If you are an aspiring startup entrepreneur, you’ll want to watch that more than a few times. The candid disclosures and advice he gives is rarely seen in Silicon Valley.” Now that Mint has been acquired by Intuit for a tidy sum, you know the CEO, Aaron Patzer, probably knows what he’s talking about.
Mint CEO Aaron Patzer on Startups from Techcrunch on Vimeo.
Beth Seidenberg of Kleiner Perkins gives a five minute intro about what she and the VCs at Kleiner see as important factors when evaluating the business. The entire podcast is also available.
Description: “How do investors gauge whether a company is one from a pool of thousands worth their resources? KPCB partner Beth Seidenberg shares her firm’s five measures for financial fortitude.”
This is the info for the RMVCA (Rocky Mountain Venture Capital Association) Angel event in Denver on Wednesday. Email Nanette Schunk at nanette@rockymountainvca.com to register. The event is from 5:30 to 7 at the Oxford Theater (in the Oxford Hotel – 1600 17th Street). John May is the featured speaker. It sound be a good event. RSVP required and space is limited.
This is a great video presentation (a little dated, 2001) by Frank Levinson of Finisar that has some great advice for start-ups. In particular, get customers; then listen to them. There is other good advice too, like; Get a couch, you’ll be sleeping on it from time to time. Seriously though, storytelling from entrepreneurs is a great way to learn from people who have been there and made mistakes. If you like this kind of format, definitely check out the Entrepreneurs Unplugged series at CU-Boulder.
Thanks to Guy Kawasaki and Alltop for this find.
In the first Entrepreneurs Unplugged of the season at University of Colorado, former CTO and co-founder of Service Metrics Neil Robertson shared his insights and stories from the entrepreneurial frontlines. With a number of companies under his belt (and his new project, Trada) Niel Robertson is an incredibly successful entrepreneur. However, in his opinion, “the failure stories are more interesting…and more career-forming than the successes.”
For instance, Niel gleaned the following lessons from his experience with the failure of Newmerix, a company he co-founded. He underlined that choosing your business partner is a vital process; it needs to be the right person for the business (as opposed to someone whose personality meshes well with yours). He said he also made the mistake of letting the management team take big salaries from the outset; it set a cultural momentum in the company that was hard to come back from. Another problem with that company was that it was so insular. In retrospect, they should have gone out to talk to customers. Niel learned that it is best to bring people in and get their feedback throughout the development process.
A seasoned veteran of venture-backed startups, Niel had the following advice for fellow entrepreneurs:
On how to protect your crown jewels (IP) when getting advice from others on your entrepreneurial idea, he said that it is a myth that if you talk to people about your idea, someone will steal it from you. This rarely happens. He recommended talking to as many people that matter as possible before starting your company. Talking to people is cheap. It is expensive to actually start your business, and you want to be sure you are approaching it correctly.
Neil also advised two things to never skimp on or do later: Legal & Accounting. On using advisors, Neil said to take advantage of your advisors – have them come in to your company for a limited time on a regular basis (ex: once a week for 1-to-3 hours) for a well-defined purpose and compensate them by having food at the meeting. On starting a business and getting funding, Neil has been successful by establish relationships with potential investors first (before pitching to them).
Josh Klein Gives a Personal Account of Innovation
This video from the 4th Business Innovation Factory Summit is Josh’s story about how he was innovative about his creative work. His account shows the power of collaboration is in the people. It’s also nice to be first to a new platform!