Ideas

- Another questioner wondered, \” What\’s the most valuable way for a PR person to contact you?\” Jeremy suggested trying to \”start a conversation by saying why the information in the press release has value.\” For him, \”personal relationship building has the greatest value.\” Heath offered three \”good- care practices\” for working with him as a journalist: (1) \”The power of the idea is key.\” (2) Understand what FC does. (…

Check out his article on hiring for start-ups. He’s got some good stuff.

All Founders start with the best of intentions. Surprisingly often, carelessness leads to things going wrong early in the life of a product or service.

Thanks to the personal structure of the web (or as others call it, new media), a Founder, or CEO can immediately take the soap-box and reassure his customers that all is well and the damage will be fixed. The objective is to reassure your customer base that the direction and underl…

I wanted to submit this idea. Its about the founders of MyRichUncle, Raza Khan and Vishal Garg. They were 21 when they founded their student loan company in 2000 backed by a few investors which included Michael Robertson and now they are 29 years old and their company is publicly traded listed on the NASDAQ and other international stock exchanges. I wanted to suggest this story because at a young age they have managed to become a stable p…

Hi All,

This is a great blog and a great site to get information for upcoming entrepreneurs. I would really appreciate if people can contribute links to public VC preso’s and/or if you have been able to successfully fund your company and are willing to share some insight into making good slides, please share your thoughts.

I know when I google I see a lot of advice out there but it would be great to see some real slides for example.

Thanks,

Ra…

I have been working diligently on my startup for the past 6 months to get it ready for beta launch. It is currently in alpha launch with friends and family. I am at the point where I should involve an accountant and / or lawyer willing to work with a startup, especially in terms of willingness to consider equity compensation instead of cash, at least initially.

Yes, I am in Silicon Valley but instead of looking one up in the phone book, I prefer referrals from someone who have prio…

There are many templates for your pitch floating around out there—which one works best?

here’s a couple
http://www.slideshare.net/cwodtke/garage-pitch
http://www.slideshare.net/cwodtke/pitch-template

Marketing your site/idea is cheapest than what it used to be years ago, while in 1999 people were spending $$$ on throwing launch parties and hiring expensive PR firms to market their ideas, today almost anyone can achieve this within few simple steps, but beware theses simples steps takes time and usually need persistence.

During this explanation I’ll be using a supermarket as a metaphor, that way I will be able to better explain the fundamental of Online Marketing.

great article..

I am in the final financing run of a start-up here in usualy sunny South Africa.

I have close relationships with developers but since my businesses are rarely based on software tweaks I tend to be feature averse. For me the best applications are rich with simplicity. That’s why i tend to cut down on wishlists rather than build them up.

In case anyone needs to be re-inspired may i humbly recommend “Going postal” by Terry Pratch…

How does an engineer who has good ideas for possible products, breaks away slowly and gradually from their 9-5 jobs and work towards building a startup. Time management, how much load one should take for the new adventure, how much could be outsourced? I agree funding and rest can wait until you really really hit the cieling with traffic/demand. (Or is that a misconception too)

It was great post that i had used as the basis for my posting at http://mobchina.blogspot.com/2007/05/going-from-many-fail… .

Its never easy to fail and then rise again. It takes more than just courage and positive will power. How many will rediscover themselves again?

But the most important thing is not to lose the dream and passion. You can lose everything but not your drea…

I have had an idea for a cool startup and have been diligently working the design concepts and business plans. My problem is this: while smart and technical, I am not a coder. I want to find freelancers to code my idea and am willing to pay good $$. I know there is Elance, but are there any other options for me ? Are there any places that will hook people like me up with a set of go getting college students out to make a few dollars ?

I posted a six-part series on how to turn a blog into a media company (more to come in the next few weeks). This is based on my experience as founder of Muniwireless.com, which started out as a blog in 2003 and now has a magazine, conferences, webinars and research reports. Go to www.pjentrepreneur.com.

I’d love to hear about marketing on the cheap, and all the things startups have done to market their sites without spending any money at all. These range from creating link exchange modules between friends with startups to word of mouth to emailing Techcrunch or GigaOM. What are the ramifications of each? Any case studies someone would like to share?

I really liked this—I’d love it if the author would write a whole article explaining himself.

I’d like to know how one selects a board of advisers, and what criteria you use?

What do you offer them, how much equity typically? How many should you have? Can you have non-board advisers? Does a board of advisers ever meet?

Privacy as a concept is becoming increasingly important in the digital world. People recognise it, but do they know what it is? If web-services rely on advertising to survive, and targeted advertising is the holy grail of advertising – doesn’t it make sense that privacy as a right is defined?

Jack, I think another great post would be a few “How to’s” on Networking. Installment #1: how to BUDGET for networking. We all know we need to network, but it can be hard for many of us. Actually “budgeting” for it may not be something that everyone would consider doing, but it’s good practice for when you have your first marketing budget, right?

Will – I want to challenge the assumption that …

“should you arrange for a vesting schedule amongst co-founders even before receiving financing?”

I’d like to know this also.

Great points above. Personalizing business is a powerful principle (often overlooked) for businesses at all stages of growth, and I agree that it becomes more challenging in more mature businesses. A couple of thoughts . . . The challenges that come with growth put an even greater premium on developing the right practices and laying the right ‘tracks’ while the business is still small and the clay is still moist. Most managerial dysfunctions originate not because of growth per …

This is a short article about the lessons drawn from raising $1M for TrustedPlaces, from HOWZAT Media in the UK. This was the first time anyone in our team had done that,so to say that the curve was steep is a bit of an understatement. The article is aimed at first-time entrepreneurs, with a product off the ground, who are trying to clinch that first big financing deal.

There are two startup worlds out there. One is about comparative selling and the other one is about displacement selling. One is about leveraging disruptive technology and the other is about leveraging exogenous effects. One is about mastery over disintermediation, commoditization, or offshoring to reduce time-to-market; the other is about using it help the customer do legacy stuff for less. These subtle but significant differences in the startup mantra have big implications for entrepreneurs…

A guide to Silicon Valley networking events, entrepreneur organizations, and note-worthy individuals individuals, based on who you are and what you want. What kind of people should go to New Technology meetups, Stirr, Connector Showcase, paddle around the Stanford circuit of entrepreneurial events, SVASE, WTC, FWE, Women 2.0, etc.

A beginner’s guid…

Another social network one might say, but Giveearthahand.com combines networking with a good cause: members can join for free and if they wish, donate 2 Euros and join the “Earth Chain”, a Google Maps based virtual chain around the world which supports non-profit projects worldwide. Once the chain is completed (1,290,000 members) the members can vote on which projects will receive the donated money, 100.000 Euros per winning project – at least 13 projects in total. Organisat…

The Umwelt Interactive gathering will support the emergence of an ethical and sustainable ontological framework that will help foster, nurture and efficient forms and techniques of storytelling , reinvent approaches and methodologies for Knowledge Workers extensive and often blurred sets of practices and reveal new perspectives on the countless subtle and less subtle Impacts the Internet Revolutions has had and will have on our collective and individual Collective Consciousness as we are ente…

How important is the company’s name to its long-term success? What makes a name memorable? Is it more difficult for a start-up to pull off a wierd and wacky name like “google” or should they stick to meaningful and functioinal names – like “myspace”?

Cylive is a “community-centric content management platform” for managing – (co-)creating, storing, sharing, distributing, publishing – all your structured and unstructured Web content under “one roof.” You can collaborate with your friends & family to jointly produce & publish content. You can create material in your own new, unique way. For e.g, a photo album can have a voice clip attached to each photo about how and when the snap was taken. Content-t…

It is quite obvious that Flickr COULD be the world’s largest stock image marketplace overnight. But when will Yahoo get around to building these features for Flickr?

FlickrCash built it in under 65 hours, launched it, got it blogged, and seems to be on a good trajectory to doing it for them. Will they buy them or build it on their own.

Did you know Blogger has long allowed people to submit a post by emailing or te…

I’m working for a company that has new technology. I’m trying to find information or comment on risks/benefits of marketing the technology as a white label opportunity for existing web 2.0 players…vs…trying to build out our own user base. Its occured to me that other startups have considered this option. I’d like to hear about their decision process.

In SF and NYC, there are scores of entrepreneurs who are buddies with each other and they all hang out. It is a powerful network to belong to, as funding, ideas, help, link exchanges, etc all happen within here. If they don’t know you, you can’t get in. You won’t even get invited to the “cool” parties.

it would be great to go do some investigative reporting on these underground social networks of e…

This looks fabulous. Just two weeks ago I started chronicling lessons from our experience…must be in the air. Glad to see someone who can really make it happen take center stage. Our posts to date are here:
http://blog.expotv.com/category/life-as-a-start-up

Even though you have been told that starting a business (and sustaining it over the long haul) is not for the faint of heart, your dream persists.

You have a killer idea for a new product or service and a deep desire to see it come to life in the marketplace. You want to live the entrepreneurial life, and for once, have your hands on the helm.

Each day that passes puts a bit more distance between you and your dream. You know that NOW…

I’d like to invite folks to discuss the role of sign-up on blogs, and what it means to be anonymous on the web in this day and age…

It would be great to describe in detail what tools would be useful in managing the pitch process. Spreadsheets? Project management? Contact lists?

What are the things to watch out for when choosing a lawyer? Are referrals really as good as they could be? How do you tell when you are working with someone good or bad? When to pick a new lawyer? How do you manage fees? How do you minimize fees? Why would you go with an independent person versus a large firm?

A basic guide on funding and all the options on terms and the ramifications for startup, angel investors, venture investors, etc. both present and future.

Some discussion on terms would be great here.

Hello,

I thought perhaps you might find my story interesting. I am a 19 year old who recently launched a social network / user generated website for computing and technology. I attached the write up that was on Wired.com

Thank you,
Mike Stefanello