startups
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Which is less expensive: Amazon or self-hosted?
Updated. Amazon Web Services (AWS), as the trailblazing provider of Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), has changed the dialog about computing infrastructure. Today, instead of simply assuming that you’ll be buying and operating your own servers, storage and networking, AWS is always an option to consider, and for many new businesses, it’s simply the default choice. I’m a huge fan of cloud computing in general and AWS in particular. But I’ve long had an instinct that the economics of the choice between self-hosted and cloud provider had more texture to it than the patently attractive sounding “10 cents an hour,” particularly as a function of demand distribution. As a case in point, Zynga has made it known that for economic reasons, they now use their own infrastructure for baseline loads and use Amazon for peaks and variable loads surrounding new game introductions.
How to Crowdfund Your Next Big Idea
Scott Steinberg is a small business expert , professional keynote speaker , noted strategic consultant , and creator of The Business Expert’s Guidebook series and video show Business Expert: Small Business Tips, Trends and Advice. Entrepreneurs and startups can download and share free guides, tip sheets and inside advice from his website . Cult favorite video game developer Double Fine recently shocked investors by raising over $1 million in 24 hours on Kickstarter for its new adventure game, despite the genre’s supposed death. This has led critics to speculate that crowdsourcing isn’t just the hottest new thing to happen to startups and small business owners since Apple’s App Store; it may also present tomorrow’s most promising new source of venture capital and angel investment. From both research and ROI perspectives, the model makes sense.Validate your startup idea by asking 3 simple questions | Paras Chopra
Last week, I stumbled across a personal post from a founder on his thoughts after first month of his startup . He writes in the post that he hasn’t been satisfied with the traction received so far and wonders whether existing product is the right path to continue on. I had exact same questions when I was starting up Wingify and now that we have seen some traction , I thought I should expand on a comment I made on how to know if your startup idea is the right one.
Yesterday, someone emailed me, asking about how to find good ideas to start a startup. Every founder who's been in the game a few years has clouds of potential ideas floating around that they can't find the time to work on. They might not all be good, but there are always too many of them.
Look for opportunities rather than ideas
One of the interesting things about having been investing in startups for a number of years is that at any moment you get an inside peek at startups at a variety of different stages. In the course of a few weeks, I might talk to people who are ideating around new business ideas, people raising seed rounds, people raising later (VC) rounds, people whose products are blowing up, people whose product are struggling, people getting acquired, people leaving acquirers to start new companies, etc. Sadly, there are also usually a few companies that are struggling and facing the serious possibility of running out of money and being forced to shut down. One side-by-side comparison struck me recently. Company A is just now raising a seed round. The money they raised will last 12 months (personally, I strongly recommend raising 18 months of runway – if you have the option to do so).
Once you take money, the clock starts ticking
-- Dan Kurani, CEO, Thumb You have a road map? Prepare to rip it up. You can still get to where you're going, but the route might be the scenic one.
Startup Secret 39: Go where your users take you | Rafe's Radar
The founder was home in his kitchen cooking dinner when the call came. It was one of those moments when the color seems to drain out of the food in front of you. The voice on the other line was the contact at the company that has been trying to acquire his small startup for several months. “Our engineers looked at what you showed us during the due diligence and told our CEO, ‘It doesn’t look so hard, we can build it ourselves.’”
A classic startup horror story: the M&A bait and switch
Red flags in emails to angel investors
I've written before about how the very first email to an angel investor really matters, or at least to this angel investor. It's very easy to get thrown in a bucket of wannabes or bad first-timers . Here are a few of those red flags from my perspective. Sending an email through a service. My email is really easy to find .
The art of entrepreneurship and the science of Customer Development is not just getting out of the building and listening to prospective customers. It’s understanding who to listen to and why . Five Cups of Coffee I got a call from Satish, one of my ex-students last week. He got my attention when he said, “following your customer development stuff is making my company fail.”
Killing Your Startup By Listening to Customers
Launching a startup is like firing off a rocket ship, then trying to hold it together with duct tape.
The 6 Near-Fatal Mistakes We Made In Year One, And How We Built A Company Anyway
Richard Branson on Decision-Making For Entrepreneurs
Editor's Note: Entrepreneur Richard Branson regularly shares his business experience and advice with readers. What follows is the latest edited round of insightful responses. Ask him a question and your query might be the inspiration for a future column. Q: What were your most important managerial decisions -- the ones that changed your business? -- Volodymyr Kravchuk, Kiev, Ukraine“A LAZY bastard living in a suit” is Leonard Cohen's description of himself in his new album, “Old Ideas”. Mr Cohen is certainly fond of wearing a suit, on and off stage. But lazy seems a bit harsh.
Schumpeter: Enterprising oldies
There are a great many business books out there on everything from marketing and brand building to stories of the life and times of some great business person. For better or for worse, these books often shape the past, present and future generations of entrepreneurs. We asked members of the Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invitation-only nonprofit organization comprised of the country’s most promising young entrepreneurs, this question: “What business book do you recommend for improving management leadership?”
14 Books on Leadership Every Young Entrepreneur Should Read
I’ve been fortunate enough to meet with some outstanding first-time entrepreneurs on a few different days during this week. In almost every case I can really feel the passion and determination they have, and I know that if they will just continue there is every chance that eventually they will be very successful. One interesting topic which came up on a couple of different occasions was timing of raising funding as a first time founder. I’ve had entrepreneurs often talk to me with just an idea or a very early prototype with no traction and tell me that they want to raise funding.