USA entrepreneurial programmes. The new startup ecosystem [Infographic] The 10 Best Entrepreneurship Courses of 2011. Stanford's new entrepreneurship class is not for the faint of heart. Launchpad is designed around a series of hurdles: the elevator pitch, the functional prototype, week after week of sales results. After each hurdle, students are force-ranked, so someone always lands on the bottom. Midway through the semester, the class stages a trade show at which venture capitalists stroll around writing fictitious checks. Some students make out like bandits, while others are publicly stiffed. For the lesson on presentation skills, a television news crew is invited to record three-minute segments about the aspiring entrepreneurs' companies.
Students feverishly practice and polish. Then the reporter shows up. Oh, and all the companies are real, because students incorporate within the first two weeks. "It's all about building up your tolerance for risk," says Perry Klebahn, an associate consulting professor who, together with professor Michael Dearing, designed and teaches Launchpad. Top Young Entrepreneurs | Inc.com's 2011 30 Under 30. Facebook adds Netflix CEO Reed Hastings to board.
Netflix just added a very important friend to its network. Facebook announced Thursday that Reed Hastings, chairman and CEO of Netflix, has joined the company’s board of directors. “Reed is an entrepreneur and technologist who has led Netflix to transform the way people watch movies and TV,” said Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook. “He has built a culture of continuous rapid innovation, something we share and work hard to build every day.” This isn’t Hastings’ first time high up on the management chain, as he also sits on Microsoft’s board as lead independent director. In addition to being the board member on many non-profits, Hastings also served as president of the California State Board of Education from 2000 to 2004. Having founded Netflix in 1997, Hastings has seen the on-demand movie and TV company flourish to over 23 million members in the U.S. and Canada. Why the NY Post is an iPad hit. The New York Post hasn’t made any real money in years. That’s why it’s an unlikely frontrunner in the publishing industry’s uneasy turf war with Apple and the IPad.
And even though it comes from a company that is spending tens of millions to invent a new news product for the IPad (News Corp’s “The Daily”), the Post has fired the loudest and most effective shots for the newspaper industry directly at Apple’s broadside. According to the Media Industry Newsletter, The NY Post is the top grossing publisher’s paid App in the App store, and number 11 overall. At issue is Apple’s insistence that any newspapers or magazines that sell single copies or subscriptions give 30% of their take to Apple for use of its system to deliver the Post content and collect the charges. Also at issue is Apple’s attempt to keep all or most of the customer data to itself. After a brief free trial period a year or so ago, they started to charge me to subscribe to the App. Then it really got interesting. Top 15 U.S. Startup Accelerators and Incubators Ranked; TechStars and Y Combinator Top The Rankings.
UPDATE: Check out the 2012 Startup Accelerators and Incubator Rankings released on August 22, 2012. There are a number of startup accelerator and incubator programs in the United States. We are fans of these programs (not to be confused with pure co-working spaces) as they offer entrepreneurs a way to spend a few months laser focused on a single idea. Through the accelerator or incubator they receive mentoring, guidance and a small amount of funding in return for a small stake in the company.
With all the startup accelerator programs popping up across the country we were curious to find out which programs would offer the biggest bang for the time, money and effort spent in the program. As a part of his field work for the Kauffman Fellows Program (not to be confused with Kauffman Foundation), Aziz Gilani from DFJ Mercury, working in partnership with Tech Cocktail and the Kellogg School of Management, set out to determine the best startup accelerator programs in America and rank them. Ryan Academy Propeller Fund ranked 7th in Europe « DCU Ryan Academy for Entrepreneurship.
The DCU Ryan Academy’s Propeller Fund has been ranked 7th in Europe in a recent independent study of accelerator programmes. The study was put together by Italy-based venture capitalist Gianluca Dettori and Marco Ciccolini in conjunction with Aziz Gilani from DFJ Mercury. It was commissioned by the Kauffman Fellows Program, working in partnership with Tech Cocktail and the Kellogg School of Management. Propeller is funded by Irelandia, the investment arm of the Ryan Family and managed by the DCU Ryan Academy, based in Citywest.
The programme is mentor-led and offers three months incubation space, a range of free services and €30,000 investment per company in return for a 6.5% equity stake. The findings showed that three of the top eight funds, NDRC, Propeller and Startupbootcamp, are based in Ireland. Ann Horan, CEO of the DCU Ryan Academy was delighted with this recognition of its Propeller Fund. Like this: Like Loading... Should you invest in the Grouponzi IPO? Connect with leaders from the companies in this story, in real life: Come to the fourth annual VentureBeat Mobile Summit April 14-15 in Sausalito, Calif. Request an invitation. On the heels of filing its $750 million initial public offering, online coupon startup Groupon is under heavy scrutiny from critics. Until recently, most people praised Groupon for its simplistic business model and its incredible growth, which some have called the fastest of any company to date.
Groupon lets users purchase steeply discounted deals from local merchants. Discounts range anywhere from 30 to 80 percent off the regular sale price on food, trips, drinks at a local bar, etc. Groupon takes half of the money from every deal sold, which is a pretty easy way to bring in a lot of money without having to get creative. But the Chicago-headquartered company is still running at a loss despite the astonishing revenue growth, which went from $94,000 in 2008 to $713 million in 2010, according to the filing. RIM, You’re Done Here. Research In Motion is done. They’ll be bought in the next year or so, their products will roll into whoever buys them – Microsoft, most probably – and they’ll go the way of Nokia, Danger, and countless other mobile platforms. They’ll exist independently for a while and then be subsumed. It’s over. Here’s why.There is no money in “business” phones. But these phones are increasingly getting a drubbing from IT departments who are starting to support more popular devices including, obviously, iOS and Android phones.
You can make lots of money selling hardware to fleet buyers, to be sure. Their audience has already moved on. RIM has an audience, but that audience is shrinking. RIM’s competitors are stronger and faster. They blew the tablet race. The Playbook is a beautiful, well-made device. No matter what they change, they can’t escape the past. But it’s not. RIM’s legacy is writ large on the world around us. As “biased” as you’ll say I sound in this post, I’ll be sad to see them go. On Bubbles … And Why it Will All be Fine. Editor’s Note: This is a guest post by Mark Suster (@msuster), a 2x entrepreneur, now VC at GRP Partners. Read more about Suster at his Startup Blog, BothSidesoftheTable. I recently spoke at the Founder Showcase at the request of Adeo Ressi. I asked what the audience most needed to hear and he said, “They need an unbiased view of the fund raising environment because there is too much misinformation and everything seems to be changing fast.”
This was an audience of mostly first-time entrepreneurs. I spoke about a lot of things during the keynote. I spoke about how Amazon Web Services deserves far more credit for the last 5 years of innovation than it gets credit for and how I believe they spawned the micro-VC category. I also spoke about why I believe we’re in a “localized” bubble. But a certain amount gets lost in the headlines – especially when not everybody actually heard the video and knows the nuance of the message. 1. Ah, but today’s Internet companies have real revenue! 2. 3. 4. 5. Will solar power overtake fossil fuels in 10 years? The amount of energy produced by photovoltaic panels could overtake that produced by fossil fuels like coal and natural gas in 10 years, according to the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE).
The amount of solar energy hitting the earth is around 100 petawatts, or 100 million gigawatts, according to the IEEE. Solar panels only need to generate around 15,000 gigawatts of power to provide enough energy for every household and business on the planet, the IEEE said. The average home in the U.S. uses around 920 kilowatt-hours of electricity each month. So solar panels would have to capture around 0.2 percent of the total amount of solar energy hitting the surface of the earth, according to the IEEE. A report by the United Nations called the “Renewables Bible” indicated that there’s enough potential for six renewable energy sources to grow 20-fold over the next decade. Zynga Planning To File For IPO As Early As Tomorrow, Will Raise $1.5 To $2B At $15 To $20B Valuation. Zynga according to CNBC reporter Kate Kelly, Zynga will file its S-1 for an IPO with the SEC as early as tomorrow with a valuation between $15 billion and $20 billion.
Kelly says that Zynga will raise between $1.5 and $2 billion in its offering. The company, says CNBC, has selected Morgan Stanley as the main underwriter of the IPO, with Goldman Sachs and Bank of America also listed as additional underwriters. Kelly also reports that Zynga will be looking to raise both debt and equity funding in the offering, and is currently profitable. Zynga has been speculated to be near filing its initial S-1 for an IPO. The company reportedly recently raised $250 million in new funding at a $7 to $10 billion valuation earlier this year. Zynga’s investors include Reid Hoffman, DST, Google, Tiger Global, Kevin Rose, Kleiner Perkins, Union Square Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, Peter Thiel, Foundry Group and IVP.
Gillmor Gang 6.25.11. IDC Predicts 183 Billion Mobile App Downloads By 2015, Rise Of In-App Purchasing. Research firm IDC forecasts the number of annual mobile app downloads to increase from 10.7 billion in 2010 to nearly 183 billion by 2015, notably more than the 44 billion mobile app downloads by 2016 forecasted by its competitor ABI Research. IDC says the bigger story behind the numbers is an impending shift away from the current reliance upon mobile app download purchases as the primary focus of app monetization. Rather, IDC says, developers will focus increasingly on in-app purchasing and advertising to fund business models, a shift that the firm says is most evident in the free app category. Last January, in its January 20111 Appcelerator/IDC 1Q11 Mobile App Developer Survey Report, IDC posited that developers were increasingly planning to incorporate in-app purchasing, mobile advertising, and mobile commerce in their mobile applications. For your further reading pleasure: Users Will Download 44 Billion Mobile Apps By 2016 (April 2011)
Report: Mobile App Market Will Be Worth $25 Billion By 2015 – Apple’s Share: 20% We all know mobile app stores are booming worldwide, and a new market research report by MarketsandMarkets acknowledges that trend. According to the research firm’s ‘World Mobile Applications Market (2010 – 2015)’ report, the total global mobile applications market is expected to be worth $25 billion by 2015 (up from about $6.8 billion in 2010). MarketsandMarkets projects Apple’s App Store to hold nearly 20.5 percent of that particular cake, while the global market is forecast to record a CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of 29.6 percent from 2009 to 2014. The research firm reiterates the various factors that will be contributing to that growth, from advancements in network technologies to the lowering of mobile data usage cost, growing adoption of smartphones around the world, and a continuous increase in application usability.
According to the report, North America led the market since 2009 with a 41.6 percent revenue share. For more reports on this topic, check out: Users Will Download 44 Billion Mobile Apps By 2016. Entrepreneurship and Education at the Kauffman Foundation. Niall Ferguson: The 6 killer apps of prosperity. As We Know It May Be Over. This is a post I never thought I’d have to write. Unfortunately, I do. And the worst part about it is that it should be Michael Arrington writing this post, not me. But he can’t. TechCrunch is on the precipice. As soon as tomorrow, Mike may be thrown out of the company he founded. Or he may not. By now, if you read TechCrunch, you likely know about the nuclear situation that has exploded over the past several days. Earlier this evening, I wrote a post on my personal blog attempting to explain to those outside our company how TechCrunch actually works from an editorial perspective.
AOL may be on the verge of changing all of that. Again, none of us know for sure — including Mike — but I have a really bad feeling. As someone who has helped build TechCrunch into what it has become, this entire situation is insulting. Mike Arrington has enabled all of this. Could TechCrunch survive without Mike Arrington? I can’t believe this is even a possibility. Update From Mike: Editorial Independence. Google Buys Zagat. An ECG for the iPhone. Interactive Tour Guide Helps Visitors Unravel NYC’s Secrets | Magazine. Google Working On A "Mind-Blowing" Flipboard Copycat. Chegg Buys Zinch in Another Move Toward a "Social Education Platform" - Kara Swisher - Commerce. Chegg — best known for online rentals of textbooks to college students — said it has just bought Zinch, a start-up that links high school students and college recruiters.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed. The purchase of the San Francisco-based Zinch, said CEO Dan Rosensweig in an interview earlier this week, is part of a larger plan involving a series of acquisitions aimed at “how we move from two-day relevance to relevance all year around for students.” By that, he meant the short time period when students either buy or rent their textbooks for the semester. That’s certainly been a good business for Chegg, which is the leader in the online textbook-rental arena, including digital distribution. In late September, for example, the company bought CourseRank, which helps students share course schedules, take classes with friends, and read and write reviews on classes and professors, as well as find out how they grade.
We’ll see, but here’s the official press release from Chegg about Zinch: Appsbar Launches Free, DIY App-Building Toolkit For Bands. DIY mobile app creator appsbar is launching a new toolkit for garage bands and other budding artists today called “Discography.” With this option, available in the “create new page” section of appsbar’s free app builder, artists can enter in their Artist ID from iTunes or set up a separate payment service to be used for selling their songs. Included with the new toolkit are social sharing functions that allow artists to send out messages to the app’s users when a new track is available for download.
The artist can also recommend older songs that are available for download, if they don’t have any new tracks to push. The apps’ users can listen to a 30-second music sample prior to purchasing and that sample can be shared across social networks. Users can also review or comment on the track, and these reviews are available to all the other app users. Currently, appsbar Discography is an option on iOS only, but will be available on Android soon. iPhone App Builder, Android App Builder, Windows App Builder. Free iPhone games already paying off for NaturalMotion | Technology. Twitter to locate international operations in Ireland - Careers Centre - Careers centre. Twitter’s new Dublin office will help it save 16% in tax – maybe more. Workers’ Own Cellphones and iPads Find a Role at the Office.
Tapadoo | Incredible Mobile App Development. News. The Way Companies Are Getting Financed Is Completely Changing. November 2011, European Award for Business Information Systems Programme at NUI Galway : About Us. Despite Economic Slump, Europe Gets More Tech Start-Ups. National Digital Research Centre | LaunchPad. Is it a tech boom or a bubble? [Infographic] Ireland Rolls Out the Red Carpet for Tech's Elite [PHOTOS] Industry Leaders Flying into Dublin for Cloud and DataCentre Summit | Best Connected. Founders brings the crazy and the foolish ones to Dublin. BizSpark. Exits mean major holes in Facebook exec team.
Facebook acquires Sofa design team. Funding roundup - week ending 06/10/11. Tech bubble? Or a new Web 3.0 boom? Facebook finally giving the iPad love. The next bubble - Don't get fooled again.