The Democratization of the Startup. First-Time Startup Entrepreneurs: Stop Fucking Around. Editor’s note: Paul Stamatiou is Co-founder of Picplum, a Y Combinator-backed photo printing service, where he obsesses over both design and development.
He also co-founded Notifo (YC W10) and Skribit. Follow him on his blog, PaulStamatiou.com, and on Twitter: @Stammy. Reminisce with me for a bit. Do you remember the first time you got an Internet connection? Before your computer was always connected and when going online was a thing you had to plan. When I first visited California for my Yahoo! Marc Andreessen Says Now's the Time to Build Companies Like It's 1999 - Arik Hesseldahl. Few people have the perspective of living and working in the tech industry that venture capitalist Marc Andreessen has. Founder of the browser company Netscape and then of the software company LoudCloud, later renamed Opsware, he’s seen the boom and bust cycles and the shrill choruses of hype (tempered by reality) that go with them. Now, as one of the two primary partners in the venture capital fund Andreessen Horowitz, he’s playing the completely different role of shepherding what he hopes are the next great tech companies.
Andreessen (pictured from a legendary Time Magazine cover on which he appeared in the late 1990s) was the first speaker today at Fortune Magazine’s Brainstorm Tech conference being held in a very rainy — but still beautiful — Aspen, Colo. Do what you do best. Founder Friday is a weekly guest post written by a founder who is based in or hails from the Silicon Prairie.
Each month, a topic relevant to startups is presented and founders share lessons learned or best practices utilized on that topic. June's topic is role of founder. About the author: Michael Ferrari is the co-founder of Social Money Sure the idea was mine, but to bring my idea to life, I needed help. This may or may not hold true for everyone starting a company. Fast forward a few years, we now have a team of 30, we renamed the company to Social Money, and introduced a new product we call Goal Saver, a white-label goal saving application that any bank or institution can integrate into their own Web site. I believe our recent growth, direction and focus of our company can be attributed to our new leadership within the company.
Seth Goldstein: 10 tweets for startups. Seth Goldstein broke his advice for entrepreneurs down into 140-character bites.
Seth Goldstein, investor, serial entrepreneur and chairman of Turntable.fm, prefers to tweet his advice. He gave the crowd at KANEKO his top 10 tips for entrepreneurs in under 140 characters — plus this more lengthy challenge to create something different. "I think your ideas should be strange and weird and nonsensical," Goldstein said. "If everyone agrees with it and thinks it's a good idea, you're probably doing something wrong. " Read on to hear the rest of Goldstein's advice for Big Omaha 2012. How to Make Wealth. May 2004 (This essay was originally published in Hackers & Painters.)
The Dirty Little Secret Of Overnight Successes. As Chris Dixon pointed out in a recent blog post, Angry Birds, the incredibly popular game, was software maker Rovio’s 52nd attempt.
They spent eight years and nearly went bankrupt before finally creating their massive hit. James Dyson failed in 5,126 prototypes before perfecting his revolutionary vacuum cleaner. Groupon was put on life support and nearly shut down at one point in its meteoric rise. When looking at the most successful people and organizations, we often imagine geniuses with a smooth journey straight to the promised land. But when you really examine nearly every success story, they are filled with crushing defeats, near-death experiences, and countless setbacks.
How to Start a Startup. March 2005 (This essay is derived from a talk at the Harvard Computer Society.)
You need three things to create a successful startup: to start with good people, to make something customers actually want, and to spend as little money as possible. Most startups that fail do it because they fail at one of these. A startup that does all three will probably succeed. And that's kind of exciting, when you think about it, because all three are doable. Start With Why.
Startup Ideas. Startup Tools. » Early stage companies don’t need money, they need customers. Note: This is cross posted from WhoYouCallingAJesse.com by Jesse Rodgers, who is a cofounder of TribeHR.
He has been a key member of the Waterloo startup community hosting StartupCampWaterloo and other events to bring together and engage local entrepreneurs. Follow him on Twitter @jrodgers or WhoYouCallingAJesse.com. Some rights reserved by wallyg The popular belief in Canada is that the tech startup world has been fairly light on investment dollars relative to other industries in Canada. Because there is such a disparity in seed or angel round investment size in Canada vs the US people tend to point to that as a reason people go south.
Five years ago Paul Graham observed that the total cost to get a tech startup started had dropped dramatically and will continue to do so.