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The State of Venture Capital and the Internet. 21 Books Every Entrepreneur Should Read. Startup Document Center. These Are The Lies You'll Tell While Trying To Make Your Startup Successful. Are You Building The Right Product? Editor’s note: Guest contributor Eric Ries is a consultant and the author of The Lean Startup, which he will be launching at Disrupt SF on Tuesday.

Are You Building The Right Product?

Follow him @ericries. I was recently asked to spend some time with an early stage startup that has a revolutionary new product. I asked them if they thought they were making their product better. As with every other startup I’ve asked, they said yes. Then I asked them, “How do you know?” Then I asked them this question: what would happen to the company if the entire product development team took a month off and went on vacation? Are You a Media Company or a Technology Company? - Ben Elowitz - Voices. Two Truths Let’s start with two truths.

Are You a Media Company or a Technology Company? - Ben Elowitz - Voices

First, publishers need cutting-edge technology to hook an audience through today’s digital media channels of the Web, mobile, social, and search. And, second, the breakthrough technology can’t just be about product design — it’s got to go beyond to create distribution advantages on the new connected Web. One Question Okay, now that we have the truth out of the way, let me ask you a question: Why start-ups fail. How to Fund a Startup. November 2005 Venture funding works like gears.

How to Fund a Startup

A typical startup goes through several rounds of funding, and at each round you want to take just enough money to reach the speed where you can shift into the next gear. Few startups get it quite right. Why Governments Don’t Get Startups–Or, Why There’s Only One Silicon Valley. Steve Blank9/1/11 Not understanding and agreeing what “entrepreneur” and “startup” mean can sink an entire country’s entrepreneurial ecosystem.

Why Governments Don’t Get Startups–Or, Why There’s Only One Silicon Valley

What Kills Startups? Blackbox Releases Report/App To Help Founders Avoid The Deadpool. It’s not easy being green — or an entrepreneur.

What Kills Startups? Blackbox Releases Report/App To Help Founders Avoid The Deadpool

The inherent risk in becoming an entrepreneur or founding a startup is high. Sleepless nights, sweat equity, bribing new users to come to your product — it’s all part of the nerve-racking, code-spinning, and teeth grinding process. That’s why most of these swashbucklers are pirates by nature. But the truth of the matter is that few startups ever make it far enough to find the buried treasure or piggyback on Facebook all the way to glory; in fact, the cold, hard reality is that more than 90 percent of all startups fail. That’s why four young international entrepreneurs (Bjoern Herrmann and Max Marmer) created the so-called Startup Genome Report, because they wanted to a deep dive into what makes a startup successful — and what causes so many to drink from the cup of FAIL.

When being an “expert” is harmful. In a recent Capital Factory all-hands discussion, one of the founders started a question with a well-worn preamble: “I talked to a bunch of the mentors and they all told me the same thing about pricing, but I’m telling you, they’re wrong.

When being an “expert” is harmful

I know our industry, I know how our customers think, and in our industry …” What followed was well-reasoned and sensible. Since none of the mentors have specific expertise in the industry in question, it was impossible to argue. So rather than argue, I just asked: Avoid Monoculture. Travel. Read Widely. Let Experience be Your Compass. I sometimes feel that the Silicon Valley culture and we as technologists more broadly can breed monoculture in our approach to entrepreneurship, problem solving, market analysis and technology solutions.

Avoid Monoculture. Travel. Read Widely. Let Experience be Your Compass.

Experiences way beyond any hack-a-thon, startup blog or your current company engagement can enrich your thinking and challenge you to think more broadly about the solutions you offer in the market. I remember once sitting on a panel with Esther Dyson who is one of the most travelled and broad-experienced technologist I know. It was an “enterprise 2.0” panel at the dawn of what people began calling “web 2.0.” Esther was talking about problems and entrepreneurs as far away as Russia. Raising Money On AngelList: 21 Tips From Two Active Angels. The following is the result of a collaboration between Ty Danco and Dharmesh Shah.

Raising Money On AngelList: 21 Tips From Two Active Angels

Ty is an angel investor and startup mentor (you should be reading his blog). Dharmesh is founder and CTO of HubSpot, runs OnStartups.com and is an advisor to AngelList. [Note: All the smart useful stuff in the article is Ty, all the feeble attempts at humor are Dharmesh] AngelList (AL) connects promising startups to a sterling network of early stage investors. AL has been getting a blizzard of well-deserved press of late after Venture Hacks released the networks 18 month statistics. Stock Market Drops. VCs Hold Partner Meetings. What Happens Next? This is a guest post by Mark Suster, a 2x entrepreneur turned VC with GRP Partners where he focuses on early-stage technology companies.

Stock Market Drops. VCs Hold Partner Meetings. What Happens Next?

Read more about Suster on his startup blog and on Twitter at @msuster. Venture Capitalists typically have partners’ meetings on Mondays. Interactive Map: The United States of Venture Capital - Venture Capital Dispatch. Earlybird Hatches The Term “European Comeback” The 30 Most Respected VCs, By The Numbers [INFOGRAPHIC] Venture Deals: Be Smarter Than Your Lawyer and Venture Capitalist (9780470929827): Brad Feld, Jason Mendelson, Dick Costolo.

Venture Hacks - Good advice for startups. Thoughts. One Book Every Entrepreneur and VC Should Own.