Admitting Failure. 10 Inspiring TED Talks for Startups. The mission of TED (Technology Education Design) is to promote "ideas worth spreading. " And as such, there is plenty of material that entrepreneurs - folks definitely interested in spreading their ideas - can find inspiring in the recordings available on TED's website. We've gone through the archives and hand-picked some of our favorite TED talks for startups. Granted, it's hard to select just ten to feature here out of the 700-some-odd videos available. So if your favorite isn't listed, be sure to leave us a comment. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. Startup Lessons for the Proto-Founder - The Metamorphosis.
Deezer, ou les raisons d’un beau gâchis - Web 1,2,3 - ElectronLi. Avec le limogeage de Jonathan Benassaya à la tête de Deezer, le rêve de voir émerger un champion du streaming en France s’envole, et avec lui celui de transformer l’essai du succès d’estime incontestable remporté l’an dernier par les acteurs de ce marché, par manque de vision et d’investissement, dans le marketing et l’innovation logicielle. La nouvelle avait de quoi surprendre.
Un confidentiel d’Electronlibre annonçait vendredi, à la veille de l’ouverture du Midemnet, le limogeage de Jonathan Benassaya à la tête de Deezer, fleuron de l’industrie du streaming en France. Un communiqué de presse sibyllin tentait de démentir l’information dans l’après-midi mais ne parvenait pas vraiment à lever le doute. En fin de journée, Electronlibre, sûr de son fait, enfonçait le clou sur la foi d’autres sources, évoquant la déception des actionnaires de Deezer devant l’échec du lancement de la formule payante du service. Les raisons d’un échec Ce n’était plus vraiment une surprise pour grand monde. Richard Hames in The Hub Amsterdam 29-09-10. 3 Startup Lessons I Learned the Hard Way. Over the past decade, I've spent most of my professional life building startup businesses. In thinking about what I've learned, I realized that the most valuable lessons can be boiled down to three simple lessons: The middle sucks.
Your idea doesn't matter. There is no secret to startup success. The middle sucks Most startups die before launching because they get caught in the "valley of death. " Startups get stuck here because they usually fail to raise money and exhaust their finances by spending time on useless business plans and demos. Business plans are always wrong so stop obsessing about them! You can only raise money by pitching the "Dream" or by selling "Traction" (post on this coming soon).
Your idea doesn't matter. Like almost all startup founders I spend way too much time obsessing about my ideas. Guess what? People are selfishly motivated first and foremost -- they want to know how you are going to help them, not what you think would be cool to build. BetaGroup - Web Entrepreneurship in Belgium , Internet Startups, Yahoo! Will Kill MyBlogLog Next Month. Five years to the month after it was founded, cross-blog social networking widget MyBlogLog will be closed down by Yahoo! In January, we're hearing from sources close to the project. MyBlogLog is a service that shows blog writers and readers the faces and profile information of other MyBlogLog users that visit their sites.
MyBlogLog was a wildly innovative service that grew fast after launching and was acquired in January 2007 by Yahoo! For $10 million. It made a deal with users: Give us your personal information and we'll show you the faces of people who read your blog. In addition to showing the faces of recent blog visitors, MyBlogLog also offered programatic access to activity streams from social networks that users associated with their MyBlogLog accounts. Yahoo! Here at ReadWriteWeb we scraped a feed from our MyBlogLog page of the new users just added to our community, then reached out to thank them for their support and welcome them personally. Image via CrunchBase R.I.P. Startup Lessons for the Proto-Founder - The Metamorphosis. How to create a profitable Freemium startup (spreadsheet model i.
Click to download Freemium spreadsheetBackground on this discussion Last year, the stupendous Daniel James co-hosted a talk with me on Lifetime Value metrics for subscription and virtual goods-based items. You can see the video/outline for the talk, Daniel’s commentary, and a mindmap of the talk (scroll to the bottom of the post). As part of the talk, we worked on a spreadsheet model for freemium businesses that we didn’t get enough time to work on – so I’m going to cover it in this post! If you haven’t gotten the spreadsheet yet, here’s another link to it. Here are the questions this post (and the spreadsheet) is meant to answer: What are the key factors that drive freemium profitability? If these questions interest you, keep reading :-) Article summary (for people with attention deficit!) Lifetime value > Cost per acquisition + Cost of service (paying & free) There are lots of different factors that influence profitability, including: Now for all the gory details… LTV = 1/(1-R) * rev.
6 ReadWriteStart Lists: Our Best Startup Advice - ReadWriteStart. In a recent conversation here at ReadWriteStart we were talking about what readers want most. Beyond stories about where the latest funding opportunities are found, and beyond wanting to know what startups are doing that works, we know that sometimes our startup readers just want some simple practical advice. Towards that end we've posted many a list. And now it's time for a review. Here are six of our best lists in abbreviated form. From how not to kill your startup, to public speaking, to funders to follow, we at ReadWriteStart want to help. If you have ideas for future lists, please post 'em as comments below. 6 Approaches to Your Company Blog The Operations BlogThe Veteran / Inspirational BlogThe Prediction BlogThe Research BlogThe Community / Advocate BlogThe Coolhunter Blog Kevin Rose's 10 Tips for Entrepreneurs 6 Great Approaches to Public Speaking 10 Principles For Not Killing Your Startup This one's obvious - watch your cash flow. 5 Great Blogs For Funding Advice.