Minneapolis a tech center? Start-ups say yes MINNEAPOLIS – Ten of the top 20 most visited websites are based in California, with the remainder in New York, Washington and Georgia. Is there room in techland for hard-working entrepreneurs from the middle of the USA? Yes, say members of the close-knit tech community here, best known as the headquarters for the world's largest electronics retailer, Best Buy, retail giant Target and several medical technology companies. MORE: Talking Tech stories Some 150 young businesses are working to get companies off the ground here, according to tech.mn, a local website which tracks area start-ups. "We have a phenomenal talent pool that's a lot easier to tap into than the (Silicon) Valley," says Casey Allen, co-founder of Project Skyway, an incubator helping start-ups find financing. USA TODAY visited several start-ups here at CoCo, a shared workspace in a bright, open former grain exchange. Half of Mobiata's staff is in Ann Arbor, Mich.; the rest is split between Minneapolis and San Francisco.
Frighteningly Ambitious Startup Ideas March 2012 One of the more surprising things I've noticed while working on Y Combinator is how frightening the most ambitious startup ideas are. In this essay I'm going to demonstrate this phenomenon by describing some. Any one of them could make you a billionaire. Don't worry, it's not a sign of weakness. There's a scene in Being John Malkovich where the nerdy hero encounters a very attractive, sophisticated woman. Here's the thing: If you ever got me, you wouldn't have a clue what to do with me. That's what these ideas say to us. This phenomenon is one of the most important things you can understand about startups. [1] You'd expect big startup ideas to be attractive, but actually they tend to repel you. 1. The best ideas are just on the right side of impossible. The point when it became clear to me that Microsoft had lost their way was when they decided to get into the search business. Microsoft : Google :: Google : Facebook. 2. Email was not designed to be used the way we use it now.
After Four Years as ReadWriteWeb’s Lead Writer, Here’s My Next Adventure It’s with both excitement and sadness that today I announce I am stepping back from my full time position at ReadWriteWeb to build a product and a company. I’ll be continuing to post at RWW regularly, but I’ve got some big new things up my sleeve as well. (Update: I haven’t announced this yet but as of May, 2012 I’m actually done with that too and am 100% all-in on Plexus.) After years of writing about startup companies, I’m now building one myself. Specifically, I’m building a company that’s developing a technology based on some of my favorite consulting projects I’ve done for clients over the years: an app and data platform that discovers emerging topical information. It’s called Plexus Engine, it’s in private beta and you can sign up to be notified when it launches at PlexusEngine.com. What’s it do, specifically? I’ve built my career as one of the web’s leading technology journalists by making strategic use of lightweight tools for processing data to gain first mover’s advantage.
500 Startups Peels Back The Curtain On Its Third And Largest Batch Yet It’s Halloween, so it’s the perfect day to unveil the newest group of 500 Startups’ “little monsters”. Yes, this is the name that founder Dave McClure and his partner in crime Christine Tsai give to all the rock star entrepreneurs that grace the halls of their Mountain View offices. 500 Startups, as you may have heard by now, is the early-stage seed fund and incubator program founded in 2010 by the globe-trotting angel investor, which seeds between $25K to $250K in each of its startups that meet its “Three Ds” criteria: Design, data, and distribution. The fall batch kicked off on October 10 and includes 34 awesome startups, which makes this its largest roster to date (the initial batch consisted of 12 startups and the second came in at 21, bringing 500 Startups’ total to 174). The “Demo Days” for this batch of startups has not yet been confirmed, but we do know that they will take place sometime in January 2012. 300milligrams is a priority inbox for team conversations.
The legal checklist every startup should reference I’ve been a corporate lawyer for more than 17 years, and there are certain fundamental legal mistakes that I’ve seen startups repeatedly make (many of which surface when investors are conducting their due-diligence investigation). Accordingly, I thought it would be helpful to provide a simple checklist for startups that includes links to indepth posts for a more detailed discussion. Startup checklist: 1. Form a corporation, not an LLC (see post here) or a partnership (see post here). 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. None of this is rocket science. Scott Edward Walker is the founder and CEO of Walker Corporate Law Group, PLLC, a law firm specializing in the representation of entrepreneurs. [Image via Yes Man/Shutterstock]
Why Some Startups Succeed And Others Fail: 10 Fascinating Harvard Findings Brave New Thermostat: How the iPod’s Creator Is Making Home Heating Sexy | Gadget Lab “You’re going to build a what?” That’s what Tony Fadell’s wife, Dani, said to him in 2009 when he told her his idea for a new company. Fadell is one of the most sought-after talents in the world of gadgetry—he designed the hardware for the iPod, and headed Apple’s iPod and iPhone division before leaving his VP post to spend time with his wife and two young children, living an idyllic year in Paris. But even before he moved back to the U.S. he was mulling over his next step. Instead, he told Dani, he was going to build a thermostat. A what? Fadell explained his concept: Untold tons of carbon were being pumped into the air, with people losing billions of dollars in energy costs, all because there was no easy, automatic way to control the temperature. You could revolutionize an important but neglected tech backwater—and significantly improve the environment. “In other green startups, ideas are incremental—we haven’t found breakthrough ideas,” says Kleiner Perkins partner Randy Komisar.
Grow Detroit | Grown in the D The Detroit Startup List is a directory of Detroit Startups, Michigan Incubators and Accelerators, Groups & Meetups, and venture capital resources. (Last updated March 31, 2014) Quick links: Detroit Incubators and Accelerators Detroit Coworking Spaces Detroit Startup Events, Meetup Groups Michigan Venture capital and investment 1. 2. 3. We are a proud Detroit Startup. 4. Detroit startups Andy Brett | Do Not, Under Any Circumstances, Start A Startup: Or, What I Learned At Startup School 2011 There were actually two distinct themes at this year’s edition of Startup School, but the first makes for a better title. This is not a recap of everything that was said - for that, I believe you can watch the individual videos on justin.tv eventually. Theme One: Do not, under any circumstances, start a startup. This is, of course, tongue in cheek. Don’t start a company just for the sake of starting a company. As one member of this chorus, Paul Graham offered one of the more analytical and level-headed critiques of the current landscape. Paul noted that Bill Gates was trying to solve a problem he had when he wrote the BASIC interpreter for the Altair. In fact there was a palpable undercurrent of exasperation from a number of the speakers who had probably seen, heard about, or been pitched by one too many fresh-faced college students with billion-dollar ideas and an odd affinity for ramen noodles, hoodies, and caffeine. So why should you start a company? Because you’ve found your mission.
The ultimate startup lesson: knowing what matters — Cleantech News and Analysis Interview #1: Hiten Shah, co-founder of CrazyEgg and KISSmetrics | Startup Guide for Non-Coders Interview #1: Hiten Shah, co-founder of CrazyEgg and KISSmetrics Neither Hiten nor his co-founder Neil had any technical experience before starting their first company. Sampling 80 different developers and development firms, they found quality product people through trial and error. Hiten and Neil went through about twenty different products and 7-10 businesses before getting some serious traction with web analytics products CrazyEgg and, later, KISSmetrics. When asked how Hiten led a technical team w/o a technical background, he had a few bits of advice: 1) Learn as much as possible from your engineers without being annoying and use Google to make up the difference 2) Hire and work with engineers who can communicate effectively with both technical and non-technical people 3) Be clear about your expectations, the company culture, and what you look for in a developer 4) Work with developers before hiring them But how do you attract technical talent to work with you in the first place?
10 Essential PR Tips for Startups Erica Swallow is a technology and lifestyle writer. Sign up for her course on "PR for Startups" to learn more about getting media coverage for your fledgling business. It can be challenging for unknown startups to garner press attention — budgets are tight, relationships with journalists may not be that strong and explaining a new concept is difficult. Not to mention, early-stage startups usually only employ a few people focused on product and development. Therefore, marketing and public relations are often tackled piecemeal by whomever has time. Good press, though, can be one of the biggest drivers for startups looking to grow their user bases, and as a result, a pretty important component for success. As a tech journalist, I've been pitched by hundreds of companies and have developed a taste for what works and what doesn't. 1. Before you begin pitching your startup, stop to think about what is truly newsworthy, especially to the publications you’re targeting. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.
(Founder Stories) Eric Ries: How Lean Was The Google+ Launch? In the final episode of Chris Dixon’s interview with The Lean Startup author Eric Ries, Dixon asks him whether Google was “lean” when it rolled out Google+? Dixon says in some ways it appeared so, as Google was slowly “rolling out a bunch of different things, experimenting, versus let’s say Buzz and Wave.” Ries partially agrees but also replies “I still think they did a lot of unnecessary hype at the beginning and they kept reporting on their vanity metrics: ‘Now we’ve got 10 million users on Google+.’ That makes me really nervous. How many engaged users are there?” As the two conclude, Dixon asks Ries what he thinks about the startup landscape. Separated from the boom/bust cycle Ries tells Dixon that at large, “a fundamental change is at work, I like calling it a startup movement. Make sure to watch episodes I II and III of this interview and past episodes of Founder Stories here.