Obama, Romney, And The Forgotten Entrepreneurial Class Are the presidential candidates living in the same America that I am? Apparently not. I don’t know what statistics Obama and Romney look at when they are assessing the state of small business in America--and I really don’t care--because they are missing something. And it is big. For all the concerns they cite about the plight of small business, from tax burdens to health care costs and so on, what pols of all stripes are missing is that America is experiencing a wave of entrepreneurialism unlike anything we’ve ever had before. Inspired by the likes of Mark Zuckerberg at Facebook, by the incredible success of Steve Jobs and Apple, by nimble new industrial designers, by the myriad app-makers and startups populating Silicon Valley, Silicon Alley, and every place in between, a generation of people--young and old--are enthusiastically and optimistically setting out to build new businesses and to invent new ways of doing business. But that doesn’t make this phenomenon any less real.
7 Pearls Of Startup Wisdom From Investors and Innovators Who Matter From the art of the pitch to a smooth sale and everything in between, these seven tenets come straight from the annals of successful startups. Last week, Vancouver's GROW 2012 conference convened some all-stars of the startup scene, stirring together corporate leads from Indiegogo, Eventbrite, Zite, Paypal, Cheezburger Inc. and more with infamous super angel Dave McClure and a smattering of high profile venture capitalists from firms like Bessemer and the Founders Fund. We crunched it all up into seven bits of bite-sized startup wisdom that bear repeating: 1. Don't Be F*cking Boring Pitch with emotion. 2. Know your business model from the get-go. 3. If you say you built it, they will come. 4. At Grow 2012, everyone was buzzing about an unlikely Facebook game in which you battle roosters against one another (presumably to the death). 5. Don't be naive. 6. Focus on building a team, when it comes to skills and personalities. 7.
Entrepreneurs Push the Global Growth in Jobs - Global Talent Strategy The Indian entrepreneur Pranav Mistry developed the SixthSense, a pocket-size computer device that is portable and work by human gestures. As most other companies struggle to create jobs, entrepreneur led companies expanded their workforce by 16% in 2011, and two thirds of them are looking to recruit in 2012 -- and these jobs are not temporary or low quality, rather most need degrees or extensive experience. Ernst and Young's Global Job Hot spots: Help wanted survey of more than 400 of the world's leading entrepreneurs has revealed that despite a weak global economy entrepreneurs are creating jobs and growth throughout the world. Sixty-eight percent of the entrepreneurs surveyed anticipate increasing their workforce in the country where their company is headquartered in 2012. Entrepreneurs creating new jobs throughout the world Nearly all of those entrepreneurs surveyed had increased their headcount last year, often by a substantial amount. Entrepreneurs recruit experienced professionals
Change agents at the office! « The art of life and work (post edited on the 3rd of July 2012 to include link to video by David Armano) The concept is not new but maybe you have never heard of it. I’ve been musing about it for some time now. In fact, this is a long overdue post! I remember it coming back to my mind when reading The Power of Pull: “…each of us […] are now, for the first time in history, in a position to collaborate in a complete reimagination of our biggest private- and public-sector institutions that will eventually remake society as a whole” And it resonated again deeply in this quote from the same book: “Going forward, individuals will increasingly reshape institutions rather than vice versa. […] They will become the catalysts for much broader changes playing out across the business and social landscape.” Wikipedia describes it as such: “the act of behaving like an entrepreneur while working within a large organization” Have you guessed yet? For me it all started back in 2009. What about you? Share this if you like it :) :
Class 7 Notes Essay Peter Thiel’s CS183: Startup - Class 7 Notes Essay Here is an essay version of my class notes from Class 7 of CS183: Startup. Errors and omissions are mine. Roelof Botha, partner at Sequoia Capital and former CFO of PayPal, and Paul Graham, partner and co-founder of Y Combinator, joined this class as guest speakers. Class 7 Notes Essay—Follow the Money I. Many people who start businesses never deal with venture capitalists. VC started in late 1940s. Venture basically works like this: you pool a bunch of money that you get from people called limited partners. Most of the profits go back to LPs as returns on their investment. VC funds last for several years, because it usually takes years for the companies you invest in to grow in value. There are many dimensions to being a good VC. The standard Einstein line on this is that the most powerful force in universe is compound interest. So consider a prototypical successful venture fund. An example will help clarify. Not always, of course. II.