999 Posts Found

TheStartUp411 is a collection of user generated information for those involved in starting and financing businesses; both entrepreneurs and those that finance them. Any registered user is allowed to submit an article that will be reviewed by all and will be promoted, based on popularity, to the main page. When a user submits a news article it will be placed in the “unpublished” area until … [ Read more ]

Content: Online Resource | Subject: Entrepreneurship

What do self-respecting entrepreneurs do when subjected to new regulations? They learn the regulations backward and forward and then vow never to start another business that falls within the scope of those regulations. And so off the entrepreneur goes to find a new way.

The new entrepreneur often seeks ways to innovate outside the scope of the newly established regulations. In the beginning, all that … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Richard Foster | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Economics, Entrepreneurship, Government

Guy Kawasaki has compiled his best wit, wisdom, and contrarian opinions in handy book form. From competition to customer service, innovation to marketing, he shows readers how to ignore fads and foolishness while sticking to commonsense practices. He explains, for instance:

– How to get a standing ovation
– The art of schmoozing
– How to create a community
– The top ten lies of entrepreneurs
– Everything you wanted … [ Read more ]

Content: Book | Author: Guy Kawasaki | Subjects: Entrepreneurship, Small Business

Harvard Business School professor William A. Sahlman’s article on how to write a great business plan is a Harvard Business Review classic, and has just been reissued in book form. Now a decade old, we asked Sahlman what he would change if he wrote the article today.

Content: Article | Authors: Sean Silverthorne, William A. Sahlman | Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge | Subjects: Entrepreneurship, People

Be stubborn in the face of failure. Instead: Be determined in the face of disbelief.

The doubters are inevitable and the odds are stacked against entrepreneurs and startups, thus it is crucial to believe in yourself, your company and your solution. Yet that determination can become our biggest weakness when it manifests itself as stubbornness or inflexibility; we can learn more through failures than successes.

The difference … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Taylor Davidson | Source: Unstructured Ventures | Subjects: Entrepreneurship, Success / Failure

Paul Graham, who runs Y Combinator and has been involved in numerous early stage financings, offers this lengthy analysis of the intricacies involved with raising money for your startup. A good read for any entrepreneur.

Content: Article | Author: Paul Graham | Subject: Entrepreneurship

Here’s Guy Kawasaki’s advice to all the Biffs, Sebastians, Brooks, and Tiffanys who want to be kingmakers: “Venture capital is something to do at the end of your career, not the beginning. It should be your last job, not your first.” He’s also concocted the venture Capital Aptitude Test (VCAT) to help people decide whether they are right for the venture capital business.

Content: Article | Author: Guy Kawasaki | Source: How to Change the World | Subjects: Industry Specific, Venture Capital

Sometimes venture capital can be a little intimidating. It’s hard to know where to start and whom to approach. And it can be hard to cut through the noise in order to reach investors. This application aims to help by aggregating biographical, and other basic information on many of the venture investors located in the US. A simple search can take you one step closer … [ Read more ]

Content: Online Resource | Author: Matt Winn | Subjects: Industry Specific, Venture Capital

Basil Peters offers a one-page term sheet for angel investors based on exchangeable shares. [Hat Tip to Ask the VC]

Content: Article | Author: Basil Peters | Source: AngelBlog | Subject: Entrepreneurship

Fred Wilson follows up his original venture economic post with this look at venture returns, specifically the impact on returns of management fees and carry.

Content: Article | Author: Fred Wilson | Source: A VC | Subjects: Industry Specific, Venture Capital

Angelsoft was founded in 2004 with a simple idea: to bring the power of collaboration technologies to the early-stage investment industry. Today, with 410 angel groups and VCs, 11,251 investors, and 2,100 new company applications a month, Angelsoft has become a vital ecosystem where real entrepreneurs and real investors meet and collaborate in the effort to build the best new companies of the 21st Century. … [ Read more ]

Content: Online Resource | Subjects: Entrepreneurship, Finance, Venture Capital

Roger Ehrenberg, the co-founder of Monitor110 offers up an analysis of the failure of that company, including what he calls the “seven deadly sins”:
1. The lack of a single, “the buck stops here” leader until too late in the game
2. No separation between the technology organization and the product organization
3. Too much PR, too early
4. Too much money
5. Not close enough to the customer
6. Slow … [ Read more ]

Content: Case Study | Author: Roger Ehrenberg | Source: Information Arbitrage | Subject: Entrepreneurship

Fred Wilson explains the basics of venture fund economics. It appears to be the first of several posts he’s planning to write on this topic. [Hat Tip to Brad Feld]

Content: Article | Author: Fred Wilson | Source: A VC | Subjects: Industry Specific, Venture Capital

It’s critical for entrepreneurs, when targeting venture capital firms, to narrow their search based on key criteria.

Content: Article | Author: Tom Taulli | Source: BusinessWeek | Subject: Entrepreneurship

There is nothing investors like more than a startup that seems like it’s going to succeed even without them. Investors like it when they can help a startup, but they don’t like startups that would die without that help.

The reason they like it when you don’t need them is not simply that they like what they can’t have, but because that quality is what … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Paul Graham | Subjects: Entrepreneurship, Venture Capital

The average investor is a pretty bad judge of startups. It’s harder to judge startups than most other things, because great startup ideas tend to seem wrong. A good startup idea has to be not just good but novel. And to be both good and novel, an idea probably has to seem bad to most people, or someone would already be doing it and it … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Paul Graham | Subjects: Entrepreneurship, Venture Capital

Building a business is tough work, even in the best of times. Steven Brandt, an emeritus senior lecturer at the Graduate School of Business, lists ten commandments he believes have stood the test of time in helping entreprenuers launch successful firms and keep them afloat. (downloadable book)

Editor’s Note: This book was first published in 1982 and has sold more than 100,000 copies. All ten Commandments … [ Read more ]

Content: Book | Author: Steven C. Brandt | Subject: Entrepreneurship

Private equity firms manage some $1 trillion of global capital, yet because they are highly secretive, much remains unknown about their internal economics. How do PE firms organize themselves, for example, and how do they capitalize on their success? Some answers emerge from a paper by Wharton finance professor Ayako Yasuda and Yale School of Management finance professor Andrew Metrick presented at a recent … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Andrew Metrick, Ayako Yasuda | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subjects: Finance, Venture Capital

How do you know a great entrepreneur when you meet one? Great entrepreneurs would do a better job running the competition than their competitors are doing. They can tell you not only the ways in which their strategy is better than their competitors’, but also the ways in which their competitors have created the very opportunity that they are exploiting.

Content: Quotation | Author: David Hornik | Source: VentureBlog | Subject: Entrepreneurship

Nobel laureate Edmund Phelps says that Joseph Schumpeter was wrong: Entrepreneurship can generate stable growth.

Content: Article | Author: Glenn Hubbard | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Economics, Entrepreneurship, People