Dylan’s Desk: What it takes to compete with Silicon Valley
You don’t have to live in Palo Alto to become a software billionaire, though it can help.
For decades, people with ideas, programming talent, and the ambition to make their fortune as entrepreneurs have been moving to Silicon Valley, just as Mark Zuckerberg did shortly after founding Facebook.
But now an increasing number of them are staying at home.
Take, for example, Andrew Mason, the founder of Groupon, who started the company in Chicago in … Continue Reading
VBWeekly: Sh*t startup people say
Watch out! There’s some adults-only vocabulary in Startup Land.
For this week’s video show installment, we decided to deliver a very special VBWeekly addressing the dangers of myopia and jargon.
Also, we decided to slay what’s left of the “Sh*t People Say” meme.
Since we get a lot of press releases, talk to a lot of VCs and entrepreneurs, and live the dream ourselves as startup employees, who better to skewer the startup community than … Continue Reading
Dylan’s Desk: Meltwater aims to build a billion-dollar business without venture capital
Can you build a billion-dollar business without venture capital?
Jorn Lyseggen thinks he can. He’s the founder and CEO of Meltwater Group, a major player in marketing intelligence services.
I spoke at a Meltwater event recently, and got to know a bit about the company. I was intrigued by the company’s unusual strategy and its unique sense of corporate culture, so I decided to find out more.
Meltwater got its start with Meltwater News, a … Continue Reading
BestVendor is the utility belt for small business apps
Being successful in business is about knowing what your competitors know and being able to act on it. If you could find out what kinds of work tools are helping your competitors stay lean and mean, it could be a real leg up. You can’t just call up a competitor and ask. But a new startup called BestVendor is creating a Yelp-like recommendations network around work apps to make that kind of tool discovery possible.… Continue Reading
Box.net founder Aaron Levie is poised on the edge of startup stardom
The first time I met Box.net chief executive Aaron Levie, he showed me a magic trick with a deck of cards.
A year later, the 26-year-old was standing on stage (in his typical electric orange sneakers) in front of 350 customers and press at his company’s first annual conference, BoxWorks, held yesterday in San Francisco. He had just turned down a buyout offer worth more than $500 million. That evening, Box.net hosted a party where … Continue Reading
Tech news owes a lot to Arrington, conflicts and all
A lot has changed since I first made it to Silicon Valley a little more than a year ago.
But one thing has remained constant: the ruthless competition for discovering and reporting the best news stories. Among those competitors is TechCrunch, one of the most efficient and tenacious tech news publications in the valley.
Michael Arrington stands — or, stood, rather — at the center of that team. His personality and potential conflicts of interest … Continue Reading
Vinod Khosla thrashes deal-focused venture capitalists
“I don’t like being one of the venture capitalists … everything is a deal to them.”
That’s what storied investor Vinod Khosla said on stage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2011 on Tuesday. He is considered a venture capitalist by most as he has invested in companies like GroupMe and Jawbone, but he’ll deny that any day of the week, he said.
“I am a venture assistant. I want to help out entrepreneurs with what they actually … Continue Reading
Here’s what you missed at TechCrunch Disrupt (photo gallery)
It wasn’t long before the everyone found out the news of the day at TechCrunch’s annual Disrupt conference in San Francisco. Michael Arrington, founder and editor-in-chief of TechCrunch, had stepped down amid controversy surrounding his new investment fund, the CrunchFund.
The whole hooplah put a little bit of a damper on the show at first. But the mood quickly picked up once some of Silicon Valley’s most influential investors and power players took the stage … Continue Reading
What’s the profile of the typical entrepreneur? LinkedIn knows (infographic)
Despite the hype surrounding young, serial entrepreneurs, most company founders are typically above 30 and have only started one company, according to the latest study by professional network LinkedIn.
The company hosts more than 100 million public member profiles, which means there’s quite a bit of useful information to be gathered if you look hard enough. LinkedIn Senior Data Scientist Monica Rogati narrowed down the study to tens of thousands of startup founder profiles, and … Continue Reading
Entrepreneur of the year finalists enter prestigious circle
This sponsored post is part of a series of profiles on Ernst & Young “Entrepreneur of the Year” finalists. Click here to keep up with the rest of the series.
VentureBeat recently teamed up with Ernst & Young to profile a number of promising entrepreneurs.
These innovators, all from northern California, were finalists for prestigious E&Y’s Entrepreneur of the Year award, which is now in its 25th year.
The finalists are in company with … Continue Reading
Here are Stanford's StartX nine demo day darlings
Nine companies showed their stuff at SSE Labs‘ demo day in Palo Alto, Calif., today. SSE Labs is a startup accelerator that is actually now named StartX. The accelerator provides student entrepreneurs with housing, office space, cash stipends, workshops and mentorship — much like storied incubator Y Combinator, except the advisors don’t take an equity stake in any of the companies.
This was StartX’s second demo day. Students and companies spend months preparing to present … Continue Reading
Check-in site Scvngr tries out special deals for entrepreneurs
Scvngr, a check-in app that asks users to complete activity challenges, recently launched LevelUp, a pilot in the local deals space. Now it’s offering a deal aimed specifically at entrepreneurs and their startups, dubbed “LevelUp Your Startup.”
Traditionally, local deal services such as LevelUp (and more-established players such as Groupon and LivingSocial) feature things like massages or restaurant discounts. However, this local deal, only available in Boston and Philadelphia, will allow entrepreneurs to incorporate, get … Continue Reading
3 tips every entrepreneur should know
(Editor’s note: Doug Collom is vice dean and an adjunct lecturer on venture capital and entrepreneurship for Wharton|San Francisco. He submitted this story to VentureBeat.)
Starting companies is hard. And it’s critical to make sure that your venture is pointing in the right direction from the moment it leaves the launch pad. Any misdirection or miscue on the basic organizational steps can be fatal.
It’s a lot like launching a rocket aimed at the … Continue Reading
2011 may mark the beginning of a golden era for entrepreneurs
(Editor’s note: Serial entrepreneur Steve Blank is the author of Four Steps to the Epiphany. A longer version of this story originally appeared on his blog.)
As we wrap up 2010, things might seem bleak. The common wisdom says that the chickens have all come home to roost from a disastrous series of economic decisions including outsourcing the manufacture of America’s physical goods. The pundits say the American dream is dead and this … Continue Reading
6 more harsh realities of being an entrepreneur
(Editor’s note: Jason L. Baptiste is the CEO and co-founder of PadPressed and co-author of the OnStartups blog. This story originally appeared at that site.)
Running a start-up is anything but a life of wine and roses. Seasoned entrepreneurs know that, but budding ones are often a bit naïve. After running down five ugly truths of the startup world last week, Jason Baptiste is back with another half-dozen truths that can help prepare people for … Continue Reading
5 harsh realities of being an entrepreneur
(Editor’s note: Jason L. Baptiste is the CEO and co-founder of PadPressed and co-author of the OnStartups blog. This story originally appeared at that site.)
There’s always talk about a startup’s end game – whether it’s in the form of an acquisition, funding announcement, or eventual flame out. But we rarely hear about the harsh realities that entrepreneurs face. This isn’t meant to be a downbeat and negative article, but actually quite the opposite. By … Continue Reading
How a little company called SunRun plans to put solar on every roof
Solar leasing company SunRun has emerged as one of the leaders in a white-hot solar market — and it started just three years ago as an idea in the minds of two Stanford business school students.
The company has managed the rapid rise by devising a clever financing model where everyone seems to win. Residents pay less for electricity, SunRun makes a profit, and the earth gets greener. And going forward, SunRun looks perfectly poised … Continue Reading
Do you have what it takes to be a founder?
Solar leasing company SunRun has emerged as one of the leaders in a white-hot solar market — and it started just three years ago as an idea in the minds of two Stanford business school students.
The company has managed the rapid rise by devising a clever financing model where everyone seems to win. Residents pay less for electricity, SunRun makes a profit, and the earth gets greener. And going forward, SunRun looks perfectly poised … Continue Reading
Leveling the education landscape for entrepreneurs
Solar leasing company SunRun has emerged as one of the leaders in a white-hot solar market — and it started just three years ago as an idea in the minds of two Stanford business school students.
The company has managed the rapid rise by devising a clever financing model where everyone seems to win. Residents pay less for electricity, SunRun makes a profit, and the earth gets greener. And going forward, SunRun looks perfectly poised … Continue Reading
Calling all entrepreneurs…
Solar leasing company SunRun has emerged as one of the leaders in a white-hot solar market — and it started just three years ago as an idea in the minds of two Stanford business school students.
The company has managed the rapid rise by devising a clever financing model where everyone seems to win. Residents pay less for electricity, SunRun makes a profit, and the earth gets greener. And going forward, SunRun looks perfectly poised … Continue Reading
