Startups

Uses Ajax and some other web2.0-ish features.

Sergey Brin is telling employees to stop making old products and start improving new ones. "For example, said Chief Executive Eric Schmidt, Google plans to combine its spreadsheet, calendar and word-processing programs into one suite of Web-based applications."

Google now lets you do searches -- including regular expression searches -- across public source code.

James Yu has a screenshot of a new design Google has been testing lately.

The Participatory Culture Foundation (formerly Downhill Battle) has finally launched their Internet television platform. Grab existing videocast feeds or make your own, all with a gorgeous interface.

You don't have to wait for the next trade show to keep your shelves stocked with the latest and greatest.

Indiana Jones' adventures have much in common with what makes entrepreneurs successful. Keep your head (and hat), hit the books and try to avoid the snakes.

Don't look like a Luddite--invest in a keyboard that'll get potential customers peering over your shoulder.

The economy may be sputtering, but entrepreneurs can still succeed with the right business model and cost controls.

Because of Software-as-a-Service, the latest and greatest business applications are now available to small businesses.

Mobile advertising is still a very young market in the US, as mobile web usage here has lagged after many other countries due to inferior access to quality mobile devices and services. But mobile usage is growing as access has improved, which means the opportunity for mobile advertising has, too. Besides mobile advertising efforts by giants like Yahoo, Google and AOL, perhaps the best-known mobile ad startup to go after the U.S.’s emerging mobile market is San Mateo, Calif.-based AdMob. However, a growing market attracts competitors, especially when it is as lucrative as advertising is…

More on Facebook profile changes: The feed wall — The new profile is slated for launch later this year. The latest new feature the company is previewing: A “feed” portion of the new design, where you can easily add content from within a standardized interface. The goal is to make Facebook easier to use. The company is being transparent about this latest effort — in contrast to some of its earlier product launches, like its introduction of its news feeds and its “Beacon” ad program. Now, it is giving sneak peeks of the new mock-ups of its redesigned profile…

Below you’ll find this week’s PartnerUp Opportunities of the week. PartnerUp is an online community for entrepreneurs and startups that helps them find people for their business, such as co-founders, business partners, advisors, board members, and skilled technical people. In addition, PartnerUp helps entrepreneurs ask for and offer up advice, find commercial real estate, and find resources for their business. You can find thousands of additional opportunities by signing up for PartnerUp or browsing PartnerUp’s Business Opportunities Directory. Co-Founder/Business Partner…

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Jerry White is the co-founder of Survivor Corps (formerly Landmine Survivors Newwork). His changed in 1984 when he lost his leg in a landmine explosion while visiting Israel. After this experience he has championed the cause of survivorship and became a leader in the International Campaign to Ban Landmines. In 1997 he shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Jody Williams for his efforts. He recently published a book called I Will Not Be Broken: Five Steps to Overcoming a Life Crisis. Question: What do people who are undergoing a life crisis need most? Answer: We crave empathy and support. We need…

In 2006 I wrote about Vyew and asked the obvious question: “Does the world need another web conferencing product?” I guess the answer is "yes" because the company is now profitable and has 100,000 registered users. Vyew combines real-time (synchronous) conferencing and desktop sharing with always-on (asynchronous) collaboration such as highlighting, drawing, text and sidebar comments and sticky notes. This allows groups to have a live meeting and also carry on a contextual forum discussion over time at their convenience. It's a browser-only cross-platform tool without the need for…

A few weeks ago I was in Charlotte to make a speech for Network Solutions, and I met Justin Ruckman. He handed me his business card--which I just loved. For once, a business card that cuts to the chase and is readable. Hallelujah! So I asked him to make business cards for me. Take a look at your business card: Can people really read the 8 point type? If you want Justin to make business cards for you, his site is here.

I went to the Maker Faire in San Mateo this weekend. I had no idea these things are so popular--so much so that I gave up the first time and returned in the early evening when there was more parking and a shorter ticket line. Think: Macworld Expo meets Burning Man meets MythBusters meets Woodstock. Here are a mere fifty pictures to show you what you missed. One thing is for sure, the Faire could keep Stuff White People Like busy for a month or two. There was lots of bikes made up of various other vehicle parts. For example, this is a lawnmower bike. A skateboard/bike hybrid. And a…

Roger von Oech is the author a classic book about innovation called A Whack on the Side of the Head. Believe it or not, this is the twenty-fifth anniversay of the book. When I was young(er), this book was the rage for the personal-computer generation in Silicon Valley. Join me on Sun's site for an interview of Roger. In it he discusses twenty-five years of innovation and provides advice to today's newfangled Web 2.0 companies. Click here for the interview.

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Qualcomm Inc. (Nasdaq: QCOM), on Friday announced it bought 40 MHz of U.K. spectrum in the 1.4 GHz band for $16.1 million (U.S.) to develop as-yet-unannounced wireless broadband technologies. "We want to use the spectrum to explore extensions and evolutions of our current technology path, and also new technologies and applications," said Andrew Gilbert, executive vice president at Qualcomm Europe. Read more

Trend Micro Inc. of Cupertino, CA. (DEMOfall 06), a global Internet content security company, received the eWeek Channel Insider "Product of the Year" Award in the Security Server Software category for Trend Micro NeatSuite. Read more

Taking away one more hurdle to gain users, Zoho (DEMO 07) today announced that registered users of Yahoo! and Google services can use the usernames and passwords from those accounts to log into Zoho's 20 Web-based productivity and business software applications. Read more

San Francisco – Sprout, (DEMO 08) software for creating and publishing multimedia information as Web widgets, today received $5 million in Series B financing led by Polaris Venture Partners of Waltham, Mass. Mike Hirshland, general partner at Polaris, has joined Sprout’s board of directors. Existing investor Global Venture Capital and Mitch Kapor, founder of Lotus Development Corp. Read more

Todd Vernon, the CEO of Lijit, has written a great article on raising money from angels. I especially like his taxonomy of angels: “The Family Investor: The Family Investor is likely not really a classic Angel Investor at all but rather a supportive family member that “knows you”. Their motivation is likely out of support (sometimes guilt), but their basic investment thesis is they trust you. For me these are the worst type of investor because you likely have intimate knowledge of their financial situation and whether or not they ’should’ be investing. Likely,…

We usually quote other people’s genius in our Twitter feed but, once in a while, we throw in a microhack of our own. Here are a few of the popular microhacks: You don’t need permission to start a company. From investors, co-founders, or anyone else. Trying to recruit while you’re in “stealth mode” is like punching yourself in the balls (see picture). Better to do the right thing wrong than the wrong thing right. Sales: Always be closing. Product: Always be releasing. (Sam Purtill replies, “Engineers: Always be coding.”) Advice is for learning, not…

A reader asks: “My question is how do we value a company with no sales? I understand it’s an arbitrary valuation but is there anything we can possibly base it on? Is there a “default” valuation for companies in a seed round?” We’ll answer this question with some questions (and answers) of our own: How much money do we need? How do we set a valuation from this budget? How do we express our valuation to investors? What’s the range for seed round valuations? How low do seed round valuations go? How much money can we raise in a seed round? How much…

Here are a few of the brave investors who have joined the Venture Hacks community. I’ve also included descriptions of the types of companies they’re looking for: Josh Kopelman from First Round Capital is “looking for companies that find new uses for existing data sets.” Mitch Lasky from Benchmark Capital says, “I still believe in mobile.” Marc Hustvedt, an angel investor, is “looking seriously at IPTV.” Aydin Senkut, an angel investor at Felicis Ventures, has a “focus on early stage consumer internet companies.” James Cham, from…

In 4 Things to Do After You Get Your First Term Sheet, Bill Burnham, a former partner at Mobius and Softbank Capital, writes, “I’ve recently been involved in helping a couple companies with their first major round of VC financing. It’s actually been pretty interesting for me because I have historically been on the other side of the table. In addition to generating several stories worthy of “The Funded” and getting a better appreciation of the trials and tribulations that entrepreneurs must go through when trying to raise money, I also gained a better appreciation for just how…

Long ago, when I set up this blog I read a few primers on blogging. One of them suggested that you have a picture of yourself on your blog. There were lots of good arguments for doing it, so I dutifully hunted among my photos for a picture of myself. Turns out that I didn’t have too many (I tend to be behind the camera rather than in front of it). I did find one that I liked. It was on a nasty old fishing boat on the Prince William Sound (in Alaska). A friend of mine had bought the boat and invited a few friends for an multi-day cruise. There was no running water. The bathroom was a 5…

One of the frustrating things about iterative software development is that you never get to do a heroic launch (a la Steve Jobs). Your software starts off to be barely good enough for someone to endure. The next week it’s better. Rinse, repeat. If you’re good, someday you wake up and you’ve built great software. We’ve got a long road before this day, but we think we’re onto something. Anyhoo, hat tip to Web Worker Daily! They posted a note describing some of the cool new features in RescueTime, including the very first version of RescueTime Groups, which seems…

[edit: I should probably have made a stronger point that I am talking about early early early stage startups. 2-5 people, pre-funding. Carry on!] There is a tremendous amount of venom loosed towards so called “business guys” or “idea guys” (as I’ve called ‘em) in the startup community. They can’t catch a break. A big part of the reason is that we’ve all had that hellish experience with the MBA. The guy who has his “big idea” and “just needs someone to build it”, presumably why he stands back and waves his hands a lot (and…

I wrote a little guest post over at FoundRead (part of the GigaOm network). Give it a read! http://foundread.com/2008/04/02/ycombinator/

There’s quite a flap over Paul Graham’s recent essay. The attacking author quotes a comment on Reddit (always a good sign) as a good summary of the essay of why we should all be terribly offended. “I work with young startup founders in their twenties. They’re geniuses, and play by their own rules. Oh… you haven’t founded a company? You suck.” I kinda feel like there is a reading comprehension problem here. Paul added a “Cliff’s Notes” version of the article to clarify, but I’m going to boil down what I got. The point I got from…

This is a tale of two cities, of sorts. In one, the quarters are cramped, but the creative energy is palpable. In the other, the rooms are spacious, but the energy is less frenetic, more subdued. One resembles a street fair or tent revival, people bustling around, talking over each other, searching for opportunity with a sense of urgency. In the other, civility reigns: people shuffle politely into well-ordered rows, listen quietly, weighing what’s being sold with a certain coolness and distance—more like a medical conference or a cathedral service. Both are friendly; both offer…

Some of the best minds in technology gathered at for The Churchill Club's annual dinner. Eric Savitz of Barron's covered the event in detail. VentureBeat also has a nice summary including audience votes on the trends.   The highlights, excerpted from Eric Savitz article, were; The rise of the “implicit” Internet. Today your permanent record exists; you create a trail of data exhaust, digital bread crumbs. Implicit data that exists in silence. Movie rentals, restaurant reservations, books purchased, Web sites visited, etc. All of this data existed in silence. No easy way until…

During the course of this fiscal year,  I have worked with a number of very innovative companies building applications targeted a vertical markets. These companies showcase how Microsoft technologies can be used to create game changing solutions that can transform an industry.  One such company is DriveCam, a cool company that has created a set of web based software and tools that capture, transmit, analyze and report key details of driving. A palm-size video and recording device is mounted behind the rear view mirror in a vehicle and captures what is happening inside and…

A Glimpse Into Technologies of the Future We are pleased to invite you to the fourth Microsoft Research Silicon Valley Road Show on Thursday, May 22, at the company’s Mountain View campus to personally experience some of the recent innovations coming out of Microsoft’s research labs. Rick Rashid, senior vice president of research, and Roy Levin, director of the Silicon Valley lab, will kick off the event during a keynote session.  Following the presentation, researchers will provide demonstrations in an interactive setting, showcasing some of the innovative projects that the…

As I noted in my 8 May 2008 post, expectations around a coming recessionary environment are driving current behavior among more and more Silicon Valley startups. Facebook is the latest company to join this behavior pattern, raising a sizable chunk of cash (in this case, $100 million via venture debt from TriplePoint Capital). Confirming the root source of the raise as an expectation (or if you prefer, a fear) of bearish times ahead, Facebook CFO Gideon Yu, quoted in Business Week, cites his own previous experience trying to raise money during a drought in 2000 as a driver in the decision.

Existence is contentious.

A Manhattan-based nonprofit aims to bring a dose of healthy competition to a very imperfect market.

Meal-assembly franchisers aimed to turn the food business on its head. Now the biggest is starved for profits.

Advice on extending payment terms in a recession.

Sure, the pictures are nice. But in-depth sustainability reports are more than good PR. They provide better information to stakeholders and rich data to guide wiser management decisions.

Shelly Farnham is cool. She's a kick-butt smart thinker with a PhD in social psychology and a killer background in developing technology that connects people. She is one of 3 founders of the sexy and smart Waggle Labs, a slightly stealth operation here in Seattle that is perpetually percolating projects that use technology to foster meaningful interactions between users – both online and offline. There is no shortage of cool tech companies in Seattle, nor of brilliant thinkers and great ideas, some of which will never see the light of day but are wonderful none the less. There is, however,…

Great 10 Minute video of 4 entrepreneurs discussing how to raise money, run a company and not lose your mind completely.

According to the blog post, there are some sure fire ways to NOT get promoted at work, and as such, these things should all be avoided. Let's have a look. . ..

One of the things that I have learned in the process of building JUST CAUSE IT is that there is nothing – and I mean nothing – that is more important to our success as a company (and probably as individuals too) than the ability to surround ourselves with smart, kind, generous people who can help us in ways that we don't even know we need help.

It's been a year since I first pitched at ESIF For those who don't know, ESIF (Early Stage Investment Forum) is a yearly show-and-tell put on by Northwest Entrepreneur Network.

Grand Theft Auto IV publisher Take Two Interactive Media, is suing the Manhattan Transit Authority after ads promoting the game were pulled from bus stops and public transport following an outcry by Fox News on the inappropriate nature of content in the game. A Fox affiliate showed its usual staple of dire ignorance and fear mongering by blaming a wave of violent crime in Chicago on the newly released game, which prompted a sales agent of the transit authority to pull the ads. Take Two are understandably furious over what they call a serious breach of contract for their $300,000 launch…

Videorix (www.videorix.com) is a fresh incarnation of Brandfame, a start-up I reviewed back in September 2007 which offered product placement in online videos - a concept I didn’t exactly welcome with open arms, but Founder Nadim Elgarhy hopes that this time around Videorix will be much more accessible and concentrate on sponsored ad-slots, rather than the problematic idea of product placement. The model is actually very simple; video publishers browse the marketplace for available opportunities, which come in the form of image ad-slots, which are then edited into a few frames of the…

What exactly is this Social Media malarkey, and why do some people reach the lofty status of influential rockstar while others fall flat on their faces? There seems to be a growing consensus among the down-trodden majority that social media simply isn’t fair, and that a handful of power-users must have got where they are by special treatment, cheating, or some kind of witchcraft - but is that true? There may be a simpler explanation… Whether it’s blogs, digg, twitter, or anything else that falls under the ambiguous “social media” umbrella, the failures are easy…

Founder and Managing Director of online virtual world Second Life, Philip Rosedale is stepping down from his top position within the company to make way for successor, Mark Kingdon, after claiming he is sick and tired of people management, and wants to pursue a role more focused on invention, innovation and strategy. Rosedale, who is set to step down in mid-May, made it clear that he still wants to work full-time on the project, and that his decision has nothing to do with problems within the company, and further went on to say of his replacement, Mark Kingdon.. “Mark is one of the few…

An investigation has been opened by the US Department of Justice into a possible breach of antitrust laws after Yahoo! announced Google Adsense would be implemented in limited trials on Yahoo! search results, in an effort to scupper Microsofts hostile ultimatum to accept a $44.6bn takeover bid. Concerns were raised by regulators after a telephone call between Google’s Eric Schmidt, and Yahoo!’s Jerry Yang, where Google CEO Schmidt allegedly offered to help search rival, Yahoo! defeat the strong-arm tactics of Microsoft with the proposed Adsense partnership, increasing…

Talking Points Memo (a political blog) reported today that the Hillary Clinton campaign emailed an "electability" PowerPoint deck to all House Democrats. It's slideuments like this that have given PowerPoint a bad name over the years. Nine slides, approximately  275 words,  one table, three bar charts, and two pie charts. Why not just write a proper, concise, well-designed document and send it as a PDF? Unfortunately, sending this kind of docu-point/slideument as a quick alternative to a well-crafted paper or handout, etc. is all too familiar. A note about PZ on Twitter I…

David Heinemeier Hansson, creator of Ruby on Rails and partner at 37signals shares his ideas on creating a profitable startup company in a presentation titled "The (a) secret to making money online." I was tipped off to these presentations from Startup School '08 because a reader found the online presentation of the talk noteworthy. I watched the talk initially just to see how the video works, but then I got interested in David's talk. Actually, it's quite good (raw and honest, no bullet-point snoozer, etc.). Although the audio quality and camera work are not great (not the presenter's fault)…

Mitch Joel is the President of the award-winning Digital Marketing agency Twist Image. Marketing Magazine dubbed him the “Rock Star of Digital Marketing” and in 2006 he was named one of the most influential authorities on Blog Marketing in the world. Mitch, from Canada, is also a great presenter and is in high demand for his informative and inspirational talks on issues such as marketing in today's world, digital marketing, personal branding, etc. Mitch has shared the stage with former US President Bill Clinton, Anthony Robbins, Dr. Phil, Sir Ken Robinson, and many more. Go to his…

If you are not aware of the psychologist and physician Dr. Edward de Bono, then you owe it to yourself to at least explore his contributions. I knew of Dr. de Bono from his book Six Thinking Hats, but recently my interest in his work was renewed when I spoke with an executive of a famous multinational firm in Hong Kong who said they'd really benefited from some of his methods. Dr. de Bono says that so-called Western thinking, using analysis, judgement, and argument, is largely concerned with "what is." This is all well and good, he says, but it's not sufficient. There is another…

The Miami Herald's Business Books columnist Richard Pachter wrote an article yesterday praising three new business books, including Presentation Zen. Richard writes a really nice column, so I'm most honored indeed to get a thumbs up from him. Richard talks about two other new books in the article that I have not read yet, but based on his recommendation I have ordered both or them. The first book he reviews is Powerlines: Words That Sell Brands, Grip Fans, and Sometimes Change History by Steve Cone. Actually Steve Cone's other book from 2005, Steal These Ideas!: Marketing Secrets That Will…

Here’s a question regarding integrating sales people into a demo:“I was wondering if you could point me specifically to any thoughts you have about Sales and Presales working in tandem in a sales call. Over the years I have personally experienced some Sales reps briefly introducing themselves, then introducing me - and then saying ‘now watch Bob for the rest of the hour’. They sit back and expect me to run the sales call with my demo.I'm wondering if you have any best practices we can reference to improve this interaction?”This is a terrific and very important topic..! Yes, there…

We've commented previously that using the words "test" or "demo" for file names, examples accounts and other similar uses in demos it not recommended - it tells the customer that the application they are seeing is not "real".One simple solution is to change every use of "demo" or "test" to "production". This generates the impression that it truly is a real environment...!

Here's a very interesting recorded demo to check out:http://www.disruptormonkey.com/foundry/Comments?Here’s what I liked:- REALLY liked the “before” situation – very compellingly presented.- The groovy music, rather than a “professional” voice-over with background thrumming…- The recording/playback technology looks like a nice tool.Here’s what I thought they could do better:- What the heck is the deliverable??? What business process is this improving (web searching and information collection, I assume)?- Make it easy to take action. The company name and URL or phone should…

What vendors have you worked with that build recorded demos for online or website use? What have your experiences been?Here are the URL’s for three companies offering services in this area. Are there others to consider?http://www.flickerbox.com/http://www.vtdemos.com/www.Autodemo.com

During a call with a prospect today, the idea surfaced that there appears to be a relationship between the number of customer visits (or virtual meetings) required to secure each $100K of an order.For example, an order of $100K might typically require 2-3 visits, plus an additional customer visit for each additional $100K in the deal. A $1M order would thus consume 10-12 visits.Comments?

Over the past two weeks we’ve been asking you what the best ways are for young entrepreneurs to raise money. The goal here is to create a list of suggestions for new and existing entrepreneurs to refer to so they can effectively fund their business ideas. We’ve created a Forum Topic to allow you to express your opinions. We’ve had some great posts created and a lively discussion is going on. So far the top responses are: #1) Friends #2) Your Own Savings #3) Family #4) Angel Investors #5) Venture Capitalists #6) Licensing Your Idea #7) Reverse Mergers #8) Private Placements…

Two weeks ago I offered free SEO advice to TheLocoMono. I’m going to continue my SEO Advice series today by helping out another YoungEntrepreneur.com blog reader, Raza from Boycott Software Sweatshops. Boycott Software Sweatshops - http://www.softwaresweatshop.com/ Hey Evan, My blog needs some serious SEO help. I get good traffic by commenting on other blogs, but I don’t have much experience optimizing my site to get good search engine traffic. I get a decent response from my site, it’s helped me close a ton of business so I’d love your critiques and suggestions. Thanks,…

I came across a picture of this t-shirt and had to share it with you! In case you can’t read the design it says: Ten Commandments of Sales: 1) Never take no for an answer 2) Give value first 3) Treat all customers like family 4) Always tell the trth 5) Prospect everyday 6) Keep a positive attitude 7) Return every phone call & email 8) Underpromise & Overdeliver 9) Never make an excuse for your price 10) Keep the faith What do you think of the list? What would make your top ten list of commandments for sales?

“Success is doing what you want to do, when you want, where you want, with whom you want, as much as you want,” says Tony Robbins. For the past 15 years, Robbins has been doing exactly that. As one of the most celebrated motivational speakers and life coaches in the world, Robbins has come from humble beginnings to rise to the top of his game. He not only talks about how to achieve success; with best-selling books and seminars behind him, as well as being Chairman of five private companies that together generate over half of $1 billion, Robbins has himself become a successful entrepreneur…

It is time to get into the nuts and bolts of running a business. This week’s Entrepreneur University comes courtesy of Mark Gwilliam. Mark uses his international experience to coach small business owners on how to run successful businesses. Mark shares his advice on how to create a budget for your small business: “There you are, running around in small circles with deadlines to meet and bills to pay. Can you really afford the time required to produce a detailed budget? Isn’t your time better spent generating revenue? Yes and no. To paraphrase Alice and the Cheshire cat: “If you…

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Each season, 15 designers compete for the chance to showcase their designs at New York's Fashion Week and win $100,000 to fund their businesses. The competition takes place on the Emmy-winning Project Runway, a reality show all about discovering the next great American fashion designer. read more

The nomination application for Fast 50 Reader Favorites has returned, and we have extended the deadline for nomination to May 31. Please use the button below to nominate a company. Return to the Fast 50

Sunnyvale-based optical component firm Finisar Corporation, and Pennsylvania-based Optium Corporation said Friday morning that the two companies have agreed to merge in an all-stock deal. The companies said that Optium stockholders will receive 6.262 Finisar shares for each share of Optium they own. The deal is worth approximately $212M. Both Finisar and Optium manufacture optical networking components, systems, and related products. Finisar is being advised by Oppenheimer & Co. and DLA Piper. Optium is being advised by Morgan Stanley & Co. and Goodwin Procter LLP in the deal.

San Francisco-based Aragon Consulting Group said late Thursday that it has raised $2.5M in a Series A funding from Tracer Capital. ACG is an IT consulting and offshore software development company which helps companies develops software products. The firm maintains major operations in Beijing, China. ACG said the new funding would allow it to "pursue key objectives" around growth and innovation.

ChipVision Design Systems, which develops electronic design automation (EDA) software for low-power chip design, said today that it has raised $4.5M in a Series B investment. The round came from target Partners and BayTech Venture Capital. ChipVision said it would use the funding to introduce its new optimization design tools to the market and for further research and development. ChipVision is based in Oldenburg, Germany with offices in San Jose, California.

Redwood city-based Informatica has completed its acquisition of Nokia's Identity Systems unit, the firms said Thursday, in a deal which was worth $85M in cash. The deal had originally been announced April 17th. Identity Systems develops software for data cleansing of databases, specifically for finding and eliminating duplicate information.

Mountain View-based Google said Thursday afternoon that the firm has added 10 new languages to its web page translation service. The new languages bring the total supported languages to 23. The additional languages include Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Finnish, Hindi, Norwegian, Polish, Romanian and Swedish. The updated service also includes a new cross-language search feature.

Pluck Corporation, which was acquired by Demand Media in March, announced today that it is now powering social media capabilities at Film.com and RollingStone.com. Attracting combined monthly audiences of more than 10 million, Film.com and RollingStone.com will use Pluck’s SiteLife social media capabilities. “Our primary focus is delivering the very best in high quality social entertainment and [...]

Stacey Higginbotham is breaking the news over at GigaOM property Earth2Tech that Joel Serface, director of the Clean Energy Incubator, will be leaving to become an Entrepreneur in Residence at Kleiner Perkins Department of Energy Program, which is an effort to commercialize clean technology coming out of the national laboratories. Maybe he will favor us with [...]

N-trig, the provider of DuoSense™ technology combining pen and zero-pressure touch for mobile and fixed computers into a single device, announced today that it is meeting environmental Green requirements in compliance with international standards. All articles, including materials, parts, assembly, and packaging that N-trig and its affiliates directly or indirectly supply have been designed and [...]

Asuragen announced today the CE-mark and European launch of RNARetain™ Pre-Analytical RNA Stabilization Solution, the company’s clinically validated and cGMP manufactured sample collection and RNA stabilization solution. Based upon patented technology, RNARetain is labeled for the collection, storage, and transport of clinical human cellular and solid tissue specimens and stabilization of intracellular RNA within these [...]

Mashable.com, the leading blog for social networking, announced their US Summer Tour dates today. Cities include Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Miami, Boston, New York City, and yes of course Austin, Texas! Previous Mashable events have been incredibly popular, and we lobbied to make sure that Austin was one stop on the tour. Let’s make [...]

Ads are best. Free ads are cheapest, but unpredictable. Viral is often misunderstood. Any startup with an inexpensive or free product needs to sell many units to make it. For the sake of making the back of this envelope tidy, let's say the conversion rate from trying it out or looking at it to buying (or using enough to have time to see ads) is an optimistic 5%. Let's say the value of a user/customer is $10. And let's consider a modest target of $10M. This means that 1M people need to become paying customers (or regular users of an ad-supported service) and, thus, 20M need to try it out. How…

Likes: arrays, their nesting, and web integration. Dislikes: no lexical scope, short cicruits, or seatbelts. I've been actively using Perl since 1997. For background, before Perl, the only high-level language I used was Lisp. I found Perl's text-processing capacity impressive and stayed. Recently (a year ago), I was exposed to using Python for webdev. Last Sunday, I decided to hold my nose and give PHP a try in a toy Sunday project. I liked it a lot more than I expected I would. For a taste, this implements a poor man's proxy/mirror: $fp = fopen($_REQUEST['url'], 'r', false); fpassthru($fp);…

Script to process HTML into an RSS feed and a comments widget choice -- Disqus. The advantages of having a home page since 1995 are search engine rankings and established links and visitors. The disadvantage is that I am stuck using old technology. Some of the new web tech is just fluff, but RSS, comments, and trackbacks/pingbacks are useful. After procrastinating too long, I set up RSS and comments today. Comments system for plain-HTML site Disqus is a no-brainer. There are several competing comment widgets, and I have not evaluated them, because Disqus is used by Dave Winer, Fred Wilson,…

Summary: When network delay is reported as a single number, a common approach is to report the arithmetic average (mean) of observed delay singleton measurements. This practice yields a poor metric. Median is superior to mean in every way save simplicity of computation. The delay (one-way or round-trip) of a single packet is a singleton measurement of delay of a network. When network delay is reported, singleton is usually not the value to report; instead, some number of packets is sent, and some function of their delays is reported. Such a set of delays is called a sample. The function…

Let us differentiate between three questions: (i) what should happen now when the telcos want to exploit their monopoly position to extract extra value out of information services, (ii) how should this develop in the future, and (iii) whether to support the net neutrality bill as it appears to be shaping up. The third (and the first) questions are more urgent, but the second one is more important. Net neutrality in the near term The phone and cable TV companies do not enjoy their monopoly position because they smartly invested in the right market. The monopoly was created by the government…

Final part in a series teaching you how to streamline and simplify running your business.

Second part in a series teaching you how to streamline and simplify running your business.

Learn how to streamline and simplify running your business.

Listen in to learn how to turn your idea into a viable product.

Learn how to get your product on QVC.

An entrepreneur. (Read to the end for the story of this picture.) Nicholas Negroponte is a brilliant man, a futurist of high rank, an idealist, and an all-around nice guy. He is not an entrepreneur. Neither, for that matter, is Walter...

For the first time since Microsoft announced its intentions to buy Yahoo, I see one way the coupling might make a tiny bit of sense. As of late yesterday (April 9), Yahoo is now rumored to be contemplating a merger with AOL (talk about the ultimate anti-Microsoft...

n Magic Farm you take on the role of a savvy young entrepreneur with a magical green thumb. Grow a variety of flowers and fruit in this enchanting new Time Management game. Sell your flowers separately or make beautiful bouquets for maximum profits! It`s up to you to water, protect,...

Innovation and enterprise is almost universally associated with small businesses. Typically, 95% of all innovations occur in businesses with less than 100 employees. When companies grow past this point the innovation is stifled by processes and bureaucracy.Download this white paper to read case studies of how larger organisations have rekindled...

Partly in reaction to my Sun funny, a Microsoft evangelist named Anand Iyer wrote a defense of Steve Ballmer to which another journalist quickly attached a version of my headline. Leave Steve Ballmer alone. Iyer's point: I think people have to realize that...

1. PR Companies are good to have at Tech networking events. Otherwise there would be few females and all the conversations would go something like this ” and then I ran a benchmark series using the sysbench fileio option to further benchmarkall three types of EC2 instances. it looks like / mounted filesystem (/dev/sda) has much better raw io performance than the larger /mnt (/dev/sdb) filesystem.” 2. There is rumor of an upcoming falafel-off Tech Meetup to be held at MIT in the near future. 3. There needs to be a more macho name for a white wine spritzer. 4. There are a lot of…

If it is anything like their last gathering, Brian and Jay will have another mega networking event to their credit. http://www.popsignal.com/

Genotrope Record: Pixily Company URL: http://pixily.com Formation Date: 2007 Funding Status: Self Funded Investors: Founders Founders or Execs past companies: JPeople Industry: B2B, B2C Offering Description: Pixily is an online subscription service that helps consumers and small businesses aggregate, organize, find and share both paper and digital documents.

We are pleased to announce that the old java applet is gone and in it’s place is a beautiful flash graph. The graph contains more information, when you mouseover a company node, you now see the Status, Industry and Comments fields. The companies are arranged in groups according to what stage they are in. Series A, Acquired etc…. SelectClick a node and it will be come the focus Company and display the relevant record. Clicking in the white space allows one to pan the groups which uncover any company previously hidden. A great place to check it out is from the VC Directory. Best of…

Dan Bricklin asked us to remind people of the upcoming event Tech Tuesday at The Skellig Irish Pub in Walltham. This regular event has been drawing good crowds for a long time. I will see you there as I have my sights on the XBox 360 the sponsor Microsoft is giving away.

Dear Readers,Once you've lived with a name for your company for the better part of a year, it just feels right. But of course, most people have never heard of the name of your company and often wonder why you chose it. The name of my company, as you know, is SavvyAuntie.com. Here's the simple story of how it all came to be:Last summer, as I was starting this company, the Internet was being 'plagued' by four-letter domain names. Hulu, Bebo and Ning were just three destinations being buzzed about. At the time, it seemed like in order to be a 'hot' Internet company, you had to have a four-letter…

Dear Readers,At about two weeks into starting my own business, I knew I needed to get the data right. Sure, it's good to know in your gut that you have a good idea, but being able to articulate it through data makes it even better. So I needed quantifiable data. I also needed to check the pulse of other Aunts. I did not have the funds for a major research study nor a focus group, so I looked on the internet for data and invited some of the girls over for a dessert reception I dubbed my AuntFarm.Finding data online was not as easy as I had hoped. There were no reports on Aunts per say, nor on…

Dear Readers,In the last post, I spoke about how I was lucky enough to connect with a number of entrepreneurs who welcomed me into a community of entrepreneurship. These were people who were years ahead of me in starting up their own business. And it was inspirational.But I also needed to connect with people who were just starting out; people just like me. This was part of doing whatever I could to keep moving forward with starting my own company. So within the first week, I was seeking all the ways I could invest in this company that was still in a very early period of conception. Very…

Dear Readers,On the same day that I decided to start my company, which I knew would serve the modern, cosmopolitan aunt, I made lists. Lists are a good thing to create when you know you need to do something, but aren't sure what.First, I created a list of things the company would do. Or be. Gosh it was so amorphous at this point. It would be a Website. There would be tips for being the best Auntie possible. There would be things to do - Aunties need ideas for what she could do with kids. And of course, there would be products and gift ideas. And community. In my very first day as an…

(Dear Readers, I am sorry but I must interrupt my usual letters to you so that I can address something to the fine people in the Advertising and Marketing world.)Dear Madison Avenue,Please don't wish me a Happy Mother's Day.It's not that I don't appreciate the wishes. And I don't mean to be the "Ebenezer Scrooge" of Mother's Day. It's a perfectly lovely holiday.But I am not a mother.And it's not that I don't want to be. I personally do. But for now, I am not a mother.So when I walk into your store, or open your e-newsletter, or receive your direct mail, please don't wish me a Happy Mother's…

BusinessWeek Online was kind enough to ask me to share the following project with my blog readers, knowing that many of you work from home offices. They want to create a photo essay of readers' standout home-based offices. What exactly qualifies as "standout?":" We are looking for unique spaces from which you run your home-based business today. Do you work from a tent on the beach, a tree house, or the back of a truck?One of my favorite examples is of Kathy Sierra's office in an Airstream trailer.  So if you work in a yurt (someday I will!) or even a very cool retrofitted…

Thanks to Lisa Solomon, I found this gem of a post from Danny Evans, author of Dad Gone Mad who expressed his joy at realizing his dream of writing books. Excerpt:One night, about a year ago, I decided to quit dreaming. Every day, every night, for 20 years, the dream was exactly the same – same props, same characters, same outcome. I could picture all of it with vivid clarity, but the fantasy never survived the transition from sleep to the real here and now. It burned up on re-entry. It lived only in the ether of my mind. In the dream, I was an author. I wrote books. I spent my days on…

Good afternoon! I hope all of you are doing great on this Monday.  (Anyone have a case of "The Mondays?"  -- Insider Office Space joke) I wanted to give you an update on the Escape from Cubicle Nation book, and to request some input. (For new blog readers, here is the  background on the book.) Update first:  I am approaching the writing in a bit of a non-linear fashion, working on a number of chapters simultaneously.  I have outlined all the sections and chapters and am writing notes with key salient points to cover, and juicy stories to tell.  To use a…

How many times have you talked to a new acquaintance and heard him or her say "Just let me know if there is anything I can do for you!"  What was your response? For most people, it is a polite smile and "thanks." Boy, are you missing an opportunity! The more time I spend in business, the more I realize that people generally are brimming with desire to help others. My recent experiences on Twitter reinforce this fact: When my computer blew up, I lamented about it on Twitter and asked for suggestions for backup services.  I not only got great advice from about 20…

Some of you may remember that I got all excited about Steven Pressfield's book The War of Art and covered it in my podcast.  After I finished the recording, I emailed Steven to ask if he would be willing to do an interview with me about the concepts in the book, namely how entrepreneurs can overcome creative blocks. After an initial yes, he had to decline, since his schedule got packed promoting a new book. I was a bit disappointed since after reading the book I was a major groupie, but certainly understood his decision. Fast forward a year or so and my good friend Matthew Scott casually…

Paul Graham's May essay is Lies We Tell Kids. Adults lie constantly to kids. I'm not saying we should stop, but I think we should at least examine which lies we tell and why. There may also be a benefit to us. We were all lied to as kids, and some of the lies we were told still affect us. So by studying the ways adults lie to kids, we may be able to clear our heads of lies we were told. Interesting. It's a long, thoughtful essay.

Good advice? In the first few weeks of my first real job, I was heading out to cover a student demonstration in Mexico City when my then boss, the bureau manager of UPI in Mexico City, told me: "Come back with the story, or not at all. If you don't get the story, don't tell me the reason why not." Bad advice? That's harder, isn't it? Don't you have to be somewhat vindictive to remember bad advice? More good advice (this one is a quote): "I don't know the secret to success, but the secret to failure is trying to please everybody." That's from Bill Cosby. And this one, from…

I'm sorry, that's an old cliché, but the thing about clichés is that they so often become that because they hug the truth. Consider this quote, from Nate Alder of Klymit Technology. He's talking about how his team approached venture competitions. In preparation for each event we would spend our nights at the hotel refining our presentation based off of practice round judges feedback and stay up rehearsing our presentation as opposed to going out late drinking with the rest of the students from other schools. We have always treated this as a serious business from the beginning and not just…

It's hard to write about customer service. Most of the blog posts I see talk about what it isn't, not what it is. Most of my posts on the topic are bad examples. Negative examples are more fun. And easier to come by. Paul Brown's Toolkit column, a regular in The New York Times' Small Business webpage, focuses on For Customer Service this week. This one caught my attention this morning because it actually includes, of all outrageous things, a definition of what customer service is:Writing on sbinfocanada.about.com, which offers resources for small-business owners, Doug Howardell of ACA Group,…

The best readily-available valuation of business consulting services is 1.12 times annual sales. For automotive repair shops, it's .41 times annual sales. Physical fitness facilities are going for .66 times gross annual profit. Grocery stores are going for .28 times annual sales, and sporting goods stores for .34 times annual sales. There's a valuation report in Inc Magazine's April issue that turned me on to Business Valuation Resources, which sells information like the above, culled from data on actual transactions.  I registered (free) to get a free download of a complex chart --…

This obituary of Robert Rauschenberg contains some great quotes from the artist… An improvisatory process was what mattered most to him: Screwing things up is a virtue. Being correct is never the point. I have an almost fanatically correct assistant, and by the time she re-spells my words and corrects my punctuation, I can’t read what I wrote. Being right can stop all the momentum of a very interesting idea. Embracing change is essential: John Cage said that fear in life is the fear of change. If I may add to that: nothing can avoid changing. It’s the only thing you can count on.

AfriGadget is a website dedicated to showcasing African ingenuity. A team of bloggers and readers contribute pictures, videos and stories from across the continent. Inspiring stuff. This guy made a crude helicopter with scrap aluminum and parts from a Honda Civic, an old Toyota and from the remains of a crashed Boeing 747. Here’s a guy who made a paraglider out of plastic bags and scrap wire. A home made welding machine from Nairobi. Kids forced to make their own toys show off their ingenuity. In Kenya they’ve developed bio gas generator that turns methane from a manure pit into…

I’m an extremely fast paced, frenetic person, but I’m learning to calm down and chill out. In a book I picked up recently this sentence is repeated in every chapter: “Haste is a form of violence.” Those six words have slapped me across the face a few times lately. I notice that I am in such a rush to get things done that I don’t do them as well as I can. I go through hundreds of support email logs gathering times so I can average my reply speed, and in doing so I see hasty responses that could have been better had I spent just a little more time. I stand in line…

Some recent posts at the 37signals Product Blog: Extras New version of Ta-da Lists Widget released Having problems with your Ta-da Lists Widget? Then go ahead and download v1.3, released today. Case Studies Getting the most out of Backpack as a GTD (“Getting Things Done”) solution “For example, I’ve been invited to a special luncheon with the Internal Revenue Service in a couple of weeks, and they’d like me to bring along a few things (financial records and such). Before Backpack, it would’ve ended up with me emailing myself a pantload of PDF bank statements, then…

The whole 37signals thing gathered in Chicago for a pow wow last week. How do we start a meeting? By celebrating. No confetti or streamers. Just a recap of everything we’ve accomplished since we met last (we hold full-team meetings every few months). We tick off the accomplishments and let the champions of each one explain what happened and what was learnt. Plus, they get to bask in a bit of glory for (presumably) a job well done. It’s easy for businesses to get caught up with looking forward all the time. Or to focus on problem areas. But it’s also smart to take a few…

If you've been following OnStartups.com for any period of time, you likely know that I'm not a big advocate of startup founders going out and trying to raise venture funding in the early stages. My argument boils down to two things: 1) Most folks don't need venture funding in the early stages 2) the odds of first-time entrepreneurs actually raising VC is pretty low. Oh, and 3) it's one of the least fun activities an entrepreneur can take. Raising funding is often harder than building a product/business -- and much less fun! So, given my general disposition, it will come as a surprise to many…

I'm becoming an increasingly big fan of infrastructure services like Amazon's EC2 and S3. The reason is simple: You pay for what you need at around the time that you need it. This is the point I made when recently interviewed by Erica Naoone of MIT Technology Review in an article aptly and succinctly titled "Cheap Infrastructure". In the interview I was my usual, highly opinionated self, but this particular statement that made it into the article jumped out at me: "There's no correlation between the amount of money an entrepreneur actually needs and the money a venture capitalist puts into…

I'm looking forward to BarCamp Boston coming up on May 17th and 18th. If you're in the Boston area, and reading this, you're probably just the type that should be attending. 1. How To Run ASP.NET Apps on Google App Engine 2. Why RoR Doesn't Rock: Productivity Is For Pansies 3. How To Install and Run Firefox on Windows Vista SP2 4. How To Tie a Tie Without Strangling Yourself 5. Careers in COBOL: Not An Oxymoron 6. Learning RSS: Because It's Really Not So Simple 7. Stylesheets? We don't need no stinkin' stylesheets: If Al Gore wanted us to separate content from presentation, he would have…

I did the opening presentation at MIT's Underground 2008 event yesterday for student entrepreneurs. My hat's off to Albert Park and his colleagues for organizing a great event. We need more of this kind of stuff in the Boston/Cambridge area to bring student entrepreneurs together with others. Here are some quick notes and points that I made from my presentation. My favorite part about it was the fact that there were no PowerPoint presentations allowed. When the organizers told me that, it made my day. [For reasons, see "Why I Hate PowerPoint"]. Note: If you were at the event, please note that…

Ok, it's late (2:07 a.m. here in Boston), so please forgive my snarkiness. I'm going to presume that most startups would like to be found online by people (you know, like potential users or -gasp- customers) .  People try really hard to get their internet marketing "right" so as to increase their chances of being found by the right people online.  There's a whole industry based on this need.  I should know, I'm in the business of helping businesses get found. That's why this particular example really struck a chord with me.  Lets start at the…

Y Combinator and Stanford’s BASES hosted the 4th annual Startup School last weekend. It felt to me like the best one so far. Startup School began as an experiment to “open source” Y Combinator-- to see how much we could give everyone for free in one concentrated day of talks. More than 700 people traveled from around the world to attend it this year. The atmos at SUS has always been unique, but this year it was even more intense. In fact, what surprised me most was the audience’s rapt attention from beginning to end. I usually expect a handful of people to arrive late,…

When Chris Sacca talks, people listen.It’s 7 weeks into Y Combinator's winter funding cycle and we’re in the thick of things now. Demo Day Looms LargeThe founders are demons of productivity right now, because they are preparing to present to investors at Demo Day next month. Many founders look back on these three months and say it was the most productive time of their lives, but this period in the month before demo day tends to be the most productive of all.  Over the past few weeks they’ve been iterating on their ideas. Some show up with their idea in great shape, but…

Tim O'Reilly literally "Watching the Alpha Geeks" (photo by Adam Kazwell)Y Combinator and Stanford’s BASES recently announced this year’s Startup School. When: April 19, 2008, 9:00 amWhere: Kresge Auditorium, Stanford UniversityApplication Deadline: March 23I’m biased of course, but I think this is the best event out there for anyone who wants to start a startup (or already has). You can’t learn everything in a day, but Startup School exposes you to advice from an amazing array of people who have either done it themselves or work daily in that world.Startup School…

Bill Gates demoed Xobni (YC summer '06) at the Office Developers Conference today. Cool.

Today Imeem announced that it has acquired Anywhere.fm. Anson Tsai, Luxiou Chen and Sachin Rekhi founded Anywhere.fm last year, during Y Combinator’s summer 2007 funding cycle. They’re the first startup from last summer’s batch to be acquired, and they were also one of the first in that batch to launch. The Anywheres seemed to do everything fast. Above all, they built things fast.  They’d talk with us about a new feature idea, and then the next time we saw them, a few days later, it would be done. This ensured that they had one of the most impressive presentations…

Hi gang, There's a reason I own a company that sells movies -  I am a movie freak.   Just love 'em.  If I weren't already married, I would marry movies - I would have movies baby.  You get my point. I've recently discovered a really cool new wrinkle to being a Dad - my kids like movies too!   My oldest son is now 7, and he has officially declared that he wants to go see movies with daddy at a theatre. So this afternoon, I said what the heck and took my critter to see "Speed Racer". "Speed Racer"  is the new project from the Wachowski brothers - the eBayers of moviemaking.   They…

Let's hit the button on the "Way Back Machine" for a moment today. One of the things we took a great deal of time with as we started up Showcase U is talking about, evaluating, brainstorming and then painstakingly documenting the foundation for the company. This included a well researched business plan and moved to the meticulous aspects of our administrative & operational structure. This is a difficult discipline to adhere to because when you're excited about starting up a new company, all you want to do is get going, get it launched and start making mo