Be the Muhammad Ali of innovation

Stay nimble on your feet and dance around to see what's around you, both punches and opportunities

by Bambi Francisco - January 06, 2009
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Lessons learned highlights 2008

by Bambi Francisco , December 31, 2008 | Comments (0)

Surviving the downturn; making tough decisions; how to be great

We’ve built a great library of “lessons learned and advice’ for entrepreneurs from top VCs to successful entrepreneurs. Not surprisingly, this year we had many lessons on surviving the cash crunch…We hope you enjoy this compilation of some of the words of wisdom regarding how to survive the downturn.We start with Brian Ascher, partner at Venrock Capital. One of the ...

Ooyala founders: Sprint in the same direction

by Bambi Francisco , December 30, 2008 | Comments (0)

Lepe brothers and Sean Knapp share team hug and advice to entrepreneurs

What happens when you bring together two brothers and a dorm mate, who are fiercely competitive runners and former Googlers and Stanford students? You get a pretty good founding team. “We went through numerous business models in the first few months," said Sean Knapp, one of the founders of Ooyala, a two-year-old video advertising and delivery platform. "But the important ...

Engagement loops: Beyond viral

by Eric Ries, December 23, 2008 | Comments (0)

In pursuit of understanding metrics, mechanics, and levers of engagement

There's a great and growing corpus of writing about viral loops, the step-by-step optimizations you can use to encourage maximum growth of online products by having customers invite each other to join. Today, I was comparing notes with Ed Baker (one of the gurus of viral growth). We were trying to broaden the conversation beyond just viral customer acquisition. Many ...

VC Clint Chao on surviving the turmoil

by Meliza Solan, December 22, 2008 | Comments (0)

Be conscious about capital; go further on less; and why the best technology doesn't always win

At the recent, AlwaysOn Venture Summit, held at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Half Moon Bay, I caught the last panel of the event, titled, "How To Beat Kleiner and Sequoia after the Apocalypse." I had a chance to interview one of the panelists, Clint Chao, a founding partner at Menlo Park, Calif.-based Formative Ventures, an early-stage venture firm investing in ...

Tips to consider for better online marketing

by Mike Fruchter, December 17, 2008 | Comments (0)

Thoughts to consider for better online marketing

I recently gave a consultation to a potential client regarding their social media strategies. This company, who shall remain nameless, is already a large, respected, and dominate leader in their space. They have been online just short of a year, made many acquisitions, and they have an active userbase, and community that continues to grow. Some of the problems they ...

Improve your site's acquisition and retention

by Rebecca Weeks Watson, December 17, 2008 | Comments (0)

User experience expert shares tips for pre-launch, audience targeting, optimization, and measurement

Too often entrepreneurs with a grand idea jump the gun by building and launching a Web site and then assuming traffic and sales will easily flow from there. I’m sure you’ve seen what I’m referring to: a flashy, overwhelmingly complicated site that leaves you wondering what the purpose is and what’s really in it for you. This is a crucial ...

What type of talent begets success?

by Demian Entrekin, December 15, 2008 | Comments (0)

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It's not the identification of talent that matters

Malcolm Gladwell is at it again. I can think of no one who has done more of a yeoman's job injecting ideas into the popular discussion. Gladwell's latest offering asks us to consider the problem of talent selection. After an anecdote on the difficulty of picking NFL quarterbacks based on college performance, we get to the heart of the question: "There are ...

Take the pain early, and just do it

by Meliza Solan, December 11, 2008 | Comments (0)

	AMF Ventures Tony Smith on pain, marketing and telepathy Sometimes, actually most of the time, procrastination isn't a good thing. "Take the pain early,"said Tony Fish, a venture capitalist at AMF Ventures, whom I caught up with at Mobile 2.0's cocktail party in San Francisco. "There are a lot of things going on in the moment and what you've got to focus on is just not over the ...
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The hacker's lament

by Eric Ries, December 11, 2008 | Comments (0)

At their root, all technology problems are human problems

One of the thrilling parts of working and writing in Silicon Valley is the incredible variety of people I've had the chance to meet. Sometimes, I meet someone that I feel a visceral connection with, because they are struggling with challenges that I've experienced myself. In a few cases, they are clearly smart people in a bad situation, and I've ...

Lessons from my biggest business mistake

by Seth Godin, December 10, 2008 | Comments (0)

	I did not believe; and I actively ignored the world wide Web in 1994 My biggest mistake (at least in terms of income avoided) was not believing in the world wide web in 1994. It's not like I didn't know about it. I had written a book called "Best of the Net". I'd even written the cover story for some now-defunct magazine on how to surf the internet. But in those days, the Net ...
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10 tools for listening in social media

by Mike Fruchter, December 10, 2008 | Comments (1)

	Brand monitoring tools This post highlights 10 tools for discovery and managing url and brand chatter. If you're doing business online or offline, these tools are essential. As the saying goes, "keeping your ear to the street." 1) Google Blog/Web Search: Google web search should be your obvious first choice for listening. Web search will sometimes drown you in thousands of pages ...
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35 tips for getting started with social media

by Mike Fruchter, December 8, 2008 | Comments (4)

	For beginners starting out with social media If you are going to start using social media, you should at least have an understanding of what it's about. Social media is not about the tools, the tools are only a facilitator. Starting with the basics. Roll your sleeves up, get dirty and stake your claim: 1) Register your domain name, preferably a dot com extension. It's also a ...
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Fark CEO Curtis on surviving the downturn

by Bambi Francisco , December 4, 2008 | Comments (0)

Drew Curtis lasted through the 2000 bubble burst, and came out stronger

In February of 2009, Fark - an aggregator of strange and humorous stories, and the granddaddy of news aggregators – turns 10 years old. That means that Drew Curtis, Fark’s founder, who runs the popular site out of his home in Lexington, Kentucky, with essentially 16 virtual part-time moderators, has survived the last downturn. With 70-plus million monthly pageviews today, ...

On Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers

by Ezra Roizen, November 30, 2008 | Comments (3)

	Quick thoughts on being successul Does the year you're born make any difference in your success? It's a question that will come up for anyone reading Malcolm Gladwell's book, Outliers. Even though there's something about Gladwell's books that make me feel like I'm supposed to read them in an airport, I was able to fight that feeling long enough to get through it this past Thanksgiving ...
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