Category Archives: Invested Interests

Invested Interests

The Startups Weekend Phenomenon and Angel Investors

Actual, fundable, serious startups in a single weekend? No. Real? Great learning experience? And worth doing? Yes. 

Last Sunday night I judged nine pitches from nine groups that started from scratch just two days before, late Friday afternoon. They had some good ideas, good pictures, a prototype or two, some good video … and an entertaining event. 

Startup Weekend startupweekend.org

I’m posting this here for two audiences: angel investors and founders (including would-be and wanna-be founders) of startups. 

I was one of four judges, all of us members of local angel investment groups working with the gust.com platform. In two hours we had pitches and questions and answers. Then we met for 30 minutes and chose a winner. This was in Corvallis, OR, for the Willamette Valley. 

This isn’t exactly news. It was a Startup Weekend as conceived and licensed by the organization at startupweekend.org, supported by the Kauffmann Foundation, Google, Microsoft, Amazon.com, and others (my company was a sponsor of this local one). You probably already heard of it. I had, and I’d been invited to speak or judge before, but hadn’t been able to actually do it until now. The Startup Weekend organization has run 970 of these weekends in 108 countries and is doing about seven or so every month now. 

It’s a good reminder about what it takes to start a business. The whole thing started Friday with a vote on the better ideas. They formed teams, worked Friday night, Saturday, and Sunday. They ended up with market validation, execution, and what seemed like a lot of progress in very little time. Several of the pitches looked like interesting prospects that could happen. 

 It was a lot of fun, good for the local startup community, and good for the 75 (or so) people who spent all weekend doing it. 

 

Tim Berry , Founder, Palo Alto Software
January 30th, 2013 1

Invested Interests

How to Maximize Results in the Art of Persuasion

Howard Gardner photo via TheDish.org

Being a good entrepreneur means being able to effectively convince an investor that you have a great idea, persuade partners that your approach is right, and convince potential customers that the solution is right for them. If all your ideas are intuitively obvious to everyone, you probably aren’t thinking outside the box, or don’t really have the next big thing.

The process and tactics involved in winning over others with your views have has been studied extensively by Howard Gardner, a Harvard developmental psychologist, in “Changing Minds: The Art and Science of Changing Our Own and Other People’s Minds.” It turns out that the same principles apply to changing your own mind (learning new things), as well as others. Read more

Invested Interests

Startups Need the Right Team Mindset to Survive

Image via Facebook.com

Since the days of Henry Ford, mass production has been the Holy Grail of business, rather than build-to-order. Too many businesses haven’t noticed that we have come full-circle, where mass customization is required now to win. Customers have come to expect immediate and tailor-made responses to their needs, and the businesses that fail to deliver quickly fall behind.

Changing the culture and mindset in an existing businesses is difficult and slow, so this becomes another “opportunity” for smart entrepreneurs and startups to excel. John M. Bernard does a great job outlining seven key steps to success today in his recent book, “Business at the Speed of Now.” They apply to any business, but every startup better lead with these: Read more

Invested Interests

Startup Map & Trends Analysis – December 2012

December update and insights about new startups:

India became second last month as the country with the highest count of new Startups, right below the United States. India’s average position for the year has been fourth, it came up to third in February and between June to August, but only reached second for the first time this past month.

Top 5 Us states remained steady this month and were consistent with their yearly averages.

New startups creation stages remained steady and in line with the rest of the year, with 13.1% in Concept Stage, 43.2% in Development Stage, 34.5% in Product Ready Stage and 9.2% in Revenue Stage. The trend noticed last month of Product Ready companies declining appears to have dissipated as all stages regained their balance.

Industry wise, interesting things are happening, the percentage of total Internet Web Service companies (the biggest industry for new startups) appears to be on the decline, with a market share loss of 1.8% in December when compared with November (from 15% to 12.2% respectively).

Invested Interests

Build Entrepreneur Credentials Early and Wisely

Mark Zuckerberg at Harvard via ShinyShiny.tv

Many believe that entrepreneurs are born, not made. While I agree that successful company builders usually have a natural inclination to be entrepreneurs, a good education helps polish that apple. There are people who are natural musicians, but that doesn’t mean we don’t try to teach them music.

Of course, there’s no law saying you have to go to college to start a business. We can all point to examples of successful entrepreneurs who dropped out of college, but still went on to make a big impact. Current young adults have grown up hearing about Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook), who dropped out of Harvard, as the paragon of success. Why not try to follow in his footsteps? Read more

Invested Interests

7 Startup High Risk Factors That Scare Investors

Image via Flickr by artemuestra

We all know that every startup is risky. No risk means no reward. Yet every investor has his own “rules of thumb” on what makes a specific startup too high a risk for his investment taste. You need to know these guidelines to set your expectations on funding.

Of course, if you intend to fund the business yourself, or have a rich uncle, external investment funding concerns are not a problem. Yet, it’s still worthwhile to understand the issues so you can minimize your own risk of failure. Here is a summary of the “big picture” high risk considerations: Read more

Invested Interests

Startups are the Place to Find and Use Baby Boomers

Richard Branson image via Wikipedia

The buzz from startup executives, especially high-tech ones, has long been that startups are no place for Baby-Boomers (1946-1964) – you must have the high energy and crazy determination to work 20-hour days to succeed. Only the under-35 age group need apply.

I will argue that times have changed, and you better take another look. First of all, the Boomer demographic is currently the single largest, mainstream pool of experienced talent in the market today (76 million people strong). They have worked with high technology and computers for at least 20 years, are highly educated, and highly motivated. Last year, nearly 40% of the total workforce was Boomers. Read more