I sent a tweet out last week that resulted in some healthy debate:

“three years ago, I was telling everyone I met to start companies. These days, I’m telling everyone to think twice”

Of course, it’s not fair to give general advice like [...]]]> Original post by Rob Go via Business Insider

I sent a tweet out last week that resulted in some healthy debate:

“three years ago, I was telling everyone I met to start companies. These days, I’m telling everyone to think twice”

Of course, it’s not fair to give general advice like that.  But what I meant was, 3-5 years ago, when I met someone who was thinking about starting a company, my bias was one of action. Today, my bias is one of caution.

What’s changed?  Couple thoughts:

1. First, part of my perspective is just driven by my natural instincts to be counter-cultural. When there seems to be a lot of hype around an area or activity, I find myself pretty un-attracted to it.  Bill Sahlman has a wonderful chart he shows students about the trends in the industries that HBS students tend to flock to, and the subsequent performance of those industries.  When a surge of students start pursuing an area, you can almost predict that a crash is coming. I can tell you that the surge of HBS students pursuing startups right now is at a new high.

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When starting a business, marketing is (or should be) the business owner’s biggest priority. Yet many startups have no clue about marketing.  With that in mind,  I thought who better to learn what works in marketing than from those who have gone before? I reached out to established [...]]]> Original post by Wendy Kenney via startupnation

When starting a business, marketing is (or should be) the business owner’s biggest priority. Yet many startups have no clue about marketing.  With that in mind,  I thought who better to learn what works in marketing than from those who have gone before? I reached out to established business owners across all industries to see what marketing ideas would come up.  I got so  many incredible tips; I decided to use them all! Of course they may or may not all apply to your business, but there are some great ideas and some common themes.  Add yours to the list in the comments!

86 common sense marketing tips for startups.

From Chris Yoko of Yoko Co - Interactive Marketing

1.      Be engaging and responsive - whether in person, on the phone or through social media, enable customers and fans to talk about you by talking to them.

2.      Use video! Explain your product or service, how it works, why it’s useful. You can illustrate elements text just can’t convey.

3.      Show proof. Even if you have to give it away a time or two, get some information that proves it works and is worth it!

From Kristin Marquet of Marquet Media, LLC

4.      Have a marketing plan - I don’t care if it’s on paper or in your head, just make sure you have a marketing plan!

5.      Don’t max out your credit cards on advertising.

6.      Hire a copywriter who understands your audience.

From Mark Huggans of AffordableHealthcare.US (Click-Shop-Insure.com)

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Visual search startup Serge promises to deliver camera-based searches from smartphones, while Isis provides a novel way to try on clothing in stores using Microsoft Kinect.

Every once in a while I run into something really interesting. Such was the case last week when I [...]]]> Original post by ROB ENDERLE via Digital Trends

Visual search startup Serge promises to deliver camera-based searches from smartphones, while Isis provides a novel way to try on clothing in stores using Microsoft Kinect.

Every once in a while I run into something really interesting. Such was the case last week when I met with Rich Jenkins, Vice President of Business Development at Serge, new visual search company. Serge is launching a new search service that connects people to their brands through their Smartphones. Because they need to build a database of brands and sell advertisers on the idea of the value of this connection, the company has a rather interesting way to make you part of the sales effort and, at least on paper, you could earn a Ferrari doing it.

I’ve been a big fan of creative ways to get people to do things for you, and like the idea of getting cash better than Google’s historic approach of rewarding you with crappy software for helping them out. Serge actually has two services and the other, called Isis, is more interesting, but doesn’t have the cash reward part.

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I must say that I have been a little bit disappointed recently in the many, many, many analysts who have been knocking the Facebook valuation with very limited insight into what is going on with their advertising business. Their revenue potential is as strong as it has ever been and the [...]]]> Original post by HUSSEIN FAZAL via TC

I must say that I have been a little bit disappointed recently in the many, many, many analysts who have been knocking the Facebook valuation with very limited insight into what is going on with their advertising business. Their revenue potential is as strong as it has ever been and the social network continues to grow its users and roll-out innovative advertising products.

While there are many things that Facebook can do to drive revenue related to display, search, and mobile – let’s take a look at three immediate steps Facebook could take to ramp up revenues from its 500 Million+ monthly active users on mobile devices.

1. Show more Sponsored Stories in the mobile news feed – A sponsored story is a piece of news that you would see in your news feed anyways – turned into an ad. It is relevant, social and most people who see a sponsored story wouldn’t even recognize it as an ad. Simply put – sponsored stories work. Looking at campaigns AdParlor has run across numerous verticals show that on average, sponsored stories have a 17% higher click-through-rate and a 38% higher conversion-rate than regular marketplace ads.

When sponsored stories were first introduced they were only shown on the right-hand column. They were then rolled out into the news feed on the web version of Facebook. At fmc they announced that they would begin to serve sponsored stories on mobile, and on April 26th it seems to have gone live. However, most users have seen few if any sponsored stories in their mobile news feed as Facebook is slowly rolling this out while monitoring user experience. Facebook can easily flip the switch on this, increasing the volume of sponsored stories it shows in the mobile news feed and increase their mobile revenues.

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A good friend of mine has long argued that startups can succeed through vision and hard work. Because I only partially agree with his position, we have had more than one heated argument on the subject. It is my belief that hard work and a great idea are [...]]]> Original post by Kevin Ready via Forbes

A good friend of mine has long argued that startups can succeed through vision and hard work. Because I only partially agree with his position, we have had more than one heated argument on the subject. It is my belief that hard work and a great idea are required ingredients for success, but that those two elements alone are not enough for a startup to become a success.

Imagine a great Amazonian rainforest. As your mind floats along the banks of a surging river in this rainforest, pause for a moment and take in the strength and beauty of the mightiest of the trees that you can see in front of you. Reaching above all of the other plants and collecting a shower of precious sunlight, this tree is over 100 feet tall, with sinewy roots reaching deep into the rich forest soil. Beautiful isn’t it?

Did this tree get to be the the giant that it is because of hard work? Not hardly.

Rolling the clock back 120 years or so , back when that tree was nothing but a seed, it was identical to millions of other seeds that were formed during that season of that year. The seed that would become this tree grew on the branch of its parent tree and fell to the ground as an anonymous speck. While most of the other seeds of that season fell to the forest floor and were eaten by insects or washed away, that one seed fell into just the right place at just the right time. Luckily, a  tree had recently fallen and left a wide reach of canopy open to the sky. In addition to that fortunate fact, the spot where the seed fell was just the right kind of niche to prevent it from being washed into the deep reaches of the river below and out to sea in the massive rains to come. That seed didn’t work hard–it was lucky.

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Maybe you need your Google calendar to sync with your Outlook account, or you’re trying to to send edited photos from your iPad to your Mac. Or maybe you just want help getting set up on a new device.

At some point, no matter who you [...]]]> Original post by Sarah Kessler via Mashable

Maybe you need your Google calendar to sync with your Outlook account, or you’re trying to to send edited photos from your iPad to your Mac. Or maybe you just want help getting set up on a new device.

At some point, no matter who you are, you’re likely to meet a technology problem that stumps you — and that you can’t Google.

A startup called AnswerQi thinks there’s potential in online human-based tech help. “There’s an idiosyncratic nature to people and their tech problems,” AnswerQi co-founder Glenn Nano says.

“‘I’m running Snow Leopord with Microsoft 2008 and have this problem’ might be different solution than ‘I’m running Leopard with Microsoft 2010 and have [the same problem].’”

AnswerQi aims to be a TaskRabbit or Zaarly for tech help. Users submit their questions on the site, and consultants (well, just Nano and his co-founder Jamie Forrest for the time being) answer questions within their knowledge base by email.

An upcoming option will also allow users to chat with a consultant instantly. Eventually, Nano hopes that the site will allow technology students and professional consultants to make money on the side.

AnswerQi charges $5 to $30 per question, depending on difficulty, or a subscription fee of $49 for five answers per month. Searching past questions and answers, however, is free.

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Android is shipping more phones than Apple iOS, and Samsung Tops Apple from a Hardware perspective

A report from NPD last week paints what looks like a clear indication that developers should choose Android.   The operating system breakdown looks like this:

Apple is the logical choice for mobile [...]]]> Original post by Todd Warren via Forbes

Android is shipping more phones than Apple iOS, and Samsung Tops Apple from a Hardware perspective

A report from NPD last week paints what looks like a clear indication that developers should choose Android.   The operating system breakdown looks like this:

Apple is the logical choice for mobile development today

A significant number of the teams in my NUvention Web class choose development on mobile.   As I told a team I am coaching this year; while many start out with a non-Apple platform, almost everyone converges on at least having iPhone by the end of the class.  Why is this?  There are so many things wrong with developing on iPhone:  I’m on record saying that Objective C is terrible (mixing SmallTalk and C was not a mixture of peanut butter and chocolate; more like lemonade and milk).   Java and C# are much nicer languages.  The locked down nature of the iPhone platform makes it hard to get your app out to be tested by users.  Tools like TestFlight have to fill the gap to help you deploy to beta users (TestFlight is terrific by the way—a developer friend of mind who has written apps since the days of the Mini computer raves about the kind of instrumentation you get).   While the UI is great and performance is prioritized with the Apple OS, these can also complicate app building.    Memory management is also a pain on the iPhone compared with it’s garbage collected counterparts on Android and Windows Phone.

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Listen to Steve Blank, author ofThe Four Steps to the Epiphany,and the answer is yes.

The lean startup movement that applies scientific techniques to startup building and which he helped pioneer is producing results. “I think we now know how to make entrepreneurs fail less,” he said Friday [...]]]> Original post by Mark Boslet via PEHUB

Listen to Steve Blank, author ofThe Four Steps to the Epiphany,and the answer is yes.

The lean startup movement that applies scientific techniques to startup building and which he helped pioneer is producing results. “I think we now know how to make entrepreneurs fail less,” he said Friday during an on-stage appearance at the Menlo Ventures 2012 CEO Summit. “It is now possible to reduce the 100 stupid things entrepreneurs do.”

Lots of company teams have been taught and substantive change has come to the early stage ecosystem, Blank said.

Not so fast. “We’re starting to amass evidence, but it is still early days,” counters Eric Ries, author The Lean Startup and perhaps the reigning heavy weight in the movement.

The industry is just now seeing the first generation of companies that applied the ideas start to exit. Ecosystem reform is a long journey with lots of ground still to cover, said Ries (pictured), who shared the stage at the summit.

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There’s an old saying that 90 percent of new businesses fail within a year, and they fail because of a lack of capital.

Fortunately, that’s a myth. According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, 70 percent of new businesses survive at least two years, and more [...]]]> Original post by Maria Korolov via Hypergrid Business

There’s an old saying that 90 percent of new businesses fail within a year, and they fail because of a lack of capital.

Fortunately, that’s a myth. According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, 70 percent of new businesses survive at least two years, and more than half were still in business five years later. And those numbers include companies that shut down for a variety of reasons. In 2007, for example, the majority of companies closed for non-financial reasons — the owner sold the company, retired, died, decided to start a different business, or another reason.

That’s not to say that money isn’t important. Some 42 percent of companies ceased operating because of money. But saying that a company folded because of money is like saying that someone is dead because the heart stopped beating. It may be true that in every single death, the heart has stopped — but the actual cause of death can be almost anything. Similarly, a business can run out of money because of mismanagement, over-expansion, a sudden influx of competition, changes in the industry, and many other reasons.

In addition, just over 30 percent of all companies were founded with less than $5,000 in start-up capital in 2007, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

So here are some tips on how to start a business for under $5,000 — or nothing at all. But you’re going to need something else to make up for the lack of money, such as connections, technical skills, marketing skills, or management skills. Of course, you can always learn networking, programming, marketing, sales and management. Plenty of idiots work successfully in these areas, it’s not rocket science. All it takes is a commitment to learn and practice these skills. But the more of these skills you already have under your belt, the better off you’ll be.

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There’s nothing wrong with making phone apps or mobile games. But Jamie Goldstein thinks that startups — and their backers — should attack bigger, meatier problems. So, while many people talk up the virtues of lean startups, Goldstein thinks it’s time to focus on companies willing to take big risk — [...]]]> Original post by Barb Darrow via GIGAOM

There’s nothing wrong with making phone apps or mobile games. But Jamie Goldstein thinks that startups — and their backers — should attack bigger, meatier problems. So, while many people talk up the virtues of lean startups, Goldstein thinks it’s time to focus on companies willing to take big risk — and it is risky to attack big problems. These companies are what Goldstein, a general partner at North Bridge Venture Partners, calls Phat startups. 

Here are Goldstein’s Top 10 Phat Startups in no particular order. (Full disclosure: five of the 10 are North Bridge affiliated companies and they’ve been designated with NBVP.)

1. Heartland Robotics: iRobot and MIT alum Rodney Brooks’ Heartland Robotics is making robots flexible and cheap enough to do manual tasks that most people don’t want to do. Boston-based Heartland’s success in building “teachable” robots could mean that repetitive jobs that might otherwise go to China stay put.

2. Foro Energy: Littleton, Colo.-basedForo develops drills for oil exploration that use high-powered lasers to do the job faster and cleaner. The company says its  technology will enable oil companies to drill ten times faster than traditional drill bits. (NBVP)

READ 3 TO 10 HERE