Startup acceleration: what on earth does that really mean?
Is it just about speeding up the rate at which startups emerge, or making them grow faster, or just unintentionally hurrying them on to an earlier demise?
Agile methodology applied to non-technology: success shock!
Arts authorities caught publicly admitting to experimenting with ditching the ‘waterfall ‘ approach (where committees endlessly prepare vast unread(able) reports before anyone even considers trying anything new) only to discover that they can get strategic projects done quickly and well after all. Gasp!
NASA is all about space, right? No? What then?
They have another mission-critical job that you probably didn’t know about. They are required to make air travel on this planet safer, more efficient and more environmentally friendly for everyone
Are ‘hopeless’ startups our best hope for sustainable jobs?
A startup only has to take one person out of unemployment to make a net contribution to job growth. Instead of ‘Jobseekers Allowance’ why not ‘Business Model Seekers Allowance’?
Large Hadron Collider on a chip
We’re going beyond innovation here. Instead of the latest technology, we’re getting a tantalising glimpse of things that don’t yet exist, but are making exciting progress in the lab and could ultimately represent enormous advances in almost every field of science and technology if they fulfil their promise
In at the birth of biotech investment
Biology has replaced chemistry as the primary science behind drug discovery: how did this transformation begin, who was involved, and how did it get funded?
Mortgage your house, then bootstrap from zero to $50m in 7 years
And all that was BEFORE she got into the VC business, and not just the old-style VC business: she does mentoring at TechStars, invested early in UStream, and is CEO of Get Satisfaction, a 50,000+ customer startup which uses social media to support customer relationships
Is the AirBnB situation a gift?
“Customer service here, we’ve decided to do whatever we can to put right this terrible thing that happened to you when you used AirBnB. For a start, can we have your bank details, so that we can immediately deposit a million dollars”
What will Google do now search is suddenly dying?
Investment legend Roger McNamee says mobile has already killed search. Smartphone users hardly use search. Is Google no longer the gatekeeper to the web, business, the world? Will Google+ put them back in the money? Does today’s ‘Facebook for business’ launch roll the dice once again?
The innovation policy problem is not just an innovation problem
It’s an engagement and integration problem
Time for a twist in the ARM story?
Instead of fanning the flames at the bonfire parties regularly held all over Cambridge to celebrate the outstanding achievements of chip designer ARM holdings, perhaps it’s time to splash on just a little cold water
Turning staff into startups
Should employers turn their business into startup factories? How could we make this happen?
Startup Accelerator Nation
Ten ideas for weaving the lean, low-investment, iterative, failure-tolerant, build-measure-learn attitude toward giving people constructive ways to spend their time into the fabric of every culture
Exit strategy more important for startups than a business plan?
For a first-time startup, when the real excitement of early innovation is happening, the daunting business of M&A is usually the last thing on anyone’s mind. But research is showing that the later it starts, the higher the risk
The iij Upcoming Top Ten Organisational Innovation Books
One theme that appears often in many of these volumes? Discovery processes. If the word ‘innovation’ appears anywhere in your job description, you already know that discovering new discovery processes is a double-edged sword
Innovation, meet thy nemesis: healthcare services
Please, no more innovation! Just let us come to terms with the last lot of changes! We prefer standardisation to innovation! This is the sector where innovators are really gladiators
What’s different for VCs in the era of the lean startup?
New ‘iterative’ startup methodologies, such as Eric Ries’s Lean Startup and Steve Blank’s Customer Development, raise just as many important new questions about investors as they do about startups
Startup mentoring as reality TV
What’s it like being interviewed by Paul Graham when you’re applying to Y Combinator? Watch this unmissable video of intense grilling and inspired brainstorming in front of a live audience
Venture Capital 2.0’s secret sauce
VCs are interested in finding large, untapped markets. They use startups to do the market research needed to find them
Steve Blank, triumphant pioneer of…
It’s a video of Steve Blank’s first talk after finishing his pioneering Lean LaunchPad course at Stanford
Can America still pick winners in the energy innovation race?
An opportunity to watch Steve Chu, US Energy Secretary, running us through a list of technologies which he hopes will help America reassert itself in the rapidly intensifying struggle for competitiveness and maybe even its very survival
Accelerator outperforming YCombinator and TechStars?
They’ve been around longer. $138m revenue, 55 startups and you’ve never even heard of them
30,000 Clinical Pathology Labs For A Dollar
No British press coverage for a major innovation story: biotech legend Una Ryan secures funding from both the UK’s Department for International Development and the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation
Over your shoulder, TechCrunch
You’ve been top of the TechMeme leaderboard for quite a while. Here comes Business Insider
Founderpreneurs and funderpreneurs
Fred Wilson (the VC world’s leading blogger) makes an insightful comparison between first time and serial entrepreneurs. I was thinking through the ‘who do you go to?’ question
Game-changing technology, no venture capital
Tractors, farm equipment, built at around one eighth the cost. Industrial equipment too. Superior design. Handmade quality. Problem? Investment. Solve it, and Jakubowski becomes a household word. That might just happen anyway.
How can we work like designers when we create business models?
Googlers get taught how to think more creatively about exploring business models. We mere mortals can sit and watch while guru Alex Osterwalder talks us through the ideas in his bestselling book
iij Top Ten Startup Weekend Videos
I had to work my way through an enormous number of clips to put this together, but I still only scratched the surface. I had to do it now, because soon, there are going to be just too many to even attempt this with any sense of purpose.
Investment banking students morph into urban mushroom farming phenomenon
Even if you find the average recycling innovation story boringly predictable, this one, as it gathers momentum with one ludicrously lucky sustainability discovery after another, will have you cheering along with the audience
A whole new take on NSFW
No, it’s not Dave McClure’s customary firehose of expletives that make this video Not Safe For Work. It’s you. You’re Not Safe For Work in a startup, as far as he’s concerned
Are governments really listening to innovation investors?
The iij compares innovation-friendly policy suggestions offered prior to the UK budget with the measures that were actually announced by the chancellor
What did the budget do for UK innovation investors?
Of the incentives announced in the budget, perhaps the most important for innovation may be the increase in the rate of income tax relief. Share scheme specialist Russell Eisen compares the chancellor’s announcements with innovation champion Julie Meyer’s pre-budget suggestions
One million electric vehicles: is this video the trailer?
Does this talk, four months before the announcement offer the best insight into the thinking behind it?
The angel scene: how much has changed since September?
You’ll probably scrutinise ‘angel disruptus maximus’ Naval Ravikant’s latest video much more thoroughly than I have, just to see how his predictions have changed since the last talk of his that we covered
Natural gas: the iij Selected Innovation Briefing
Surprisingly, these influential and outspoken panellists, who you might expect would have opposing views on just about everything, seem to be having a candid, but surprisingly civil conversation about a very controversial subject: was it something in the water?
The iij Top 10 upcoming innovative investment books
This topic is probably the most demanding in the whole field of selecting innovation writing as far as trying to ensure that the subject is being handled in a genuinely insightful way, but I think we’ve found a good selection
Must-see video of banker doing something wonderful
‘My twelve year old son has autism, and has a terrible time with math. We have tried everything, viewed everything, bought everything. We stumbled upon your video on decimals, and it got through! Then we went on to the dreaded fractions. Again, he got it! We could not believe it! He is so excited.’
iij Selected Innovation Briefing: Biofuels
You’ll need to watch this video if your knowledge of the issues has so far been mostly constrained to news coverage
No potential startup founder left behind
It looks like the enviable track record of startup accelerators like TechStars and Y Combinator derives from identifying something you might call ‘Foundational Capability’ as the basis for startup success, but there is a dark side
Two innovation universes, one amazing video
This starts off as a talk about startup methodology but somehow manages to morph into a sales pitch for an intriguing new solar technology. If you’re able to keep up with Bill Gross’s sometimes ferocious pace of delivery, stick with it, it’s well worth the ride
Banking: what’s coming next?
Where in the world are the next systemic bubbles? Can we conceive of interventions which might genuinely mitigate the risks? Are the biggest challenges to banking innovation technological, cultural, governance related, or socio-geographic?
Cleantech startups: early exit strategies and beyond
What does cleantech look like from a strictly ‘risks and returns’ perspective? What new investment approaches will make the most promising government funded emerging technologies a realistic prospect for scalability and growth?
Startup death spiral? Surely not!
Maybe it’s just something that nobody wanted to talk about. Large organisations had, over the years, paid countless professors to study the shortcomings of large organisations, leaving the trials and tribulations of the startup unstudied, waiting for Steve Blank to one day notice something shockingly consistent about the way most startups spin out of control
Angels teach Venture Capitalists how to accelerate startups
The new breed of angels: as much ‘startup coentrepreneurs’ as they are investors. Executive control, once obligatory, now seen as a liability, is being replaced with new brands of investor offerings which minimise dilution and instead creatively collaborate to facilitate leanness and opportunistic market agility. VCs are keenly studying this new wizardry
The iij Top Ten Startup Books for the start of 2011
Shame on us for not managing to get a top ten startup book list out at the end of last year, but most of these titles are barely a month old. Some are obvious choices, but others are quite specialised and deserve more attention than they’ve received
Clash of innovation news titans
An epic transatlantic on-air wrangle over Google’s future. Veteran BBC innovation investigator Peter Day vs. US prediction guru Mark Anderson. They each put up a characteristically robust performance. But who won? Whatever, it was riveting radio.
Criticism of the iij? Too many solutions, not enough new unsolved problems
Far too often, we only present problems when someone wants to talk about their solutions. So here’s a seriously problem-rich, solution-craving topic: The Economic Impact of Biodiversity
Lean investing: what is it?
Dave McClure is not exactly a shy or timid voice in the startup investment community. He offers the unique perspective of someone who describes themselves as a geek who became a startup founder who moved on to become an investor in many startups.
Ron Conway, archangel, on video, on how it all began
He’s been investing in a new company every six days for fifteen years. What’s that like? He secured Google’s first Venture Capital when Google had six people. What was that like?
Disrupting Silicon Valley
If Silicon Valley investors began diverting more of their energies towards increasing entrepreneurial diversity and inclusion, could this put their impressive track record of success at risk?