Mel Brooks Producers as a model for lean startups
Founders having an innovative idea, a fruitful search for a solution, generous early investors: what could possibly go wrong?
Award for the most confusing little word in the startup vocabulary: Vest
A serious attempt to clarify some of the things which make vest and vesting a bit mind-bending for startups
Four questions that determine whether an accelerator should accept you
Jessica Livingstone offers her own feelings about what Y Combinator wants and I try to read between the lines
Innovation competitions: why we need more of them
We’d all be forgiven for imagining that TechCrunch Disrupt and the DEMO Conference were the only regularly held innovation competition events worth talking about, as far as the tech media were concerned. So imagine my surprise…
Student loans: why only for colleges and not for startup accelerators?
Startup mentoring is education. Why can’t existing government-backed student loan schemes be extended to include startup founders attending accredited startup accelerator programmes?
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
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
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
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
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
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?
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
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.
The startup incubator: economic policy panacea or money-pit
Does Y Combinator’s unquestionable success justify using ‘startup incubators’ as the basis for strategic innovation policy?
Secretive leading biotech dealmakers caught talking unguardedly on video
MIT somehow managed to make this happen in New York recently (warning: contains disturbingly graphic images of a ‘banker guy’ talking candidly about pharma deals)
Investment stages: a rough guide
IIJ’s short and simple definition of investment stages in business development
Who’s who: London Business Angels
Outline of the London Business Angels
Who’s who: London Technology Fund
Outline of the London Technology Fund.