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by Steven Loeb - February 19, 2013
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How to use AdWords to gauge demand

by Eric Ries, November 12, 2008 | Comments

Using fake AdWords campaigns is a must-do if you want to build an online service

If you want to build an online service, and you don't test it with a fake AdWords campaign ahead of time, you're crazy. That's the conclusion I've come to after watching tons of online products fail for a complete lack of customers. So I thought I would walk you through exactly how to run a "fake landing page" test using ...

WooMe cuts cost to extend life

by Bambi Francisco Roizen, November 10, 2008 | Comments

CEO Stokols of online introductory site says he's slowing it down a bit to wait for a recovery

It remains a pretty crappy economic environment out there. More than 400 companies of the S&P 500 Index have reported results for the third quarter. All told, earnings per share are on track to fall close to 14% from last year, making this the five straight quarter of declines. To this end, startups remain prudent.Stephen Stokols, CEO of WooMe, is ...

Marketing lessons from the U.S. election

by Seth Godin, November 9, 2008 | Comments

Regardless of nationality or political leanings, there are lessons to be learned

It turns out that one way you learn about marketing is by analyzing it. (The other way is to do it). Yet people hate analyzing three really useful but emotional examples of marketing that matters: politics, organized religion and their own organizations. I figure we can start here, with the easiest of the three. This is a long post. Fine ...

Demand's Rosenblatt: Preserve cash

by Bambi Francisco Roizen, November 7, 2008 | Comments

Richard's experienced bankruptcy, and there's a way to avoid that - preserve cash

We've heard it time and again, and well, you're going to hear it again. This time from Demand Media co-founder and CEO Richard Rosenblatt, who's been an entrepreneur many times over, has succeeded and failed, and lived through downturns. "Get your costs as low as you can," he said, while we were both at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco ...

Advice from HP's wireless CTO, Ozzie Diaz

by Meliza Solan Surdi, November 5, 2008 | Comments

Know your customers better than they know themselves

I managed to catch a panel at the Mobile 2.0 conference this week, moderated by Tony Fish of AMF Ventures. Ozzie Diaz, Hewlett-Packard's mobile and wireless CTO, Andy Kelm from Nokia, Pankaj Kedia from Intel, J.H. Kah from SK Telecom Americas, and Mark Davis, the Chief Scientist of Yahoo Connected Life. The theme of the panel was what makes mobile ...

John Doerr: Everyone should be selling

by Eric Ries, November 3, 2008 | Comments (1)

2009-11-03-john-doerr-everybody-should-be-selling

From engineers to receptionists - take up the 'honorable' profession of selling

I just saw video of John Doerr's talk yesterday at VentureBeat’s “How to manage your start-up in the downturn” roundtable event. The tips are based on advice JD solicited from great KPCB entrepreneurs. I was impressed enough to transcribe (and paraphrase) the list. You can see the whole video at the end of this post. Act now, act with speed. ...

Ignorance and bliss

by Demian Entrekin, November 1, 2008 | Comments (6)

	How much knowledge is too much? After a discussion of "The Curse of Knowledge" with a colleague, I began to think about the venture approach to executive management. Is it possible for the CEO to know too much? Can this individual have too much relevant experience? Can deep knowledge prevent this person from seeing new opportunity? Change the game? Let's hold off that line of questioning ...
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In downturn, don't build, hoping they'll come

by Bambi Francisco Roizen, October 31, 2008 | Comments

Glam Media CEO and former VC, Samir Arora, on fundraising during a downturn

Nearly one out of five mortgage borrowers in the U.S. owe more to lenders than their homes are worth, according to a recent report. That's probably the case with venture capitalists' portfolios. A good portion are worth a lot less than their original value.Given today's tough economic environment, I asked Glam Media CEO Samir Arora, who's an entrepreneur four times ...

Tough Calls

by Demian Entrekin, October 30, 2008 | Comments

	How do we see through the fog? There's just no getting around it. Right now, many of us need to focus our energies on making tough decisions. But it's not just about making tough decisions, it's about making the right decisions under tough conditions. If we can make solid decisions, even if the conditions have grown tougher and tighter, then perhaps they won't be quite so tough. Some ...
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A hierarchy of pitches

by Eric Ries, October 30, 2008 | Comments

Pitches fail because they don't answer the right question

Every company will need to pitch itself from time to time. Usually we think of pitches in the context of raising money, but that is only one of many pitch situations. We pitch to potential partners, vendors, publishers, conferences, employees, and even lawyers. It's different from selling a product, because it is not part of our regular business practice, is ...

Start in Israel, but move to Silicon Valley

by John Shinal, October 20, 2008 | Comments

FixYa CEO Bensadon says access to talent, venture capital is key

Yaniv Bensadon founded FixYa in his native Israel to take advantage of that country's entrepreneurial spirit and lower startup costs. But once he start looking to raise VC money, after an early angel round, his search in Israel came up dry. "It was hard to find people (who'd invest)... they'd been burned during the dotcom bubble," Bensadon says. So in ...

Why a focus on profits is critical

by Bambi Francisco Roizen, October 19, 2008 | Comments (2)

	Hi5 CEO Ramu Yalamanchi made money with seed round (Note: hi5, a popular social network, is laying off 10% to 15% of its staff, according to reports. Here's an interview I did with Ramu this summer. It was first published on Jun 5, 2008. It's very appropriate given that hi5 has always been focused on the bottom line.) Ramu Yalamanchi, CEO of the social network hi5, executed on his ...
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The product manager's lament

by Eric Ries, October 17, 2008 | Comments

	Pushing out work in large batches, makes me 'cringe' Life is not easy when you're working in an old-fashioned waterfall development process, no matter what role you play. But I have a special sympathy for the "product manager" in a startup that is bringing a new product to a new market, and doing their work in large batches. I met one recently that is working on a really innovative ...
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