10/11/11

10/11/11

Good morning, All,

It’s a short week, so just one – somewhat abbreviated – newsletter and remember, our next EW+SOS+ER Rock out…  will be taking place October 18th, and yes, we will have investors and potential cofounders there for you to meet. This time, it’ll be taking place at the Empire State Building. To register: http://bit.ly/mY5QED

Manhattan will get a new addition to the entrepreneur ecosystem this month as Hubitat opens the doors to its new townhouse co-working space in Flatiron. We’ve had a discreet preview of the multi-floor complex to see its work in progress and happy to note that there’s excellent provision for amenities, associated corporate services – and its backed by a team of mentors, including serial entrepreneurs and angel investors. We’re excited about the model and will keep you posted on the series of launch events, and you can also track them on facebook & twitter @hubitat. Cool beans!

Much has been written about Steve Jobs this past week. Guy Kawasaki, who survived having worked for him twice, spoke at Silicon Valley Bank’s CEO Summit last week, and shared the 12 Lessons of Steve Jobs that you can apply as entrepreneurs to your companies (http://bit.ly/r7X5Yp). If you don’t want to watch the whole video, he also blogged the substance of it: How to Change the World: What I Learned from Steve Jobs: http://bit.ly/ocq9u9
This is what Jobs lived by.
1) Experts are clueless. Figure stuff out by yourselves. The experts listened to Steve Jobs
2) Customers cannot tell you what you need – you need to propose them something new and useful
3) Present big challenges to your employees
4) Design counts (not only price or functionality)
5) Big Graphics and Big Fonts – the 8 pt font is out. Make a statement
6) Jump Curves. Do things 10x better, not 10% better. If you want to change the world, you can’t do it on the curve your on. The real innovation happens on the next curve.
7) Either it works or it doesn’t: Apple reversed itself by allowing 3rd party apps. It was a game-changer. Again.
8) Price isn’t Value.  Most people care about price: be unique and valuable.
9) A-players hire A-players. B-players hire C-players, and so on…) The moment you lower your standards, the Bozo Explosion starts, because you’re hiring Bozos. Hire people better than you.
10) Real CEOs can demo. Real CEOs can actually use their product
11) Real entrepreneurs SHIP, not SLIP. Don’t worry – be crappy: no need for perfectionism – take the next step. Don’t ship a piece of crap – ship something that has jumped curves, even if it has elements of crappiness to it
12) Some things need to be seen to be believed. You need to believe in something before seeing it
Our favorite came during the Q&A: How do you start a company? Start with ‘wouldn’t it be cool if (there was something that could…).”  Take heed, entrepreneurs: that’s how you invent the future. Steve Jobs once said that we’re here to put a dent in the universe. His death certainly created a disturbance in the force. Onward and forward.

Deadlines:

NEW ER Accelerator is now accepting applications for its winter session. Open house October 13th: http://era2happyhour.eventbrite.com/ Come meet some of the mentors and companies that went through the inaugural program and remember: each company gets $25,000 in seed funding and three months of:
Free collaborative office space in the heart of New York City
Best-of-class one-on-one mentoring from 140+ of industry’s best experts (both during and after the three month session)
Access to experienced technologists, UI gurus and other product experts
Free legal and other services
Hands-on help from inSITE business interns and engineering interns
Exposure to dozens of leading seed investors and VCs during the Accelerator
At the end of the session, startups will pitch to hundreds of angel investors and venture capitalists and continue to utilize the ER Accelerator network indefinitely! So get those applications in. Deadline: November 19th: http://eranyc.com/apply/

Y Combinator now accepting applications for Winter 2012. Deadline: October 10th. The ideal company would have two or three founders. We’ll consider those with four or five. We’re reluctant to accept one-person companies, though we have funded a couple. For those of you interested in applying now or finding out more about the process: http://bit.ly/nUYxNY

AXE App Day 2011 – The First Major Brand-Sponsored Developer Conference will be held on October 11, 2011 at the Standard Hotel in New York City, but you must request an invitation. Shelly Palmer will be your host for this, invitation-only, unique business opportunity created by the AXE Master Brand at Unilever – the first brand-sponsored one-day hybrid developer conference, training seminar and networking day designed by Unilever to engender communication, collaboration and ideation around the AXE/Deo Master Brand (AXE) of personal care products. To request an invitation please visit http://www.theaxeeffect.com/appday/register. You may submit formal presentations of app ideas at any time before the event, at the event or up to midnight, November 10.   What’s in it for you? A year’s worth of bus dev in 8 hours.  You will be in front of Unilever and the AXE Master Brand and they will give you the information and tools you need to create engaging, AXE-sponsored, apps for mobile platforms, social networks, game consoles, connected TV’s or any other popular platform that tickles your fancy. You can present your ideas at the event or up to a month afterwards.  The good news is that after attending AXE App Day 2011, you will have a personal relationship with the brand. For more information: http://www.theaxeeffect.com/appday,

6th Annual New England Venture Summit  – Call for Top Innovators and an SOS discount! The early deadline for presenting company applications is October 26thIf you are a Startup seeking capital and/or partnerships, submit your plan for the opportunity to present at the premier venue connecting emerging growth companies with active Venture Capitalists, Angel Investors, Corporate VCs and Investment Firms. A select group of 50 Top Innovators from the technology, life sciences and Clean-tech sectors will be chosen to present their breakthrough investment opportunities to an exclusive audience of investors.. E-mail iwant2present@youngstartup.com for more details and an application. To nominate a company please forward: company name, main contact at firm, contact details and why you think they should present to nominations@youngstartup.com. The event happens December 14th; 50% off if you register by November 9th: http://bit.ly/nCkYN6For a further discount, the code is: sos.

Samsung’s $100k Challenge to Developers, deadline November 29th. Samsung is offering $225,000 in cash and prizes for the most innovative converged apps that enable an interactive home entertainment experience between Samsung TVs and other devices. The 2011 Samsung Free the TV Challenge invites software developers to create compelling converged apps that offer seamless user interaction between a Samsung Smart TV and at least one other screen, such as a phone, tablet or computer. Last year, we released the first-ever Samsung TV App SDK and launched the 2010 Free the TV Challenge to develop native apps on our line of Smart TVs and Blu-ray devices. This year we take another leap forward to free the TV with “converged apps” — multi-screen apps that offer immersive, interactive home entertainment experiences. For more information and to apply: http://www.freethetvchallenge.com/

NEW The 5th Annual PITCH: Women 2.0 Startup Competition, deadline November 30th. For more information and to apply: http://bit.ly/pVlwCg The competition is open to early-stage ventures around the world, from high growth business ventures in web to mobile, from cleantech to gaming. Applying companies must have a female in the founding team, be in beta stage, and have received less than 3 million in funding.

The Appy Awards – enter once and you could win twice. Deadline March 21, 2012 but any entry you submit today may also be selected as our “Featured App of the Week“, scoring you some seriously instant gratification. And we doesn’t love that? For more information and to enter – any time – http://appyawards.net/

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For you edification this week

Notes From the MIT Startup Bootcamp 2011. According to attendee Jason Morrison, Startup Bootcamp brought an inspiring and thoughful collection of speakers who have had a variety of startup successes. For a few gems of solid advice, grounded in experience, read on: http://bit.ly/mSBWR7

Five Questions Your Business Plan Must Answer. Business plans don’t have to be a lengthy ordeal. But you’re more likely to get off to a good start if you think through critical questions about how you’ll make money and run the show. http://bit.ly/nm2dRt

Conferences are expensive and who has $3Gs to shell out every time BI decides to drool over yet another 20something? Yes, there’s another conference coming up – isn’t there always? – and here are 43 Pithy Quips On The Business of Software (which is yet another conference) but some good tweets here and one of our faves – Great ideas are fragile at birth because they are indistinguishable from crazy stupid ideas. And thank you, Dan, for sharing this with us: http://bit.ly/nYDIW1

An Insider’s Take on Attracting Angel Investment. For early stage companies, angel investment can be an attractive funding option, says James Hunt, angel investor and adjunct professor at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business. Hunt specializes in early stage funding and has holdings in about two dozen companies. Here, he shares the secrets to getting a blessing–and funding–from an angel. http://bit.ly/ncCYi1

52% of Consumers Sick Of Daily Deals. Merchants are Burnt Out. Are Daily Deals Businesses Dying? Have you ever opened up your inbox and found at least 5 to 10 different daily deal offers? Yes, it’s deal-of-the-day fatigue. However, according to research firm BIA/Kelsey, “consumer spending on deals in the U.S. will hit $2 billion, up from its previous forecast of $1.2 billion. http://bit.ly/pVseO2 But wait! There’s a lot more! Groupon’s Hidden Influence on Reputation A Groupon deal might boost sales but, it can also lower a merchant’s reputation as measured by Yelp ratings, say computer scientists who have analyzed the link between daily deals and online reviews. Welcome (back) to the slippery slope: http://bit.ly/p5F2LP

Why Aren’t You Building Your Startup for Early Adopter. Twitter was originally a tight community of geeky early adopters that were staying in touch with each other in real-time.  It crossed the chasm  when it became a popular way to follow celebrities or news such as CNN and Oprah.  And now it’s approaching a near ubiquitous form of real-time communication, celebrity-folllowing, link-sharing, media distribution, etc. http://bit.ly/rek9Wn

That’s it from us and chuckle of the week: speaking of the Bozo Explosion (see above), when asked who hires D players, Kawasaki replied, “Boards of Directors, which is code for VCs.” And now, as always, help is on the way,..

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