12/6/11

12/6/11

Good morning, All,

We’ve got a lot of new members and just to review, here’s how to post to the list: Easy: Go to https://startuponestop.com/ and follow the ‘Post to the list’ link. You’re free to post what you need, what you can offer, or even if you just have a or two question. And welcome!

It’s true that as of January 1st, you won’t be able to buy 100 watt incandescent light bulbs in the US, so stock up now and as a corollary to last week’s Networking 101, a lot of you are out there networking (we know; we’ve been meeting you!), and hopefully making connections. Here are a few more tips for you:

1. If you need something, ask for it. Don’t be shy and we know it’s not always easy. In fact, it’s part of your job. That’s why it’s called ‘working the room.’
2. Be specific. And clear. Tell the person precisely what you need. It might not be his or her exact sweet spot, but he or she may know someone who can help you – and are more likely to make an introduction if you ask. Take them up on it. And follow up. Reminders are good.
3. Don’t forget to say ‘thank you.’
4. Stay in touch. If that person came through for you, helped you move the needle in some way – or at least seemed receptive to what you’re doing – drop him or her a note and let them know. If you’ve made progress since last you met, share the information. Even if it happens to be a month later. If it happens to be an investor, congratulations – you might just have just made a dent on their radar.
5. Meetings at networking events flash by in a minute. And everyone’s meeting a lot of new people in a very short amount of time. Don’t assume that person will remember you forever, just because you talked to them for a few minutes, and don’t confuse taking someone’s business card with having made a connection. That comes later – once you follow up. That’s what might make you more memorable and may get you to that bona fide next meeting, where the work actually gets done.
6. It’s ok to meet someone twice.  Maybe you didn’t hear back from them the first time. Go reintroduce yourself. Give them an update. You’ve got nothing to lose.
7. Never give up; never surrender. No matter whose list of advice to entrepreneurs we read, there’s always one point everyone mentions: Be Persistent. Again, that doesn’t mean stalking. It means keep going. Keep trying. Keep talking. And it’s not always them: sometimes it’s you. Yes, you’re looking for a $500k seed round. Do you have a business plan? A business  model? A prototype you can show, or better yet, a product that has been gaining some traction? The more you have to offer, the more likely your persistence will pay off. in other words, help them help you. And not everyone says yes immediately. Remember: Fred Wilson turned Avner Ronen (boxee) down again and again.  Avner sent him updates regularly for 18 months before Fred finally said yes.

We seem to love lists in this industry. A number of bloggers who get cited usually have their lists of things to do to be successful – or the landminds to watch for – but remember: they’re speaking their truth, and the true disruptors tend not to follow the rules at all. Except the Rules of Networking. Those, of course, are sacred, but as a general reminder: Must Watch: 46 seconds of Steve Jobs on changing the worldhttp://tnw.co/uAnUB4 Onward and forward.

Deadlines:

4 Reasons Why You Should Apply To Women 2.0 PITCH, deadline December 7th. Forbes did a piece on it. Link to apply is there as well: http://onforb.es/tnj94Y

NEW Heads up, SoCal: Collective Inspiration Holiday Party/Digital Family Reunion, December 8th. 6 pm – 11, Wocano Restaurant, Santa Monica. RSVP: http://bit.ly/trANDN

LaunchpadLA, deadline: December 5th. To apply: http://bit.ly/lf8k3J. The good news: Launchpad LA Receives VC Funding: $50,000 Per Startup: http://tcrn.ch/tAoyCQ

NEW AngelPad application deadline December 11th(11:59 PM PST)
AngelPad is a mentorship program founded by a team of ex-Googlers to help web-technology startups build better products, attract additional funding and ultimately grow more successful businesses. It’s based in SF and goes for 10 weeks. Companies typically receive $20,000 in exchange for a small amount of common shares. To apply: http://bit.ly/kRrZF2

NEW Aetna Foundation Challenge deadline December 15th The Aetna Foundation invites health services researchers, software developers, designers, clinicians and others to participate in an exciting project designed to make important data about obesity and related data sets available and accessible to health services researchers, public health officials, policy makers and similar stakeholders. The Challenge involves the creation of an interactive browser-based application with, at the developer’s discretion, additional platform capabilities that will take data and facilitate the following:
Basic data visualization
Predictive modeling and scenario analysis
Comparisons across various parameters
Output of key data/analyses into presentation formats such as, but not limited to, PowerPoint
Social networking, bookmarking and sharing
To apply: http://bit.ly/uvv43O

NEW AI Challenge, sponsored by Google, deadline December 18th. The AI Challenge is all about creating artificial intelligence, whether you are a beginning programmer or an expert. Using one of the easy-to-use starter kits, you will create a computer program (in any language) that controls a colony of ants which fight against other colonies for domination. It only takes 5 minutes to submit one of the starter kits to the website and watch your ant colony fight for domination against colonies created by other people from around the world. From there check out the tutorials on how to locally run your bot and begin programming! To participate: http://aichallenge.org/

Thiel Fellowship, Deadline December 31st. Yes, it’s Peter Thiel. An ideal candidate is 19 years old or younger as of December 31, 2011 and has ideas that simply cannot wait. She or he wants to change the world and has already started to do it in some fashion. We want fellows who dream big and have clear plans, who take risks and learn from mistakes, who think long-term and like to tinker. Inspire us. To apply: http://bit.ly/sf9t4p

NEW Mini Seedcamp London January 2012 is a one day event aiming to connect the 20 best web-tech, mobile and software talent with some of the leading entrepreneurs, developers, and experts from all across Europe and all over the world. Date to be announced soon. For more information: http://bit.ly/rqgVQm

TechStars NYC, early appliction deadline: January 10th. Final deadline: January 23rd. Time for the Spring session. To apply: http://apply.techstars.com/ For more information: http://www.techstars.com/

NYC Big App Awards – New York City is challenging software developers to create apps that use city data to make NYC better. $50k in cash and prizes! You have from now until January 25th to enter. For more information and to apply: http://2011.nycbigapps.com/

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

Carrier IQ: How To Find It, And How To Deal With It. By now, you’ve probably heard all about Carrier IQ, the mobile logging software that an intrepid researcher named Trevor Eckhart found lurking on a number smartphones from multiple manufacturers and carriers. According to Eckhart’s research, Carrier IQ is capable of tracking what apps you’re running to where your phone is to what buttons are being pressed — it sounds scary, but Carrier IQ claims that collecting that information ultimately helps end-users. Read on. There are instructions on how to uninstall it: http://tcrn.ch/sYCoqv There is a Senate investigation, but why all guns pointed at Carrier IQ? HTC said publicly that the carriers mandated that they install this. Why isn’t anyone questioning why Sprint, T-Mobile, AT&T and (potentially) Verizon, mandated that this be added by the hardware manufacturers?  Why isn’t anyone asking the carriers what their action plan is to ensure it is removed from the millions of existing smartphones that have it? Was the cost of the data stream packet throughput passed on to consumers? If yes, can you say ‘class action lawsuit’? Just saying.

With the announcement on Friday that Facebook is opening an engineering office in NYC, we thought this might be helpful to those of you thinking of applying: Ace this test and get a job interview with Facebook http://bit.ly/vPy3XY

Are you fundable? So you say.  Take this simple test and find out: http://bit.ly/iI0Fj6

Speaking of which, from our friend Howard Greenstein at inc. magazine: Tool to Predict Tech Start-up Success: http://bit.ly/pzVtY2

How to Make Your Startup Go Viral The Pinterest Way. Some startups go crazy with hype and users right after launch. And some don’t. Pinterest was not an overnight success. But slow and steady – and sometimes viral – wins the race: http://tcrn.ch/tTyxC2

Steve Case Launches $450 Million East Coast Venture Fund. AOL co-founder and former CEO Steve Case announced on Thursday that he and two former AOL colleagues, Ted Leonsis and Donn Davis, have raised a $450 million venture capital fund that will focus on startups outside of Silicon Valley. The Revolution Growth fund will operate under Case’s private holding company, Revolution, which is an investor in LivingSocial and Zipcar, among others. The fund will make just 10 or 12 investments over the next five years, and it expects each investment to be in the $25 million to $50 million range. For more information: http://on.mash.to/s6VSR1

Mark Suster: The End is Near for Angel Investors. The entrepreneur turned VC warns that there is too much money chasing too few marketable ideas. The crash, he says, is coming next year. Can you say ‘Groupon IPO?’ http://bit.ly/ucTqi9

You can only work just so far from ShakeShack: Return of the Diaspora: After a Taste of the Valley, New York Techies are Coming Home. That seems to be the consensus among a contingent of New York founders who made the pilgrimage to Silicon Valley but have returned to be part of an up-and-coming scene, as well as for the nightlife, the restaurants, and the higher baseline average peer attractiveness. http://bit.ly/vq2yb

McDonald’s is a different story: The farthest spot from any McDonald’s is in the Nevada desert. Yes, someone actually charted this: goo.gl/awRWe

Christmas is coming and a lot of you are probably making your lists of what to get. Well, to make it just a bit easier, here’s list of what not to get: 10 Stupid Gadgets That We Can’t Believe Exist http://read.bi/tlQDPb. That’s it from us and now, as always, help is on the way…

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