4/3/12

4/3/12

Good morning, All,

Our next ERA + SOS Startup Breakfast is April 12th  at SOS Headquarters, in a lovely backyard on the UWS. Breakfast will include famous Fairway bagels, our own fat-free muffins, coffee, tea, juice – and good conversation and hopefully some help, if that’s what you need. $15 in advance and $20 at the door. To register: http://bit.ly/GRXHrA and hope to see you there, bright and early.

Larry and Sergei were just out of Stanford when they launched Google. Zuck left Harvard to focus on Facebook. Let’s face it: we’ve never seen a generation who’ve achieved this level of fame/wealth/power when they were barely old enough to shave. And who have managed to wield a great deal power before they’ve had a chance to develop an understanding of the long-term repercussions of their technologies/actions. We really have no idea what consequences this will have down the road, either for them personally, or for the world at large. Although it is interesting to see what’s happening to Google now that the founders are no longer twentysomethings, and FB is poised to be one of the largest IPOs in history. Which may help to explain why GOOG is chasing Apple on the smartphone front, and FB on social – and seemingly losing their direction (Forget Evil. When’s The Last Time Google Blew You Away? http://read.bi/GVDPUb). That has to be one of the pitfalls of so much success so fast/young: the frustration/desperation that comes with not having experienced not being #1, and believing that you can crush the competition because you’re, well, you. Being knocked out of the top spot at Apple, and returning later, older and more seasoned, certainly didn’t hurt Steve Jobs. Youth has its place, but so does experience outside of the little bubble in which you’ve been secluded, probably literally since birth. With FB cataloguing our lives and Google tracking our every move, we the people are surrendering a great deal of personal information – willingly – to these kids which, had the government required that we do so, we’d have been up in arms. And what is Google’s next move?  Google wants to serve you ads based on the background noise of your phone calls: http://tnw.co/GDvAIV). Weren’t they slapped down not too long ago on geolocation issues? The Google response: We file patent applications on a variety of ideas that our employees come up with. Some of those ideas later mature into real products or services, some don’t. Prospective product announcements should not necessarily be inferred from our patent applications. Guys, you’re not above the law; you’re not kids anymore and the idea is to live and learn, and – heaven forfend – develop a moral code, not to try to figure out some other way around law in the pursuit of more profits. Grow up: it’s certainly not endearing you to us and frankly, well, like you, your shenanigans are getting old fast, too. Onward and forward.

Deadlines:

New York Entrepreneur Week starts April 16th, early bird discount ends April 5th Are you an entrepreneur in practice or at heart? There’s only on place to be this April 16-20. New York Entrepreneur Week. Early-bird tix end this Thursday for what will be NY’s most epic event for entrepreneurs. You owe it to yourself to recharge, refuel and refocus your purpose. Use code: StartupOneStop for 15% off

NEW Thinking about applying to ERA Summer 2012 class? Application deadline: April 29th and please join us for a Happy Hour on April 5th! To RSVP: http://era3happyhour.eventbrite.com/. To apply to join the the ER Accelerator summer class: http://eranyc.com/apply/

MassChallenge, deadline April 11th. This is the largest-ever startup accelerator and competition, and the first to support high-impact, early-stage entrepreneurs with no strongs attached.
3 month accelerator program. World-class mentorship and training, free office space, access to funding, media and more.
$1M in cash awards. $4M+ in-kind support.
Open to all. Any startup can enter, from anywhere, in any industry.
No equity taken. No restrictions applied.
$1M in cash awards. $4M+ in-kind support.
For more information and to apply: http://masschallenge.org/

Turnstone is giving away $25K worth of office furniture, deadline April 15th.  Pretty amazing opportunity for a small company.  Additional details of the contest can be found here:  http://myturnstone.com/contest/. This contest is national.  The video should be about why you want a great space to work in and what this makeover would do for you and your company – and this contest is national!

Wall Street Journal Codethon April 13-15 at NYU Law School, and to attend you must apply and be accepted. We’d love to have a good turnout from the NY developer community. More details, a brief application, etc. are available at our site: http://datatransparency.wsj.com/

3rd Annual NYC Startup Job Fair, Friday, April 20th, 2012
1:00 – 2:30 pm Engineers/Developers Only
2:30 – 5:00 pm All Candidates
World Trade Center 7 (250 Greenwich St)
Free – Limited Tickets – Registration Required
This is the third annual NYC Startup Job Fair. The companies present are some of NYC’s top startups. Last year’s event held 40 startups and this year we’ve moved to a larger venue so that we can include more startups. It’s a great chance to talk with and learn more about opportunities with NYC startups.

NEW  Wayra UK Startup Accelerator, deadline, April 22nd. Telefónica has announced the UK launch of its technology accelerator programme. Wayra is inviting technology startups to apply to receive up to €50,000 (£42,000) investment and access to a new shared workspace in Tottenham Court Road.  For more information and to apply: http://bit.ly/xeugnm

The Second Annual User Experience Awards are here! Submission deadline May 1st. The User Experience Awards aim to honor and celebrate outstanding UX projects and practitioners. The UX Awards are produced in partnership with IXDA NYNYC Chapter of the UPA and NYC-CHI and culminate with an Awards Ceremony on June 12 in NYC. We’re actively seeking submissions from UX professionals for this year’s Awards! If you think you’ve worked on a project in the last two years that shows great user experience in terms of the final product or the process you followed, please submit your project, app, software, website, or even strategy to UserExperienceAwards.com by May 1 2012! Enter to win cash prizes, press, PR and community recognition! Full details of the submission process can be found on http://userexperienceawards.com/

Blueprint Health: Transform health & wellnesswith your startup, deadline June 8th. Blueprint Health is a startup accelerator based in New York City that helps entrepreneurs improve the health and wellness industry. We offer an intensive three-month program and provide $20,000 of seed capital, extensive mentorship and a shared work environment to help entrepreneurs go from idea to prototype and provide access to angel and venture capital investors. For more information and to apply: http://www.blueprinthealth.org/

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For you edification this week:

A Field Guide on How To Create an Innovator. Are people born innovators, or can they learn to become that way? “Creating Innovators: The Making of Young People Who Will Change the World,” by Tony Wagner, a member of Harvard’s Technology and Entrepreneurship Center, explores this question in detail. According to RWW, it is a must-read for anyone who is thinking of taking the lonely road toward starting one’s own venture: http://rww.to/HxbRhm

Do you really need a full-time hire for that? The author directs this post at startups that have not yet reached product/market fit. Until you get to that point, they’re called contractors: http://bit.ly/GQuzQf

Other side of the coin: Riding the Elephant. With the surge in demand for technical co-founders, many startups have no choice but to contract with dev shops to build their idea. Most of these early “partnerships” never work, regardless of how the startup compensates the dev shop: http://bit.ly/GJzjbJ

Three Steps to Getting Funded. Mark MacLeod is a Partner at Real Ventures, Canada’s largest seed VC fund, and according to him, it just takes three steps and actually, two out of three will get you there as well: http://bit.ly/HEX0BL

How to Prioritize When Everything is a Priority: 5 Tips. It’s easy to be overwhelmed when the to-do list gets too long. Here’s how to cut things down to size. http://bit.ly/zzWSJT

Why Working More Than 40 Hours a Week is Useless. Research shows that consistently working more than 40 hours a week is simply unproductive: http://bit.ly/GLa8E2

Startup Tools – from Steve Blank and a keeper: http://bit.ly/hlUDMc

A start-up founder should… Short piece on all of the things that you should be able to do: http://bit.ly/Hgua5A

Yes, Easter is coming and some of you asked about our low-fat, low-carb, zero cholesterol cookies and truffles and muffins to take to your families and happy to accommodate you. Products are here: http://bonniefoods.com/ and just let us know what you need and when and thank you so much for supporting a fellow entrepreneur. We appreciate it! That’s it from us for now. Looking forward to seeing you at our next breakfast. Have a wonderful and safe Easter and Passover and now, as usual, help is on the way…

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