Good morning, All,
The next SOS event is tonight and we have a 25% discount for SOS members.  Code: sos. It also happens to be New York State Day and my birthday! We are hosting in conjunction with DoItInPerson, so hope you can join us for an evening of drinks and networking with business owners and entrepreneurs. Thank you, DoItInPerson, for making it happen. To RSVP http://bit.ly/LnJuAT and hope to see you this evening! Two interesting graphs circulated last week: Google Graveyard and Microsoft Morgue. We’re still waiting for the Facebook Follies and Ya-hoo Thought that would work? Behemoth’s don’t always get it right and yes, while money is made, jobs are also lost. Companies seem to get to a size/place/hubris where they want to own all eyeballs everywhere, seemingly losing sight of the cardinal rule of business: does it add to our value proposition? There’s no doubt that FB has a lot more members than Linkedin, but here’s How LinkedIn Gets TWENTY Times More Money Per User Than Facebook (http://read.bi/KYFeeM). LinkedIn users spend an average of 18 minutes a month on the site to FB users’, 6.4 hours. But LinkedIn gets $1.30 in revenue for every one of those hours to FB’s 6.2 cents. Since its IPO, Facebook stock has skidded 17% so far, while LinkedIn shares have leapt 64%. Facebook is still banking on the ad revenue model; LinkedIn – monetizes data. The full Forbes article is worth a read: How LinkedIn Has Turned Your Resume Into A Cash Machine: http://onforb.es/LClNKa. We remember when the internet was referred to as the information superhighway and, social or not, that basically hasn’t changed. Many of us simply forgot, or didn’t know that in the first place. “@NickLukan: “A million guys walk in to a Silicon Valley bar. None of them buys anything. The bar is declared a rousing success.” via @Quora. Eyeballs are great, but the real value of a business always shows up on the bottom line. At the end of the day, it’s all about building a sustainable business, and currency is still the currency of the day. Spend it wisely. And don’t piss off your end users by arbitrarily changing (timeline; fb email) or diluting your brand. Onward and forward.
Deadlines:
It’s that time again – Startup Chile, deadline July 10^th. For more information and to apply: http://startupchile.org/about/apply/    NEW  Heads up, Israel: Up West Lab, deadline July 10^th. This is a Silicon Valley accelerator supporting Israel’s best entrepreneurs and offers a 10-week program and takes a small equity and give up to $20k per company. They also help you sort out living arrangements, and offer post-program support after Demo Day. For more information and to apply: http://upwestlabs.com/ NEW  GameFounders, deadline July 10^th. GameFounders the first gaming startup accelerator in Europe (Estonia). It’s the usual 3-month mentor-filled program, but the startups will get several opportunities to practice and present to international VCs, corporate and angel investors at Demo Days held in Tallinn, Helsinki, London and San Francisco. Investment taken: 9% for 5k per founder (up to €15k).For more information and to apply: http://www.gamefounders.com/ NEW  Digital Catalyst Fund, Romania, deadline July 15^th. This fund is dedicated to helping highly promising entrepreneurial teams to develop businesses centered on the future of digital media, digital marketing and digital communication and provides them with the funding, support and connections they need to flourish. The DCF initial commitment is to provide US$500,000 financing to ten carefully selected projects. This 3-month bootcamp is based in Bucharest. For more information and to apply: http://digitalcatalystfund.com/ NEW  The list of Startup Weekend Upcoming Events
Oxygen Accelerator, Birmingham, England, deadline July 31^st. A 13-week intensive mentor led bootcamp, followed by 13-weeks of incubation that culminates with a series of investor days where we will help you pitch to a large, carefully selected group of Angel investors, VCs and Private Equity groups for next stage funding. Up to €40,000 per team in exchange for 8%-10% equity, and much more, including relocation allowance:  http://www.oxygenaccelerator.com/ Women 2.0 PITCH comes to NYC, deadline August 31^st. We are now accepting applications for PITCH NYC from early-stage ventures around the world with at least one female founder to apply to the startup competition.  PITCH NYC 2012 will provide entrepreneurs with a chance for fame and fortune: finalists present onstage at the conference, and prizes include $25k cash from L’Oreal, $24k worth of free hosting from Rackspace and a finalist interview with TechStars! Stay tuned for more awesome prizes to be announced. Early-stage ventures with under a million in funding and a product in the market (prototype OK) are invited to apply. We are looking to identify, recognize and reward the most disruptive women-led ventures globally – and invite them to pitch onstage for the PITCH NYC conference in November for top prize. Got a startup idea but no team, or got an idea but don’t know how to build it? You have at least THREE MONTHS starting today to emblazen the deadline of August 31 into your head and make it happen. For more information and to apply: http://bit.ly/K56mbS
Battle of the Apps: become the Kick Apps Champion by creating software that helps small businesses. Contest now opened, deadline: December 31^st. Infusionsoft is offering$20,000 in cash and prizes for the best apps to help small business customers. Use the Infusionsoft API to create an app, integration, or plug-in that helps Infusionsoft customers grow their business! 1st through 4th place winners will receive ongoing marketing, plus stage time at InfusionCon 2013. 10 runners-up will receive InfusionCon boothspace and 2 tickets to the conference. Register to enter.
Dell Launches $100M Innovators Credit Fund. Qualified start-ups can get extra funding and technological resources from the computer giant. The catch is, you must have already received some angel funding or venture capital before you can apply. Start-ups can get up to 10% of its current funding or up to $150,000 with limited credit terms. Article is here: http://bit.ly/NsJpQK For more information: http://eir.dell.com/
powered by Movable Ink For you edification this week:
A must read from Vanity Fair: Microsoft’s Downfall: Inside the Executive E-mails and Cannibalistic Culture That Felled a Tech Giant. From the article: Microsoft had a prototype e-reader ready to go in 1998, but when the technology group presented it to Bill Gates he promptly gave it a thumbs-down. “He didn’t like the user interface, because it didn’t look like Windows,” a programmer involved in the project recalls: http://vnty.fr/LjkvUq. 5 Great Tools That Help You Create Apps For Your Business. In the end, you must pick a tool according to how complex your app will be. The more tailoring you have to do in the development stage, the more shades of gray start to appear on what you should choose from this list: http://bit.ly/MTDBid 5 Trick Questions Every Entrepreneur Should Answer Before Asking For Money. It’s all about minimizes the chances of a future misalignment: http://onforb.es/IRbuOR 7 things I wish we knew before our seed round. Once you’ve raised the money, it’s just the beginning: http://tnw.co/N2wHpP Thanks, but No Thanks: Passing on an 8 Figure Venture Round. Why did they say no to this huge opportunity? They had their reasons – and they know the risks. And we sincerely hope it works out for them: http://bit.ly/MVtBk5 Nice Try, Twitter: Here’s A Quick Workaround To Get Your Tweets Published in your Linkedin Feed Again. Twitter cut ties with LinkedIn; tweets will no longer appear on LinkedIn via status updates. It’s part of Twitter’s effort to control tweet consumption: http://read.bi/N9Jnf2 12 Rules For Building Your First Profitable Startup. Sell, sell, sell – and make sure it’s a product people will buy into. Literally: http://bit.ly/L8H129 Higgs bosom in plain English, and why it’s so important. Often referred to as the ‘God particle,’ there’s your first clue as to its importance: http://tnw.co/N90Sf9
Time to Vacate Wall Street. Despite all of the bluster about NYC becoming a tech capital and creating opportunity and jobs, one need only look at the industries that are here – and quickly evacuating – to see how it won’t be long before our industry, too, is strangled and forced out by regulation and taxes. The blue social model devours its own: http://bit.ly/N8u7z3 Scientist Creates Pizza Healthy Enough to Eat 3 Times a Day, Every Day. 100 taste testers said it was as good or better than other frozen pizzas available on the market. They go on sale in UK supermarkets later this year.http://bit.ly/N867w0
Elevator Pitch/Member News Hint, hint: Feel free to tell us what you’re working on, or if you’ve been featured in the press…Share, and we will, too!
Congrats this week go to Alden Levy (http://mybillregistry.com/ ), who heard about the iEvening pitch event through SOS – and won the evening! Congrats also go to ER Accelerator company Bizodo, who were just featured in  PandoDaily and will also be featured in this month’s edition of Inc Magazine And from Julianna Davies: I’m part of the design team at MBAOnline.com, and we created a graphic that illustrates the 30 years of innovation at Microsoft and their failures along the way. Title: Microsoft MBA: Over 30 Years of Innovation Graphic: http://www.mbaonline.com/microsoft-mba/
That’s it from us this week and hope to see you this evening at my bday celebration. The newsletter will go back to its Tuesday schedule next week. It being my bday, decided to err on the side of caution this week. Until then, as always, help is on the way…