Startup One Stop

Good morning, All,

Find A Cofounder is tonight and we’re looking forward to seeing many of you there. It’s summer’s first big outdoor party at a 4000 square foot terrace overlooking the Hudson. Come find a cofounder for your startup. Network with fellow entrepreneurs and investors. Enjoy the views and a cold brew at sunset. Sponsored by EW, SOS and ER. RSVP: http://findacofounder2011.eventbrite.com/ To all of the SOS members who volunteered for this evening: Thank you! Others out there: there’s still time to volunteer (hello@startuponestop.com and any and all help is appreciated!).

So we’re starting SOS 1-1 (One on One) and here’s how it works:
Every month or so, we’ll have a gathering and invite a seed/angel/early stage investor to come meet with you. The investor will do his or her presentation, letting you know what sort of investments they make and what the sweet spot is; then you have an opportunity to ask question, then meet him or her, one-on-one. You’re also free to network with each other, while waiting to get the investor’s ear, and everyone who wants an opportunity to talk to the investor, will have one. It’s more an elevator pitch than office hours, and you can always follow up at a later time. Our job is to make the introductions. We may do a special mailing when details are all finalized, or it’ll be posted next week, so stay tuned. Our first guest will be Aaron Price from DFJGotham, and organizer extraordinaire of the Hoboken Tech Meetup, which we did not post this week, since it’s waitlist only. Gotta be fast to get into that one! And we did give you advance notice. Read More...

Good morning, All,

Heads up: Our next Find A Cofounder is Tuesday, July 12^th and it’ll be under the stars. Yes, it’s summer’s first big outdoor party at a 4000 square foot terrace overlooking the Hudson. Come find a cofounder for your startup. Network with fellow entrepreneurs and investors. Enjoy the views and a cold brew at sunset. And it’s free to entrepreneurs and developers and an EW, SOS and ER co-event. Oh, coincidentally, it falls on the same night/same time as Feed-A-Cofounder, and yes, we are looking for someone to sponsor the food. Feel free to contact us (hello@startuponestop.com). You will be featured in our next newsletter and at the event –  and you’ll be making many a hungry attendee happy! To RSVP: http://findacofounder2011.eventbrite.com/

As we all know by now, GOOG went social in a big way last week with google+. (Does that strike anyone besides us as a bit oxymoron?) Mashable spelled out some (early) pros and cons: http://on.mash.to/j7PAIc MySpace founder Tom Anderson also chimed in with his feelings on the launch http://bit.ly/mSn0iF Google’s a big company with a huge footprint and an enormous suite of products. Early reports are already predicting the demise of twitter, facebook, linkedin, quora (can foursquare be far behind?) and half the marine life on the planet. One major problem/irritation from reports we’ve gotten is that people anywhere can add you, seemingly almost randomly. So, is social media a numbers game, or is it about meaningful relationships/connections?  Chris Brogan, who spent some time checking it out, offers the Google+50, a list to get you thinking about a bunch of different possibilities: http://bit.ly/klNELs Is the social/war for eyeballs on? Facebook Blocks Friends Exporter Plugin (a chrome extention): http://on.mash.to/kR2S2Q; Google Disables Realtime Search – Will Replace Twitter with Google+: http://bit.ly/kJ97Cx
It’s still early days and the votes – and the upgrades – aren’t all in yet, so we can only watch and wait. And at the end of the day, decide just how much more personal information we want GOOG to have on us, after all. And how much more of our online real estate – and decisions on search results – we want to further cede to the behemoth. Onward and forward. Read More...

Good morning, All, and we hope you’re enjoying your Sunday!

It’s raining here in NYC and the SOS barbeque will now take place tomorrow, July 4th. Come join us for beer, burgers (yes, there will be tequila as well) a dip in the pool – and feel free to bring friends. It’s supposed to be a gorgeous day tomorrow, so if you’re back early from your holiday weekend, come join! If you’re heading down to see the fireworks, stop by first for some food and conversation.  RSVP: http://bit.ly/kIgxae

And remember: if you have anything to add to Tuesday’s newsletter, you still have time. Post your wants, needs, news and questions to www.startuponestop.com. No matter where in the world you may be. Read More...

Good morning, All,

First thing’s first: We are planning a SOS barbeque for those of you who will be in town over the July 4th holiday weekend. Come join us for beer, burgers (yes, there will be tequila as well) a dip in the pool – and feel free to bring friends. RSVP: http://bit.ly/kIgxae

Before you take off for the long holiday weekend, remember: Entrepreneurs Roundtable36 is June 29^th and you could win up to 50 roundtrip tickets on American Airlines for your company.  For more information and to RSVP: http://er36.eventbrite.com/ Read More...

Good morning, All,

We know the next few weeks will be hectic, what with July 4^th weekend, Canada Day and summer vacations so heads up: We are planning a barbeque for those of you who will be in town over the July 4^th holiday weekend. Come join us and feel free to bring friends. RSVP: http://bit.ly/kIgxae Our next Find A Cofounder is also coming up and we’re planning it for mid-July. Really, and we hope to get all of the details finalized by next week. And make sure you read ‘Upcoming Events’ this week: You could win up to 50 roundtrip tickets on American Airlines for your company at the next Entrepreneurs Roundtable. Details below.

Europe had its first ever Digital Agenda Assembly this past week (http://bit.ly/fDbhwl) in Brussels to help thrash out information and communication technologies’ role in Europe’s future. From all reports, there was a shortage of entrepreneurs present/invited (not surprising) but it was a start. Not that entrepreneurship was the main thrust of the Assembly, but rather, the importance of a neutral internet, among other topics. Still, it might have been helpful to get the perspective of people who actually work in the industry. Full story is here: http://tnw.co/lxrGHy. The Silicon Alley Talent Fair was also last week and there was an enormous turnout of both startups and people looking to work for startups. At the end of the day – literally -, Rachel Sterne, NYC’s Chief Digital Officer, announced that New York may well become the first city in the world with its own domain – .nyc – not just for the prestige but of course also for the revenues that it will generate for our fair town. All well and good, but heads up, NYC government: while we were happy to see that you supporting the job fair, how about supporting entrepreneurship in a truly meaningful way, and we don’t mean by announcing a new way to collect revenues from us via the TLD. How about tax breaks for entrepreneurs? Or – heaven forfend! – less regulation/lower barrier to entry? There’s a reason why incorporating in Delaware or Nevada as opposed to NY is a frequent discussion on many a NY tech-based listserv. New York does not make it easy, or affordable, to set up shop here and pretty much buries one in bureaucratic paperwork on a regular basis. Just thought we’d throw that out there as ideas to consider, presuming that the goal is to potentially create more jobs – and even more revenue – for the city. Yes, we know: you, too, would love to see the forest, too, but all those bloody trees are in the way. Onward and forward. Read More...

Good morning, All, and no, we’re not talking about silly walks but instead, domain name registration. Yes, the Name Game.

We went to the kickoff mixer for StartupWeekendNYC and it occurred to us: all of those people there to launch startups – how the hell do you name the damn thing? Takes some people more than 54 hours just to come up with a name for their new company – and the website, of course. So we sat there thinking about website names and their relevance to the site itself – and does it matter? Example: Google. Apple. Facebook. Myspace – ok, never mind that one, but we never said that a name is necessarily an indicator of the long-term success of a site. Zaarly came out of the last StartupWeekendLA and they’ve even raised a round of funding. The site helps you buy and sell with people around you. Don’t tell me that one of the zaarly team members didn’t show up to the LA StartupWeekend looking a bit, um, off, when another member of the team said, ‘go home, get some sleep and don’t forget to shower and shave before you come back here. You’re looking a bit zaarly.’ A name was born. As a former copywriter, moi could even venture a guess as to how the name Cialis came about. A few creatives sitting there, tasked with coming up with a name for the product, and they were coming up with bupkis. It was getting late; everyone wanted to call it a day, or a night, more likely, until one guy said, “Who would use this stuff? My grandfather. The guy has a girlfriend. And he’s in his 70s! See, this is the stuff my grandpa would take when he’s going to see Alice.” Done!

CNN reported nearly a year ago that we’re running out of IP addresses (http://bit.ly/jQDSnT). How long before we run out of decent dot com names, too? Creative spellings (kohorts) and -.ly have become very popular lately. Bit.ly. Comp.ly. There are a plethora of them and we’re surprised -.it hasn’t caught on. Why go for an adjective/adverb when you can go for a call to action? It’s a thought. Not that bit.it portends that anything good might come out of the site, but just an extension you might want to keep in mind, whilst attempting to come up with a name for your next venture. Gofor.it! Onward and forward. Read More...

Good morning, All,

Yes, we were having an Alice in Wonderland moment, and we’re not the only ones, it seems. IPO fever seems to be on again, and now all eyes are on Groupon, but a moment, please, and eyes on the bottom line: Groupon is no Linkedin – which happens to have a very profitable bottom line and has had for some time now. Groupon, on the other hand, is shelling out $1.43 cost-per-acquisition for every $1 it makes. Did we mention that it’s a 2-1/2 year old company with 7,000 employees? Yes, we do remember Web 1.0 and the New Economy. The math didn’t work then; doesn’t work now. Want a great read on the topic? Groupon IPO: Pass on this Deal: http://bit.ly/j1ONlH From the yipit blog Groupon S-1 Reveals Business Model Deteriorating in Oldest Markets: http://bit.ly/migJUl. And for those of us who remember way back to the end of 2010: Groupon Turns Down Google’s $6 Billion Offer: http://on.mash.to/f4iCQd. Hmmm. Someone will make money in the groupon IPO, no doubt, and between this and the MSFT purchase of Skype, well, it’s all just so much fodder for the doom-and-gloomers. But as witnessed in the articles above, not everyone’s jumping on the bandwagon, as happened back in the days of Web 1.0. Been there; done that – burned the tee shirt. We are admittedly a cockeyed optimist and see this as a blip, rather than a trend.  Eye on the prize: some of us are here to build an industry and won’t be led lemming-like over the precipice again. Hopefully, cooler heads rather than greed will prevail this time around and we’re not looking at another bubble but rather another proliferation of bubbleheads. As Vivek Wadhwa tweeted – “Problem: after Groupon crashes, it will wreck chances of more worthy companies going public. Wreck innovation system again like dot coms did.” Our sentiments exactly and let us not be led down the rabbit hole again. Onward and forward.

Deadlines: Read More...

Good morning, All,

TechCrunch Disrupt was in town last week and there were a lot of grumblings about the fact that a lot of it was about – apps. We understand the irritation: they do call it ‘Disrupt’ after all, and how disruptive is yet another app for your iPhone/android/iPad/insert-name-of-mobile-device here?

Makes sense to us: apps are to mobile what websites were to web 1.0. The devices are not just for phone calls anymore (and hasn’t the iPhone proven that, thank you so much, AT&T). The platform is being built out and it’s apps that are answering at least the initial call, pun intended. Read More...

Good morning, All, and you knew that was coming.

Ok, it may seem like semi-old news by now, especially with TechCrunch Disrupt going on. Still, attention must be paid. Linkedin IPO is the first so-called social media company to go public – and the biggest internet site to go public since Google – which naysayers also claimed, at the time, was overvalued. And the bubble talk is bubbling up once again.

There are huge differences between Linkedin and the sites that went public during the ‘90s bubble. First, Linkedin grew organically, rather than paying a fortune in advertising to acquire users. Next, Linkedin is a site one returns to time and again, and where one expands one’s own personal network in order to bring more value to the experience – and to Linkedin itself. In fact, between November 2010 and March 2011, the number of Linkedin users literally doubled. Next, Linkedin is profitable and has been since about a year or so after its launch – and has multiple profitable revenue streams: Paid job postings, advertising and a subscription model (CHART OF THE DAY: Where LinkedIn’s Revenue Comes From http://read.bi/kXIEQg) Read More...

Good morning, All,

There’s a battle on for the business desktop. Microsoft bought Skype for $8.5 billion, which many believe was about $4 billion too much, and that got a lot of attention. Meanwhile, the Google Chromebook is coming out mid next month and the giant is aiming squarely at the business desktop market, which Microsoft has had a lock on for quite some time now. For your edification: Five Reasons why Google’s Linux Chromebook is a Windows Killer http://zd.net/kTrXbV Five Reasons Why Skype Will Be An Office Hit: http://rww.to/kWu0Kg For fun: Why Google Does Not Own Skype: http://bit.ly/j2sbpL Google has been quietly minting money on the enterprise side for a while, and what can we say?  Maybe they figured it’s time they got off their ads went full throttle.

Onward and forward. Read More...