Thought Leaders in Cloud Computing: Interview with John Michelsen, CTO of CA Technologies (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: I talked to some of the Thought Leaders in Big Data interviewees who think that the problem is not so much the data part. The real challenge is designing algorithms, especially the machine learning algorithms that can take the data and do interesting things with it. The data itself is really not as

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Should You Move To Silicon Valley?

I run the only global, virtual incubator for startups in the world. As such, we constantly get questions from entrepreneurs around the United States, and around the world, about moving to Silicon Valley. My take on the subject is that Silicon Valley is expensive, the talent war challenging for startups without major VC backing, and

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Cool and Creative Serial Entrepreneurship: 99Designs and DeveloperAuction Co-Founder Matt Mickiewicz (Part 4)

Sramana: Why did you decide to raise money? Matt Mickiewicz: To expand our marketing and increase customer acquisition. We also wanted to pursue international expansion. We used the money to hire a chief marketing officer, a chief financial officer and expand internationally, which included language expansion. Recruiting in San Francisco is much easier when you

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Thought Leaders in Cloud Computing: Interview with John Michelsen, CTO of CA Technologies (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: I know there is a lot of startup activity going on in that space. What are some interesting startups that you have seen, and what problems are they solving? John Michelsen: I will start with the security space. You almost can’t talk somebody out of doing interesting innovation in security. My first prescription

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Cool and Creative Serial Entrepreneurship: 99Designs and DeveloperAuction Co-Founder Matt Mickiewicz (Part 3)

Sramana: Who were the early adopters of 99Designs? Matt Mickiewicz: The earliest adopters were Silicon Valley and New York startups. In the first couple of years in the business we did not do any marketing. We relied on press, media attention and word of mouth. Sramana: How did you get press? That can be very

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Thought Leaders in Cloud Computing: Interview with John Michelsen, CTO of CA Technologies (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: We are actually also running a Thought Leaders in Big Data series, which is a very successful series. The big data and cloud stories are interlaced stories. John Michelsen: Exactly. You just said better what I was trying to say. You aren’t going to think about big data as “OK, let’s go chop

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Cool and Creative Serial Entrepreneurship: 99Designs and DeveloperAuction Co-Founder Matt Mickiewicz (Part 2)

Sramana: You started that website while you were in high school. What happened after you graduated? Matt Mickiewicz: The business went really well up until the dot-com crash. All of our advertisers went bankrupt, which make me scramble to find an alternative business model. I turned to book publishing. I published over 70 books in

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Bootstrapping With A Paycheck

Entrepreneurs looking to launch their startups are often faced with myriad difficult decisions, chief among them being the question of seed financing. If you’ve ever found yourself asking, “How can I fund this?” or “Can I fund this on my own, while I’m still holding my current job?” the answer is yes—you absolutely can.