Featured Videos

Building a Subscription E-Commerce Business from Switzerland: Samy Liechti, CEO of Blacksocks (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: Were all these customers in Switzerland?

Samy Liechti: We have different currencies and languages here. We were not prepared for payments outside Switzerland. We only had Swiss Francs. All of a sudden, we had our first German customers. Then we started the same for Germany. Little by little, we introduced other currencies and then other payment methods like credit cards. I remember, in the early stage, a Japanese customer wanted to order and we weren’t able to process the credit card. One of his cousins was on a holiday in the Swiss Alps. He still had some cash left, so he sent it in an envelope and we sent him the socks to Japan. >>>

Thought Leaders in Healthcare IT: Girish Navani, CEO of eClinicalWorks (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: They have other roles to play in medical imaging. In the equipment sector, they’re big.

Girish Navani: Yes, not in healthcare IT. This is the fun part and also the nerve-wracking part. As an entrepreneur, you have no fear because you have nothing to lose.

Sramana Mitra: Given your structure, what are your thoughts about acquisitions? One way that people deal with that threat is to bring in people from the bottom.

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Thought Leaders in Healthcare IT: Girish Navani, CEO of eClinicalWorks (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: Relatively speaking, we are very young. Having an exit and getting a chunk of money and then what? You can’t eat money.

Girish Navani: Very true. Then what? People ask the question, “Girish, why don’t you do this?” Then I ask the same question you asked, “Then what?” None of those answers have been exciting. I have found a cause at healthcare. In healthcare, there’s a purpose behind – we can help somebody live a better life, live a healthier life, or get diagnosed sooner because technology created that platform. Beyond profitability, we’ve done something for society even though it’s a for-profit and not a non-profit. >>>

Thought Leaders in Healthcare IT: Girish Navani, CEO of eClinicalWorks (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: That’s great. I’m actually working on a book on Unicorn Companies right now. I would love to include you in that. The definition of this Unicorn Company is billion-dollar exit. The truth is if you were to exit in the market today, you would be over a billion dollar in valuation easily.

Girish Navani: Easily. Maybe, multi-billion.

Sramana Mitra: It’s probably more like $3 billion plus valuation. You’ve probably seen my work in the last four years that we’ve launched One Million by One Million. Our philosophy is entrepreneurship equals customers, revenues, and profits. Financing and exit are optional. That’s a very simple and powerful change in the way entrepreneurship is viewed. >>>

Top 10 Reasons Why Product Development Projects Fail

By Guest Author Steve Owens

The sole purpose of product development is to generate a positive return on investment. Consequently, it is interesting to note that more than 70% of product development projects fail to produce a positive return on investment. Product Development is risky and always requires some trial and error. However, great companies continuously improve, and product development is certainly an area where opportunities for improvement abound.  It is important to treat product development failures the same as other challenges in business. It is essential to understand what went wrong, why it went wrong and what can be done to prevent it from going wrong next time.   >>>

Design: The Missing Link in Silicon Valley’s Ecosystem of Innovation

By Guest Author Soren Petersen and Dr. Barry Katz

Scattered across the globe, concentrated ecosystems are creating our future, from Formula One racing in Southern England, to new furniture design created in Northern Italy and high-tech consumer products designed in Silicon Valley. Design is a key factor in the development of all these cornerstones in the Creative Economy. >>>

Ten Lessons I Learned From a ‘Failed’ B2B Software Startup

By guest author and 1M/1M member Luis Montes

Below are ten key lessons our team learned following an unsuccessful two-year launch of PatientDox – a cloud-based startup Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solution for healthcare providers. It is our intention to not only learn from our mistakes but also help other tech entrepreneurs and colleagues avoid them.

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Betting Strategies for Breakthrough Innovation Contests

By Guest Author Soren Petersen

Guiding design teams through the design innovation process is one of the biggest challenges in new product development (NPD). The path is strewn with ambiguity and uncertainty. Any advice that the project manager can offer rests on their previous experience, which may be highly context dependent and not directly translatable to the current design process. Gamification offers an alternative to the way in which business innovation is done today. >>>