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Trend Spotting: Love and Startups

There was a time in Silicon Valley when VCs did not like the idea of funding couples. Nonetheless, Cisco and 3Com – two legendary Valley startups – were founded by entrepreneur couples. These days, the startup world seems to nurture a lot more romance… Sometimes he is the CEO, sometimes she. Sometimes they switch roles. To have a baby. Or a few babies. Or not. In any case, the bias against entrepreneur couples needs to be over. Entrepreneurship is a passionate affair. A powerful aphrodisiac. Better acknowledge that phenomenon.

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Who Said Women Entrepreneurs Don’t Raise Venture Capital?

A blog post that I wrote on the subject in October 2010 still garners readership and discussions. Meanwhile, our 1M/1M virtual incubator continues to work with women entrepreneurs actively, and I am happy to report that women ARE starting up companies, and building interesting businesses ranging from healthcare IT to e-commerce, and everything in between. >>>

Women ARE Running Startups

There has been tremendous sensationalizing of the women and entrepreneurship issue. Self-proclaimed (male) pundits pontificate on how women entrepreneurs face tremendous obstacles and huge prejudice.

I disagree.

A blog post that I wrote on the subject in October 2010 still garners readership and discussions. Meanwhile, our 1M/1M virtual incubator continues to work with women entrepreneurs actively, and I am happy to report that women are starting up companies, and building interesting businesses ranging from healthcare IT to e-commerce, and everything in between. >>>

Startup Lesson: Talk to Customers Before Building Anything

In our One Million by One Million (1M/1M) global virtual incubator, we always advise entrepreneurs to talk to customers before building anything. We ask them to do as much research as possible. Some listen, some don’t.

Gülin Yilmaz has listened. She is a classic example of the tenets that it pays to talk to customers, and that it pays to do your research. >>>

TrendSpotting: Love and Startups

The Other 99% (Entrepreneurs)

In my recent piece Reengineering Capitalism I highlighted a phenomenon that the global entrepreneurship ecosystem is paying very little attention to: Over 99% of entrepreneurs who seek funding get rejected. Yet, the entire world is focused on the 1% that is “fundable.”

The media, when pitched a startup story, is interested in who funded the venture. They seldom ask how much revenue the company has or if it is profitable.

Incubators take pride in how exclusive they are and how many “deals” they “reject.”

Angels and VCs, of course, discard most of their “deal flow.”

And entrepreneurs? They seem to have confused the definition of entrepreneurship altogether. Entrepreneurship, they mistakenly believe, equals financing!

This is wrong.
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The Next European Renaissance (Part 5)

Developing ideas and insights that create major shifts and trends, solve humanity’s important problems, improve the quality of life for people around the world, lead to prosperity, and result in lasting achievements – this is our quest.

The question we are exploring is whether Europe’s recognized enthusiasm for culture in its various forms – food, music, architecture, literature, and many more – and greater commitment to the preservation and promotion of such expressions of culture would offer a good platform for generating new and important ideas given that the enabling technology may not need to be quite that complex.

My sense is yes, they would.

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The Next European Renaissance (Part 4)

Remember, we started this discussion with the premise that the next renaissance will be at the confluence of technology and the arts. By “technology,” I am referring primarily to information technology and computing.

As for other technologies, there are significant expertise and major industries such as automotive and aeronautics in Europe. German brands like Porsche, BMW, Mercedes, Volkswagen, and Audi are market leaders. Airbus is a massive aircraft maker that leads the market alongside Boeing in America. The industrial machinery industry is also strong in both Germany and Italy.

But I am thinking primarily about the potential of IT and computing to set in motion a new renaissance, and even more specifically, the Internet and mobile computing technologies. >>>