College Bootstrapping Buddies: Grasshopper Cofounders Siamak Taghaddos And David Hauser (Part 2)

SM: What were the dynamics of involving your family in your venture?

ST: Entrepreneurship runs in my family. My father ran an accounting firm when he was young in Iran. He had been in a similar situation as David and I had. >>>

Smartphone Ecosystem (Part 1): Market Share

By guest author Nalini Kumar Muppala

Smartphones have been the handset market’s savior in the market slump of 2009. Although the overall handset market shrunk nearly 7%, the smartphone market grew at a healthy 15%. The significance is clear, and every company in the phone business – hardware, software, carriers – wants to be part of this lucrative, growing market and is making every effort to get it right. Over a series of posts, I will express my observations and opinions on this dynamic ecosystem. >>>

Roundtable Recap: April 8 – A Focus On E-Commerce

This morning I worked with three new entrepreneurs, each at a different stage of validating who their customers are and building their businesses accordingly.  Two have e-commerce businesses, which I love. In fact, my Forbes column tomorrow will discuss the shift from brick-and-mortar shops to e-commerce and how such businesses are so well poised for Web 3.0. Main Street America is changing as small business owners move online and get rid of the expensive real estate costs. >>>

April 8 Roundtable Recording

In case you missed this session, here is the recording:

Roundtable Starting In 30 Minutes

Today’s roundtable is starting in 30 minutes, at 8 a.m. PST/11 a.m. EST/8:30 p.m. IST. Click here to join in.

College Bootstrapping Buddies: Grasshopper Cofounders Siamak Taghaddos And David Hauser (Part 1)

Siamak Taghaddos and David Hauser are both serial entreprenuers and co-founders of Grasshopper, which offers advanced phone capabilites to small businesses. Siamak oversees the strategic direction of Grasshopper and serves as the company’s brand visionary while David oversees the strategic direction and operations of Grasshopper and serves as the company’s technology visionary. They met as students at Babson College.

SM: Let’s start with your personal backgrounds. Tell me where you are from and how you came together.

ST: I am originally from Iran. I was born in Tehran in 1981 and I moved to Boston in 1986. I was doing a lot of different things related to business in junior high and high school. In high school I ran a pager business. I distributed pagers to students all over the United States. >>>

Research Internships For 2010

A number of research interns have worked with me over the past few years, pursuing specific topics of interest to them and to me. The first was Vijay Nagarajan, whose excellent work on the wireless chip sector led him from being an engineer in Atheros to a product manager at Broadcom. Vijay’s work is now being continued by Nalini Kumar Muppala. >>>

1M/1M: Entrepreneurs, What Do You Need?

Over the last five years, I have interacted with literally thousands of early-stage entrepreneurs, and I think I have a decent idea about the requirements for 1M/1M.

But this morning’s post by entrepreneur Nari Kannan titled What Do I Need From An Incubator gave me an idea.

Why don’t you, my readers, help me validate the needs of 1M/1M? I won’t bias you with what I have come up with privately. You do have window into some of my thinking through the blog, of course.

But let me open this discussion up to all you entrepreneurs and ask: What do you need from 1M/1M?