How To Get a 20 Million Dollar Pre-Money Valuation for Series A: Tableau Software CEO Christian Chabot (Part 6)

SM: How did you find your initial customers?

CC: We used things like cold calls, Silicon Valley networking, and friends of friends. When you’re starting from nothing, you do whatever it takes. I was talking to anyone who would listen. I networked heavily, got friends to send me ideas, and went to alumni databases. >>>

Vision India 2020 Book Review: Combining Entrepreneurship & Leadership

From Marylene Delbourg-Delphis’ review of Vision India 2020 by Sramana Mitra for Grade A Entrepreneurs:

“Sramana’s Vision India 2020 is an entrepreneurial utopia . . . not a fairyland, but the description of a new present based on an extrapolation of capabilities that are at our disposal today. It’s not a stretch. It’s a matter of scaling with a purpose or simply applying what we know today.

I liked this book for many reasons . . . well-written, passionate plea, great entrepreneurial message, courageous, great book to reflect on what history is about.  What Vision India 2020 contemplates is a way to cut short the mess created from the first stages of massive industrialization in the digital age. As Sramana puts it optimistically: ‘It is the entrepreneurs, and the entrepreneurs alone, who wield the most potent weapons of mass reconstruction. To build markets; to build nations; to build worlds.’”

You can read the entire review here.

Vision India 2020 is available from Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle, and from Smashwords.com in all e-book formats.

Deal Radar 2010: FineArtAmerica.com

FineArtAmerica.com is an online marketplace and social networking site for painters, photographers, and other visual artists. Artists can use to the site to connect with collectors and other buyers and, says founder Sean Broihier, put the business side of their career on “autopilot,” leaving them more time to create art. >>>

How To Get a 20 Million Dollar Pre-Money Valuation for Series A: Tableau Software CEO Christian Chabot (Part 5)

SM: What does the financial structure of a business spun out of Stanford look like? Do they take an equity position?

CC: I get that question a lot, and I can’t comment directly because each case is unique. The thing to remember about Stanford is that they license more than startups. They license a lot of technology to major corporations. >>>

Catching Up On Readings: Entrepreneurship Education

Over the past couple of weeks the blog has featured a series of discussions on how B-schools approach venture capital:
Entrepreneurship Education: What DO B-Schools Teach About Venture Capital?
This week´s Forbes column, What B-Schools Don’t Teach You About Venture Capital
Entrepreneurship Education: Should Entrepreneurship 101 Be Compulsory?
Entrepreneurship Education: Bootstrapping At B-Schools?
Entrepreneurship Education: Why Do Business Incubators Fail?

All are free to join in. You can read all of this week’s posts by clicking on the full article. >>>

How To Get a 20 Million Dollar Pre-Money Valuation for Series A: Tableau Software CEO Christian Chabot (Part 4)

SM: Your previous work experience gave you an actual user’s point of view. You are solving a problem you faced earlier in your life.

CC: Exactly. Even within the world of information visualization, there many different schools of thought, and I learned about many of those in my first job. >>>

Vision India 2020 Book Review: A Great Read For Pioneers And Innovators

Here is Skannd‘s review of Vision India 2020 by Sramana Mitra for Goodreads.com:

“Even though they are fictional, most ideas projected by this book are really doable and it is clear that a lot of research has been put into the possibilities. Really liked the bit about the future of solar power in India and her ideas about it because I’m currently involved in something really similar. (it actually gave me the goosebumps as to how similar her idea was to what I’m trying to implement). A great-read for pioneers and innovators and people who want to venture into one of the largest markets in the world right now.”

You can find this review here.

Vision India 2020 is available from Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle, and from Smashwords.com in all e-book formats.

How To Get a 20 Million Dollar Pre-Money Valuation for Series A: Tableau Software CEO Christian Chabot (Part 3)

SM: Essentially, you are doing drag-and-drop query-building using graphics. Internally, that query is being translated into some sort of SQL which is processed and transferred back into graphics for the user. Is that a correct assessment?

CC: Yes that’s right. The language from which we are retrieving data could be anything. You can expose any declarative query interface. >>>