Catching Up On Readings: Sunday Puzzle

If you haven’t tried a Google a day, you may want to check out these puzzles on a variety of topics while honing your search skills. >>>

An Underused Tool For Job Recovery

As the U.S. economy continues to hiccup, large-scale entrepreneurship is a badly needed remedy. In transitioning hundreds of thousands of people to self-employment and job creation through entrepreneurship, incubators look like an extremely helpful tool. But we need to produce more of the most effective incubators. >>>

Catching Up On Readings: Major Tech Trends

What will be the trends that shape the year and the decade to come? Tech forecaster Daniel Burrus weighs in with The Top 20 Technology-Driven Trends for 2012. How will trends vary be region? We welcome your thoughts and comments. >>>

Monetizing Premium Social App Ad Inventory and Scaling a Capital-Efficient Business: appssavvy CEO Chris Cunningham (Part 4)

Sramana: How long did you carry on with your initial business model, and what were your revenue ramps in the early years?

Chris Cunningham: We went from 80 partners in 2008 to several hundred in 2009. We went from just under $4 million in revenue in 2008 to $9 million in 2009 and over $20 million in revenue in 2010. We really capitalized and rode the wave of Facebook applications. The thing that changed about our inventory in 2010 was the arrival of social games being the dominant category. >>>

Monetizing Premium Social App Ad Inventory and Scaling a Capital-Efficient Business: appssavvy CEO Chris Cunningham (Part 1)

Chris Cunningham is the CEO and co-founder of appssavvy, an activity advertising technology company. He also serves as co-chair of the IAB Social Media Committee and in 2010 and 2011 was a finalist for Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year award. Chris graduated from the University of North Carolina Greensboro with BA in economics and marketing and is based in New York City.

Sramana: Chris, let’s start where your story begins. Where do you come from? What path did you travel during the early years of your life?

Chris Cunningham: I was born in Helsinki, Finland. My father is American and my mother’s side is Scandinavian. >>>

Capital-Efficient Customer Acquisition, Company Building: ReTargeter CEO Arjun Dev Arora (Part 5)

Sramana: You started this company in 2009. Could you talk about the companies ramp and what strategies you have used to achieve that?

Arjun Dev Arora: Initially, a lot of our ramp was based on referrals. Eventually, we started to do some more formal marketing programs. We started sending out emails, we made AdWord buys, we attended conferences, and we did things that were more traditional market activities. Once we hit profitability, we hired salespeople. We did a lot of cold calling and email to try and get initial entry. >>>

Catching Up On Readings: Labor Practices In Tech

Today’s San Jose Mercury News draws attention to several recent stories about labor practices at contractors used by Apple and other manufacturers of personal tech devices. What role do you feel you and other consumers play in addressing such issues? See the full article for the rest of this week’s posts? >>>

1M/1M Video: Dan Stewart’s Story