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By VStart, on April 15th, 2010
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Grand Challenges Explorations Workshop Friday, April 23, 2010 at 3:00 p.m. UC Davis Conference Center 2nd Floor Conference Room
The Office of Research, Office of University Development, and the Foods for Health Institute are hosting a workshop on the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Grand Challenges Explorations Round 5.
Grand Challenges Explorations awards of $100,000 support early-stage research projects designed to overcome persistent bottlenecks in creating new tools that can radically improve health in the developing world. Successful projects have the opportunity to receive a Phase II grant of $1 million. Topics for Round 5 of the Grand Challenges Explorations include:
By VStart, on March 29th, 2010
Senator Dodd’s current financial reform bill is designed to address financial reform and regulation of the big banks, including the “too big to fail” issue. But it may have unintended consequences by reducing the number of angel investors while at the same time putting regulatory hurdles in place. These hurdles will increase the time it takes (yes, even more!) for entrepreneurs to raise money, and put more bureaucracy in the way further discouraging angel investors.
There is a post on VentureBeat today that has more details and discussion. That post also has some good summary information on the SEC rules that relate to all Read More »»
By VStart, on February 9th, 2010
Brett Owens of Chrometa was one of the first entrepreneurs mentored by VentureStart. We recommended “go get customers” rather than trying to raise money from organized investors. He did that and has been growing ever since with an ever-increasing customer base.
Chrometa maintains an excellent blog and today we saw an interesting post on customer support for software companies and its challenges. Take a look and I think you’ll find that Chrometa have met the challenge well with some good thinking. The very fact their blog talks about this is also great marketing. Go Chrometa!
By VStart, on February 9th, 2010
Don’t miss the first annual Sacramento Med Tech Showcase on March 30, 2010 at Sacramento State University. The theme for the 2010 showcase is “Transforming Medicine Through Technology.” Hosted by SARTA’s MedStart Initiative , the event will raise awareness of the medical technology industry and resources in the Sacramento Region and generate excitement about technology developments by companies founded and funded in the region.
The Showcase will feature:
- Exhibit Hall Showcasing Med Tech Companies in the Sacramento Region
- The Next Wave Med Tech Innovators Challenge, co-hosted by VentureStart
- “Telemedicine- New and Exciting Frontiers in Healthcare Delivery” panel discussion
- “Emerging Trends In Med Read More »»
By VStart, on January 30th, 2010
VentureStart gets many Sacramento region web startups applying for our mentoring. Very often we see great ideas and the need to raise money to hire people to code the idea/application. We normally encourage these startups to get a co-founder, or someone who will work for stock, on the team, and then get some traction before even considering raising money from Angel groups or VCs.
Adam Kalsey, the founder of SacStarts and a VentureStart mentor, recently gave advice on this to one VentureStart entrepreneur and then published it on his blog. We quote it here since it is so relevant to web startups.
Read More »»
By VStart, on December 16th, 2009
Phil Reed was the co-founder of both ComputerLand and BusinessLand, two highly successful startups, both of which went public. He’s raised capital from the top venture capital firms in the world and also been part of small companies that never fulfilled their promise and had to shut their doors (if you ask him, those were the source of the most valuable lessons he’s learned). In fact, Phil has founded or co-founded over a dozen companies during his career and he is incredibly passionate about sharing those lessons and helping budding entrepreneurs.
So here are Phil’s top twelve lessons for entrepreneurs. Call it “Phil’s twelve days of Christmas for start-ups”. Read More »»
By VStart, on November 28th, 2009
Why would students give up their Saturday mornings during school year to attend yet another class (and at 8 am no less) and why would busy, successful entrepreneurs, Angel and VC Investors, and business people volunteer their time to meet with them? It’s a passion shared by the students wanting a real, practical education in entrepreneurship, and mentors equally passionate about giving back and breeding entrepreneurs of the future. This is the Sacramento Entrepreneurship Academy (SEA).
The students are talented, motivated, ambitious people. Take a look at the video they put together with board members for SEA, one of Sacramento’s best kept Read More »»
By VStart, on November 2nd, 2009
Many startups with high growth ambitions immediately think of raising money from angels or VCs. This can be challenging for first time entrepreneurs, and if family and friends money is not an alternative, then the choices left are often credit cards or bootstrapping. Here is a post on the top 10 lessons in bootstrapping from VentureBeat.
There are two ways to build a business: Raise a bunch of money or bootstrap. When I was in business school, there wasn’t much attention given to the bootstrapping notion. The “MBA way” of growing a business is to write a business plan, raise money and then execute the business plan. But I think that’s almost always the wrong approach.
We bootstrapped Infusionsoft for several years before ever raising capital. The lessons we learned were, and continue to be, invaluable. Here are the top ten lessons we learned from this method – and why I continue to evangelize bootstrapping to entrepreneurs: … Read More » »
By VStart, on November 2nd, 2009
Every wonder if you have what it takes to be a founder or co-founder of a company, or even an early participant. Below we copy a post from Steve Blank’s blog.
When my students ask me about whether they should be a founder or cofounder of a startup I ask them to take a walk around the block and ask themselves:
Are you comfortable with:
- Chaos – startups are disorganized
- Uncertainty – startups never go per plan
Are you:
- Resilient – at times you will fail – badly. How quickly will you recover?
- Agile – you may find the real opportunities for your company was somewhere else. Can you recognize and capitalize on them?
- Creative / Pattern Recognition – can you think “out of the box?” Or if not, can you recognize patterns others miss?
- Passionate – is the company/product/customers the most important thing in your life? 24/7?
- Tenacious – can you keep going when everyone else gives up? Can you keep giving 200% despite all the naysayers who don’t believe in your idea?
- Articulate – can you create a reality distortion field and have others see and share your vision and passion?
… Read More » »
By VStart, on October 31st, 2009
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