|
|
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 Tech Investing” panel discussion
Join with other leaders 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”. (You can 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 secrets.
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 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 Read More »»
By VStart, on October 31st, 2009
By VStart, on July 23rd, 2009
We saw this blog post and thought it very appropriate to all those regional web entrepreneurs trying to distinguish them from the masses. The post provides Six Milestones from 30 Seconds to 3 Years by which to judge the effectiveness of your web site/service.
By VStart, on July 11th, 2009
Dave McClure has been geeking out in Silicon Valley for almost twenty years as a software developer, entrepreneur, startup advisor, angel investor, blogger, & internet marketing nerd. Here is an interesting presentation from SlideShare on the current investment climate for (web) startups.
|
|
