Partner Conferences and APU 2013

November 13, 2013

The past 3 days we’ve been attending the AMD Developer Conference (APU 2013) at the San Jose Convention Center. AMD has a world class CPU and a world class GPU. They are in a unique position to combine those 2 strengths in a new chip which contains both. They call that new chip the accelerated […]

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Tesla Motors Factory Tour

November 12, 2013

Today, I slipped away from APU 2013 for a moment to catch a tour of the Tesla Motors factory in Fremont, CA. I’ve had an infatuation with Tesla recently, and I was excited to see the factory in person. Here are some highlights from the tour: The factory is 1 mile long and 1.4 miles […]

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Playing with New Technologies

November 11, 2013

One of the best ways to become entrepreneurial is to constantly play with new toys. The best toys are the newest technology platforms with APIs available to 3rd parties. If the platform grows, your 3rd party addon will inherit that growth, though you will incur a corresponding platform risk. Our company began because one of […]

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Dealing with Platform Risk

November 10, 2013

Many startups begin by attaching themselves to another platform. I’ve written before how startups can ride a platform advantage. Today, I saw the following exchange between two Atlantans that talks about dealing with platform risk. http://storify.com/melonakos/platform-risk-recognition-and-mitigation I love the above exchange for a number of reasons: It is truthful about the startup’s platform risk. It […]

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My 2009 Opportunity Costs

November 9, 2013

Following up on yesterday’s post about opportunity costs, today I share how we made our finances work during the lean early years. Here’s our $32k 5-person-family 2009 budget.   Things to point out: Less than $700 for a 3-bedroom, 2-bath mortgage on a 1/3 acre. Big benefit of Atlanta. We bought high-deductible health insurance. We […]

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Perspective on Opportunity Cost

November 8, 2013

Today I had two phone calls with budding entrepreneurs. They are both emerging from university degrees and both are contemplating the opportunity costs of chasing their entrepreneurial ambitions. Opportunity costs are impossible to reconcile. The kind of people that make great startup founders are a subset of those that can fetch high salaries in BigCos. […]

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Dependence on Luck Varies with the Type of Startup

November 7, 2013

I have two thoughts today on how the dependence on luck can vary with the type of startup: Painkiller startups require less luck than vitamin or candy startups. Vitamins and candy require luck. Build a painkiller! — Ed Trimble (@edtrimble) November 7, 2013 I saw Ed’s recent tweet and agree. First, to help define the […]

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IPOs are about Growth

November 6, 2013

Twitter set its share price at $26 today valuing it at roughly $18 billion, according to NYT. A few days ago I ran across this article that discusses the value drivers for IPOs of startups. The single biggest driver of value at the time of IPO is growth. Profitability is almost irrelevant and the majority […]

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The Value of Tradeshows

November 5, 2013

My opinion on tradeshows has evolved since we started in 2007. At the beginning, they seemed so fun and like a great way to unveil ourselves to the market and to potential customers. I hoped they would be a driver of revenue for our business. Initially they drove a some business. Over the years, the […]

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The Unicorn Club

November 4, 2013

Only 39 US startups in the last decade have a billion dollar or greater valuation, in both private and public markets. That’s the news that ran the rounds last week out of TechCrunch (check out the interesting charts in that article). When we started our business, many so-called “advisers” said we needed to be targeting a […]

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