This is part of my series on  what makes an entrepreneur successful .  I originally posted it on  VentureHacks , one of my favorite websites for entrepreneurs. started the series talking about what I consider the most important attribute of an entrepreneur :  Tenacity .  I So we as VCs search for entrepreneurs/founders I I then covered  Street Smarts ,  Ability to Pivot ,  Resiliency ,  Inspiration and Perspiration .

started with a Top 10 list for Nivi (at VentureHacks), but I couldn’t cram it into 10 so it became a Top 11 list.  I I originally conceived it as the Top 11 things that I believe “all entrepreneurs need to succeed.” It isn’t a “must” for me but it’s certainly a huge positive when entrepreneurs have it.  This is the final part of my series on Entrepreneurial DNA that was originally published on  VentureHacks .  OK, OK, it’s not really my final part.

This is part of my ongoing series “ Start Up Advice ” but I’d really like to call this post, “VC Advice.” Let me start with a couple of stories. A friend of mine is a serial entrepreneur and is running a high-profile, early stage company in NorCal.  He’s We exchanged ideas when I was an entrepreneur along side him in NorCal in 05-07 and my point-of-view on founder / VC relationships 8221; If a company has reached a level of success, has been around for a few years and you believe the company has potential to break out

Amazon Webservices is hosting a The Start-Up Project event in Santa Monica on October 23rd, 2-7pm. Amazon Web Services provides entrepreneurs with the ability to scale their business with access to Amazon's robust infrastructure and technological resources via services such as Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), and Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3). Amazon Web Services is holding several half-day events, The Start-Up Project in Utilizing AWS' solutions, you can compete on ideas -- not resources -- and turn your idea into a profitable business.

On Ben Kuo's blog, he posted about Entrepreneurs in Southern California and pointed to a post by Will Johnson, a Southern California entrepreneur and blogger. Will's post talks about lack of interest in working for startups here in Southern California, saying: ..we probably’d don’t have the: a) same support infrastructure (meet-ups, networking events, etc.); we b) history of success; and c) abundance of start-up companies (so if one fails there is another to jump on).

I got the following question from an entrepreneur and I thought I share it with everyone. “Why do many startups actually fail? In my observation, i have felt that there are many a startups which have a brilliant idea, a genuine team to execute that and also a good support for the product they intend to build, but still the companies fail to break even. would love to hear from you your views on why startups fail? I cheers, Vaibhav� There may be a thousand different reasons, but here is an attempt at simplifying a clearly completed question.

In my days, I have met with many many entrepreneurs. My advice to this group is to either admit that you are a dreamer (get it over with) and then enjoy the dreams and the innovations without regret, frustration and the feeling of failure OR “just do it� as the saying goes; the short cut to results may be finding a partner with a different character profile! The “not so Pure� Dreamer These are the self proclaimed entrepreneurs that generate ideas faster than bunny’s produce offsprings. They are not necessarily We have agreed and disagreed on things, learned from each other, and experienced disappointments and successes together.

This is the story of an idea that started out as a series of conversations on message boards and quickly became a marketplace that facilitated $5 million in design work. So, on a Friday evening, someone would come up with a fictional project and over the weekend, 20 or 30 designers would compete to create the best design work and on Monday morning, they would vote and annoint one of them as the top designer, if you will. What I’m most eager for you to see are the steps the founders took to ensure that their new business proved itself and earned money right from inception.

TechCrunch Europe ran an article in November of last year that European startups need to work as hard as those in Silicon Valley and I echoed the sentiment in my post about the need for entrepreneurs to be maniacal about their businesses if one wants to work in the hyper competitive tech world. Having been through this all before myself I would like to tell a cautionary tale that can happen to the best of us: The Yo-Yo life of the tech entrepreneur.  TechCrunch ran my article yesterday as a guest post but I wanted to have a copy here for anybody who missed it and for future readers of this blog.  This

Within 2 months, the entrepreneurs were profitable. From the company's About page: "We started out as GotVMail Communications in 2003, after identifying the need for an easy-to-use virtual phone system for entrepreneurs that wouldn’t break the bank. ... As And that’s exactly what our service does for entrepreneurs like you: gives you the tools to propel your small business forward." If you like my interview, please vote for it on my favorite news site. --Andrew Andrew