For me I’ve stated publicly that 70% of my investment decision is the team and most of this is skewed toward the founders.  I’ve watched people who went to the top schools, got the best grades and worked for all the right companies flame out. It’s the person who never gives up – who never accepts “no” for an answer.  This is part of my new series on what makes an entrepreneur successful .  I originally posted it on VentureHacks , one of my favorite websites for entrepreneurs.

This is part of my ongoing series Startup Advice .  Many entrepreneurs who start technology companies are product people, technologists or savvy business people who worked previously for a larger company.  Most start-up entrepreneurs have little or no sales experience.  I know I didn’t.  But through nearly a decade of startups I learned that sales comes down to three essential elements:

The promised to follow up with: calls, using your product, talking to customers or “noodle on things.” Despite best intentions they probably won’t follow up on their actions. Why don’t VC’s follow up? The partner you saw is probably This is part of my ongoing series, “ Pitching a VC .” 8221;  Getting a meeting with a prominent angel or VC is difficult enough.  Some

This is part of my ongoing series on Start-up Lessons that I learned from founding two companies. But first I’d like to start with a story. In the 2003/04 timefame I was living in the UK and running my first company.  I I had been competing to win I HATE LOSING . I

Needless to say I was positively predisposed to this individual before the meeting started. How you got to the VC is important, but once you’re in the meeting it’s obviously up to you to make the most of it.  We started by talking about this person’s background.  This is part of my ongoing series, “ Pitching a VC .” 8221;

One of the topics that came up in my post Mobile Internet Apple Facebook was around open vs. This issue comes up at the start of almost every new startup company in a variety of forms. In this post, I want to look at just the question of when it makes sense to use Facebook Connect, Twitter Oauth, OpenID, Yahoo Browser-Based Authentication, Google Friend Connect or basically any of the other authentication mechanisms. Example What do I mean? closed platforms. I’m constantly struggling with trying to figure out the best way to pull together solutions,

Jeff Fluhr and his friend from school got together and created a company called StubHub which they built up and sold to eBay. Jeff, here's what I noticed when I looked you up. But, you know, I think it wasn't until after my first real company StubHub that people, I think, thought of me in that light. In 2000, people had all kinds of assumptions about buying and selling tickets to events. They assumed it was illegal or that they'd get ripped off or that it was a small-time business run by guys who stood outside of stadiums.

RSS ); Why You Should Start a Company in... Los Angeles By: Laura Rich February 26, 2010

This is part of my ongoing series of posts and I need to file this one under both Raising Venture Capital and Startup Advice . Ajax was the new buzzword and many companies went overboard.  and the subsequent acquisition sprees of companies like Google, Yahoo!, I remember going to an Under the Radar conference in 2006 in the heat of the Web 2.0

Social networking sites and microblogs are used not only to build company brands, but to foster productivity; social media tools help build communities around the question, "What are you working on?" Companies also use social networking sites in the hiring process, and increasingly, to do innovative advertising (such as the recent Jack in the Box campaign). This Panel will Just a quick note that I'll be moderating a Technology Council Event : Social Networking as a Business Strategy May 19, 2009 - Culver City Social networking media are used on a daily basis to grow businesses and expand career opportunities.