Free Market-Research Tools -- A Sampler Small businesses can tap a variety of free resources for insights about customers, competitors and trends. Before Darlene Tenes, founder of CasaQ in San Jose, Calif., sinks a lot of money into new designs for Christmas ornaments, she sends sketches to retail and wholesale clients. They report back through questionnaires she creates on the online research service SurveyMonkey, and their reactions influence which designs become decorations. "If you have four choices and there's a strong reaction [like] 'I love it. SurveyMonkey is only one of a wealth of free tools and resources that can help you gather valuable market-research information. Survey Monkey Basic Survey Monkey Portland, Ore.www.surveymonkey.comCost: Free. BizStats Brandow Co. Related: Five Affordable Consumer Research Tools FreeLunch.com Moody's Analytics West Chester, Pa.www.economy.com/freelunchCost: Free. Related: A New Way to Crowdsource Customer Feedback Census.gov U.S. Related: Hacking the U.S.
Startup technology demystified By Danny Boice On December 18, 2012 When it comes to technology, it can be confusing out there for the business-minded (read: non-technical) co-founder. Do those snowboard-loving, flip-flop wearing, EDM-listening, tattoo-having jackanapes-for-developers ridicule you with their fancy words and assault you with offensive acronyms? Do you think that JSON was that guy with the hockey mask and chainsaw in “Friday the 13th”? Thought Ruby was a reference to Grandma’s dear friend at the nursing home? Take heart, my friend, there is still hope. 1. What is it? Node.js is a platform built on Chrome’s JavaScript runtime designed to easily build fast, scalable network applications. Translation: Node.js makes it much easier, faster and efficient for your development team to do cool shit in your app in real-time that will melt your users’ faces. Why should you care? Node.js allows developers to do things in real-time more easily, in way that scales pretty damn well. What’s it good for? Who’s using it? 2. 3.
Some more thoughts on innovation in eCommerce I had the chance to speak on a panel about Online Shopping at a NextNY event this week. And after a great discussion, I started talking with some folks about my last blog post (which commented on how little has changed in online shopping since I founded Half.com back in 1999 -- especially given the vast amount of change that has occurred on the web outside of shopping). And I wanted to put a little more specifics/numbers to my thinking. So I did a little digging on Alexa today -- and found some data that appears to confirm my perspective: More than half of today's top 15 most trafficked websites today did not exist back in 1999. That is not a surprise, as Facebook, Youtube, Wikipedia, Myspace, Blogger, Live.com and Twitter are all new -- and are representative of the massive amount of innovation and disruption that has occurred in the last decade.Yet, of the top 15 most trafficked eCommerce websites today, just one of them did not exist back in 1999 (NewEgg - which launched in 2001).
Rethinking Mobile First I wrote the Mobile First Web Second blog post a few years ago. In that post, I talked about apps that were designed to be used on mobile primarily with the web as a companion. There have been a number of startups that have taken that approach and done well with it. Most notably Instagram, and also our portfolio company Foursquare. But is it the right thing to do? Vibhu makes some excellent points: All in all, mobile service apps turn out to be a horrible place to close viral loops and win at the retention game. and You have an entirely different onboarding story on the web. I use my phone more than anything else. Vibhu also takes a stance against the ad-supported, privacy challenged, free consumer app world. But I don't want to focus on business model in this post. What I want to focus on is the paradox that mobile is where the growth is right now and that mobile is very very hard to build a large user base on. But just because something is hard doesn't mean you shouldn't try to do it.
The Power of News and Recommendation : Cnn veut plus de pub sur son site #Pownar CNN a décidé, mondialement, d’avoir plus de publicité sur ses sites. Et souhaite le faire savoir. Mais les annonceurs connaissent-ils sur le bout des doigts les méandres de la pub online? Investissent-ils assez? La pub est-elle assez chère? Les internautes d’hier copiaient-collaient des url dans des emails, postaient des messages dans des forums de news. Invité par Eric Mettout à venir écouter Lila King, « producer », manager de la communauté de [wikipop]iReport[/wikipop] (le site participatif de CNN) au CFJ l’autre jour, j’y croise la Directrice Marketing et Communication de CNN International, qui m’invite à venir à la présentation de l’étude Pownar : « L’information partagée a plus de valeur … » : CNN dévoile aujourd’hui les résultats de POWNAR, sa première étude du phénomène de la recommandation dans les médias sociaux Je remercie CNNFrancePR qui m’a permis de publier – en exclusivité – quelques slides de la présentation. Social media is the new inbox Poursuivons. Sans blague :-)
Dear awesome startups, don’t join an accelerator, unless… I've noticed a common refrain with investors at accelerator demo days. "What did you think of the companies?" I ask. "Eh," they say with a shrug. Over the last month I've asked around 15 of them the same question, it became difficult to find a VC who'd argue, in general, IN favor of the industry. For VC's, these programs act as a filtering or vetting system for early stage companies. The problem is that now there are just too many programs to get excited about. Some investors take the argument a step further, saying the jury is out on the whole premise: VCs that say the elite Y Combinator is the only program that matters, but in the next breath complain that it is an "over-fished pond," with too much investor interest driving up valuations. That said, it would be lazy to issue a sweeping dismissal of accelerators. A familiar chorus was that accelerators don't help most companies. The worst accelerators do guarantee success. So don't join an accelerator unless you can win it.
The Founder Institute: Helping Founders to Build Great Companies Microsoft BizSpark - Microsoft BizSpark is a global program that helps software startups succeed by giving them access to Microsoft software development tools, connecting them with key industry players, including investors, and providing marketing visibility to help entrepreneurs starting a business. Microsoft BizSpark is a worldwide partner of the Founder Institute, providing software, support, facilities, and mentoring to many entrprenuers within the Fouder Insitute network. Learn more about our partnership here, and sign-up for BizSpark here. Créée en 1989, Brunswick Société d’Avocats accompagne ses clients - investisseurs financiers et PME françaises et internationales et leurs dirigeants - dans leur quotidien et dans leur développement. Cap Digital est le pôle de compétitivité de la filière des contenus et services numériques.
Instagram's Mike Krieger Shares How To Do Better Product Design App and mobile design has come a long way in the past few years, with many popular services shifting their focus more towards to improving the way their apps look. At 500 Startups’ Warm Gun conference, an event focused on design problems in the tech industry, the theme that design and user experience are being treated as “second class citizens” in the community — if you’re not focusing on usability and response time, then “you suck”. “Do it for the puppies” Those words came from 500 Startups co-founder Dave McClure. Refreshing the design process To show how a company can succeed in the design front, Instagram co-founder Mike Krieger, gave his thoughts about how the company got to a point where they managed to ship a product that they were proud of. It appears that the design process isn’t something that has been fully realized by most organizations, according to Krieger. Understanding: designers need to go out and do some research in order to better understand their audience.
Q&A on Micro-VC Funds, With Someone Who Actually Invests In Them We’ve spent a lot of time lately discussing micro-VCs, including last week’s news on Floodgate ($73m fund close) and 500 Startups (new $30m fund being raised). So I spent some time discussing the phenomenon with Chris Douvos, who invests in mico-VC funds through his role as a managing director with The Investment Fund for Foundations: How long have you been investing in micro-VC funds, or super-angel, funds?? We’ve been active in this space since around 2005, and have invested over time in several of the archetypal managers. Who are those archetypical managers? Well, the main one is someone we actually haven’t given money to: Ron Conway. I love the O’Reilly AlphaTech guys, whose differential is that they’re leveraging the larger O’Reilly ecosystem. How do you define a micro-VC fund? I was at a Silicon Valley Bank shindig the other day, and people were talking about segmenting the space. The idea wasn’t necessarily to supplant VCs, but to be a value-added early processor of companies.
Instagram Co-Founder Mike Krieger’s 8 Principles For Building Products People Want Mike Krieger, Instagram’s founder, thinks you can build apps that fit in the real world by watching what people want, not guessing. He presented his eight core product design insights today at 500 Startups’ Warm Gun conference. Here’s the cheat sheet to his talk. “Just because you’ve Googled something doesn’t mean you’ve learned,” Krieger explained in the intro to his design talk. To build something that solves a problem, “You want to know people better than they know themselves.” You should come away with serious insights, not just random facts. And now, Mike Krieger’s Eight Principles Of Product Design: Draw On Previous Experience and Understanding – The biggest problem is startups in search of a problem.
Lee Hower - Blog - The Institutionalization of Social Games... Get Used to It The Institutionalization of Social Games… Get Used to It July 29, 2010 The social games market has exploded onto the startup scene in the last three years. We all know about the remarkable growth of companies in this space, yet we tend to forget that Zynga was founded in July 2007. But the social games business has clearly entered a new phase of institutionalization. 1) Production Values Going Up – Every social game developer I speak to agrees that production values are increasing. 2) Low/No Cost Customer Acquisition Is Largely Gone – This has been true for some time (6-12mo), as social networks like Facebook changed the way in-game activity could be published to status feeds. 3) IP Starts to Matter – Disney didn’t buy Playdom for a huge user base or massive current revenue stream. 4) Zynga is Still Huge – Followers of the social games space know that Zynga has repeatedly broken records for the rapid growth of games like Farmville and others.
For A Stranger In Silicon Valley, Success Isn’t Only About Who You Know Editor’s note: Cherian Thomas is founder and CEO of Cucumbertown, a recipe-publishing platform. Follow him on his blog and Twitter. For entrepreneurs, it is now both easier and harder to raise capital: easier because of powerful platforms like AngelList; harder if you’re not part of an accelerator or don’t have a strong network. Silicon Valley has more startups than ever before. Valley funding used to be an impenetrable fortress that opened up only by way of introductions. So here’s how my month of experience as a non-accelerator, non-American fundraiser translates into advice. Make Friends Fast I was scheduled to meet 500Startups Partner Paul Singh on the second day of fundraising. After I read Darius Monsef’s article on TechCrunch, I contacted him, and he put me in touch with Rajiv Bhat, co-founder of YC alumni Mertado. Cucumbertown’s first investor and the co-creator of Farmville was Sizhao Yang, and we became great friends. Meet With Companies Who Have Raised Get On AngelList