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.
Zen’to, Whyd et Wimo, sont les trois premières entreprises à rejoindre le programme Colt Cloud 4 Startups Zen’to, Whyd et Wimo, ont été sélectionnées par le Comité du programme Colt Cloud 4 Startups. Elles obtiendront un support stratégique et technologique pour développer leur projet sur une infrastructure Cloud Computing. Elles seront également soutenues par les membres du Comité et les partenaires que sont HP, VMware et EMC2. Paris, le 21 mars 2011 - Colt, la plateforme d'échanges d'informations pour les entreprises en Europe, annonce le lancement en France de son programme Colt Cloud 4 Startups lancé en octobre 2010 qui vise à parrainer de jeunes entreprises innovantes du monde de l’internet pour favoriser leur développement. Les trois lauréats, sans aucun investissement de leur part la première année, recevront un soutien en Expertise, Infrastructure et Services IT Managés, aussi bien qu’en conseil stratégique de la part des partenaires durant la première année. « Nous avons vu des entreprises telles que Digitick ou Meetic grandir dans nos data centres.
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.
7 podcasts à écouter absolument : 6 de Geeks 1 de finance Si l’internet regorge de support écrits et de vidéos, la partie audio serait peut-être le parent faible de l’internet. Je voulais mettre à jour cette liste avec des podcasts italiens, espagnols et allemands, voir portugais, mais ma quête au podcast est difficile, j’y a trouvé quelques podcast morts dont celui de makeuseoff et aujourd’hui je rajoute Geekcast.fm, Geekcastonline.com, Geeknewscentral.com Il doit exister sur le net des milliers de podcast passionnants à écouter. Le problème est de savoir lesquels écouter. Huit podcasts audio que j’essaye d’écouter et que je télécharge pour mes période de déconnexion internet, c’est à dire en voiture, quand je fais ma marche quotidienne, voire pour m’endormir! Geekcast.fm (anglais) Trouvé récemment, geekcast est un podcast journalier qui cadre bien avec la ligne directrice de ce blog. Geekcastonline.com (anglais) Geeknewscentral.com (anglais) Prendre un peu de recul dans une bonne ambiance, c’est un peu ce que propose l’atelier numérique.
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.
International Cost of Living Comparisons 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.
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