I am so psyched about the launch of Sphero . I’ve got mine (one of the first 10 made) and the line is gearing up to start shipping them out soon. Today I saw some of the new things getting cooked up to add on to the product and they are super amazing fun. Today Sphero was awarded one of Popsci Best of What’s New 2011 . They are joined by our friends at Sifteo who also won one of Popsci’s Best of What’s New Award. ...
Today is Finance Friday and post #2 has been drafted by the Finance Friday team from University of Chicago Booth and is waiting for my edits. I’m procrastinating so I thought I’d write one of my periodic public service announcement for entrepreneurs. This one is more specific than “ignore the macro economy” – instead, it’s “ignore the Dow and the stock market and get back to work on your business.” ...
Today on Brad Feld’s Amazing Deals I’m bringing you another offer from the online academy Udemy.com . A few months ago, Udemy was responsible for one of my most popular deals to date, a suite of deals relating to startups. Today they are offering your choice of two courses for $75 (normally $250). Pick either Learn to Develop an iPhone or iPad application in 4 weeks or Learn Python the Hard Way . Both courses include multiple videos, lectures, and code examples. ...
Last summer, my long time friend Martin Babinec and his colleague Nasir Ali asked me if I’d come spend a few days in Upstate New York talking about TechStars and entrepreneurial communities. I first met Martin around 1990 at one of the very first Birthing of Giants events and we were both early YEO members together. At the time, Martin had recently started a company called Trinet which today is a large and successful PEO. We’ve been friends for 20 years so it was easy for me to say yes to spend two days with Martin in Upstate New York and help him further his mission of expanding the entrepreneurial communities throughout the region. ...
David Cohen and I will be hanging out at the Boulder Book Store from 1pm to 5pm on Thursday 11/4/10. Come see us, buy a copy of Do More Faster (and we’ll sign it), and ask us any questions you want. It’ll be a chaotic version of my Community Hours – instead of having 15 minute slots I’ll just talk to whomever shows up. If you are based in Boulder, come support your local community bookstore and have some fun with us.
I periodically write the first column for PE Hub . Dan Primack, who is now writing a great column at Fortune called Term Sheet used to do this; there are now guest writers (including me) who do this column. Yesterday, I wrote a column about the book that David Cohen and I just wrote called Do More Faster. Enjoy! Writing a book is hard. Really hard. Much harder than I thought. So I’m extra satisfied that “Do More Faster: TechStars Lessons to Accelerate Your Startup” is finished. ...
One of the events on our Do More Faster book tour will be something we are calling Angels in the Architecture. Mike Platt from Cooley (one of our book tour sponsors) came up with the idea of doing an hour long session with a panel of entrepreneurs, angel investors, and VCs discussing the dynamics between angels and VCs. Having been all three, I find this a particularly important topic and it’s something we spend a lot of time discussing at TechStars in the third month as the teams gear up for their financings. ...
Want to work for a startup? Have you ever wanted to work for a web startup, but aren’t sure where to look or how it might be different from a big company gig? Come check out the TechStars Smackdown event on October 12th in Boulder. It’s not a typical job fair. The event starts with a panel of entrepreneurs that will answer questions about what it means to work for a startup – common questions such as salary levels, equity versus salary compensation, work/life balance, and job security. Then 12 Boulder companies (Vacation Rental Partner, ScriptPad, Rezora , SendGrid , Omniar, StatsMix , Spot Influence, Graphic.ly , Snapabug, Next Big Sound , Orbotix , BlipSnips, and Gnip ) will each get 5 minutes to sell you on why working for their startup will be a great career move. ...
Earlier this week I did a one hour interview on “Meet the Angels” sponsored by Tech Coast Angels (one of the LA Angel groups.) It was supposed to live but for some reason there were some problems getting into the webcast. It’s now up on the web – if you were trying to watch it and couldn’t, it’s posted below. Live video event with Brad Feld from TechCoastAngels on Vimeo .
A week ago I had just gotten home after a month in Homer, Alaska. I was totally chilled out – I worked plenty in July but had very little physical human interaction with anyone other than Amy. I’m sitting here in my Boulder condo today thinking about the entrepreneurial tour de force that was the last six days. I think I interacted with more different people each day than I did cumulatively over the previous 30 days in Homer. ...