Earlier today, I received an email from SpeakerGram, announcing that it was shutting down. The service helped speakers manage their inbound speaking requests: “We have decided to shut down SpeakerGram. While we are thankful for the support that our users have given us, we have changed our focus to a new product, and need to… Continue reading What Makes for a Bad Startup Idea?
Category: Entrepreneurship
Four Pieces of Advice for Aspiring College Entrepreneurs
If you’re in college and your goal in life is to be an entrepreneur, there are a few things you should be doing now that will help you tremendously when you finally walk away with that diploma. A few weeks ago, I was giving some advice to a college student over the phone. His aspirations… Continue reading Four Pieces of Advice for Aspiring College Entrepreneurs
The #1 Rule of Choosing Investors for Your Startup
Finding investors for your startup is tough business, but choosing the ones that will enable your company and your product to change the world is a far greater challenge. There are lots of reasons for choosing investors. Perhaps they have large reach and influence. Perhaps they have a great track record. Perhaps they are brilliant… Continue reading The #1 Rule of Choosing Investors for Your Startup
Entrepreneurship in 2012: LeWeb Presentation
On Friday, I gave a presentation on the future of entrepreneurship at the LeWeb conference in Paris, France. I’ll be posting the full video soon, but I want to share the slides as well. Hope you enjoy! ~ Ben
Expanding on Your Product Ideas, or Why I Always Keep a Sketchpad Handy
One of the things I’ve found myself carrying around these days is a sketchpad. The reason is simple: I have a lot of ideas, for both the companies I advise and for my own startup ideas. I’m a visual person when it comes to developing products, so I’ve always found a sketchpad to be immensely… Continue reading Expanding on Your Product Ideas, or Why I Always Keep a Sketchpad Handy
The Platform Is King
If you want to build a multi-billion dollar business, you can’t just build a product: you need to build a platform. That was my major takeaway from the news that Spotify is launching an app platform. It’s in its infancy (thus why journalists are rightfully bashing it), but it’s the start of a transformation for… Continue reading The Platform Is King
Why Women Are Failing at Salary Negotiations
Women are still paid far less than men on average. Women make approximately 0.77 cents to every dollar a man makes, according to Time Magazine. There are a lot of contributing factors to this problem, but one that a lot of people don’t focus on is how most women are losing out during the salary… Continue reading Why Women Are Failing at Salary Negotiations
The Tracks.by Founders Take Lil Wayne Out Skating (and I’m Jealous)
As some of you may know, I’m an advisor to Tracks.by, a startup founded by my longtime friends Matt Schlicht and Mazy Kazerooni. They’re building an awesome social platform for artists to launch their content and reach millions of fans. One of the biggest artists using their platform is Lil Wayne (you can see Tracks.by… Continue reading The Tracks.by Founders Take Lil Wayne Out Skating (and I’m Jealous)
Understanding Mark Pincus and Zynga’s Intense Data-Driven Culture
The New York Times published a great article this weekend on the “tough culture” within Zynga, the creator of FarmVille, CityVille and dozens of other social games. I’m not surprised by the report — more than a few employees have told me that Zynga isn’t exactly the easiest or happiest place to work. From Evelyn… Continue reading Understanding Mark Pincus and Zynga’s Intense Data-Driven Culture
It’s About the Little Details
For the last few days, I’ve been in the fantasy world that is Disneyworld. Mashable held its first annual Mashable Connect conference at the Disney Contemporary Resort, and it was fantastic fun. This post isn’t about the conference though (I’ll post one later). Instead, it’s about the very, very careful attention to detail that makes… Continue reading It’s About the Little Details