Brad Feld on the Rise of Global Startup Communities

Brad Feld on the Rise of Global Startup Communities | MIT Technology Review: " . . . Just do stuff. It’s kind of that simple. It’s literally entrepreneurs just starting to do things. If you’re in a city where there’s no clear startup community, the goal is not raise a bunch of money to fund a nonprofit, the goal is not get your government involved. The goal is start finding the other entrepreneurial leaders who are committed to being in your city over the next 20 years. Then, as a group, get very focused on knowing each other, working together, being inclusive of anyone else who wants to engage, doing things that help recruit people to that geography, and doing selfish stuff for your company that also drives your startup community. . . ." (read more at link above)

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VC funding soars in Florida led by two Miami companies

VC funding soars in Florida, powered by Open English’s results - Business - MiamiHerald.com: Venture capital funding in Florida soared in the second quarter of 2013, thanks to large investments in two Miami-based companies. According to findings of the MoneyTree Report  . . . investment in the state totaled $155.8 million, up from just $11.29 million in the first quarter and the highest amount recorded in the survey since the third quarter of 2007. Florida’s total was powered by the $65 million Series D round in Open English — the 7th largest investment in the country — and the $20 million round in CareCloud, the top two investments in the state. . . . According to the survey, 14 Florida companies received venture capital in the second quarter, up from six in the first quarter and the highest number in more than two years. . . ." MoneyTree Report results are available on www.pwcmoneytree.com and www.nvca.org

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Blackbox Connect, Two weeks in Silicon Valley

Official Blog: Two weeks in Silicon Valley: Startups from many nations join together at Blackbox: . . . . Blackbox Connect brings founders from top accelerators around the world to take part in a two-week, fully immersive program where they live and work at the “Blackbox Mansion” in Silicon Valley, collaborate with like-minded entrepreneurs, investors, experts and executives from the Silicon Valley community. They then return home to their native countries to scale their big ideas. . . . .(read more at link above)

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Business Leaders Need Vegas Mindset

The Growth Gamble: Why Business Leaders Need a Vegas-Mindset to Successfully Grow | WE magazine for women: " . . . the only certainty about growth is its uncertainty. Growth takes people into unchartered waters, and the processes used for daily operational excellence do not work. Likewise, the management mindset to eliminate variance and to strive for standardization is counterproductive to growth and innovation. “Venture capitalists seem to be the most comfortable taking on the gambler mentality needed to grow successfully,” says Hess. “They understand that the force at play here is uncertainty. They see themselves as managing portfolios of growth opportunities. They also know that their ability to predict at the early stages which of two ventures will succeed is poor. They do not attribute this to their personal failings; instead, they recognize that the inability to predict is a property of the uncertainty surrounding any new business. “Like professional gamblers, they develop a set of practices that acknowledge this reality,” he adds. “They bet heavily on the individual leader of a new business and look for people with experience; they try to keep their bets small and affordable until they have better data; and they develop approaches that help them get in and out of new ventures intelligently and swiftly. Their goal, in other words, is to succeed—or fail fast and cheap.”. . ." (read more at link above)

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NYC startup scene

The NYC startup scene from André M. König

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Non-binding Term Sheet Can Become Binding

When a Non-binding Term Sheet Becomes Binding | Mintz Levin - Corporate & Securities - JDSupra: " . . . The SIGA court held that expectation or “benefit of the bargain” damages would be an appropriate remedy where (1) the parties memorialized the basic terms of a transaction in a term sheet; (2) the parties expressly agreed to negotiate in good faith a final transaction in accordance with those terms; and (3) but for the breaching party’s bad faith negotiations, the parties would have consummated a definitive agreement having the terms set forth in the term sheet. See SIGA, 2013 Del. LEXIS 265 at 52. Benefit of the bargain damages are meant to compensate a party with what it would have received had the contract been finalized and fully performed. It is usually measured in terms of reasonably expected profits. The reliance measure of damages, in comparison, provides reimbursement to the non-breaching party for expenses it incurred in reliance on the contract. . . ." (read more at link above)

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Waze leads Israeli Internet growth

Overall, Israel is the world's largest destination for high tech venture capital after Silicon Valley.

Waze could lead way to Israeli Internet growth - 07/04/2013 | MiamiHerald.com: " . . . Some experts warn of overconfidence. The low costs of launching a consumer-oriented startup, which do not require factories and large machinery used by traditional companies, has made it easy for anyone with an idea to start a business. Those low costs make the companies attractive to investors, who can afford small bets on promising startups. "I do expect more entrepreneurs to throw their hats in the ring," said Adam Fisher, the head of the Israel office of Bessemer Venture Partners, a U.S. firm. He cautioned that with few barriers to entry, the Internet market could be flooded with companies that have little chance of success. "We welcome them, but we hope they don't misread the success of Waze," Fisher said. He pointed out that a company that develops an app or program must also figure out how to make it profitable, a problem that traditional tech companies like chip manufacturers don't have. . ." read more at link above

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Anatomy of a startup

Anatomy of a (un)fundable startup from Venture Hacks

Venture Hacks presentations

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Billions wasted trying to replicate Silicon Valley

Billions have been spent trying to replicate Silicon Valley, with little to show for it. | MIT Technology Review: ". . . . (Harvard Business School professor Michael) Porter and legions of consultants following his methodology prescribed top-down clusters to governments all over the world. The formula was always the same: select a hot industry, build a science park next to a research university, provide subsidies and incentives for chosen industries to locate there, and create a pool of venture capital. Sadly, the magic never happened—anywhere. Hundreds of regions all over the world collectively spent tens of billions of dollars trying to build their versions of Silicon Valley. I don’t know of a single success . . . " read more at link above

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Fosun Investment Criteria

Mr. Liang: We want to learn from the likes of KKR, Blackstone and Carlyle about asset management. Warren Buffett is good at looking for cheap money and projects, improving them, and selling them at a premium. We also admire Hutchison because very few Asian companies are as good as they are in terms of internationalization.(source infra)

Fosun Is a Connoisseur of Brands - WSJ.com: " . . . Mr. Liang: Every time, before we invest in anything, we all have to ask ourselves, "If we can't exit, do we want to be with them for life?" If the answer is no, then you shouldn't look at it at all. Tough realities face China's private-equity industry. More than 5,000 PEs have invested in 7,000 to 8,000 companies, and the number is increasing by 600 to 700 a year. Not all of them can exit through initial public offerings. So we try to exit through various markets, or through mergers and acquisitions. . . ."

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When Your Startup Neither Fails Nor Succeeds

What To Do When Your Startup Doesn't Fail, But Also Doesn't Succeed - Business Insider: " . . . . 5. Don’t shut down - airBnb had to sell cereal at one point to keep their company alive, in the early days of FedEx their CEO gambled his money at blackjack to win and make payroll. Evernote the night before closing its doors received a $500k investment from a user in Sweden and Blogger (which sold for rumors between $20MM and $50MM) to Google had to lay off every single employee before finally getting acquired. That founder, Evan Williams went off to start what is now Twitter today, so the greatest thing a founder can do when their startup isn’t failing is to make sure it doesn’t die. Timing is everything." (read more at link above)

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Transforming Business Strategy

4 Ways Technology Is Transforming Business Strategy - Forbes: "For most of history, stasis was the rule.  There were different people, various empires, power struggles and perhaps the occasional discovery,  yet life went on pretty much as it always had.  The events we read about in the history books had little impact on most who lived at the time.  A thousand years could go by and daily life would stay much the same. That’s changed in a resounding way.  Life is substantially different than even a decade ago and completely unrecognizable from a century ago.  It used to be that when you entered a business, the past would be a good guide to the future. You would mostly know what your career would look like the day you entered it.  These days, on the other hand, business models have a short shelf life. . . . " (read more at link above)

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