At today’s roundtable I offered a sneak preview into the One Million by One Million Premium Lounge we have just unveiled to a small group of core users. To get started, I suggest you take a look at three videos messages: To Entrepreneurs, To Investors, and To The Media.  The premium lounge includes an […]
1M/1M Strategy Roundtable: Convert Potential Competitors To Partners
At today’s roundtable we saw three very nice businesses, each with pilot customers, and each working on real problems. At the end of the session, each left with specific action items. First up today was Antonio Lucena de Faria with ActionFlow from Portugal. Antonio has a portfolio of web based business process management applications for […]
1M/1M Strategy Roundtable: Bootstrapping Comes In Many Flavors
At today’s roundtable, we had some very interesting discussions on creative bootstrapping. I am always fascinated by how innovative entrepreneurs get when faced with resource crunches.  First up today was Justin Beck with PerBlue, a mobile and social gaming company that makes the iPhone and Android game Parallel Kingdom that has been in the market […]
VC Market Dynamics
Interesting article on some of the market dynamics in the global venture capital industry. The author points to some of the corrections that these long term dynamics are making to the model (such as super angels, survival of funds, founder liquidity etc). Central point – venture investing is a competitive market, and the model adapts […]
1M/1M Strategy Roundtable: Professional Investors Do Not Invest In $20...
At today’s roundtable we had some intensive discussions around market sizing and its impact on financing. You have heard, I am sure, that venture capitalists only invest in very large market opportunities – $500 million to a billion. But you have, perhaps, heard less specific discussions on what angel investors are looking for.  Well, some […]
Early stage technology investing – analysis
Interesting discussion here on issues around early stage technology investing in India. Many valid issues that have been discussed there. I particularly like the perspective around “distribution” being a killer app in India – but more on that sometime later. Earlier this year, we analyzed the investments made by 11 early/growth funds in India (across […]
1M/1M Strategy Roundtable: Try To Get At Least $2M Pre-Money In Seed R...
At today’s roundtable we had some interesting companies and a lot of fund-raising discussions, and I will review them shortly. Before I do, however, I want to talk about a thumb rule that I’d like to propose to entrepreneurs about raising money. Bottom line, early stage equity is very, very expensive. So at any point, […]
The Future of Search (Wall Street Journal)
It was Sunday and we were planning to go out for ice cream. I recalled someone talking about Cocoberry, a frozen yoghurt chain. I searched for “cocoberry†on Google and saw the link to Cocoberry’s page on Facebook. I visited the page and saw numerous comments by many of their satisfied customers. I could also see […]
1M/1M Strategy Roundtable: Investors Don’t Fund Broad Ideas
At today’s roundtable I had a disturbing experience.  One of the entrepreneurs presented a business idea that sounded like a business-to-consumer concept, but as I peeled the onion, it turned out that the business was really a business-to-business concept. I asked why the pitch was so confusing and all over the place, to which […]
1M/1M Strategy Roundtable: Do Not Spray And Pray
At today’s roundtable, we had three niche e-commerce entrepreneurs and two e-commerce infrastructure entrepreneurs. I will describe their businesses briefly, below. You can vote on which one you like most by clicking on our Facebook page. If you missed the session, please listen to the recording before voting. First up was Brad Barrett presenting GrillGrate, […]
1M/1M Strategy Roundtable: 5 Cloud Computing Opportunities For Entrepr...
At today’s roundtable, I started with a presentation on Blue Sky opportunities in Cloud Computing based on our Thought Leaders In Cloud Computing (TLCC) research. I took the audience through five cloud-based business ideas, and discussed why they are relevant, and pointed them to the sources I derived those ideas from. For you, readers, here […]
NEN Program for Women Entrepreneurs
Here is an announcement from National Entrepreneurship Network. Please feel free to write to the below mentioned email Are you a woman entrepreneur who dreams big or do you know of one? If so, this is for you! It is a known fact that most young companies die in the first 4-5 years of their […]