Continue reading Busy in July… preparing for an Eventful August
Steve Case is, among other things, the co-founder of America Online (#AOL), the company that democratized online access. He’s written a book called The Third Wave: An Entrepreneurs Vision of the Future.
Guy Kawasaki recommends that you read it to gain insights into the next curve of tech entrepreneurship. You can get it here.
In his book, Steve talks about the importance of the 4 P’s to help you being successful:
Continue reading Next Wave of Entrepreneurship with Guy Kawasaki and Steve Case
Yu-kai Chou was helping CaptainUp, a gamification platform, and has created a 10-episode series of videos called “Engaging Website Design” where he talks about how to create an engaging website by incorporating gamification concepts.
Yu-kai’s videos are shot all over the world and this first one focuses on finding a gamification platform.
Read the full blog post here: http://www.yukaichou.com/gamification-video-course/engaging-website-design-series-part-1-3
Back in June, the company’s valuation was $400 million and it raised $44 million. So that’s a pretty big valuation leap. Founder and CEO Apoorva Mehta said the company planned to use the new funding for continued geographic growth, technology enhancements, and category expansion.
Instacart, launched about 3 years ago, operates in 15 cities and service 4,000 shoppers with groceries delivery.
Instacart is just one of several startups trying to tackle the speedy-delivery space, including New York-based WunWun, which delivers small orders of groceries and other goods without a delivery fee in under an hour, and Postmates, which does the same, but with a $5 delivery fee. It also competes with FreshDirect, which delivers groceries to the Northeast with a delivery fee of up to $7.99 for next-day service.
Big players like Google, with Shopping Express, and Amazon, with AmazonFresh, are also experimenting with same-day grocery delivery. Both can bring customers their goods same-day, but with longer delivery windows than those of Instacart, Postmates, or WunWun.
This fund-raise was reported by TechCrunch at the beginning of December 2014.
The Internet of Things, or IoT, will bring the web to many formerly unconnected home appliances, business devices, and even cities; e.g., smart parking meters, smart homes etc.
In new research from BI Intelligence, they discuss why established chip makers, IT-consulting firms, and networking equipment manufacturers are actually well positioned to take a major share of the IoT market, and fend off startups.
Here are some of the key findings from the BI Intelligence report:
You can find the full BI report here
Albert Einstein said:
The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education.
Staying in the office or lab, and researching and trying to figure out the best approach for the best product – is a waste of time. Instead you need to bring your ideas to the real world, get feedback, iterate and continue develop.
To “get out of the building” means exactly that; Having a brief brainstorming in the office, quickly developing a basic prototype, and bringing it to the public, the target audience in short time. The sooner you get out of the building, the better. You then have valuable feedback, to continue iterating your product development and process building.
By staying “in the office” you have your thoughts only, which are not new, and are not the market’s opinion and thoughts of your solution and product.
Steve Blank mentioned this concept of “getting out of the building”, early on and many times since. Getting out of the building helps you understand and build the Minimal Viable Product (MVP).
Click here to read more about Getting out of the Building by Steve Blank. Another good resource is the dedicated blog in here
Lately, the personal music market have seen more and more gadgets to enhance sound quality of music and our experience of it. Great sound system is a must in every home and to every music lover, and if the speaker/system looks good, that’s even better.
The levitating speakers use magnetic levitation to get the speaker to float about an inch off of the base, and it spins while it plays. One of the great things about levitating speakers is the fact the you get a 360° sound quality.
In the past week, two crowd-sourced projects for Levitating Bluetooth Speakers came to my attention:
The Mars’s Levitating 360° Sound Projection
This speaker reduces sound wave absorption into surfaces by levitating above the subwoofer charging station. It detects the distance of your bluetooth-paired phone, and adjust the sound accordingly.
You can see more details on the project’s page:
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/mars-by-crazybaby-a-levitating-bluetooth-speaker
The Om/One Levitating Bluetooth Speaker
This speaker packs a punch of sound: a full, crisp, clear 105 decibels. Similarly to the Mar’s speaker, the Om/One also acts as a microphone, so you can use it to take calls.
You can see more details on the project’s page:
https://stacksocial.com/sales/the-om-one-levitating-bluetooth-speaker?aid=a-49y03t13
Do you know of other levitating speakers? or, levitating cool gadgets?
A new mobile app, GotIT, hopes to be a one-stop social networking app for shopping in Israel and across the world. Social media is a boon for businesses, providing a cheap way to get the word out on products and services, aimed at the specific demographics most likely to use them.
Startups and Entrepreneurs seeking for financing are rejected, about 99% of them. This reality is harsh to acknowledge, especially if you are on the side being rejected. Angels and Venture Capital companies are not your enemy, rather they can be your valuable friend.
Continue reading The Main Skill of Venture Capital is Saying NO
A basic tenet of running lean is validating a product or feature ideally without having to building it first. This makes complete sense when you look at every product or feature as it’s own customer factory.
Continue reading Customers Buy Anything – the Science of How