The year 2011 was momentous for several startup companies that raised huge sums by going public, such as Zynga, LinkedIn, and Groupon. But many other notable startups -- some of them well-funded -- had a much worse year and closed down......
"Hi, Everyone,
Below you will find some basic information about the 16 finalists at our recent Pitch Fest, sponsored by Blumberg Capital, and hosted by Shiluvim. The first three are the winners, who were each awarded a very unique prize - every startup’s dream - a Due Diligence Process with Blumberg, which has already begun. The remaining 13 companies are listed in alphabetical order. Contact details have been provided. As you will see, these exciting startups cover a wide range of industries, reflecting the nature of our group. Over the coming weeks, we will be dedicating individual posts to each of these companies, as well as to many others among the 65 who applied to present.
All the best, and see you at our next event!
Arlene Marom"
... At the time, we made almost all our money selling shoes, but our hope was that we'd eventually go into all sorts of other businesses. We saw Zappos as a global brand like Virgin -- except whereas Virgin was about being hip and cool, Zappos would be about offering the best service. The plan was to grow sales to $1 billion by 2010 and eventually go public.
These ideas about the power of our company culture had yet to be proved. As I talked to Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos, who visited our headquarters in 2005, I realized that to Amazon, we were just a leading shoe company. If we sold, we'd probably be folded into their operations, and our brand and culture would be at risk of disappearing ...
If you wanted to know what I’ve been thinking about after Customer Development, you can see and hear it in the talk I gave at the conference. Watch the expanded version of “Why Accountants Don’t Run Startups below.
- The first story, Shifts in Entrepreneurship starts at 4:20
- Not All Startups Are Equal starts at 7:30
- What VC’s Don’t Tell You starts at 12:00
- Business Plans Versus Business Models at 14:08
- Startups Search Companies Execute at 17:05
- Leadership Versus Management at 24:50
- Durant Versus Sloan at 30:13
- E-School Versus B-School at 33:41
By now, everyone is tired of hearing about the iPad, but the negative responses are so perfectly misguided that it would be wrong to waste this opportunity. Even better, we can look back at the 2001 iPod launch and see the exact same mistakes. But this isn't about the iPad or the iPod -- it's about product design.
The most famous iPod review was from Slashdot, which simply declared, "No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame." The iPad reviews are similar in that they focus on the "missing" features.
There’s already lots of great content on the web about raising capital and understanding deal terms. My favorite is the content on Venture Hacks (a must read, if you’re raising capital). But, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to share some of the “lessons learned” from my own experiences. Some of these you’ve probably heard before, but one or two will likely be new to you
Genieo Innovation of Israel, creators of the ultimate home-page personalization engine, announced early this month the closing of US $3 million in seed funding.
Backed by leading private investors, the company is bringing to market the industry's first fully automatically updated and micro behavioral-targeted (MBT) personalized home-page. "Our technology transforms a homepage into a personal assistant" says Miss Sol Tzvi, founder and CEO of Genieo ...
Research that my team conducted, based on a survey of 549 entrepreneurs in high-growth industries, showed that the average founder of a high-growth company launched his venture at age 40. We also learned that these founders are likely to be married and have two or more kids. They typically have six to ten years of work experience and real-world ideas. They simply got tired of working for others and wanted to rise above their middle-class heritage...
You know the story. A group of friends come up with an amazing product idea, lock themselves away, code like demons, eat pizza, drink coffee and several months later come out with a prototype. The prototype is good enough to convince some investors, they raise money, build the full product, launch it, users love it, product gets traction, acquirers circle and then founders exit to a large pay-off. They then give media interviews which gets summarised into something that sounds like...
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the fact of the matter is that female entrepreneurs are a rare breed. Let’s all try a mental game together… How many female startup CEO’s can you name off the top of your head? I am embarrassed to say that I have trouble coming up with more than a handful, but I don’t think I am alone.
Here’s what I find strange about all this: I speak to VC’s and private investors regularly, and have never EVER heard anyone comment negatively on deal-flow based on the entrepreneur’s gender. Startups—at least this has been my experience—are weighted on the merits of the product, market and the team, but never on gender. Frankly, I can’t explain why female entrepreneurs are a rare commodity in our industry. (Feel free to enlighten me about the gender bias underpinning the tech industry in comments).
The situation in Israel is not much different. But it should only be the quality that counts… To that end, here are three Israeli female entrepreneurs worth keeping
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1. How much money do you have in the bank?
2. What is your net outflow per month?
3. What is the post-money valuation of your last round?
4. What can you do that your competitors cannot?
5. What can your competitors do that you cannot?
6. Who are your investors?
7. Who is on your board of directors?
8. Has anyone in the engineering team actually shipped a product?
9. Assume that you have $0 for marketing, how would you market the product?
10. What keeps you awake at night?
Choosing the people on your core founding team (first four or so) is an important factor in success. They need to be smart, energetic and committed. It helps if they can fill multiple roles at the same time (sell, write software, deliver services and invoice).
I like to say that a startup is like a rock and roll band. You can fail if you don't have the talent, don't produce the right product, egos get out of control or people lose direction.
Get the right people with the right attitude, and you'll have a much better shot.
Video interview: Wendy Lea has worked as a bootstrap entrepreneur, corporate executive, and angel investor over the last 25 years. She joined GetSatisfaction.com as CEO in February. Lea is also the founder of The Chatham Group and an angel investor. Of particular interest to entrepreneurs are her thoughts on what she looks for when deciding where to invest and her advice for entrepreneurs who are looking for start-up capital (about 2 minutes into the clip).
At the meeting we heard from one VC, Blumberg Capital, who specializes in seed round investments of internet companies.
The partner of the firm who spoke, Bruce Tarragin, said that they were closing a deal in Tel Aviv now, and had already closed another deal earlier this quarter.
The Capital Market Bulls Return
There had been several months, since last October, with virtually no dealflow that was actually leading to investment. Now, there seems to be a reawakening of the capital markets. The negative sentiment of the market has been replaced with a feeling that we have already reached bottom, and now there are good ideas out there that are worthy of investment.
Continue here Israel Economy for Start Ups – Signs of Improvement
Despite the exit drought, more Israeli start ups have reported to recieve venture rounds from the last 60 days. You’ll notice the common thread: lots of private investor involvement and almost always participation of the previous investors as well.
Read more: >>>
