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The 5.2 billion dollar mistake.
At $5.2-billion Iridium was one of the largest, boldest and audacious startup bets ever made. Conceived in 1987 by Motorola and spun out in 1990 as a separate company, Iridium planned to build a mo…
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Announcing Browserling: Interactive cross-browser testing in your browser
Hey guys, here are the lastest StackVM news. So we applied to Y Combinator for the Winter 2011 funding cycle but got rejected. On November 2 we got an email saying that they could not accept our application for funding, which meant that we wouldn't even get the interview. Our plan was to surprise Y Combinator folks…
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Where to See Silicon Valley
October 2010 Silicon Valley proper is mostly suburban sprawl. At first glance it doesn't seem there's anything to see. It's not the sort of place that has conspicuous monuments. But if you look, there are subtle signs you're in a place that's different from other places. 1. Stanford University Stanford is a strange…
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If you can't find 10 people who say they'll buy it...
Have a great idea? Prove it by finding ten customers ready to hand over cash. Everything else is avoiding the truth.
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Startup Competitive Advantages that Work
It's not a question of if someone copies your business idea, it's when.
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You’re Just the Founder
At times VC’s forget who their business is built on. Nice Car Last week in a car showroom of all places I ran into a VC who I hadn’t seen in ten years. He had sat on the board of my last company an…
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A vote for me is a vote for dipshit businesses everywhere
Vote for my SxSW panel! VCs are increasingly unnecessary to get companies started, and I haven't heard cogent arguments for why a founder should elect to go with them for an early round. Until that changes, they'll continue to be useful for growth-stage but less and less useful for early-stage companies.
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I’m a Female Y Combinator Founder and You Can Be Too
Sometimes when talking to people about YC I get this reaction: “hey, I’d love to apply but I am sorely unqualified and don’t even know where to begin.” As the summer has officially ended and I’m back in NYC I just wanted to put it out there that every single YC founder, at some point in time, was totally unqualified…
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How I launched a profitable minimally viable product in 3 hours
Today, Keynotopia is two months old. What started as a single blog post in June of 2010 became a product that got over 1,500 customers in the first 60 days. Before jumping into the story and lessons learned, here are some quick stats:
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My experience as the first employee of a Y Combinator startup
I'm the first employee of BackType , a Summer '08 YC company. My joining the company increased the...
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Going Freemium: One Year Later
Browse how-to articles on starting, running, and marketing your business, plus thought-provoking podcasts and films to inspire your inner entrepreneur.
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