Observations about the Spotify product and user acquisition strategy (or, you catch more flies with honey than vinegar)

How My free Spotify trial convinced me to sign up for MOG instead.
A few months ago I was excited to try the free Spotify trial. I love music, and my first impressions of the application were positive. Lots of music! Decent user interface! Free! I even bought a new headphone amp to celebrate my increased music [...]

Lean Startups & Big Companies: Challenges and Recommendations

How do “lean startup” techniques work in large companies?
Over the last year or so I’ve worked with a few large organizations to solve product strategy issues. Typically, the organization is working to introduce a new product line or concept to the market, and sometimes they have already entered the market but don’t have a clear understanding [...]

How To Buy Expiring Domain Names: Lessons Learned

Lessons learned buying domain names
I’ve been in the market for some new domain names lately. It isn’t 1997, and it’s not so easy to score a good domain name anymore. A vast number of domains are taken by people who are using them, planning to use them, auctioning them, or plastering algorithmically generated spam links [...]

Want to increase employment? Make it easy to start, finance, and grow a startup

Thomas L Friedman wrote a short opinion pience in the New York Times today called Start-Ups, Not Bailouts. It’s worth reading and connects to several other trends I’ve witnessed recently regarding regulation and the startup ecosystem.
A short excerpt: “…Between 1980 and 2005, virtually all net new jobs created in the U.S. were created by firms [...]

The importance of investor signaling in venture pricing

Link: The importance of investor signaling in venture pricing

How to quadruple your productivity with an army of student interns

Link: How to quadruple your productivity with an army of student interns
How much the mythical man month applies to your project depends on how you structure your team, architecture, and communications.

More diligence and less capital coming for startups (and their investors)

Link: More diligence and less capital coming for startups (and their investors)

"…what has all this Don’t-Be-Evil-AdWords-Click-Happiness done to the internet & startup ecosystem? It’s made us a bunch of lazy, ad-happy, Web-Tards with crappy ROI." True enough!

Link: “…what has all this Don’t-Be-Evil-AdWords-Click-Happiness done to the internet & startup ecosystem? It’s made us a bunch of lazy, ad-happy, Web-Tards with crappy ROI.” True enough!

Excellent post on effective board meetings for startups. Hint: no blackberries allowed

Link: Excellent post on effective board meetings for startups. Hint: no blackberries allowed

Global Venture Capital (VC) Blog Directory – Ranked By Monthly Uniques

Link: Global Venture Capital (VC) Blog Directory – Ranked By Monthly Uniques
This is a great list of some great VC blogs. They’re earning their uniques, imo…
caterpillarcowboy:

Fred Wilson, Union Square Ventures, A VC (100,279)
Guy Kawasaki, Garage Technology Ventures, How To Change The World (82,838)
Paul Graham, YCombinator, Essays (71,924)
Brad Feld, Foundry Group, Feld Thoughts (45,633)
Mark Suster, GRP Partners, Both Sides of the [...]

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