Promoted Tweets, Promoted Updates

Logo for Foursquare (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Someone said FourSquare was the next Twitter. But that was a long time ago.

Foursquare Launches Promoted Updates, Its Newest Effort To Generate Revenue

Foursquare has partnered with about 20 merchants, from small mom and pop shops to national chains like Best Buy, to launch the pilot program. In the next few months, Foursquare hopes to turn Promoted Updates into a self-service tool merchants of all sizes can use on its platform..... Foursquare's 20 million users are checking in 5 million times per day. Foursquare currently has 120 employees.

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Microfinance Alone Can't Cure Poverty

Image by uncultured via FlickrMicrofinance is no magic bullet. Microfinance alone can't cure poverty.

Good governance, I think, is the first precondition. Yunus saw that. That is why he tried to launch a political party in Bangladesh a few years back. But looks like the politicians in Bangladesh have managed to unlaunch him instead.

Normal People Easy To Get Along With

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Fred Wilson: Difficult Is Good: He then said, "sometimes we make money with brilliant people who are easy to get along with, most often we make money with brilliant people who are hard to get along with, but we rarely make money with normal people who are easy to get along with."

I am so not a VC. I am on the other side. Fred Wilson's best MBA Monday post - according to me - is one where he got an entrepreneur - Charlie - to relate his story.

This quote from Dan Valentine makes total sense to me. And I understand it 100%.

The best entrepreneurs tackle the biggest problems. Those problems are, by definition, badass. Others have not touched them because they are big and bad. But we operate in paradigms. You already know what a McDonald's burger looks like. That is a paradigm. That gives you peace of mind. You know.

The Entrepreneur Does Have A Boss

Image via WikipediaA lot of people have this misconception that people who don't like to have to answer to bosses start their own companies. Entrepreneurs don't have bosses.

Perhaps it is the case that the entrepreneur does not have a boss. What the entrepreneur has is a goddess: the market. As an entrepreneur you have to meet your numbers. As long as you meet your numbers, you are in good shape.

Entrepreneurs do get fired. All the time. The entrepreneur version is to go out of business. The goddess can get mad at you and wipe you out.

There is a reason most people are not entrepreneurs. Someone once said being an entrepreneur is like being gay, it is not like you have a choice. I think there is some truth to that. It is a personality type thing. Some people are just more bent on doing the entrepreneur thing.

Immensely Excited

Image via WikipediaI am so very immensely excited with my startup.

Some people complain of the work environment of a big corporation, start a company, and their behavior will tell you they long for the big corporation.

You have to be excited, you have to stay excited. You have to get excited when you hit a wall, you have to stay excited when you get over it. Why would you get excited when you hit a wall? Because, well, what were you expecting? If you did not expect to hit walls, you were not expecting right.

At this stage with my startup it feels like I am getting to watch the formation of the DNA. It is an amazing feeling. I have a small team. We are making steady progress.

Soon I expect to speed things up.

I am really liking it that we could launch for very little. I am really liking it that we will start generating revenues almost right away. I am really liking that. I am liking the immense human component of my business model. Suddenly I will get to party with a purpose. The more people you talk to, the better you get at it.

Bubble Talk Goes On: It's An Overshoot

Image via WikipediaFred Wilson: Invest In The Mess
New York Times: A Silicon Bubble Shows Signs Of Reinflating
The Day I Got Called Sean Parker
Did Not Meet Fred Wilson, But Met Mazy Dar
Angel Bubbles: No Bubbles
Bubble, Boom Or Froth?

Fred has said repeatedly that what we are seeing is a bubble. First thing I say is this is not a yes no question. Is this a bubble? If you force ask me, my answer is no. This is not a bubble. This is hyperactivity. Will many angel investors lose money? Sure. But that does not make it a bubble. Even a top notch VC like Fred Wilson expects one third of his portfolio to go down under. And these are companies that he did not invest in on day one knowing they will go down. You think you picked a winner, you give them sufficient money and guidance, you go to bat for them, and they still go down. If Fred Wilson is at peace with a 33% failure rate, there are VCs whose failure rates are 66% and 90%. Most VCs fail. Most entrepreneurs fail. By some estimates as many as 90% of new businesses fail within a year of getting launched. Looks like 10% is all capitalism needs to survive.

Paramendra Bhagat: Model

Model Mayhem: Scam

Model Job Offer!
Nov 9 (2 days ago)

CAFE PRESS.It's all about you and your passions. In a nutshell, we're the world's best destination for expressing yourself through merchandise. From your favorite T-shirt and Woodie, to the tote bag over your shoulder and bumper sticker on your car, we're here to let you express your interests. And what makes our products so unique, and so expressive, is that we don't create the designs on them. Our community of designers do - all through millions of shops we help them run. CafePress is the world's biggest destination for self-expression through merchandise. Each month over 11 million shoppers visit CafePress to buy or create T-shirts, mugs, posters and other gifts that reflect their interests, passions, beliefs and affiliations. Today, CafePress is a growing network of over 6.5 million members who have unleashed their creativity to transform their artwork and ideas into an impressive catalog of over 250 million unique gifts. CafePress is where folks from all walks of life gather online to create, sell, and buy “print on-demand” products. Each brings to life whatever people are passionate about. It can be a white-hot political cause? A gorgeous grandchild? An obsessive hobby? A funny (or flirty?) thought?

Call Out The Sexism

Image via Wikipedia

You Can't Launch the Next Generation of Startups Without Women - ReadWriteStart The current startup system essentially excludes the untapped pool of innovators who aren't developers - for example, women who want to launch Internet startups...... Women tend to take the entrepreneurial plunge later than men typically do, once they've had some professional and life experience.......... a study done in the U.K. in 2006 showed that women over 40 were more likely to start a new business than any other age group. ...... the Internet and the startup culture have been dominated and shaped by the vision and appetites of young men and old boys from the start. ..... a sharp rise in women-in-tech groups and activities lately, undoubtedly a response to this inequity. ...... revisit the startup system and create structures that foster innovation coming from a more diverse group of people (age, origin, gender)....... eak). Women tend to present their projects in terms of their value to users and society ...... women could benefit from mentoring that would teach them to conceptualize and present their concepts in technology terms and money terms. ....... today, non-technical entrepreneurs are just as likely to come up with viable startup concepts as programmers are ...... Investors need to start looking at paper projects again, and not dismissing non-technical founders. There need to be mechanisms that facilitate team building, like matchmaking resources for projects and developers.

If it is sexism, call it sexism. Don't overlook it, don't call it something else. Definitely don't call it meritocracy. If you are at a tech event, or a meeting, and some guy makes a sexist comment, then call him out. If you are a quiet bystander, you are an active participant. Tech entrepreneurship is a cutting edge thing, and there can not be room for sexism on the cutting edge. Sexism is not a problem for women to deal with. It is as much a problem for men. Our startups don't realize their full potential if we keep putting up with sexism.

If you don't have the time, inclination, penchant or patience for a long, drawn out argument, just call the guy a pig and move on. 

Shirky: A Rant About Women: not enough women have what it takes to behave like arrogant self-aggrandizing jerks ...... We’re in the middle of a generations-long project to encourage men to be better listeners and more sensitive partners, to take more account of others’ feelings and to let out our own feelings more. Similarly, I see colleges spending time and effort teaching women strategies for self-defense, including direct physical aggression. I sometimes wonder what would happen, though, if my college spent as much effort teaching women self-advancement as self-defense. .... we live in a world where women are discriminated against ...... Institutions assessing the fitness of candidates, in other words, often select self-promoters because self-promotion is tied to other characteristics needed for success. ....... To put yourself forward as someone good enough to do interesting things is, by definition, to expose yourself to all kinds of negative judgments ........ the fact that other people get to decide what they think of your behavior leaves only two strategies for not suffering from those judgments: not doing anything, or not caring about the reaction. ......... Not caring works surprisingly well. ........ it would be good if more women see interesting opportunities that they might not be qualified for, opportunities which they might in fact fuck up if they try to take them on, and then try to take them on. It would be good if more women got in the habit of raising their hands and saying “I can do that. Sign me up. My work is awesome,” no matter how many people that behavior upsets.

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Visionary Entrepreneurs Will Recreate The World

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

That Plateau Feeling

Unless the political leadership gets the fundamentals right, there is not too much room for the entrepreneurs to play. Warren Buffett has said he could not have done what he has done if he were not in America. The soccer field is necessary. The referees matter fundamentally. The paint buckets matter to the artist. But great soccer is played by great soccer players. I compare visionary entrepreneurs to great soccer players.



Visionary entrepreneurs will lead the green tech revolution. Visionary entrepreneurs will create the next generation financial institutions. Visionary entrepreneurs will make it possible for the world to pour a trillion dollars into microfinance. Visionary entrepreneurs will create the next generation jobs, companies and industries so that Brazil, Russia, India, China and others maturing economically is good not bad news for America.

Political leaders have to provide the soccer field. It is good to see them hard at work.

In The News

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The Web In Numbers: The Rise of Social Media
Twitter's big day? Here comes Oprah
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EPA calls greenhouse gases a public threat

[PDF] The Technology Entrepreneur’s Guidebook
Famous Technology Entrepreneurs
Study: A profile of the U.S. tech entrepreneur | News Blog - CNET News
Wired Campus: New Study Debunks Myth That Most Tech Entrepreneurs ... the median and average age at which U.S.-born entrepreneurs founded their technology and engineering companies was 39

Startup company - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

High Tech Startup Valuation Estimator
Ten questions for a high-tech startup | Tech News on ZDNet
Adam's Advice and Reading List for High Tech Startup Entrepeneurs

Entrepreneur.com
Entrepreneurs and Entrepreneurship - Starting and Running Your Own ...
Entrepreneurs and Small Business News and Information

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Google's Corporate Transparency

It's all right there, online. Too bad they don't have this one webpage that links to all the stuff. Instead there are separate starting points.



They did not have an easy start either. Earnly stage investors were not easy coming by.

Their corporate culture to me is as fascinating as their technology. The two feed on each other.

These people, they are just starting out. They are growing to grow, grow, grow. They invent challenges for themselves. They realize their competition is with themselves.

"Despite the dotcom fever of the day, they had little interest in building a company of their own around the technology they had developed."