Building A New Agency OS – by Mel Exon

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How To Build A $500M Company In 500 Days – Mike Cassidy

Last week, Cassidy traveled to Turkey for a start-up event, and he talked about how he does it. To be sure, Cassidy’s is not the recipe used by folks like Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Larry Ellison and Bill Gates, who think especially long-term while building their companies. It’s the recipe for the extremely quick exit. It’s the second of two dominant strands in company-building. (via venturebeat)

Cassidy’s slide presentation below.

Revolutionary New Camera That Looks Nothing Like A Traditional Point-and-Shoot

It reminds me of the time when Apple launched it’s first mp3 Player. The iPod did not look like any other device on the market but changed an entire industry. Mountain View-based startup Lytro, which launched earlier this year and demoed at Brainstorm Tech last July, just unveiled a line of “light field” cameras that capture more color, intensity and light per shot than traditional cameras. That makes for more vibrant photos, but most importantly, it allows users to change the focus within an image after it’s been taken.

Lytro founder Ren Ng holds the new Lytro camera. Photo: JP Mangalindan

Follow Lytro’s company blog here.

Sink or Swim School of Engineering Talk by Instagram Founders

Co-Founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger were able to launch Instagram without being computer science graduates. Krieger is proud of this fact, as it shows students from other disciplines can start companies in the technology space. He recalls his most valuable Stanford courses as the ones that taught him to define questions and then allowed him the freedom to seek the answers. In this clip, fellow Co-Founder Kevin Systrom also talks about the importance of connecting with other members of the entrepreneurial community. (via ecorner)

Subjot Is Not Just Another Twitter Clone

Do we really need more social networks? Looking at New York based Chris and Becky Carella’s latest venture, Subjot, the answer could well be ‘yes’. Subjot, on the other hand, makes a decent effort in terms of setting itself apart.

It’s not just another Twitter clone. There’s no denying that there’s a ton of similarities but there is one feature in particular which is pretty interesting – and that is the ability to curate the content you follow from other users. So instead of following all of their status updates, you can view a list of the topics they ‘jot’ about, and select only the ones that are of interest to you.

How does it work?

When sending an update, which is limited to 250 characters, you can accompany that update with a ‘subject’ of your choice. People who follow you can then select from your subjects what exactly they want to hear about. Read full article…

Codeacademy – Fun Way To Learn How To Program

Codecademy is the easiest way to learn how to code. It’s interactive, fun, playful and you can do it with your friends.

Ryan and Zach were students at Columbia before they started to work on Codecademy. They’ve worked at NYC startups, given numerous lectures on topics in programming, and are now living in Silicon Valley. Codecademy was created when Zach got frustrated with learning how to program. For years, Ryan taught Zach the basics of HTML and CSS, but books and videos didn’t help. Create your own account and get started.

Ideas don’t Matter by Adeo Ressi [Video]

Many people don’t realize that more than half of Founder Institute companies start the process without their final idea – and in many cases, without an idea at all. In fact, the first 1/3 of the program is devoted to identifying and refining a meaningful, enduring and defensible startup idea.

In the video below from the very beggining of the program, Adeo Ressi outlines a simple, 5-step method to forming and beggining to evaluate startup ideas. Adeo is a serial entrepreneur, founder of the Founder Institute and TheFunded.com, and is on the board of the X PRIZE Foundation. He also runs the Silicon Valley Founder Institute, and has a second child due any day now congrats Adeo!). (via Founder Institute)

Adeo Ressi on Coming up with Startup Ideas (06/08/10) from Founder Institute on Vimeo.

Done Is Better Than Perfect

 

10 Lessons Learned On When To Change Your Game by Jason Goldberg

by Jason Goldberg, serial entrepreneur and CEO of Fab.com (via venturebeat)

 

All of the steps that lay behind our decision to transform Fab were rooted in the lessons learned over seven years in the startup world. Here, based on our experience, are the top 10 reasons to alter course.

1. If you can’t get traction after one year, switch gears and work on something different. Particularly if you’re building a consumer e-business, you can tell pretty quickly if it’s going to fly or flunk.
2. Don’t get bogged down in something just because you’ve been doing it. There are plenty of other fish in the entrepreneurial sea. Go catch the one that looks like it’s swimming faster than the turtle you’ve been riding.
3. Be willing to go in a completely different direction. Remember, YouTube started as a video dating site. No one is going to shoot you for abandoning an idea that didn’t work.
4. Consider your options well before you’re down to your last dollar. That will give you the time and resources to make a mid-course correction if necessary. It’s better to change when you’ve still got over $1million in the bank like we do.
5. Do the math at least once a month. You can’t fix it if you don’t know it’s broken.
6. Don’t get seduced by your own ‘brilliant’ idea. It may have sounded good on paper, but you need to be objective in evaluating the results.
7. Change courses because you want to, not because you have to. If you’ve done your homework in a timely manner and you see the writing on the wall (see #5), you’ll have time to figure out where to go next.
8. Get your board on board. They invested in you. They’ll want you to do whatever you’re convinced can give them the greatest return.
9. Think like an investor. What can you do that has the greatest chance of delivering 10 times the investment you (or they) make in your business?
10. Ask yourself the following six questions to determine whether to regroup:

• If we could do anything for the next year, what would it be?

• What are we most passionate about?

• What are our customers telling us?

• What can we (realistically) be the best at?

• If we were to use our limited resources for anything, what would we spend them on?

• What will create the most value for our shareholders?

Some people say great entrepreneurs just make it happen. I can tell you from experience with my own companies and in serving as an advisor to other startups: that is rarely true. Good businesses need inspiration as well as perspiration. If at first you don’t succeed, try again. The next time, you might get it right.

Mike Maples: “You Have to Be Willing to Throw it all away” [Video]

Superstar investor about having the courage to dismantle a mediocre business and rebuild it into one that has the potential to hit a homerun. This is a must-watch video for any/every entrepreneur.

Mike Maples at the Founder Showcase from Founder Institute on Vimeo.