Tweet In an attempt to experiment with social media, I offered an instant discount of $2 for anyone who shares a link to Foundrs.com when they make a purchase. All you had to do to pay $27.99 instead of $29.99 was to share a link. How many people do you think took advantage of this [...]
Tweet Many of you have noticed my latest weekend project, the Co-Founder Equity Calculator. An incredible number of users reported that the equity split reported by the calculator was within a few percent points of what they chose for their startup. Spooky! Many wanted to know how it works. The calculator is quite simple. Let me [...]
Tweet I was rereading “Microserfs“, the novel written by Doug Coupland in 1994 that was one of the first to describe the new Silicon Valley. In it, a paragraph rang so true, 17 years later. See if you can spot the 2011 equivalent: Also in attendance were a crew of Apple workers Ethan is scanning [...]
Tweet I have been planning to write a comprehensive post on ethics for startups. This is not it. Today I am going after a specific target: silent investors in startups who use unethical tactics. Latest case in point: AirBnB. They may have spammed Craigslist users using fake gmail accounts. Before AirBnB, we have had Zynga [...]
Tweet The elevator pitch competition at the Founder Conference tomorrow promises to be epic. We have received so many applications from great startups, it was hard to pick 8. If you are not on the list, don’t worry: time permitting, we will let other startups from the audience get their 1-minute pitch. Without further due, here [...]
Tweet I have lived through Silicon Valley’s 1999 bubble and its recovery in 2005-2008. Now it’s 2011 and for the third time, I can see the sign that Silicon Valley is booming again. And when I say “sign”, I mean it literally. This is what Silicon Valley looks like at the moment: Those signs [...]
Tweet The Founder Conference will once again be a must-attend conference for all aspiring entrepreneurs. But if you can’t afford to buy a ticket, we have a handful of volunteer opportunities that will let you get in for free and watch the action from upclose. In particular, if you are: a great photographer, with a [...]
Tweet As a follow-up to my post last week about the lack of performance of Google AdWords, here is one more straw that broke the camel back: According to Google AdWords, the keyword “entrepreneur” is not relevant at all for the Founder Conference, so much so that its scored a 1/10 in relevancy. Where is [...]
Tweet Forget Android and self-driving cars. 97% of Google’s revenue still comes from online advertising (AdWords and AdSense). And the problem is, FaceBook is eating their lunch. Case in point: I advertise online for the Founder Conference. A picture is worth a thousand words, so look at those stats from Facebook: And now, for the [...]
Tweet That seems to be the defining question of this early 2011 in Silicon Valley: are we in another Internet Startup bubble? That question comes from sky-high valuations for companies such as Zynga, Facebook or Twitter, and from the apparent ease with which new startups with barely more than a trendy name, seem to be [...]
