entrepreneurship

Seven startup sins to avoid

I've seen thousands of startups fail, but they almost always fail for the same reasons. Most entrepreneurs fall into the same traps over and over again, despite how easy they are to avoid.

At the London Web Summit earlier this week, I told an audience of European entrepreneurs the seven mistakes I believe most often destroy promising startups.

These are my seven startup sins. Avoid these common mistakes at all costs:

1. Losing focus: If you're like the typical entrepreneur, you probably have hundreds of new ideas for your startup. But you must resist the urge to build … Read more

Why business co-founders ought to learn code

In the new Internet economy, code is king. Taking the time to learn the basics of programming will help you succeed in business and entrepreneurship.

A few days ago, an aspiring entrepreneur e-mailed me with a simple question:

"Do you need to be an expert in coding to build a successful startup, or can you employ experts to do the technical work for you?"

This person has demonstrated success as a businessman and a salesman, but he caught the entrepreneurship bug and couldn't shake it. He wanted to start his own company.

I knew what he wanted … Read more

How Uber's car-booking service can succeed in NY

NEW YORK--I had my Uber moment a few Sundays ago, standing on a corner in the hipster enclave of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, with my arms full of houseplants.

It had been raining off and on all afternoon. The subway line that could most reliably take me back to my apartment, following a lavish shopping spree at the borough's most notable gardening emporium, wasn't running because of weekend construction work. My alternative was to take a route that would involve two different subways followed by a 15-minute walk. With the houseplants. Bedford Avenue, Williamsburg's main drag, is a well-populated … Read more

To infinity and beyond, on a party cruise

BERMUDA TRIANGLE--Last Saturday morning, about three dozen people, most in their twenties and thirties, packed into a small meeting room on board the Celebrity Century, a cruise ship floating somewhere between Miami and the western islands of the Bahamas.

They were eagerly listening to a talk by Scott Parazynski, the former NASA astronaut who is, at present, the only person on the planet who can claim to have both reached the top of Mount Everest and flown in space.

Parazynski flipped through a breathtaking slideshow of photos from, literally, the edges of the world with a combination of war-story nostalgia, … Read more

Time to hit reload on Web 2.0 Expo?

SAN FRANCISCO--The Web 2.0 Expo this week was missing something. It might've been Tim O'Reilly, the founder of conference co-producer O'Reilly Media and a well-regarded, if slightly granola-inclined, industry sage. He was out of town; gone from the program was his traditional opening keynote, a quick but poignant take on the state of the industry.

Or it might have been the hype missing from the rather quiet halls of the Moscone Convention Center. A few years ago, it was a must-attend event for industry insiders and a launch pad for new start-ups looking to get onto … Read more

VC firm Kleiner Perkins launches social-app fund

Facebook, Amazon, and Silicon Valley bank Allen & Co. are among the high-profile investors in sFund, a $250 million social-application fund launched by venture capital stalwarts Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers today. Kleiner Perkins partner John Doerr spearheaded the announcement, which was held at Facebook's headquarters in Palo Alto, Calif.

"We're in a third wave of incredible and disruptive innovation," Doerr said of the current climate of digital development, which he sees following in the footsteps of the initial rise of PCs and then the Internet and browser revolution in the 1990s. These new entrepreneurs are &… Read more

Mark Zuckerberg, comic book action hero?

If you needed any further proof that the story of Facebook's origins has captivated the world, get this: A Vancouver-based comic book company called Bluewater Productions announced on Monday that later this year, it'll be releasing a title called "Mark Zuckerberg: Creator of Facebook."

The team behind it says it is attempting to strike a balance between portraying Zuckerberg as a benevolent philanthropist and critical player in the hot education reform movement, and a ruthless young business genius in the league of the film "The Social Network," which premiered Friday in New York to rave reviews.… Read more

AOL exec: 'We have a big f-ing problem!'

PHILADELPHIA--Right off the bat: The headline of this post is easily taken out of context. Be it known that it was uttered not in a context of panic, but in a sort of Silicon Valley disruptor-maverick bravado, by former Yahoo executive and current AOL mobile and Internet chief Brad Garlinghouse. His point: At AOL, they know they're screwed up; at Yahoo, they wouldn't acknowledge it.

"AOL, we have a big f-ing problem," Garlinghouse said. "There's no confusion about that."

He was presenting a talk at the Supernova conference about whether tech companies could … Read more

Big investors backing doctor-booking site ZocDoc

A New York-based start-up called ZocDoc aims to expand its service of online doctor and dentist appointment bookings with a $15 million Series B venture round led by the Founders Fund. Existing investor Khosla Ventures also contributed.

The money will be used primarily to help ZocDoc expand geographically. Currently operating in New York, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., and Chicago, the company is soliciting users to vote on what its fifth city should be (the options include Boston, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and Seattle). But expanding requires complicated groundwork: ZocDoc aggregates participating doctors; lets users search for them by availability, location, … Read more

High-tech cement maker wins top MIT award

Nanoengineered cement beat out a handful of other technologies in this year's MIT Entrepreneurship Competition, earning its creators a $100,000 prize.

C-Crete Technologies, which created a new type of cement that cuts down on carbon dioxide emissions and yet is stronger than any current cement, took home the top prize Wednesday night from the awards ceremony on MIT's campus in Cambridge, Mass. A panel of judges composed of fellow entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and industry executives chose C-Crete as the winner based on the execution of its business plan and presentation.

"For many years, the world has … Read more