entrepreneur

From the outside, it looks like a typical California suburban home: garage, driveway, tidy yard. But walk down the path leading to the front door and you'll find your first clue that a traditional family of four does not live inside. On the front porch are dozens and dozens of pairs of men's shoes, all removed before entering in order to keep the house as tidy as possible.

When we knocked, Carlos De La Lama Noriega, the manager of the house, greeted us and welcomed us inside for a tour. The main living space was clean and airy … Read more

Pitching your startup idea to investors, journalists, and random people on the street is a rite of passage for all entrepreneurs. You have to convince hundreds (if not millions) of people that you're building something worthwhile and that they should get on board.

Most pitches fall flat though (the best VCs invest in perhaps 1 percent of the startups that pitch them), and it's often because of simple problems that could've been avoided. Nervous entrepreneurs stray from their story, and arrogant entrepreneurs demand unreasonable valuations and then get laughed out of the room by top-tier angels.

Here … Read more

Imagine a floating city of entrepreneurs; a veritable Googleplex of the sea. That's the vision behind Blueseed, a San Francisco startup.

The company plans to deploy a cruise ship 12 nautical miles from Silicon Valley -- in international waters -- and convert it into a metropolis of floating offices so foreign workers can launch their companies without obtaining work visas.

Despite a number of bills currently in Congress that aim to expand immigrant work visas, "there is no entrepreneurial visa," says co-founder Max Marty. "I think that's a terrible problem."

The answer, according to … Read more

Choosing the right market opportunity will make or break a startup. Unfortunately, most entrepreneurs choose to tackle markets that are over-saturated, not realizing their mistake until it's too late.

I've listened to thousands of pitches from thousands of startup founders. Most of the time, these pitches don't stand up to my scrutiny for one reason or another. Some don't have differentiating features while others simply don't tackle big enough market opportunities.

One of the biggest stumbling blocks that trips up most entrepreneurs though is their lack of market and competitive research. They come up with … Read more

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

SAN FRANCISCO--Shimon Peres, president of Israel, continued his high-profile swing through Silicon Valley by speaking at the Launch Conference this morning. Speaking to an audience of venture capitalists and entrepreneurs, he made the case for working in Israel and appealed to the entrepreneurs to create technological goods and services that could help humanity, and Israel itself.

The country of Israel, he said, "had nothing. No water, no oil, no resources." He said that the only true resource in the country was, and is, the people. That has made for a highly technological society. Israel has more scientists per … Read more

While everyone has already worked up a lather about the Ferris Bueller Honda Super Bowl ad, those interested in starting their own companies might have reason to get a little more excited about an altogether different ad during the big game.

The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation said today that it plans to run a 30-second spot (see video below) during the Feb. 5 Super Bowl between the New York Giants and the New England Patriots that will celebrate entrepreneurs, the "star athletes of the economy." The ad is intended to inspire "the next great entrepreneurs to take … Read more

It's the first day of 2012 and my 1,000th post on CNET and I'd like to encourage my dear readers to go out and raise their entrepreneurial flags.

Let's assume you have an idea and the desire to turn it into a commercial endeavor. Much is made of financings and investors but that all pales in relation to the fact that starting a company is hard. Keeping one going is even harder.

This should come as no surprise and yet a lot people still seem to believe the gushing reports of how easy it is to … Read more

For startups in Silicon Valley, little is more prized than an audience with Reid Hoffman.

Entrepreneurs come for his money, attention, but most of all, his advice.

Hoffman is a bit of a mystic "startup whisperer," according to a New York Times profile on 44-year-old co-founder of professional network LinkedIn.

The profile paints a portrait of a man who juggles a full schedule of meetings with people seeking his guidance, giving rapid-fire suggestions on platforms, presentation, and strategy, while trying not to be tied to Facebook, Twitter, or any of the four cell phones he carries.

LinkedIn, which … Read more