Thursday, August 19, 2010Matthew Mamet - Head of Customer Development, EditMe
Here’s another take on a web startup – one that comes with a 7,000 sq ft storage facility and a fleet of delivery trucks. Meet Fetch Storage. Ok, it’s not really a web startup. As cofounder Jesse Mastro puts it, the team at Fetch is seeking to bring new technology, like personal online inventory...
Wednesday, August 18, 2010Ray Colwell - VP of National and Direct Sales, Collective
When building your sales plan at a start up these 3 things will contribute to your success. 1. Plan for the worse - As glass half opened people we tend to think we can do anything. The reality is much of what we do is out of our control. Product releases, market acceptance, economy...
Wednesday, August 18, 2010Richard Banfield - CEO, Fresh Tilled Soil
In the second of our series on Boston entrepreneurs we interview Jason Henrichs, COO and co-founder of PerkStreet Financial, a Highland Capital funded startup. Richard: You’re one of those few entrepreneurs that has also sat on the other side of the funding table. In fact you’ve switched from entrepreneur to VC...
Tuesday, August 17, 2010David Skok - General Partner, Matrix Partners
This blog post focuses on how B2B companies can optimize their customer acquisition funnels using a customer-centric methodology to analyze and remove blockage points. Acquiring customers in the B2B world involves using a variety of marketing and sales steps with the goal of converting...
Tuesday, August 17, 2010Steve Green - Vice President of Field Sales, Brightcove
Building out the sales plan in a startup is always difficult...you have a small client base and very little predictability in your deal sizes and sales cycles. Here are a few tips for having success early in a growing company: 1. Get in front of Prospects - Early and Often! Nothing is more important...
Monday, August 16, 2010Doug Levin - CEO, Ayeah Games
From August 15th to August 18th, 1969 – forty-one years ago today – “Woodstock” was held at Max Yasgur's 600-acre dairy farm near the town of Bethel, New York. The original poster billed Woodstock as a “Music and Art Fair”. It was the largest music festival held to date, with approximately 500,000 people...
Monday, August 16, 2010Keith Cline - Founder, VentureFizz
The acquisition frenzy continues with 2 major deals announced last week. Unica (NASDAQ: UNCA) in Waltham was acquired by IBM for approximately $480M. Arbor Networks in Chelmsford was acquired by Tektronix Communications. It just keeps you wondering...who is next...
Friday, August 13, 2010Don Dodge - Developer Advocate at Google
Paul Graham of Ycombinator wrote an excellent blog on "What happened to Yahoo?". It reminded me of what happened to AltaVista, the first and most popular search engine. Yahoo thought they were a media company, not a software company. Simple, yet deep implications. AltaVista was hatched inside DEC, a hardware...
Thursday, August 12, 2010Lee Hower - Partner and Co-Founder, NextView Ventures
Much virtual ink has been spilled on the pros and cons of taking seed stage investment from larger VC funds. Chris Dixon and Fred Wilson have their viewpoints, more recently Mark Suster and Brad Feld added their perspectives and helpfully laid out their firms' specific approach...
Wednesday, August 11, 2010Chip Hazard - General Partner, Flybridge Capital Partners
Last week, SAIC announced that they had signed a definitive agreement to acquire our portfolio company, Reveal Imaging. This is an extremely positive outcome for the company, its customers, employees and shareholders and represents an import waypoint on a fascinating and successful entrepreneurial...
