Security & Privacy Startup Culture
By Kevin Maney | June 13, 2013, 9:54 AM | Techonomy Exclusive
In 2004, while working for USA Today, then based in part of an Arlington, Va., office tower, I wanted to do a story about the CIA’s then-experimental venture capital unit called In-Q-Tel. I got the OK from In-Q-Tel to visit its office. But the CIA was so concerned about secrecy and terrorism, I had to agree to not reveal where the office was located. So I met a man on the ground floor of an office tower that had once housed USA Today, and he promptly took me back up the elevator. In-Q-Tel’s office was in the same building. I may be one of the only journalists to go there. In-Q-Tel has since moved down the street. You can find its address on the Web—though not on its own web site. And now that the National Security Agency’s PRISM data-collection system has been outed, In-Q-Tel is more visible than it's ever been. More
Global Tech Startup Culture
By Alexandra Talty | May 28, 2013, 9:47 AM | Techonomy Exclusive
OK, Beirut, Lebanon may not yet be a startup hub like Silicon Valley, Silicon Alley, or even Dubai. But recent success stories suggest that the Middle Eastern city is emerging as a serious contender. They include event-ticketing and crowfunding platform Presella, mobile music app Anghami, and local tech darling Instabeat, a swim-goggle-mounted heart-rate monitor. “You can get a feel that there is a community developing,” says Rabih Nassar, founder of element^n, a company that provides cloud platform services. “There are a lot of ideas, a lot of young people who want to jump in.” More
Startup Culture
By Helen Coster | May 20, 2013, 10:27 AM | Techonomy Exclusive
Jeff Skoll made his fortune as the first full-time employee and president of eBay. Now, as a philanthropist, he uses his eponymous foundation to back people tackling problems like education inequality and disease. A few weeks ago I attended the Skoll Foundation’s tenth annual World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship. The three-day event takes place at the Saïd Business School at Oxford University, where in 2003 Skoll endowed a center devoted to social entrepreneurship. More
Finance Government Startup Culture
By Humayun Khan | May 14, 2013, 11:22 AM | Techonomy Exclusive
When the JOBS Act was signed into law, its knotty crowdfunding provisions quickly became a source of consternation for the SEC. More than one year later, the law continues to languish, as the SEC moves slowly to implement its two most important provisions. One would enable general advertising for private investment offerings, and another would open the floodgates by allowing unaccredited investors to participate in online equity crowdfunding. More
IoE Startup Culture
By Andrea Ozretic | May 13, 2013, 12:23 PM | Techonomy Exclusive
With our May 16 Techonomy Lab: Man, Machines, and the Network in Menlo Park this week, we look at five startups delivering connectivity to consumers in various aspects of their lives. BERG Cloud of London pivoted from design consultancy to cloud service with its own connected products. In 2006 BERG built the Availabot, a puppet-like, vaguely humanoid USB-plug-in gadget that notifies users when their contacts are available to chat by standing up, and then falling down when contacts go offline. One day the notion of the Net existing only behind a screen will seem odd, predicts BERG Cloud’s Matt Webb. “To me the Internet won’t stay trapped behind the glass; we’ll see it flip. It’ll be everywhere.” More
Business Startup Culture Video
Techonomy Video | May 10, 2013, 11:52 AM
At a Dell Women's Entrepreneurship Network dinner, Techonomy's David Kirkpatrick spoke with XO Group co-founder Carley Roney about her company's trajectory since 1996. Roney says barriers to entry are much lower for startups today than when she and her husband David Liu were launching The Knot, XO's signature enterprise. "Now you can iterate more quickly and test things and segment," says Roney. "None of those things were possible at the time." With resources scarce, Roney says her team had to launch with a clear business plan. More
Business E-Commerce Startup Culture
By Adrienne Burke | April 29, 2013, 11:01 AM | Techonomy Exclusive
There seems no limit to the business ideas the Internet can spawn. More than 400 tech startups, most of them dot-coms and 75% New York-based, exhibited at NY Tech Day on April 25. Some presented pre-launch concepts; others, more established, were there seeking investors, recruiting employees, and hatching partnerships. Concepts included the countercultural (InkedMatch.com, online matchmaking for tattoo lovers), the controversial (Parlor, enabling phone conversations between like-minded strangers), and the socially purposeful (Audicus.com, high-quality hearing aids sold at steep discounts to a market that includes earbud-damaged 20-somethings). More
Business Startup Culture
By David Kirkpatrick | April 8, 2013, 8:54 AM
My friend Loic Le Meur writes an ebullient explanation for LinkedIn of the many ways you can advance a business without agonizing over it. His main message is not to agonize, but rather just do it. Company ideas come when you least expect them; the best ideas don't flow from workaholism; mistakes are part of the package; starting before you're ready is routine; and focusing on how much money you'll make is counterproductive. More
(Via LinkedIn)
Business Startup Culture
By Josh Linkner | March 29, 2013, 9:01 AM | Techonomy Exclusive
Having built four startups from scratch and now investing full-time, you could say I’m in the business of entrepreneurship. But I don’t think that’s the right term anymore. At all. The word entrepreneur is borrowed from French and implies an aristocratic polish. It conjures up images of backroom deals with white men in three-piece suits, perhaps even wearing top hats, neatly manicured and coddled, issuing orders from afar to sweaty and tattered workers. But that just ain’t the way you win today. More
Tucson 12 Business Startup Culture Techonomy Tucson Video
March 19, 2013, 1:11 PM
In this talk, Bertil Chappuis, Senior Partner at McKinsey & Company, explores how cloud technology is helping to boost entrepreneurship. Read the full transcript below. Kirkpatrick: So now I’m going to bring up Bertil Chappuis from McKinsey who’s talking about some very interesting issues surrounding cloud and how to think about that. McKinsey is going [...] More
