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Founder Profile
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How Amazon gave Whrrl’s founder his startup inspiration
Jeff Holden might be an entrepreneur, but he has a big company to thank for his startup inspiration.
It was during his 8 years working in Amazon.com’s Consumer Websites division that he became interested in the discovery experience, including the “people who bought X also bought Y” feature. “One thing I was very focused on at Amazon was discovery,” he says. “Enabling customers to not only find things they are explicitly looking for, but serendipitously bump into compelling items they would never have known to look for.”
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Hot Startups of the Week
Minted
Minted is an online store offering custom stationery and photo cards for special events. The site sells a mix of designer-submitted cards and cards from independent card companies. Minted also holds design competitions, and users vote on the winners. Miriam Naficy founded the San Francisco-based company in 2008.
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Swipely
Swipely is trying to change the way people shop, share and save. It provides a secure platform for consumers to recommend purchase experiences, or “swipes,” and discover new places and products through friends. The Rhode Island-based company was founded by Angus Davis in 2009, and launched in May 2010 after securing a $7.5 million Series A round of funding.
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Reinvigorate
Reinvigorate provides real-time web analytics and heatmaps. The features include Snoop, a desktop stats application that alerts you every time you have a new user signup or visitor; and NameTags, a feature that allows you to identify your registered users and gives you insight into their habits and usage. The company, founded by Sean McNamara, launched in August 2010.
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Kobojo
Kobojo is a Paris-based social gaming startup. It develops games and applications for social networks and facilitates the connection between players. Games are currently available on iPhone and Facebook, and they will be expanding to other social networks. The company was founded by Vincent Vergonjeanne, Philippe Desgranges and Franck Tetzlaff in 2008.
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What We’re Reading
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Pitch You…Then Pitch Your Company
VC Alex Taussig writes on his Infinite to Venture blog about how many entrepreneurs know how to pitch their company, but few know how to pitch themselves. He recommends that entrepreneurs discuss previous experiences by name; use numbers to describe their success; and describe how the current team came together.
Read it →
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The Entrepreneurs Guide to Going Public
Investor John Warrillow writes in The Globe and Mail about three entrepreneur friends who took their companies public, and the 10 lessons they learned along the way. These lessons range from the necessity of dealing with analysts to their competitors’ ability to see what the company is up to.
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Selling Out
On his Anything’s Possible blog Eric Paley writes about how founders should decide it’s time to sell their startup and the influence investors can have on that decision. He compares Aaron Patzer’s sale of Mint, which was deemed early by many investors, with Tony Hsieh’s sale of Zappos, which was partly due to the investors’ desire for liquidity.
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If You’re the Boss, Start Killing More Good Ideas
This post on Harvard Business Review’s The Conversation blog discusses the necessity to kill both good and bad ideas when you’re running a company. Author Robert I. Sutton says that any good idea requires resources, time and attention so only a few ideas can be developed fully.
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When Should you Turn on the Marketing Faucet?
In this VentureBeat article FireHost founder/CEO Chris Drake outlines his entrepreneurial “a-ha moment” and how it led him to start a secure web hosting company. He then outlines the six factors that helped him decide when to start marketing the company (two years after launch), including getting the product in shape and knowing his target audience.
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10 Mistakes Start-Up Entrepreneurs Make
Author and entrepreneur Rosalind Resnick wrote this guest column for Wall Street Journal’s small business section outlining the top 10 mistakes entrepreneurs make when starting a business. They include asking too many people for advice; targeting too small a market; overpaying for customers; and raising too much or too little capital.
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Featured Members
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Wendy is an entrepreneur from Ottawa. Her company, Business Launch Solutions, helps startups launch their business. She recently started a web video series for entrepreneurs called Idea2Delivery.
Connect with
Wendy Mayhew
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Steve is an entrepreneur and comedian. He is the creator of Stik Rak and he blogs at SteveDolson.tumblr.com.
Connect with
Steve Dolson
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Founder’s Note
Being engrossed in a startup typically leaves little time for anything else.
On top of the hectic schedule, entrepreneurs tend to feel guilty about taking time away from their startup to do “nothing.”
Demanding work can take its toll and frustration, anxiety and stress do more to harm your productivity then to enhance it.
We forget that there is value in taking time to unwind and that stepping away sometimes provides a better vantage point.
Don’t lose sight of the importance of sometimes doing nothing. Find time to play and find yourself in a better mindset to grapple with challenges.
Until next week,
Sarah Prevette
Founder & CEO
Sprouter.com
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