New venture outsourcing blog

Venture financing is growing, the number of new patents being filed is up, and the number of new companies is up as well. Innovation & entrepreneurship are definitely back in vogue now.Fortunately, I haven’t seen it in the movies much… yet.Hollywood has a penchant for calling the tops & bottoms of business cycles - but not in a good way. In late November the Anonymous Trader commented during the collapse of Amaranth Advisors that hedge funds may be doomed because of a new HBO series about hedge funds in the works.Money Magazine’s George Mannes also noted some evidence that Hollywood has a hard time getting a movie or show put together before the collapse comes. In fact, Greg Newton even found a pair of “Hedge Fund” Kenneth Cole shoes! That has to be bad news.I’ll be keeping my eye out for a sequel to startup.com, private equity M&A’s, or a movie about a young group of cowboy Harvard graduates trying to make their mark in the VC world.

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There has been a lot of talk of prizes as a method of incentivizing innovation. The X-prize gave $10 Million for commercial spaceflight in 2004. David Wessel of the WSJ had an interesting piece on this phenomenon. But what happens after the prize is awarded. While paradigm-changing innovation is rare, and incremental improvements are commonplace, we must focus on developing innovation in addition to creating it. There are many good ways develop innovation and most require an investment of time and money. The efficient use of limited resources can spur further innovation as well as create a well-run lean business. The value added by innovation has been the hallmark of American business history; however, the often unacknowledged partner of innovation has been efficient execution. Learn how Inventure Global provides so you can accelerate growth, increase stability, and rest assured!

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Three ‘L’s have defined common wisdom on real estate…’Location, location, location’ is the mantra which almost defines valuation of property (although anecdotal, it is time-tested and widely practiced). If I had my way, everyone would know the three ‘E’s of business: Execution, execution, execution. The accomplishment of tasks (with or without a business plan - see this entry ) is by far the most important aspect of building a successful business. I’ve seen entrepreneurs fall into the trap of over-planning and under-executing – something that doesn’t add much value to a new company or a new venture. To stack the odds of success in your favor, start strong. Have the best team on board early (you can reduce costs by bringing onboard a flexible outsourcing service) to get work done – after all it is refining your businesses processes to create meaningful, valuable output that define successful, growing businesses.

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One of the recurring themes that I find being said about startups is the “need for speed.” Most novice entrepreneurs think this means access to money, but once you’ve done it a time or two you realize quickly that it’s not money you need to go quickly. It’s people. Money doesn’t build your product, take orders, or support your customers, people do.This need to build your product quickly is at odds with the need to build a carefully crafted collection of experts who gel into a high-performing team.In particular, this Fast Company article has a great comment from J. Neil Weintraut, a general partner at 21st Century Internet Venture Partners, in San Francisco on the subject:What does it take to move that fast? The answer is not mountains of cash or cutting-edge technology. To build a fast startup, says Weintraut, you first need to hire fast people. More important than time to market, he says, is “time to hire,” since the latter will determine the former. “An entrepreneur has only one job: to hire,” Weintraut explains. “Starting a company is no longer about raising capital; it’s about raising teams. The single biggest challenge for any startup is finding people who will enable you to move fast.”I think this is why small teams of 3-5 entrepreneurs often are able to succeed so quickly - because the first few critical hires were all good ones.What do you do when you need to grow quickly & you can’t hire fast enough? You outsource of course!

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If you’re an entrepreneur or even just a closet entrepreneur - you need to check out Business 2.0’s $100 Givaway. Business 2.0 asked a few venture capitalists for a list of ideas they’d like to see - and would be willing to fund.The ideas on here show an interesting array of breadth in fields from new batteries to social networking to creating another database vendor!Especially if you’ve ever had an idea rejected by a VC - you owe it to yourself to go read the list. Go find one idea that you can easily point at and laugh out loud about! It’ll be theraputic.I’ve spent a total of about 30 minutes reviewing the ideas - and they certainly were underwhelming to me. It’s amazing how often I hear new business ideas and say to myself, “That’s ridiculous.” It’s also amazing how often this ends up being the wrong call.I have, in the past, convinced myself that many, now very successful, technologies or businesses such as text messaging, Amazon, or even search advertising (at least I’ll admit it) were not great businesses. This humbling experience of remembering which ideas you liked and didn’t like, and evaluating the results, is something any VC has to go through. No one likes it, but it’s a fact of life for a VC and comes with the territory.The same is true for entrepreneurs. If you do this long enough you will get kicked out of at least one meeting at some point because person X thinks your idea Y is stupid.These guys are pros, and it’s nice to see that they’re no different.

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