miércoles, 30 de septiembre de 2015

Tina Seelig: On Unleashing Your Creative Potential

by Jake Cook

Pablo Picasso once said, “Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.” As we enter adulthood, we tend to self-select in, or out, of creativity. (We’ve all heard someone say, “I’m just not a creative person.”) Stanford professor Tina Seelig argues that such hard-and-fast distinctions are both inaccurate and untrue.

Dr. Seelig’s latest book, inGenius: Unleashing Creative Potential, offers insights and tips from a career spent teaching both creativity and entrepreneurship. I sat down with Seelig to discuss her own rather unusual career path, the overlooked importance of physical space for big ideas, and tips on how to live a more creative life.

How do you approach the idea of creativity?

When we go to school we’re taught different “languages.” Like the language of math or music or the language of art. When you want to express your creativity, you have to figure out what language is best for what you’re trying to express. One of the things most helpful for people is having as many languages available to them as possible and then pick the ones that are the most appropriate at that time.
I find for me that creative outlets come in all different flavors. So there are times in which I really want to write. Times in which I really have to paint or just get outside. It is important to have a palette from which to choose.

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        Tina Seelig with students at Stanford’s d.school

What is your response when people claim creativity can’t be taught?

Can you teach math? Languages? For some people these subjects come easily, and for others they require more effort to master. But we still teach these topics to everyone because we think they should have these skills. Yes, some people are naturally very creative. But it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t teach it to everyone.
It’s a real cop-out to say, “Well, I’m just not creative.” For me, I tend to think of myself as not being very musical. But I know if I put my mind to it I could develop some musical skills.
When you want to express your creativity, you have to figure out what language is best for what you’re trying to express.

Any creative hacks that work for you?

One trick that has helped me: before I go to sleep at night I give myself the challenge of thinking about a certain topic I want to work on for that next day. Then I get up and write for three hours on that topic.I rarely go to sleep without giving myself something to noodle on. Somehow there is some sort of subconscious processing going on and I usually wake up with a bunch of really good ideas.

You have a very interesting professional path – PhD in neuroscience, entrepreneur, teacher. Did you have a solid plan for your career?

You know, I’ve noticed that the most interesting people I’ve met have taken very unusual career paths. I could tell you the story of my career and make it look like it was completely planned and there were never any side trips. Or I could tell the whole story of serendipity and surprises which was the inspiration for the book What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20.
If you had told me when I was a 20-something and getting my PhD in neuroscience that I was going to be doing what I’m doing now, teaching entrepreneurship and innovation at Stanford, I would have been totally surprised and completely delighted. I would never have imagined it.

To do this, did you have to ignore your mentors’ advice?

There were many, many places along the way where the advice I was getting was counterintuitive to what I wanted to do. I hear this from my students as well, and I tell them that it’s really a gift when people disagree with you and don’t support your choice. You know why? Because it tests your conviction about how important it is to you.

If everyone always supports you and says, “Oh, great idea, go to work for McKinsey or go to Stanford,” you don’t actually know if you want to do it. Especially if you’re like me and want to please other people and not rock the boat. It’s really easy to go with the flow.
I see the biggest problem with young graduates is they’ve always done what everyone else wants them to do and then one day they wake up and ask “Wait, how’d I get here?” So having that resistance is good because it tests the strengths of your convictions.
What’s a key ingredient for doing innovative work?

You need the right surrounding environment. You can be an incredibly creative person but if you’re not in an environment that fosters that, your creativity is going to be stifled.
If there are rules in place where you get punished if things don’t work out that’s really unfortunate because you’re obviously not going to try anything new.

To get over this, I think leaders should fail publicly and acknowledge it in a thoughtful way, “You know, we tried this. It didn’t work. Here’s what we learned from it.” That’s the point – you need to mine the failures for insights.
It’s really a gift when people disagree with you and don’t support your choice. You know why? Because it tests your conviction.

How do you build a culture to support that approach?

Well, you can’t just say “we’re going to have a creative culture” and expect it to happen. You have to model it and put rules and rewards in place to support it. So, if you want people to do big things and take big risks, then you need to celebrate all the parts of that process.
This is really, really important: You have to celebrate those people who don’t just think of big ideas but also celebrate when the big ideas fail to work out.  You need to look at failure like a scientist does when they conduct an experiment – you’re just collecting data.

The physical space we work in plays a big role in this?

Cubicles were designed to mimic prisons and when people walk into spaces like that it really sucks the life out of them. When people come over to the d.school at Stanford they walk in and say “I want to take classes here” even though they haven’t met a professor or a student or seen the curriculum. They just want to be in that space.
Space tells a story and space is a stage on which you play out your life. So, it’s very important to create the right stage. If you want certain things to happen there then you need to figure out what the set is going to look like.

What advice would you give to people that want to live a more creative life?

We are creating our lives every day and yet we don’t think of it as being “creative” in the traditional sense. However, if you don’t look at your life as a creative act then you’re not going to view yourself as someone who needs to invent it in a really thoughtful and interesting way.
I think it is extremely important that people believe they have the power to creatively reinvent the world and their lives.

NOTE CREDIT: http://99u.com/articles/7210/Tina-Seelig-On-Unleashing-Your-Creative-Potential

LA ERA DIGITAL DEL EMPLEO

Las necesidades de hoy no son las mismas que las de hace algunos ayeres, con los avances tecnológicos de las últimas décadas, todo dio un nuevo giro hacia lo digital. Desde entonces han desaparecido muchas profesiones, otras se han transformado, sobreviviendo al cambio de siglo.

Imagina que trabajas en Marketing Digital, E-commerce, Community Manager, Consultoría Digital, Desarrollador de Apps o Sitios Web, tu trabajo hace 10 años simplemente ¡no existía! Hace 15 años no existía el Internet, ni las tablets, ni las redes sociales, ni mucho menos nuestros juguetitos e inseparables amigos: los gadgets. Lo que al principio parecía solamente ocio, se ha convertido en una nueva forma de comunicarnos y de obtener información: las redes sociales, el internet, tripadvisor, spotify, etc, no sólo son herramientas que usamos todos los días, si no que ahora son nuevas fuentes de trabajo. En un futuro no muy lejano, empezaremos a escuchar de profesiones que hoy, ni siquiera nos imaginamos, tales como: conductor de drones, psicológo especializado en desintoxicación digital, ingeniero biomédicos, entre otro1s. Lo que antes nos parecían sólo ciencia ficción, ya es una realidad.

¿CUÁL ES PERFIL DEL EMPLEADO DE LA NUEVA ERA?

 1.- Adaptable Se vienen muchos cambios, por lo que, debemos ser muy versátiles en nuestro perfil y ser capaces de afrontar los nuevos retos. Las profesiones que surjan necesitarán tecnología que aún no se ha inventado y responderán a necesidades que aún no existen, por ello, adaptarse a los nuevos tiempos será una habilidad imprescindible.

 2.- Innovador El tener un título universitario colgado en la pared no será suficiente para obtener un empleo. El trabajo de hoy, exige que tu talento y disciplina hable por ti. Un título no significa nada si no eres capaz de demostrar con tus conocimientos y habilidades que puedes resolver cualquier reto que se te presente. Recuerda que el éxito se mide por tu capacidad de crear e innovar.

 3.- Competitivo Hoy en día vivimos en un mundo sin fronteras conectado de todas las formas posibles gracias al internet, Big Data y otras tecnologías, podemos trabajar desde cualquier punto del planeta y generar proyectos para una empresa al otro lado del mundo. Y es precisamente por ello, que debes prepararte, cuando te postules para un trabajo, ten en cuenta que no sólo competirás con las personas que ves en la sala de espera, si no con otros cientos que pueden estar en cualquier parte del mundo.

Ante este panorama, es mejor tomar acciones, invertir en educación y en capacitación de forma continúa. Es importante, estar al tanto de las tendencias tecnológicas y lo que sucede en nuestro mundo para poder enfrentar los cambios constantes del mundo laboral.
El cambio es de lo más natural que existe y las personas que sean aliadas de la tecnología aprovecharán estas ventajas para crecer y desarrollarse profesionalmente. ¿Estás listo para dar el paso hacia la Era Digital? Te invito a iniciar tu transformación con este Webinar.

NOTE CREDIT: http://gonzalo-alonso.com/la-era-digital-del-empleo/

Where Will You Find Your Next Great Idea?

While I love seeing my own ideas take off, I’m even more excited by the prospect of helping develop a universal formula for success. I see the value that entrepreneurship has in our world. It pushes technology forward, challenging us as human beings to think and to evolve.
I have met people with ideas that have real value for our society, but they are allowing minor roadblocks to get in their way and to prevent them from making an impact.
You probably have at least a slight notion of an idea in mind, but if not, I can give you a little insight on where good ideas come from. The first piece of advice is this: don’t get held up on the idea. Don’t think of an idea and attempt to figure out all the small details right away. Take the idea and run with it.
So where do ideas come from?
1. Your world
These are the spontaneous ideas that hit you in your everyday life. The appliance in your kitchen that desperately needs another function, the underutilized advertising opportunity in your morning commute, or the piece of software we know could optimize our workday.
We tend to move through life quickly and accept things for what they are, but when you slow down and start to question the things around you, you’ll find yourself inspired. Many of these ideas you’ll throw out -- too expensive, not enough of a target audience -- but once you start to see the world around you as open market for opportunity, you’re bound to find a couple of ideas with real potential.

2. Your "bad" ideas
Some of us are blessed with inspiration all the time. We come up with ideas constantly throughout the day, laughing many of them off as unrealistic, shirking others as poor concepts. You’ll find that the more bad ideas you have, the more potential good ideas you’ll have as well.
Keep a note open on your mobile device or a notebook and write down every idea you have, no matter how foolish or grandiose it seems. When you go back from time to time to review the list, you may see the more realistic, accomplishable side of some of those ideas.
Reading that list off to others can also be a launch point to discussion and the development of those concepts into something legitimate. The only way to guarantee an idea won’t go anywhere is to ignore it.

3. Collaborations
Sometimes you have an idea that can’t quite round out to completion, an idea that is half-baked, so to speak. Some of the world’s best new inventions are not the efforts of one person, but a collaborative effort. Conversations with others in your field, even those you connect with on the Internet from the other side of the world, can lead to higher-level inspiration.
Discussing your concepts with a colleague can lead to the realization that while individually, you’re only halfway there, together, you’ve struck gold. Even casual conversations with friends or coworkers can lead to development.
Keep a nondisclosure agreement on hand for more serious collaborative meetings, but stay open to the idea of teamwork. Too many egos over the years have gotten in the way of what could have been great success stories.

4. Friends and family
You don’t have to limit your collaboration to other business-minded folks either. Really listen to your friends and family. By paying attention to their daily complaints, you have the opportunity to find room for improvement in their lives as well as your own.
My mother is hard of hearing. I constantly receive requests from her to come up with something to improve the quality of her life. Sure, a lot of her complaints are just too large for me to resolve, but there have been several ideas that have launched some real concepts and developments that have been made to accommodate her disability.
Think of your friends who are having trouble marketing their own businesses, or older family members who are struggling with modern technology. The people around you are an unending supply of problem-solving potential.
Just keep in mind that no matter what you come up with, your mother will probably think it’s genius, so be sure to vet it out with someone less subjective.

5. Ask around
If you feel that you are bound for entrepreneurship, you can always ask potential clients for ideas. Much like finding weaknesses in your own company, you can call companies in the market you are interested in, and ask them what issues they need to deal with on a regular basis. If they all share a common issue -- there’s your idea. Make that. After all, you know they will buy that product.
Most important, write your idea down! On your phone, tablet, and/or in your notebook, jot down your overarching concepts, as well as the smaller ideas that go along with them. You’ll find that once an idea hits, your thoughts will come in fast and furious.


The Future of Internet Freedom

by 
OVER the next decade, approximately five billion people will become connected to the Internet. The biggest increases will be in societies that, according to the human rights group Freedom House, are severely censored: places where clicking on an objectionable article can get your entire extended family thrown in prison, or worse.

The details aren’t pretty. In Russia, the government has blocked tens of thousands of dissident sites; at times, all WordPress blogs and Russian Wikipedia have been blocked. In Vietnam, a new law called Decree 72 makes it illegal to digitally distribute content that opposes the government, or even to share news stories on social media. And in Pakistan, sites that were available only two years ago — like Tumblr, Wikipedia and YouTube — are increasingly replaced by unconvincing messages to “Surf Safely.”

The mechanisms of repression are diverse. One is “deep packet inspection” hardware, which allows authorities to track every unencrypted email sent, website visited and blog post published. When objectionable activities are detected, access to specific sites or services is blocked or redirected. And if all else fails, the entire Internet can be slowed for target users or communities.

In other cases, like in Ukraine, sites are taken offline with distributed-denial-of-service attacks, which overwhelm a server with digital requests, or else the routing system of the national Internet system is tampered with to make entire sites mysteriously unreachable. Entire categories of content can be blocked or degraded en masse; in Iran, we hear that all encrypted connections are periodically severed and reset automatically.

How common is each tactic? Reliable data can be scarce. Measuring patterns of censorship brings its own risks: If you repeatedly check whether “objectionable” content is being blocked, you risk becoming a target yourself.

And while the technologies of repression are a multibillion-dollar industry, the tools to measure and assess digital repression get only a few million dollars in government and private funding. Private and academic centers like the Citizen Lab in Toronto are building detection tools, but we are still in the early days of mapping the reach of digital censorship.

Of course, detection is just the first step in a counterattack against censorship. The next step is providing tools to undermine sensors, filters and throttles.

Again, the groundwork is being laid. For years, a vibrant community of engineers from San Francisco to Beijing have collaborated on circumvention technologies to shield dissidents from surveillance. One such tool, called Tor, has been used by tech-savvy dissidents around the world for over a decade.
Our travels have taken us to North Korea, Saudi Arabia and other countries grappling with repression. Yet when we meet dissidents and members of harassed minorities, we are surprised by how few of them use systems like Tor.

Trust is perhaps the most fundamental issue. In Iran, online bazaars sell services that promise secure access. Yet rumors swirl that these services are covertly provided by the Iranian government, and can be monitored or terminated at any time.
Scalability is another problem. One popular approach, virtual private networks, allow users in a repressively censored place like Syria to “proxy” the connections through a computer in a more open place like Norway. But when thousands of users connect to a single intermediary, the repressive government notices, and shuts them down.

The final challenge is usability. Engineers can build sophisticated algorithms, but they’re useful only if a member of, say, the Kurdish minority in Iran can figure out how to install them on her low-bandwidth phone.

After Assange and Snowden's issue, everytime whatever voice pro-West that intended to speak about freedom in internet, sh
None of these challenges are new. What is new is the possibility to overcome them — if we make the right public and private investments. For example, software using peer-to-peer algorithms lets users route an Internet connection through another computer without having to go through a V.P.N., helping to address the trust and scalability issues.

These algorithms don’t resolve the trust issue completely. How do you know you’re actually connecting to your friend, not a government agent? Ten years ago, this challenge would have been a deal breaker for many people. But today it’s possible to use networks like Facebook or Google Hangouts to verify one another’s identities similarly to how we do offline.

Obfuscation techniques — when one thing is made to look like another — are also a path forward. A digital tunnel from Iran to Norway can be disguised as an ordinary Skype call. Deep packet inspection cannot distinguish such traffic from genuine traffic, and the collateral damage of blocking all traffic is often too high for a government to stomach.

Finally, advances in user-experience design practices are a big, if not obvious, boon. The Internet is becoming easier to use, and the same goes for circumvention technologies — which means that activists will face less of a challenge getting online securely.

Much of the fight against censorship has been led by the activists of the Internet freedom movement. We can join this open source community, whether we are policy makers, corporations or individuals. Money, coding skills or government grants can all make a difference.


Given the energies and opportunities out there, it’s possible to end repressive Internet censorship within a decade. If we want the next generation of users to be free, we don’t see any other option.

NOTE CREDIT: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/12/opinion/the-future-of-internet-freedom.html?smid=pl-share&_r=1

10 lecciones para emprendedores según Jeff Bezos

El fundador de Amazon y flamante nuevo dueño del diario The Washington Post, Jeff Bezos, es uno de los hombres más ricos del planeta, con una fortuna calculada en US$25.000 millones. Con esos antecedentes, no extraña que sea considerado como uno de los emprendedores e inversionistas más influyentes del mundo.

En base a su experiencia en el mundo de los negocios, el sitio SoyEntrepreneur recopila 10 lecciones de Jeff bezos para emprendedores. Acá el listado:

1. Renuncia a la seguridad y atrévete. Bezos era un exitoso vicepresidente de una destacada empresa de inversiones en Wall Street. Pero ese éxito no era su sueño. Corría el año 1994 y estaba decidido a arriesgarse con la creación de una empresa en el desconocido mundo del comercio electrónico. Así nace Amazon.com, una empresa que al poco tiempo generaba US$610 millones de ventas anuales y tenía 13 millones de clientes en el mundo.

2. Identifica oportunidades. No solo basta con tener la capacidad de identificar oportunidades en el mercado, también hay que saber aprovecharlas. Mientras trabajaba para una empresa investigaba sobre el crecimiento de internet y los resultados eran notorios: crecía un 2.300% al mes. Con ese antecedente, Bezos lo tenía claro: Internet era el camino.

3. Prueba, lanza rápido y expándete. Cuando Bezos decidió vender en internet, tenía una selección de 20 productos posibles, entre CDs, libros y software. Al final optó por los libros debido a que existían millones de títulos y tendría una gran ventaja competitiva frente a las librerías fijas donde, cuando mucho, podían almacenar un par de cientos. Así, en 1995 abrió “la librería más grande del mundo” (Cadabra.com, que después rebautizó como Amazon) que lo hizo famoso. A partir de 1998, después de comprobar el éxito en la venta de libros, empezó a vender otros productos (primero regalos de Navidad). Al poco tiempo se diversificó y hoy Amazon prácticamente vende de todo desde libros hasta ropa, juguetes y electrónica.

4. Primero el cliente. “Nuestra visión es ser la empresa más centrada en el consumidor del mundo, donde éste puede encontrar todo lo que quiera online”, dice Bezos. Esta ideología se muestra desde en su sitio Web fácil de navegar y alimentado con los comentarios y calificaciones de los usuarios; hasta en la política de envíos que es sumamente eficiente.

5. Siempre innova. Cuando surgió Amazon, el retailer online era prácticamente una innovación. Muy pocas empresas vendían en internet y ninguna con esa capacidad. La innovación ha sido siempre parte de su carrera empresarial; desde el desarrollo del sitio, la venta de toda clase de productos en un mismo sitio y el excelente servicio que ofrece al usuario al comprar en Amazon. Es esta cultura la que le ha permitido adelantarse a su competencia, a tal grado de prácticamente eliminarla.

6. Sé paciente. Como emprendedor trabajador, Bezos tiene claro que los grandes resultados se ven con el tiempo, no son inmediatos. Nada surge de la noche a la mañana. De hecho, en las primeras etapas de Amazon, Bezos tuvo que pedir un préstamo a su familia y amigos para mudarse a Seattle e inició la compañía desde su garaje.

7. Trabaja en equipo. Parte del éxito de Amazon se lo debe al esfuerzo, trabajo y la colaboración en equipo. A su juicio, no existe cosa tal como “un genio solitario que sabe todo y tiene la fórmula mágica”, sino que es con un equipo capaz de personas que se estudia, debate, se generan ideas y soluciones para resolver las necesidades de los clientes.

8. Diversifícate. Aunque al mundo entero llamó la atención la compra de Bezos del emblemático The Washington Post por US$250 millones, el emprendedor aseguró que se conservará el espíritu informativo del diario, pero con la filosofía de Amazon: centrándose en el cliente. Además, Bezos es inversionista de varias empresas y startups, como Uber y Business Insider, ha invertido en tecnología aeroespacial, robótica y en la ciencia.

9. Ten pensamiento positivo. Bezos vive con la idea de que “cada reto es una oportunidad”. A pesar de que Amazon nació como una pequeña startup de garaje, pronto se convirtió en la librería más grande del mundo. Cuando explotó la burbuja puntocom, y las acciones de Amazon pasaron de US$100 a US$6 dólares, Bezos no se escondió sino que salió a la batalla con confianza y optimismo, destacando los aspectos positivos de su empresa.

10. Sigue tu pasión. Sin duda lo que hace a un emprendedor grande es la pasión por su trabajo. Y Bezos ha sido apasionado de todo lo que Amazon significa: de los libros (su título favorito es The Remains of the Day de Kazuo Ishiguro), del e-commerce y del liderazgo que conlleva dirigir una empresa. Además tiene un buen nivel de confianza en sí mismo y es un orador poderoso y convincente.

NOTE CREDIT: http://www.innovacion.cl/2013/09/10-lecciones-para-emprendedores-de-jeff-bezos/

Re-Making Manufacturing in the United States

The U.S. manufacturing industry is a shell of what it was a hundred years ago, and while cheap labor costs around the globe have made it nearly impossible for the U.S. to compete in the mass production of widgets, the U.S. is gaining prominence in new, advanced manufacturing processes.

“There are parts of the manufacturing process that will be competitive in the U.S. again, but I think it requires a redefinition of what we assume to be manufacturing. I don’t think that the kind of manufacturing we do here will be the really dirty manufacturing with the smokestacks,” said Jessica Banks, the founder of RockPaperRobot, a kinetic furniture business, headquartered in Brooklyn, N.Y. “It will be manufacturing based on a lot of prototyping, a lot of new manufacturing processes, and rapid prototyping processing. And it will really involve iteration.”

Banks spoke to Entrepreneur.com from the beta space of New Lab, a facility for inventors, designers and entrepreneurs in the Brooklyn Navy Yard in New York City. By fall 2015, the New Lab will have moved into an 84,000-square-foot facility constructed in an old shipbuilding warehouse. Banks makes furniture that moves, either by responding to touch or sound.

While RockPaperRobot’s business thus far has been selling one-off, luxury pieces of furniture designed and built by hand in the studio, Banks is in the process of designing its first mass-market piece, a transformable table (the specifics of which she does not wish to disclose to protect her intellectual property). Banks is designing the item of furniture in Brooklyn, going through all of the testing and prototyping processes in Brooklyn, and then will have the table and requisite parts manufactured primarily overseas.

Marcel Botha used 3-D printing technology to make multiple prototypes very quickly.
Image credit: Spuni

One of the reasons prototyping is becoming a more refined, sophisticated and immediate process is because of the development of 3-D printing technology. It's what allowed Marcel Botha, another resident of the Brooklyn New Lab, to generate four sample models of the Spuni, a spoon ergonomically designed for a baby’s mouth, in eight days.

“We were able to rapidly develop this product because we had 3-D printing technology,” said Botha. “The understanding and the enthusiasm around 3-D printing definitely saw a huge spike over the last decade.”

The process was relatively simple. Determined to create a spoon that would make feeding a baby easier, Botha sketched his initial designs and then recreated them in 3-D on the computer using modeling software. He then took those digital 3-D sketches, sent them to a 3-D printer and had the model spoons printed from medical grade nylon. From there, Botha and his friend tested the spoons and tinkered with the design until they had a final product.

Like Botha, resident entrepreneurs at New Lab specialize in the front end of the manufacturing supply chain -- the idea-generation, prototyping and testing phases. When the company is ready, the beta-tested, market-tested product gets shipped off to larger manufacturers for mass production.
New technologies, in addition to innovative ideas, have allowed for the increased sophistication in and acceleration of that first phase of the manufacturing process. For example, the advancement of 3-D printing technologies has allowed for constructions that were never before possible. David Benjamin, the founder of a design firm called The Living and another New Lab resident entrepreneur, has worked on projects for buildings, public spaces and furniture. “3-D printers don’t care if you have four solid legs or 4,000 lattice pieces, they can manufacture it,” said Benjamin. “And so that has allowed us to think about designing in a new way.”

Re-Making Manufacturing in the United States
David Benjamin holding material generated to replicate the structure of bacteria.
Image credit: Kian, Entrepreneur.com

While 3-D printing is shaping manufacturing today, there are even more sophisticated – and pretty far-out – manufacturing technologies already in development for tomorrow. Benjamin’s newest project involves using live organisms to grow material in a process called bacterial manufacturing. The idea is that bacteria can grow both rigid and flexible material, and so with genetic manipulation, it can be used to produce material with varying densities.

Right now, advanced software is used to replicate the cellular structure of material generated by bacteria. In the future, the hope is to be able to manipulate living material to grow into objects. “We could start to engineer a tree to grow into a chair, or we could engineer bacteria to generate the material for a chair or even to generate the whole chair itself,” said Benjamin.

The concept is only just emerging, but in this next generation “glucose economy,” living things will be able to be guided to make material, which could redefine manufacturing yet again. "This method of manufacturing could be much more sustainable than traditional manufacturing,” says Benjamin.

NOTE CREDIT: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/232058

lunes, 28 de septiembre de 2015

6 Key Factors in Scoring a $1 Billion Valuation for Your Startup

At a fascinating session at last week's BostInno conference at the Westin Boston Waterfront Hotel, senior executives from a mix of local companies were candid in citing the most important factors in growing their startups to a valuation of at least $1 billion.

Before the conference, Mike Troiano, a marketing executive at data-appliance maker Actifio who led the session, had asked each panelist to rank in importance six factors (of his selection) by how they had helped their companies exceed that coveted $1 billion valuation mark. The panelists came from public companies (content-delivery network provider Akamai Technologies, personal robot maker iRobot and online travel company TripAdvisor) and private companies (online home-goods retailer Wayfair and Actifio).

Here are the factors that they ranked in order from the most important to the least:


1. A great team. The consensus of the panel seemed to be that having a great team is the most important ingredient for success. As Jit Saxena, a board member of Actifio, explained, "Companies almost always change their strategy from where they started. But if they have a stellar team, they will experiment with different strategies until they find one that works."

So what makes for a great team? As TripAdvisor's Barbara Messing noted, "A top engineer is six times more productive than a B player. We interview over 100 people to hire 10 engineers. We want people who are off the charts in brain power who will also fit well within our culture, which requires high energy and stamina to make frequent improvements to our service."


2. A big marketThe panelists also agreed on the importance of trying to sell their products in large markets. Their reason? Most companies struggle to gain 10 percent of any market due to the high level of competition.

In a small market, 10 percent will not yield enough revenue to enable a company's investors to earn back the capital that they bet on the new product. Therefore if managers want to reach a valuation of least a billion for their companies, they must bet on markets worth tens of billions. For instance, Troiano said that Actifio is targeting a $35 billion market.


3. Execution. People in the business world tend to throw around the term execution without defining it clearly. But based on the panelists' comments, execution means the following: getting products into a market, listening to customer feedback, building and introducing an improved version fast and then going back to listening to customers.
Execution was admired more than strategy by these Boston area panelists. That's because strategy implies that a company does extensive research about customers, competitors and costs and comes up with a clearly defined positioning in the market that will not change. But execution involves trying solutions, gaining feedback from the market and then making improvements -- rather than spending months of study before taking action.


4. Product quality. Like strategy, product quality can be seen as an end in itself. And achieving high quality for a product can be very helpful if the engineer's vision  is the same as the customer's.
But the panelists expressed a common view that product quality should not be seen as static but rather as a constantly evolving effort to keep the company ahead of the competition by tapping new technology to create ever higher levels of value for customers.


5. Strategy. While Troiano, a graduate of Harvard Business School, was taught to believe that coming up with a strategy was the most important job of a CEO, he and the other panelists seemed to believe that strategy is not a very important factor in achieving a $1 billion valuation.
The panelists put more stock in the importance of companies' being smarter and faster than competitors in developing hypotheses about which solutions will work for customers, building prototypes fast, obtaining feedback and improving.


6. Luck. While luck has certainly played an important role in success and failure of companies, the panelists seemed to discount its importance in helping their firms achieve a $1 billion valuation.

NOTE CREDIT: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/234826

Real risk or ego risk? Your succes may hung in the balance

by Minda Zetlin

All risks aren't created equal. You'd be smart to distinguish between them.

Are you frightened of taking a risk? If so, ask yourself a question. Are you scared because it could have real, dire consequences? Or could it just have dire consequences for your ego?

A few weeks ago, I took part in a podcast about risk and what stops us from taking the chances that could propel us to a higher level of success. It suddenly struck me that--although we often confuse them--there are two very distinct forms of risk. And though we may be equally afraid of both, they deserve very different levels of respect.

The first is when we take a chance on something that could really harm us, either physically or materially. Athletes and explorers take physical risks routinely, and so do the rest of us when we, say, go scuba diving or go out driving in a snowstorm to an appointment or event we just don't want to miss. We may also take material risks, for instance when we quit a job to start a business or take out a mortgage. We take the risk in pursuit of something we consider important, but we're also aware that things can go horribly wrong and we could wind up much worse off than we were before.

But then there's ego risk, the kind of risk where the only harm we might suffer is to our pride, our public image, and our self-esteem. Much too often, we treat this kind of risk as though it were equal to real physical or material risk.

This is why in surveys people routinely rank fear of public speaking above fear of death. It's nonsensical of course. I'm fairly sure that if you stood most people at a podium, pointed a gun at their head and told them to give a speech or die, they'd start speaking in a hurry. Stack up ego risk against real risk and ego risk will crumble every time.

Why do we so often confuse the two? Glen Croston, PhD proposes a fascinating explanation in a Psychology Today post: Way back in our evolutionary history, ego risk and physical risk were one and the same. Early humans lived in groups for protection. They feared being ostracized which could lead to ejection from the group and very likely death from an animal predator or enemy human group.

Today, that fear of ostracism is what makes some of us keep silent if we're in a group of people saying things we deeply disagree with. It explains everything from our terror of making sales calls to our shyness when called on in a meeting. And it's why so many of us find public speaking so terrifying.

But if our fear of taking ego risks has a valid evolutionary explanation, it's still getting in the way of our achievements. Think of any wildly successful entrepreneur you've ever heard of, from Steve Jobs to Richard Branson to Mark Cuban and the thing they all have in common is that they've overcome (or perhaps were born without) that fear of making fools of themselves.

For the rest of us, setting that ego fear aside isn't so easy to do. But asking ourselves these questions may help:

1. If I take this ego risk, and it goes horribly wrong, what's the worst that can happen?


Let's say you get up to the podium and suddenly realize you left your speech in the taxi. Or you hyperventilate and faint. Or the audience boos. All of these can happen and have happened to public speakers. You would likely be very upset if one of them happened to you. But then less upset the following day, and less the day after that. I guarantee, you would get over it.

2. If this goes badly, how much will I care in a year? In 10 years?


I remember my first paid public speaking gig, a lunchtime talk that my husband and I gave at a major corporation in support of our co-authored book. We didn't lose our speech or faint, but we weren't very practiced at giving talks. Afterward, the comments we got made it clear that we still had a lot of room for improvement.

That was almost a decade ago, and since then we've done a lot more speaking and become much more polished, partly because of what we learned from that first less-than-stellar presentation. It felt crummy at the time; now I'm grateful we had that opportunity to get better.

3. Will the people who care about me be ashamed of me for failing or proud of me for trying?


Thinking about what your loved ones and staunchest supporters will say if you trip and fall can help you put fear of ego risk in perspective. You're not going to get ostracized, not by a long shot. There are people in your corner who will be nothing but proud that you gave this your best attempt. They probably would be more disappointed in you for not trying.

4. If I were advising a friend, what would I tell him or her?


Chances are, you'd encourage your friend to go for it and not let fear of embarrassment be a deterrent. That's good advice. You should follow it yourself.

5. What will I lose if I don't take this risk?


We get so focused on the risks of putting yourself out there that it's easy to forget there's also risk in not doing so. That risk may take the form of lost opportunity, stagnation from staying too long in one role, or boredom, which is worst of all.

6. What might I gain if this goes well?


After all, things might go very badly, but they could also go very well. If they do, what doors might that open to other moves you might like to make or opportunities you'd like to pursue? Taking this ego risk may be your first step toward making your dreams come true. You'll never find out unless you try.

NOTE CREDIT: http://www.inc.com/minda-zetlin/real-risk-or-ego-risk-your-success-may-hang-in-the-balance.html?cid=sf01001

Ejemplo de Plan de Marketing Online para empresa: 35 ideas

Cuatro miembros del equipo de Aula CM hemos elaborado un Plan de Marketing Online para una tienda de muebles reciclados que se puso en contacto con nosotros. Queremos compartir contigo este plan porque pensamos que, de alguna forma, puede ser útil para otro tipo de negocios también. Muchas ideas que aportamos se pueden adaptar y aplicar en otros sectores. Esperamos que te sea de gran ayuda.

Primera fase de todo Social Media Plan

Lo primero que hay que hacer para elaborar cualquier Plan de Marketing Online es tener claros 3 aspectos:
  • ¿Qué objetivos persigue la empresa? Todos tienen que ser concretos, medibles y calculables en el tiempo. ¿La meta es aumentar las ventas? ¿Lo que persigue es branding, que conozcan mejor la marca? ¿Quiere conseguir suscriptores? ¿O quizá retener y fidelizar al público que ya tiene para que sus clientes vuelvan a comprar?
  • Lo segundo sería hacer un análisis DAFO interno y externo del negocio para tener claras las fortalezas, debilidades, amenazas y oportunidades, tanto de la empresa como de la competencia y el sector. Sobre todo, hay que detectar y definir muy bien los puntos fuertes del negocio: cómo puede destacar por encima de la competencia. ¿A través del blog? ¿Con una buena atención online? ¿Con propuestas exclusivas y gratuitas para los mejores clientes?
  • Finalmente, hay que hacer un estudio del público objetivo. ¿Cómo es el cliente potencial? ¿Dónde está en la web? ¿Qué temas le interesan? ¿Cómo podemos llegar a él? El perfil nos va a decir sobre qué temas escribir y en qué redes sociales va a tener presencia la empresa. No hace falta que todas las empresas estén en todas las redes sociales, sólo en aquéllas verdaderamente interesantes para su actividad y clientes.
Conociendo los objetivos, el público y en lo que se puede diferenciar esta marca, vamos a crear una estrategia de Marketing de Contenido para esa audiencia sabiendo dónde está y lo que le interesa.

35 ideas para el Marketing Online de una tienda de muebles


Twitter, la red social para llegar a los desconocidos

Twitter tienda mueblesTwitter es de las pocas redes sociales que nos permite llegar a muchos usuarios desconocidos para nosotros pero que cumplen ciertas características. Lo primero que tiene que pensar una empresa al plantearse estar en Twitter es si hay suficiente diálogo y si la gente está hablando de tu temática en esta red social. Estas son algunas acciones que un negocio puede realizar en Twitter:

1. Piensa qué contenidos vas a compartir

Plan Marketing Twitter contenidoTienes que ver qué tipo de contenido de valor, propio o de otras fuentes, vas a compartir a través de Twitter. Una buena forma de tener fichado y filtrado el mejor contenido es usar Feedly, una herramienta que te permite colocar los mejores blogs (en este caso de restauración y decoración). De esta forma, te resulta más fácil tener localizados los artículos realmente interesantes para tu audiencia. Otra opción para seleccionar contenido es suscribirte a la herramienta Buzzsumo y que te recomiende cuáles son los artículos más compartidos sobre decoración o muebles restaurados. Cuando el contenido es tuyo, Twitter es la plataforma perfecta para difundirlo y darlo a conocer a tus seguidores.

2. Busca y participa

Plan Marketing Twitter participaTwitter es una red en la que tienes que ser proactivo. No se trata de abrir una red social y esperar a que todo el mundo llegue, sino ir a buscarlos. ¿Cómo puedes hacerlo? Pones en el buscador de Twitter “restaurar muebles” y encuentras unos 800 tweets al día con esa temática. Lo que tienes que hacer es dialogar con esos usuarios. El objetivo concreto que te puedes marcar es hablar con 10 personas cada día: comenta lo que comparten, retuitéalo, responde a sus dudas… Es una buena estrategia para darte a conocer y que otros empiecen a ver que tu empresa tiene una afinidad con sus intereses. A esta función de dialogar con otros usuarios le puedes dedicar unos 20 minutos al día.

3. Crea listas

Plan Marketing Twitter listas

Con las listas puedes destacar a tu público y tener organizada a tu audiencia. Puedes crear, por ejemplo, las siguientes listas: mejores blogs de decoración, aficionados a la decoración y empresas del


CONTINUE READING AT: http://aulacm.com/plan-de-marketing-online-empresa/

4 great leadership lessons from the arts

by Kevin Daum @KevinJDaum

Math and science are noble endeavors, but real leadership is taught in the arts. Here are four powerful lessons taught best by artists.

The Tony Awards for Broadway Theater are Sunday night, showcasing artists across America. As much as people spend money for movies, television, theater and music, why do business experts continue to ignore the incredible leadership teachings that come from the arts?
Several years ago, I published a journal article called Entrepreneurs: The Artists of the Business World, after discovering through an anecdotal survey that more than 15 percent of the Entrepreneurs' Organization membership had arts backgrounds, compared to less than 5 percent who studied business. (As a member and theater arts grad I figured I couldn't be the only one.)  Since this elite organization requires applicants to show $1,000,000-plus revenue, its members must be doing something right. Below are four leadership lessons taught regularly in the arts.

1. Lead a Project from Start to Finish


Many B-school programs culminate study with the writing of business plans that rarely lead to funding or success. Meanwhile, performing arts students must create a concept from scratch, refine it so they can articulate a compelling vision, recruit skilled labor, and manage everyone to completion on time and on budget, since moving opening night is never an option. They also get to sell their product and collect immediate customer response in the form of ticket sales and applause. This process is completed by millions of students several times a year, all over the world.

2.  Manage Dynamic People Effectively


People like to describe artists as eccentric and strange, and many are. So imagine trying to manage an entire company of these weirdos. And yet somehow, unlike your company, these people happily and consistently deliver highly creative and effective product, even with strict time and resource constraints. And the work they deliver almost always considers a powerful customer experience as the primary objective. Most artists are drilled repeatedly on how to lead their artistic colleagues in a collaborative manner to achieve an effective experience. And despite the frequent presence of professional egos that would crush a Goldman Sachs exec, they learn how to bring all people forward together, or no art would ever be created.

3. Ensure Total Accountability


Let's say you are a stagehand in a simple community production of Hamlet. And you are given the job of placing the skull for the famous Yorick scene. The first time you forget, everyone in the production will chastise you. The second time you will be fired. And you will forever be known as the guy who screwed up the scene, or the violinist who went flat in Beethoven's Ninth, or the dancer who fell in the Nutcracker. Artists live and die by their dependability--yet non-artists consider them flaky and irresponsible! Artists develop in an environment where the production is only as good as its weakest participant. Individual performers with both big and small parts are inherently motivated to bring up the entire company rather than showboating personal performance like the sports players business people love to exalt. Even most stars in the arts know they shine best against a rich and unified background.

4. Implement Big Picture Thinking


From the day you take a role in a production, art project or film, you immediately understand that you are part of something much bigger than yourself. The size of your contribution only matters as far as it contributes to the quality and impact of the whole.  Artists willingly accept this approach as the entire success of output is dependent upon the merit of what they can deliver. Nepotism, longevity and cronyism may provide opportunity, but only true connection with the customer creates longevity. That forces all successful artists to submit their often-large egos to the service of the overall experience. Those who lead others collaboratively to do the same are rewarded with continued opportunity and success. Those who are selfish or stuck in their own vision are doomed to poverty and dissatisfaction.

You can gain these same lessons by engaging in the arts. Community theater, orchestras, galleries and dance companies are all amazing laboratories for creativity, communication and yes, leadership. People in the arts have these leadership concepts ingrained into them through repetitive, practical application. So if your engineers, sales people and managers are coming up short in these leadership areas, perhaps you should consider hiring a few theater, dance, art or music graduates to show them how it's done.

NOTE CREDIT: http://www.inc.com/kevin-daum/4-great-leadership-lessons-from-the-arts.html

The 10 most influencial entrepreneurs to follow on Twitter

by Samuel Edwards @samuel_quincy

If you're an entrepreneur, these are 10 influential successes that you need to follow on Twitter (in my opinion).

Twitter is much more than a place to interact with friends. It's also a booming platform for advancing your career. CEOs, hedge-fund managers, company presidents, and other successful entrepreneurs use Twitter constantly to share wisdom that young entrepreneurs can use to step up in their niches. Here are (in my opinion) the 10 most influential entrepreneurs (in no particular order) every business-savvy individual should be following on Twitter.

1. Melissa Stewart

Stewart is the founder of the blog She Owns It, which is devoted to helping women find their own success through the inspiring stories of others. According to the Twitter peer index, she ranks a high 67 for influencing others and has a grand total of 70.5K followers.

2. Steve Forbes

His grandfather founded the prestigious Forbes Magazine, which is one of the most influential and accredited sources for entrepreneurs today. He is the current CEO of Forbes, Inc., and has run unsuccessfully for the Republican presidential candidacy twice. As a savvy businessman and an aspiring politician, Forbes's peer index review hits 84 and he currently has 105K followers.

3. Kevin Rose

As a venture partner at Google Ventures and the co-founder of Digg, Rose is an important member of the Internet marketing society. He was named to MIT's Top 35 Innovators Under 35 list in 2007, and is still an inspiring young member of the business society today with 85 points in the peer review index and 1.56 million followers.

4. Anita Campbell

Another woman to reach the height of influence, Campbell is the CEO of Small Biz Trends, which is an online community for small business owners. Her 127K followers have discovered that she is the epitome of business professionalism and savvy entrepreneurial know-how.

5. Sir. Richard Branson

Branson is the chairman of Virgin Group, the vast international investment company worth billions. He currently has 5.33 million followers and a peer index rating of 90. He loves to tweet about his latest exploits in both business and recreation as one of the richest men in the United Kingdom.

6. Denis Crowley

As the co-founder and current CEO of Foursquare, Crowley has nearly 45,000 tweets to date with 77.7K followers and an influential approval rating of 83. He is constantly posting about handling day-to-day life as a savvy entrepreneur as well as his views on the evolution of social media.

7. Tim O'Reilly

O'Reilly is a Harvard graduate who is currently the CEO of O'Reilly Media, the American media giant that has made its way across the globe. With 1.91 million followers and 33.4K tweets to his name, O'Reilly is an excellent source for all things related to big business.

8. Steve Case

With a long record of entrepreneurial stewardship, Case is the former CEO of AOL and the current chairman of the Startup America Partnership. His tweets mostly aim to lift the next generation of visionaries who are seeking to make it big with their new business ideas. He has a peer rating of 85 and 727K followers.

9. Mark Cuban

You may know him as an investor on the ABC show Shark Tank, the owner of the Dallas Mavericks, or the CEO of HDNet, each of which has added to his impressive record of entrepreneurship. He loves to explore controversial topics through his Twitter page, including SEC lawsuits, marijuana use, and drug testing in sports. You can become one of his 2.83 million followers and add to his 87-point peer index rating to learn more about how this perceptive entrepreneur does it.

10. Rupert Murdoch

CEO of News Corp and 21st Century Fox, Murdoch has 507K followers to date. He's getting on in years, but his perception of business and the world around him hasn't faded one bit.
So, who do think you'll follow on Twitter? Whether you choose to follow just one of these savvy entrepreneurs or all of them, you'll certainly garner some valuable insight from your newsfeed in the future.

NOTE CREDIT: http://www.inc.com/samuel-edwards/the-10-most-influential-entrepreneurs-to-follow-on-twitter.html?cid=sf01001

16 STARTUP METRICS


We have the privilege of meeting with thousands of entrepreneurs every year, and in the course of those discussions are presented with all kinds of numbers, measures, and metrics that illustrate the promise and health of a particular company. Sometimes, however, the metrics may not be the best gauge of what’s actually happening in the business, or people may use different definitions of the same metric in a way that makes it hard to understand the health of the business.
So, while some of this may be obvious to many of you who live and breathe these metrics all day long, we compiled a list of the most common or confusing ones. Where appropriate, we tried to add some notes on why investors focus on those metrics. Ultimately, though, good metrics aren’t about raising money from VCs — they’re about running the business in a way where founders know how and why certain things are working (or not) … and can address or adjust accordingly.

Business and Financial Metrics


#1 Bookings vs. Revenue


A common mistake is to use bookings and revenue interchangeably, but they aren’t the same thing.
Bookings is the value of a contract between the company and the customer. It reflects a contractual obligation on the part of the customer to pay the company.
Revenue is recognized when the service is actually provided or ratably over the life of the subscription agreement. How and when revenue is recognized is governed by GAAP.
Letters of intent and verbal agreements are neither revenue nor bookings.

#2 Recurring Revenue vs. Total Revenue


Investors more highly value companies where the majority of total revenue comes from product revenue (vs. from services). Why? Services revenue is non-recurring, has much lower margins, and is less scalable. Product revenue is the what you generate from the sale of the software or product itself.
ARR (annual recurring revenue) is a measure of revenue components that are recurring in nature. It should exclude one-time (non-recurring) fees and professional service fees.
ARR per customer: Is this flat or growing? If you are upselling or cross-selling your customers, then it should be growing, which is a positive indicator for a healthy business.
MRR (monthly recurring revenue): Often, people will multiply one month’s all-in bookings by 12 to get to ARR. Common mistakes with this method include: (1) counting non-recurring fees such as hardware, setup, installation, professional services/ consulting agreements; (2) counting bookings (see #1).

#3 Gross Profit


While top-line bookings growth is super important, investors want to understand how profitable that revenue stream is. Gross profit provides that measure.
What’s included in gross profit may vary by company, but in general all costs associated with the manufacturing, delivery, and support of a product/service should be included.
So be prepared to break down what’s included in — and excluded — from that gross profit figure.

#4 Total Contract Value (TCV) vs. Annual Contract Value (ACV)


TCV (total contract value) is the total value of the contract, and can be shorter or longer in duration. Make sure TCV also includes the value from one-time charges, professional service fees, and recurring charges.

ACV (annual contract value), on the other hand, measures the value of the contract over a 12-month period. Questions to ask about ACV:

What is the size? Are you getting a few hundred dollars per month from your customers, or are you able to close large deals? Of course, this depends on the market you are targeting (SMB vs. mid-market vs. enterprise).

Is it growing (and especially not shrinking)? If it’s growing, it means customers are paying you more on average for your product over time. That implies either your product is fundamentally doing more (adding features and capabilities) to warrant that increase, or is delivering so much value customers (improved functionality over alternatives) that they are willing to pay more for it.
See also this post on ACV.

#5 LTV (Life Time Value)


Lifetime value is the present value of the future net profit from the customer over the duration of the relationship. It helps determine the long-term value of the customer and how much net value you generate per customer after accounting for customer acquisition costs (CAC).
A common mistake is to estimate the LTV as a present value of revenue or even gross margin of the customer instead of calculating it as net profit of the customer over the life of the relationship.
Reminder, here’s a way to calculate LTV:

Revenue per customer (per month) = average order value multiplied by the number of orders.
Contribution margin per customer (per month) = revenue from customer minus variable costs associated with a customer. Variable costs include selling, administrative and any operational costs associated with serving the customer.
Avg. life span of customer (in months) = 1 / by your monthly churn.
LTV = Contribution margin from customer multiplied by the average lifespan of customer.

Note, if you have only few months of data, the conservative way to measure LTV is to look at historical value to date. Rather than predicting average life span and estimating how the retention curves might look, we prefer to measure 12 month and 24 month LTV.
Another important calculation here is LTV as it contributes to margin. This is important because a revenue or gross margin LTV suggests a higher upper limit on what you can spend on customer acquisition. Contribution Margin LTV to CAC ratio is also a good measure to determine CAC payback and manage your advertising and marketing spend accordingly.
See also Bill Gurley on the “dangerous seductions” of the lifetime value formula.

#6 Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) vs. Revenue


In marketplace businesses, these are frequently used interchangeably. But GMV does not equal revenue!

GMV (gross merchandise volume) is the total sales dollar volume of merchandise transacting through the marketplace in a specific period. It’s the real top line, what the consumer side of the marketplace is spending. It is a useful measure of the size of the marketplace and can be useful as a “current run rate” measure based on annualizing the most recent month or quarter.

Revenue is the portion of GMV that the marketplace “takes”. Revenue consists of the various fees that the marketplace gets for providing its services; most typically these are transaction fees based on GMV successfully transacted on the marketplace, but can also include ad revenue, sponsorships, etc. These fees are usually a fraction of GMV.

#7 Unearned or Deferred Revenue … and Billings


In a SaaS business, this is the cash you collect at the time of the booking in advance of when the revenues will actually be realized.

As we’ve shared previously, SaaS companies only get to recognize revenue over the term of the deal as the service is delivered — even if a customer signs a huge up-front deal. So in most cases, that “booking” goes onto the balance sheet in a liability line item called deferred revenue. (Because the balance sheet has to “balance,” the corresponding entry on the assets side of the balance sheet is “cash” if the customer pre-paid for the service or “accounts receivable” if the company expects to bill for and receive it in the future). As the company starts to recognize revenue from the software as service, it reduces its deferred revenue balance and increases revenue: for a 24-month deal, as each month goes by deferred revenue drops by 1/24th and revenue increases by 1/24th.

A good proxy to measure the growth — and ultimately the health — of a SaaS company is to look at billings, which is calculated by taking the revenue in one quarter and adding the change in deferred revenue from the prior quarter to the current quarter. If a SaaS company is growing its bookings (whether through new business or upsells/renewals to existing customers), billings will increase.
Billings is a much better forward-looking indicator of the health of a SaaS company than simply looking at revenue because revenue understates the true value of the customer, which gets recognized ratably. But it’s also tricky because of the very nature of recurring revenue itself: A SaaS company could show stable revenue for a long time — just by working off its billings backlog — which would make the business seem healthier than it truly is. This is something we therefore watch out for when evaluating the unit economics of such businesses.

#8 CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost) … Blended vs. Paid, Organic vs. Inorganic


Customer acquisition cost or CAC should be the full cost of acquiring users, stated on a per user basis. Unfortunately, CAC metrics come in all shapes and sizes.

One common problem with CAC metrics is failing to include all the costs incurred in user acquisition such as referral fees, credits, or discounts. Another common problem is to calculate CAC as a “blended” cost (including users acquired organically) rather than isolating users acquired through “paid” marketing. While blended CAC [total acquisition cost / total new customers acquired across all channels] isn’t wrong, it doesn’t inform how well your paid campaigns are working and whether they’re profitable.

This is why investors consider paid CAC [total acquisition cost/ new customers acquired through paid marketing] to be more important than blended CAC in evaluating the viability of a business — it informs whether a company can scale up its user acquisition budget profitably. While an argument can be made in some cases that paid acquisition contributes to organic acquisition, one would need to demonstrate proof of that effect to put weight on blended CAC.

Many investors do like seeing both, however: the blended number as well as the CAC, broken out by paid/unpaid. We also like seeing the breakdown by dollars of paid customer acquisition channels: for example, how much does a paying customer cost if they were acquired via Facebook?
Counterintuitively, it turns out that costs typically go up as you try and reach a larger audience. So it might cost you $1 to acquire your first 1,000 users, $2 to acquire your next 10,000, and $5 to $10 to acquire your next 100,000. That’s why you can’t afford to ignore the metrics about volume of users acquired via each channel.

Product and Engagement Metrics

#9 Active Users


Different companies have almost unlimited definitions for what “active” means. Some charts don’t even define what that activity is, while others include inadvertent activity — such as having a high proportion of first-time users or accidental one-time users.
Be clear on how you define “active.”

#10 Month-on-month (MoM) growth


Often this measured as the simple average of monthly growth rates. But investors often prefer to measure it as CMGR (Compounded Monthly Growth Rate) since CMGR measures the periodic growth, especially for a marketplace.

Using CMGR [CMGR = (Latest Month/ First Month)^(1/# of Months) -1] also helps you benchmark growth rates with other companies. This would otherwise be difficult to compare due to volatility and other factors. The CMGR will be smaller than the simple average in a growing business.

#11 Churn


There’s all kinds of churn — dollar churn, customer churn, net dollar churn — and there are varying definitions for how churn is measured. For example, some companies measure it on a revenue basis annually, which blends upsells with churn.
Investors look at it the following way:

Monthly unit churn = lost customers/prior month total
Retention by cohort
Month 1 = 100% of installed base
Latest Month = % of original installed base that are still transacting
It is also important to differentiate between gross churn and net revenue churn —
Gross churn: MRR lost in a given month/MRR at the beginning of the month.
Net churn: (MRR lost minus MRR from upsells) in a given month/MRR at the beginning of the month.
The difference between the two is significant. Gross churn estimates the actual loss to the business, while net revenue churn understates the losses (as it blends upsells with absolute churn).

#12 Burn Rate


Burn rate is the rate at which cash is decreasing. Especially in early stage startups, it’s important to know and monitor burn rate as companies fail when they are running out of cash and don’t have enough time left to raise funds or reduce expenses. As a reminder, here’s a simple calculation:

Monthly cash burn = cash balance at the beginning of the year minus cash balance end of the year / 12

It’s also important to measure net burn vs. gross burn:

Net burn [revenues (including all incoming cash you have a high probability of receiving) – gross burn] is the true measure of amount of cash your company is burning every month.
Gross burn on the other hand only looks at your monthly expenses + any other cash outlays.
Investors tend to focus on net burn to understand how long the money you have left in the bank will last for you to run the company. They will also take into account the rate at which your revenues and expenses grow as monthly burn may not be a constant number.
See also Fred Wilson on burn rate.

#13 Downloads


Downloads (or number of apps delivered by distribution deals) are really just a vanity metric.
Investors want to see engagement, ideally expressed as cohort retention on metrics that matter for that business — for example, DAU (daily active users), MAU (monthly active users), photos shared, photos viewed, and so on.

Presenting Metrics Generally

#14 Cumulative Charts (vs. Growth Metrics)


Cumulative charts by definition always go up and to the right for any business that is showing any kind of activity. But they are not a valid measure of growth — they can go up-and-to-the-right even when a business is shrinking. Thus, the metric is not a useful indicator of a company’s health.
Investors like to look at monthly GMV, monthly revenue, or new users/customers per month to assess the growth in early stage businesses. Quarterly charts can be used for later-stage businesses or businesses with a lot of month-to-month volatility in metrics.

#15 Chart Tricks


There a number of such tricks, but a few common ones include not labeling the Y-axis; shrinking scale to exaggerate growth; and only presenting percentage gains without presenting the absolute numbers. (This last one is misleading since percentages can sound impressive off a small base, but are not an indicator of the future trajectory.)

#16 Order of Operations


It’s fine to present metrics in any order as you tell your story.

When initially evaluating businesses, investors often look at GMV, revenue, and bookings first because they’re an indicator of the size of the business. Once investors have a sense of the the size of the business, they’ll want to understand growth to see how well the company is performing. These basic metrics, if interesting, then compel us to look even further.

As one of our partners who recently had a baby observes here: It’s almost like doing a health check for your baby at the pediatrician’s office. Check weight and height, and then compare to previous estimates to make sure things look healthy before you go any deeper!

viernes, 25 de septiembre de 2015

Meet the 40 startups who’ve raised $925,000,000 in 8 months since Web Summit 2014

By Hugh Gallagher

Way back in 2011 Uber raised a famous round of funding in a Dublin pub during Web Summit. You can listen to that story in the words of two of Uber’s investors in the video above, or read more about our data driven approach to conferences in our words or the words of VentureBeat. In short, Web Summit has grown from 400 to 22,1000 attendees from 110 countries in just 4 years. We put that down to our very different and very data driven approach.

More importantly, below you can read about 40 startups following in Uber’s wake, all of whom exhibited as part of our ALPHA, BETA and START programs at Web Summit in November 2014. Over the last 6 months they’ve raised a staggering $925,000,000 in funding.

Some Highlights:


FreshDesk raised $50,000,000: We have a long relationship with FreshDesk. They joined us at Web Summit 2013, Collision 2014, Web Summit 2014 and are now an official partner for Web Summit & Collision 2015!

Glide raised $20,000,000: The Israeli video messaging platform recently announced their Apple Watch integration. They joined us in both 2013 & 2014 at Web Summit

Connect raised $10,000,000: Connect went above and beyond a normal early stage startup hosting a party during our Night Summit

Pley raised $10,000,000: Pley’s Lego subscription service was a massive hit at Web Summit. They’re no longer a tiny startup, and now their 27 person team will be joining us at Collision in 2015.
Apploi raised $7,000,000: – Apploi were runners up in our PITCH competition powered by Coca-Cola.

Xpreso raised $1,000,000: We love Xpreso – they’re part of the new breed of Irish startups!
Having joined us at Collision 2015 and fresh off a $18M round, Algolia will be featuring at our sister events EnterConf & RISE as well as Web Summit this year.

Other Rounds Raised:


HelloFresh – $126,000,000
Mapbox – $52,600,000
Silent Circle – $50,000,000
Localytics – $35,000,000
Spring – $25,000,000
Y Plan – $24,000,000
GetAround – $24,000,000
Mavenlink – $19,000,000
Algolia – $18,300,000
FalconSocial – $16,000,000
Similar Web – $15,000,000
Serviz – $12,000,000
Careem – $10,000,000
FullContact – $10,000,000
Playfab – $7,400,000
Zesty – $7,200,000
Jampp – $7,000,000
Vin.li – $6,000,000
FanDuel: $275M
Omaze: $9M
MailJet: $11M
Mnubo – $6,000,000
Gengo – $5,000,000
Webydo – $5,000,000
Sublime Skinz – $5,000,000
Gengo – $5,000,000
2lemetry – $4,000,000
Ivideon – $4,000,000
Cinemacraft – $3,900,000
Lootsie – $3,500,000
LaunchDarkly – $2,600,000
iAngels – $2,250,000
Signal – $1,800,000
Detectify – $1,700,000
Zervant – $1,500,000
Real Eyes – $1,500,000
Fitmo – $1,500,000
Airtame – $1,400,000
Chat Grape – $1,300,000
Tradiio – $975,000
Distil Networks – $21,000,000

A note on the investors who came to Web Summit

It’s great to see firms like Google Ventures, Accel, General Catalyst, 500 Startups and so many others we work with backing these fantastic entrepreneurs. We appreciate the support and time these funds and the more than 800 attending investors gave us at Web Summit in 2014; hosting office hours for startups and/or going on pub crawls with startups and/or speaking and giving advice or simply just showing up.

Finally, we’ve some useful pages explaining more about exhibiting as a startup or attending as an investor at Web Summit 2015.

See you all in November.

NOTE CREDIT: http://blog.websummit.net/6-months-506m/

10 Innovations In Tech That Are Making The World A Better Place

3D-printable prosthetics and irrigation robots? Welcome to the future. Check out all of the other incredible projects Intel is doing

1. 3D Cameras for the Visually Impaired


A backpack with a 3D camera hopes to allow the blind and visually impaired to gain a better awareness of their surroundings by alerting users to changes in their environment with non-invasive vibrations.

2. Helmet Sensors That Measure Head Injuries


 Sensor technology embedded in football helmets can be used to analyze impact data and gauge the severity of head injuries. These sensors can flag hazardous hits in real time to allow players to be treated quickly.

3. Communication Programs That Rely on Blinking


Steven Hawking communicates by using a program that scans a cursor over a keyboard on which he then selects keys and commands by blinking. Once this system is perfected, it’ll be released to the public for those suffering from similar diseases.

4. Idle Laptop Processing Power to Help Fight Cancer


Progress Thru Process allows you to lend a percentage of your laptop’s idle processing power to organizations that can use it to solve complex calculations devoted to HIV/AIDS, cancer, and influenza research.

5. Supercomputers That Help Prepare for Earthquakes


Scientists study earthquakes to learn how to prepare for the next disastrous quake. With the help of a supercomputer, scientists can mimic seismic movements, which helps inform architects how to design buildings that can survive devastating earthquakes.

6. Clips That Prevent Infants From Being Left in Cars


Every year in the United States, dozens of children die from heatstroke from being left in the car. This Smart Clip is attached to the baby’s clothing and sends an alert to the parent’s smartphones when they fall out of range from the clip.

7. Smart Helmets That Could Save Cyclists’ Lives


These smart helmets initiate an emergency call to a predetermined emergency contact upon the impact of an accident. The helmet also stores crash data in effort to assess if medical attention is needed.

8. Robots That Could Prevent Droughts


A high school in California developed a small-scale project using irrigation robots that monitor crops with moisture sensors and data collection. The larger-scale implications could help farmers save their crops during droughts.

9. Air Pollution Sensors That Measure Toxicity


Air pollution sensors are helping community members in Portland, Oregon fight high air pollution levels. Their efforts have sparked agreements with local factories to cut emissions in the area.

10. 3D-Printed Prosthetics in Sudan


A 14-year-old boy from Sudan named Daniel lost both of his hands to aerial bombing. Not Impossible Labs developed a way to create low-cost 3D limbs on demand which could help up to 50,000 other amputees within Sudan.