Lesson #203: Top Startup Blogs and Bloggers

In case you are looking for more juicy how-to lessons for startup entrepreneurs, from some of the most-active startup bloggers, here is a list of some of the more widely-read online:

STARTUP BLOGS BY ENTREPRENEURS
Allens' Blog by Allen Morgan
cdixon Blog by Chris Dixon
Dan Martell by Dan Martell
Danielle Morrill by Danielle Morrill
David Cummings on Startups by David Cummings
500 Hats by Dave McClure
Gary Vaynerchuk by Gary Vaynerchuk
Grow Think by Dave Lavinsky and Jay Turo
How to Change the World by Guy Kawasaki
Joel.is by Joel Gascoigne
John Greathouse by John Greathouse
Justin Kan by Justin Kan
Kate Kendall by Kate Kendall
Noobpreneur by Ivan Widjaya
OnStartups by Dharmesh Shah
Quick Sprout by Neil Patel
Red Rocket Blog by George Deeb (yours truly)
Seth's Blog by Seth Godin
Startup Beat by Brian Kovalesky
Startup Blog by Steve Sammartino
Startup Bloggers by Avishai Sam Bitton
Startup CFO by Mark MacLeod
Startup Lawyer by Ryan Roberts
Startup Lessons Learned by Eric Ries
Startups and Burritos by Ethan Austin
Steve Blank by Steve Blank
The Growth Guy by Verne Harnish
The Naive Optimist by Ryan Carson
UP Global by Startup Weekend
Young Upstarts by Daniel Goh

STARTUP BLOGS BY VENTURE CAPITALISTS
A VC by Fred Wilson
Ask the VC by the Foundry Group Partners
Begin the Begin by Jeff Hilimire (obviously a fellow R.E.M. fan)
Ben's Blog by Ben Horowitz

Both Sides of the Table by Mark Suster

First Round Review by First Round Partners
Founder Institute by Founder Institute

STARTUPS BLOGS BY VENDORS
Buffer (social marketing)
Clarity (general advice)
Fresh Books (finance/accounting)
Good.co (human resources)
Hubspot (marketing)
Kiss Metrics (marketing)
MailChimp (email marketing)
Marketing Profs (marketing)
Moz (search marketing)
99U (creative design)
Shopify (ecommerce)
Unbounce (marketing)
Visually (marketing)

STARTUP SECTIONS OF MAGAZINES
Business Insider
Entrepreneur (I am a contributor)
Forbes (I am a contributor)
Inc.
New York Times Startup Strategies
Small Biz Daily
Start Your Business
Startup Nation
Tech Cocktail
Tech Crunch
Technori
The Next Web (I am a contributor)
The Startup Magazine
The Upstart
Venture Beat
WSJ Accelerators (I am a contributor)
WSJ Digital (formerly All Things Digital)
YFS Magazine

And be sure to check out the many others listed in the Top 100 Startup Blogs at Blog Rank and in the startup blog feeds at Alltop.  And, the list goes on and on.  But, this should be a good place to start.  If you think I am missing any good ones, please add them in the comments section.

For future posts, please follow me on Twitter at: @georgedeeb.

Does Age Matter for Entrepreneurship?

For years, people have tried to correlate an entrepreneur’s age when they launched their startup, with the ultimate success of that startup.  Many studies have been done on the topic, including reports by the Kauffman Foundation, Duke University and the Founder Institute, to name a few.  So, I am not going to try and rehash those studies.  But, the collective summary of their learnings was the average entrepreneur is 40 years old when they launch their startup, and people over 55 are twice as likely as people under 35 to launch a high-growth startup.  The average age of a successful startup with over $1MM in revenues was 39.  It was determined age was less of a driver to entrepreneurial success than previous startup and industry experience.

Read the rest of this post in Forbes, which I guest authored this week.

For future posts, please follow me on Twitter at: @georgedeeb.

How to Screen VC's for Your Startup

I have extensively written on what venture capitalists are looking for in startups (see my definitive checklist for startup success), to increase your odds VC’s will be interested in funding your business. But, what about the inverse?  What do VC’s need to offer you, before deciding to take their capital? It is perfectly acceptable to interview them, at the same time they are interviewing you. Below is the definitive checklist of questions you need to ask VC’s before accepting their money:

Read the rest of this post in The Next Web, which I guest authored this week.

For future posts, please follow me on Twitter at: @georgedeeb.

Five Sales Pitfalls That Could Hurt You Long-Term

As a serial entrepreneur and growth consultant at Red Rocket, I have encountered hundreds of companies and some of the common pitfalls they run into related to sales. I've seen the impact those pitfalls have on effectively growing these businesses long term. Below are five pitfalls I see that commonly challenge entrepreneurs when they chase near-term revenues. These are pitfalls that often create long-term hurdles for these business down the road.

Read the rest of this post in Entrepreneur, which I guest authored this week.

For future posts, please follow me on Twitter at: @georgedeeb.

How to Filter Conflicting Advice from Multiple Mentors

I am a mentor for the Chicago chapter of Techstars, now in my fourth year. In the first month of the program, the member companies are immersed with mentorship from the 150 Techstars mentors that are part of the local program. And, the consistent question I get, year after year, from the member companies is: “I am getting conflicting advice from the multiple mentors, and it is confusing me, as they are all smart people, and I am not sure who to listen to?”. Hopefully, this post will help you cut through the confusion and let you know which mentor you should listen to the loudest.

Read the rest of this post in Forbes, which I guest authored this week.

For future posts, please follow me on Twitter at: @georgedeeb.

Big Companies That Embrace Intrapreneurship Will Thrive

It has been well-documented that big companies typically struggle with innovation. Once companies get to a certain size, their investors become more conservative, their leaders less entrepreneurial and their employees less willing to stick their necks out with “out-of-the-box” ideas that may not work out, resulting in them losing their jobs. Without innovation, companies get too “comfortable” with their past successes, and eventually go out of business (see Woolworth, Montgomery Ward, Borders, Blockbuster, American Motors, Pan Am).

Although that is largely the rule, there are several examples where entrepreneurship inside a large organization can and does prosper. This is the world of intrapreneurship, a term popularized by academic researcher Howard Edward Haller, management consultant Gifford Pinchot III and the great Steve Jobs back in the early-to-mid 1980s.

Read the rest of this post in Entrepreneur, which I guest authored this week.

For future posts, please follow me on Twitter at: @georgedeeb.