Embarassingly Gushing Praise for TechCrunch And The New CrunchBase API

For those that are nauseated or otherwise troubled by gushing praise of tech blogs,please click away now. I will not be offended.

I’m an avid reader of the TechCrunch blog. In their own words,it’s a blog “dedicated to obsessively profiling and reviewing new Internet products and companies.” If you’re in the startup [...]

Startup Hiring:An Entrepreneur Disagrees With Entrepreneur Magazine

I recently came across an article in Entrepreneur magazine that talks about startup hiring mistakes. I don’t know Brad Sugars (the author),but he’s a columnist at Entrepreneur magazine and has written 14 books. Though I’m impressed by the fact that he’s a published author,I disagree with several points from the article. 

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WebInno18 Boston:Data Analysis of Startup Meetup Registrants

The popular Boston Web Innovators Group held in Cambridge,MA is coming up this Tuesday,July 15th 2008. Like the events before it,WebInno18 promises to be another great event. I plan to attend and might even experiment with Twitter Blogging it on my @OnStartups twitter profile. If you’re going to be there,send me [...]

We Love To Hate Microsoft But What About Apple?

The reasons so many people hate (or intensely dislike) Microsoft are plentiful and for the most part,pretty easy to understand. If you were to ask around,reasons cited would centralize around too much power,lack of innovation,stifling creativity,being “closed”and generally products that on average,fail to delight customers. If you’re [...]

Startup Advice from George Costanza:Do The Opposite

The Seinfeld fans out there will clearly recognize the reference to “the opposite”episode. Basically,George tries to change his life by going against his natural instincts and doing the exact opposite. [For the fanatics out there,I think this is Episode #86,aired May 19,1994.

Here are a couple of clips from [...]

20 Wrenches In The Software Startup Machinery

The following is a guest post.

I have had the misfortune of personally making every one of these mistakes during my years as a software entrepreneur. I am currently reviewing a startup that seems to be trying really,really hard to make all of them in one go. As a result,I decided [...]

Startup Business Strategy For The Simple-Minded

Here are the six simple steps for building a startup (in this case,a software startup).

1. Figure out what to build. You can do this by being brilliantly insightful (which you might be),or by just talking to some people. Ask them questions. Would you use this? Does this solve a problem? Would [...]

Taking The Leap:Don’t Just Be A Wannabepreneur

Chances are,if you’re reading this article,you are either involved in a startup already,or looking to be involved in one.

This article is for the folks in the latter category,the “wannabepreneurs”. The ones that have always wanted to be entrepreneurs,but haven’t quite gotten around to it. The folks still slogging [...]

7 Uncannily Obvious Lessons From A Product Launch

A few days ago,my startup HubSpot,launched a new app called Press Release Grader. It’s not our core product,but a free tool for marketers and PR folks to analyze a press release and provide suggestions.

The launch has gone exceptionally well for us (and by that,I mean,the uptake in [...]

Has The Bubble Burst? The Four Stages of Bubbleness

Don Dodge posted an interesting article recently on his blog titled “Web 2.0 = Bubble 2.0“.

The part that really caught my interest are the four “stages”of a bubble that he describes. Here’s a quick summary:

Stage 1:The smart money declares we are not in a bubble.

Stage 2:People agree [...]