Startups

Post Gazette: Pittsburgh Can’t Support Growing Tech Companies

Posted by Burgher Jon
/ July 15, 2010 / Leave a comment

I’ve had a couple questions on whether I saw the article in the Post-Gazette from Monday. Yes, I have. In the article P-G writer Erich Schwartzel paints a picture of a city that can spin up start-ups (he credits the universities and Innovation Works/AlphaLab for this, but then can’t hang...
Identifying Billion Dollar Companies on Their Way Up

Posted by Burgher Jon
/ July 12, 2010 / Leave a comment

That’s what $1 Billion Looks Like. Now, How to See it in a Company? I’m currently reading a book about the origins of Facebook (look for a review of it on this blog in the next couple weeks). It lays out some of the offers and financing that the company...
The Folks at Twitter Monetizing Specific Accounts

Posted by Burgher Jon
/ July 6, 2010 / 3 Comments

Twitter announced today that they will be monetizing in another new way. They have started the @earlybird account. This account, will (for a small price) tweet about the time bound deals your company is offering. The concept is pretty creative and should result in some serious revenue for Twitter, especially...
Can You Be In at 6:00 Tomorrow?

Posted by Burgher Jon
/ June 30, 2010 / 1 Comment

Image from Wikipedia I think you can tell a lot about a person by their response to the question, “can you be in at 6:00 tomorrow?” I don’t think the right answer is, “YES” or “NO”. I think there’s a thought process that responsible, hard-working people take to the process....
Taking Brick and Mortar to the Web

Posted by Burgher Jon
/ June 24, 2010 / Leave a comment

Note: If you’re from the South Hills of Pittsburgh you’re no doubt familiar with Rollier Hardware on Washington Road (if you’ve been in Pittsburgh a while you were familiar with it on McFarland Road too); but did you know the family run business has a multi-million dollar e-commerce site...
The Only Way to Ensure Renewable Profitability

Posted by Burgher Jon
/ June 23, 2010 / Leave a comment

Provide more value then you charge for. If this isn’t your motto then you won’t last long. I was reading Chris Dixon’s popular post last week about builders. He points out that there are two types of people in the startup world. People who are builders provide more value then...
A hometown lesson in marketing to a niche.

Posted by Burgher Jon
/ June 21, 2010 / Leave a comment

Market analysis is one of the most critical things any organization can do; small businesses and startups especially. Market analysis essentially involves the product of two critical numbers. First, the total size of the market. Second, the portion of that market that is practically attainable. This second number is the...
Hunch Gets The Value of “Signed” Data

Posted by Burgher Jon
/ June 15, 2010 / Leave a comment

MMOs are a good place for anonymity, message boards are not. The difference is that the first is recreation and the second is information. Information is too valuable a commodity to allow people to spread it anonymously. For an example take the 4Chan stunt where they rigged the voting in the Time...
Why Startups Exist & Google’s Disappointing Stance

Posted by Burgher Jon
/ June 12, 2010 / 2 Comments

I read a post this morning on TechCrunch that stuck out to me. It seems Google has a desktop client for Google Voice ready to ship, but they’re not moving it. They’re not shipping it because it violates an internal policy, “We don’t write desktop software.” Google instead prefers to...
On Public Funding of Private Start-ups

Posted by Burgher Jon
/ June 10, 2010 / 2 Comments

Audrey Watters at ReadWriteStart, a startup focused spin-off of the popular blog ReadWriteWeb, has created a post that asks the question, “Should City Governments Sponsor Seed Funds?” It’s an interesting question, a difficult one. The story focuses on an unpopular measure that provides for a $500,000 fund for Portland. _...