Traditional vs. Lean Startups
In traditional startup practice, a founder writes a lengthy business plan, pitches it to investors, assembles a team, builds out necessary infrastructure, and then works hard to sell his or her product. In the uncertainty and pace of the modern marketplace, startups operating in this way often struggle to keep up. According to research out of Harvard Business School, 75 percent of all venture-funded startups fail. Lean methodology, articulated mostly by Steve Blank and Eric Reis, seeks to help more startups succeed through a number of fundamental changes to the traditional model.
Lean
Continue reading Can Lean Startups Compete in Business Plan Competitions?
Whether you are planning to run a business plan, a business model, pitch or idea competition there is a couple of things I have noticed from hosting a couple of hundred competitions in the last two years that you may want to consider.
Don’t run a competition just to check a box for your organization. Business competitions are a wonderful way to provide experiential learning for your applicants. If you can’t put in the time and provide a clear benefit to those applicants, education, mentorship or capital, let them know about other competitions and help prepare them. In a recent
Continue reading Best Practices for Running a Business Competition
SiNode Systems won the Rice Business Plan Competition in Houston this past weekend. The Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship hosts the three-day competition, which boasts the largest judging panel and distributes the most prize money—more than $1 million—of any such competition in the world.
SiNode finished first amongst 42 other teams and presented to hundreds of judges throughout the three-day event to take home $911,000. SiNode Systems is a battery materials company developing silicon graphene anodes for the next generation of lithium-ion batteries. SiNode anodes offer 10X higher battery capacity and a 10X decrease in charging time compared with
Continue reading SiNode Wins Rice Business Plan Competition
It’s no secret that the Foundation thinks entrepreneurial activity benefits the economy. Working off this premise, we often promote policy changes that lower barriers to becoming an entrepreneur along the following (top) lines of logic. However, this series of events is far from obvious. Another outcome seems entirely plausible (bottom).
What do you think? Is more better?
Here is link to the post written by a colleague of mine here at the Kauffman Foundation.
There is no disputing the fact that women are still underrepresented in the much of the startup world, whether that be as Board Members, VCs or as founding members of the company. There is a “Women in Technology Study” being conducted by The Kauffman Foundation and Stanford University as a follow up to a previous study done by the Kauffman Foundation. That previous study shows that there are no real differences between male and female entrepreneurs, but, those of us that are out there on the streets everyday see a very different story. In fact we can see here at
Continue reading Women in Technology Study
There are many definitions for the word “startup.” However, a single group of seven words will hardly describe the journey a founding entrepreneur will embark upon during the establishment of his or her company. Business plan competitions are an exciting way to develop new relationships and earn funding. However the top benefit could be experiential learning.
Today, iStart explores the expedition of founder JJ Tang of Vantage Realized, Edson Accelerator winner.
iStart: Tell us about your company?
JJ: Just over a year ago, three friends came together with a mission to change the world for the better. Dana, father of
Continue reading Starting a Startup: A Founder’s Journey ft. JJ Tang of Vantage Realized
There are many definitions for the word “startup.” However, a single group of seven words will hardly describe the journey a founding entrepreneur will embark upon during the establishment of his or her company. Business plan competitions are an exciting way to develop new relationships and earn funding. However the top benefit is experiential learning.
Today, iStart Now explores the expedition of founder Brandon Iglesias of ReactWell, local winner of the 2012 Tulane Business Plan Competition.
iStart: Tell us about your company?
Brandon: ReactWell is a biomass to crude oil and bioproduct production platform
Why did you decided to start
Continue reading Starting a Startup: A Founder’s Journey – Featuring Brandon Iglesias of ReactWell
|
|
