This past Wednesday, 20+ young entrepreneurs gathered across a 4-location telepresence, with one startup in each location pitching their concept and receiving feedback from the collected brainpower. The Startup Telepresence Roundtable at DC’s AT&T Innovation Center was a part of DC’s Social Media Week. The startups that participated included: E[nstitute] of New York, NY, a two-year…
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The #2 team in the conference is the Whitman Vikings, who played the conference-leading, defending state champion Churchill Bulldogs this past weekend. The two teams had played 4 weeks earlier in a hotly contested, down-to-the-wire game that ended with a late tie breaking goal for the Bulldogs. On that night, the undefeated Bulldogs handed the…
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Hi! I’m a recovering nice guy. I’m on the 3rd step of my 12 step program to get more direct and less nice. Thankfully, as an angel investor, I have lots of people helping me. Let’s start at the beginning. I have a full time job, and I donate much of my time in the…
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Did the allure of launching a startup make its way to your 2012 “this year I am going to finally do it” plan? Have you been putting together your business plan and feel the pulse of your entrepreneurial spirit quicken as you get closer to Day One of launching? Unfortunately along with the excitement of…
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If you are just starting a business or creating a new product line or service offering, I bet you’re struggling to come up with a name for it. That’s not surprising—good branding is hard work. It takes dedicated time, thoughtfulness, and research. Here are three sure-fire ways from an intellectual property perspective that can really…
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In the world, there are certain immutable physical laws. We all know them. You know, you’ve got your Newton’s Law of Gravity, your Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, Moore’s Law…and now there’s my Theorem of Agita and Angst. Newton – What goes up will come down Einstein – E = mc2 Moore – Computing performance will double every…
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I’m an entrepreneur, you’re an entrepreneur, we’re all entrepreneurs. We’re startup folks. We’re intuitive and fast moving. We listen to our gut, and our gut is always right. We don’t need structure, meetings, badges, or metrics…that’s for the big guys. I’m a hipster iGal/iGuy. I’m like the living, breathing, re-incarnation of Steve Jobs on steroids….
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It is said that time is money. This is particularly true for a for a cash-starved, resource-restricted, high-growth startup rocket. Yet typically, startup CEOs don’t have a grasp on the value of their time. So let’s do the math together. Let’s start by placing a value on your time. You are a hyper-driven CEO. You…
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I’m going to stop waiting till next year. I’m not waiting till next week, next month, next year. The next time I look at an item on my to-do list for the 2nd or 3rd time, instead of putting it off again for another indefinite future execution date that I won’t meet, I’m taking it…
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Five millions steps. Two thousand, one hundred and eighty one miles. Six months. This is what’s required of someone crazy enough to attempt thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail. It’s no surprise that roughly four in five people who attempt this feat ultimately fall short. Experienced backpackers, retired military, and endurance enthusiasts alike often fall into this…
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Stress happens. Take a look at these stats: Three out of every four American workers describe their work as stressful. Workplace stress costs U.S. employers an estimated $300 billion annually in absenteeism, lower productivity, medical insurance, and other health-related expenses. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that companies in the US lose $3 billion per…
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I’m going to go out on the limb and guess that you’ve probably heard someone complain about having “a case of the Mondays” already today. If not, pull up your Twitter feed, browse for 30 seconds, and then meet me back here. Okay, now you’ve seen someone complain about “having a case of the Mondays.” …
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Tech Cocktail is happy to share three keys to building a great financial model by guest author Taylor Davidson, creator of Excel template financial models for startups. Financial models are always wrong, but it’s important to create one anyway. Creating a financial model forces you to outline very specifically how your business “works”: how a company creates…
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The patent community and the Federal Circuit judges (the appellate judges who hear all appeals in patent cases) have been talking about revisiting the standard for interpreting patent claims for a long time. Currently, patent claim interpretation is a pure legal question. This means that the trial court can come up with a perfectly reasonable…
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“I’m not good enough.” “I need to be perfect.” “I need to be in control.” “I will avoid confrontation at all costs.” We all have them. They’re still there haunting us from our childhood nightmares. They are the boogeymen (or boogeypersons if you prefer) of our youth. They are self-limiting beliefs. We all have them,…
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Winners embrace the truth, while losers hide from it. It’s late November in Washington, and Redskins fans are performing the familiar ritual of writing off the current football season and waiting till next year… a ritual established in 1999 when current owner Daniel Snyder took over the once proud, winning football team. Mr. Snyder has…
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There are a number of startup accelerator and incubator programs in the United States. We are fans of these programs (not to be confused with... Read More
Two months after the iPad 2 debuted in March, around 40% of users surveyed said their iPad was their primary computer, up from around 30%... Read More
With our Startup Mixology Conference coming up next week followed by our classic Tech Cocktail DC Summer mixer which will showcase a handful of early-stage... Read More
Coming off of one of our biggest Tech Cocktail mixer events in Chicago this past week, which showcased 14 early-stage start-ups, we thought it would... Read More