Fear is the fox in the hen house on the innovation farm. Fear is the mortal enemy of innovation, because when a culture punishes failure, its people work toward maintaining the status quo, and no headway is made. Embracing failure is not necessary, but tolerating its risk outside of your core business lines is essential…
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DotLoop was an idea born of frustration – a frustration that millions of people, including co-founder Austin Allison, have experienced. What is this obstruction just begging to be simplified via web technology? The paper-heavy real estate transaction. If you’ve ever bought or sold a house, you know the amount of coordination involved in the transaction;…
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This post was written by guest blogger Adelaide Lancaster. I know what you might be saying to yourselves, “Are you crazy? Not grow my business? Isn’t that the point? How else will I be successful?” I hear you, but before you dismiss the choice not to grow, take a minute to think about your goals….
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Learning a new language may have just gotten a little more social. Washington, DC-based startup PlaySay just launched its social foreign language learning application on Facebook. The PlaySay Facebook app uses pictures (leveraged from Flickr’s creative commons images) that can be dragged and dropped across the interface to construct and learn words and phrases. Once…
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If leaders could only see ourselves through the eyes of others, we might understand why a recent Conference Board study found that less than 1/2 of US workers are happy with their jobs. It’s easy to see the faults of others and difficult to confront our own. So here’s a list of 10 signs that you…
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I hate to cut the lawn, so I don’t do it. Here’s why: I spend a couple of hours and the lawn looks great for a day or two. Yet in a week, I know I’m going to get out there again, sweat my butt off with the gnats, mosquitos and my lawn mower. It’s…
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Entrepreneur Cory Kidd finished a PhD at MIT, so Boston was an obvious choice for starting a company. He also thought about moving to Silicon Valley, but this Louisiana-born American decided to cross the globe to start up in Hong Kong – and he’s not the only one. “We took our company a lot further…
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Living the startup life can be exhilarating , yet exhausting, as entrepreneurs are often faced with more items on their “To-Do List” than hours in the day. Just finding trusted resources and making the connections you need can be a full-time job. Foster.ly is helping Washington, DC-area entrepreneurs by corralling the information they’re looking for…
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Co-working is not a new thing, it’s been a trend we have been watching for quite sometime and many people do it everyday across the country. On Thursday, September 1, Study Hall DC (SHDC) made its debut in DC. SHDC is a collaborative co-working session focused on enhancing community between its entrepreneurial minded members (not all of whom…
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BootHK is a coworking space for tech startups located in the Wan Chai district of Hong Kong. To get there, you head up to the 19th floor of an office building, and the elevator opens right onto the glass door of their office. The space has a long conference table, makeshift offices, and an unfinished…
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Chicago’s tech conference landscape continues to grow, and SocialDevCamp Chicago continues to deliver year after year. Despite presentations from well-known sponsors and keynotes from best-selling authors and technology visionaries, the session that delivered the biggest punch at this year’s conference was the one on failure. The “lessons learned” and the stories of mistakes made by…
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It is my first time in Detroit, and I am riding shotgun down the main drag that is Woodward Avenue with a long-enough-to-keep-safe lens equipped camera in hand. Glide down one street akin to Park Avenue, make a sharp right turn and find yourself smack in the middle of an episode of TheWire. I was…
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As an entrepreneur, it is inevitable that you will have to manage people as your startup grows. For some people, management comes easy. For others, not so much. But when your startup is growing – especially if it’s growing quickly – finding and retaining really good people is absolutely critical to your company’s success. You’re…
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Ladies, we may be unwitting victims of a red-shoe war. That’s because a dude judge recently told Christian Louboutin that he doesn’t think that those hot red-soled shoes are worthy of trademark protection. This lacquered red color alone may be protectable as a trademark if it has become distinctive in the high-fashion shoe industry for…
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If your startup is in the financial tech or services space, hopefully you had a chance to enter the 2011 Innotribe $100K Start-Up Challenge (deadline was August 14). If you’re not familiar with it, this is a great opportunity for startups in banking, payments, securities, trading, social media, big data, security, identity, mobile, small business…
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Editor’s Note: This guest post is a three-part series on angel investing – Part I introduces angels and angel groups, Part II focuses on the due diligence process and the post-investment relationship, and Part III breaks down angel investing for entrepreneurs. The majority of content for these articles was gathered from a conference on angel…
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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
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
We are excited to announce the participating startups for Tech Cocktail's South by Southwest (SXSW) event: #Startuplife Celebration presented by .CO. It was one of... 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