Posts Tagged: thoughts

Capesquared / Upstart — 2 Comments
5
Aug 10

The Value of Community or Power Through Distribution

Capesquared has had a busy summer working in the Syracuse Technology Garden’s Student Sandbox. Two-thirds of the Capesquared team has also relocated to California this summer, one to Los Angeles and one to San Francisco; both to take on full-time positions and bask in the sun on the Golden Coast. Also, the basking part is complete BS – it’s never sunny in San Francisco.

What we’ve learned though this process, however, is that the value of being able to connect to others who are in a similar position is huge. For us, this means meeting up with other entrepreneurs who are driven by the idea that they might be able to make the world a better place through their work. There is some strange exchange of energy that seems to happen when you get these type of people together in a room. It can be seen at events all across the world, including Austin, Texas‘ SXSW, at technology incubators like the Student Sandbox, YCombinator, or TechStars, and in the basements, garages, and backrooms where many of these ventures begin.

In that vein, Capesquared is actively pursuing a larger, more engaged (and engaging) entrepreneurial community. Stay tuned to this space to learn more about this project, and to become a part of it. We will be seeking active, bootstrapped, and profitable participants in the not-too-distant future to pool resources, talents, and abilities with the goal of making our world, and each other, better.

Onward, together.

-Capesquared

Capesquared — No Comments
11
May 10

Story Time

Anyone who knows me, knows that I love Google Reader. I also love the ease with which I can send articles I think someone might find interesting or pertinent. But my comments on the article are usually short, and a dialogue on the topic is rarely sustained.

So, recently, my partners at Capesquared and I instituted something we’re calling Story Time.

Story Time is a standing weekly meeting, based on the idea that the value of these articles is in reading and discussing, critiquing and applying, and that simply emailing them around fails to do this. These things must be discussed, in-person (or at least in real-time) to be truly worth the effort of reading and responding.

Story Time works like this:

  • Find ‘em, Send ‘em. Collect articles throughout the week, sending them as you find them.
  • Cutoff Times. Story Time articles must be submitted at least 24 hours prior to Story Time (i.e., if they don’t make the cutoff, they go to next week’s Story Time).
  • Rotating Curator. Someone makes a list of the articles that went out that week, and we move through them in the order they went out, oldest to newest. The curator changes weekly, to spread the work.
  • Time limits. Every article must be addressed, so the number of articles is divided by the amount of time of the meeting. We usually leave 15 minutes for the…
  • Bonus Round. Leave time at the end (10 or 15 minutes) to go back to the articles that were most interesting, or whose discussion got cut-off by the time limit.

So far, Story Time is working out great. It gives us a chance to discuss the happenings of the week, their relevance to our company, and also serves as a cornerstone of idea generation time. The reflections we’ve been able to generate even at this early stage have been more than worth the minimal amount of time it takes to stand up Story Time each week.

How do you deal with the daily deluge of digitally distributed discourse? If you don’t have any answer, maybe it’s Story Time.

Upstart — No Comments
9
Mar 10

Starting Up | Making Entrepreneurs

This is the first post in this week’s series: Starting Up from Capesquared partner Shay Colson’s blog.  This week will explore entrepreneurship in all its various forms with a focus on technology enabled (but not necessarily hi-tech) ventures.

As we begin this week’s look at entrepreneurship, I think it would appropriate to start with a great article last week from TechCrunch by Vivek Wadwha that asks the question “Can Entrepreneurs Be Made?”

According to the “traditional wisdom,” the answer is no:

Silicon Valley investors often have a picture in their heads of the type of person who is worthy of funding: young, brash, stubborn, and arrogant. They believe that successful entrepreneurs come from entrepreneurial families and that they start their entrepreneurial journey by selling lemonade while in grade school. Angel investor and entrepreneur, Jason Calacanis said as much in his recent talk to Penn State students. And after meeting Wharton students, VC Fred Wilson expressed shock when a professor told him that you could teach people to be entrepreneurs. Wilson wrote, “I’ve been working with entrepreneurs for almost 25 years now and it is ingrained in my mind that someone is either born an entrepreneur or is not.”

I agree that the answer is no – but I have a different theory about why.  You see, the problem is that the “traditional wisdom” comes from Venture Capital folks.  I’ve got some news for these people: the VC model is broken, out, and gone.  New entrepreneurs (entreps, for short) are looking for ways to get their messages, products, and services out without having to sell-out.

Motivation is a great starting point when it comes to learning about entreps.  What do you find?

We found that the majority didn’t have entrepreneurial parents. They didn’t even have entrepreneurial aspirations while going to school. They simply got tired of working for others, had a great idea they wanted to commercialize, or woke up one day with an urgent desire to build wealth before they retired. So they took the big leap.

The game has changed, due in large part because of the Internet – and I’m not talking about a new wave of “dot coms.”  What I’m talking about is a medium that allows your idea to spread, go viral, scale, and generally take you beyond your wildest dreams – provided your idea is solid.

That’s what the Kauffman foundation thinks, too.  They are

investing heavily in an ambitious new program called Kauffman Labs. This aims to dramatically increase the ability of small businesses to become big businesses. The Labs program is built around a novel idea: that highly motivated individuals with “scalable ideas” can be recruited to be entrepreneurs and to be made successful, by surrounding them with a network of other experienced entrepreneurs; sources of money; and mentors.

Today’s entreps are about the idea, about making an impact, and about peer success – not about VC dollars, dotcom dreams, or the things that people typically think about when they think about Internet entrepreneurs.  So what makes the difference?  Wadwha posits that

It is probably education, exposure to entrepreneurship, and networks that led these people to pursue the entrepreneurial path.

I think Wadwha is right.  Many people do not think about entrepreneurship as a viable path until much later in their lives, about the time they start feeling constrained by their job, realize they are smarter than their boss, and decide to put that great idea they had three years ago into action.

As we continue the series on Starting Up we’ll look at what it takes to go from idea to startup, some hurdles, and some enablers.

Stay tuned – this is exciting stuff!

Capesquared — No Comments
3
Mar 10

New Math: Business + Blog = ?

Inc. Magazine has a blog post about the challenges that companies face when trying to use a blog to promote themselves.  The short version: it doesn’t work.

At Capesquared, we’ve read the article, and we agree.  That’s why we’re going to continue the roll out of the Capesquared blog, but with a conscious focus about relevant content.

What would relevant content be?  Well, things that we’re about, but also things that you’re about.  We’re interested in technology and how technology works, but we’re also in how technology changes the way you work.  So, we might post an article about Work and the iGeneration.

We’re interested in design, both aesthetically pleasing and functional.  So, we might post an article about some really cool letter press business cards.

We’re interested in human-driven solutions, collaboration, and innovation.  So, we might post an article about WorldChanging.com – and how we don’t always agree with this approach.

Finally, we’ll talk about projects that we’re involved with – and there are a bunch in the pipeline.

In short, we envision this space to be a place where interesting topics are discussed, where conversations are generated, and where our work, interests, and clients can intersect.

Please keep an eye on this space.  As the blog, and the business, continue to grow, it’s going to be a great ride.  We’d love to have you be a part of it.