Steve Woda's blog

links for 2009-06-30

• Google Voice: 5 Reasons to Use It, 5 Reasons to Think Twice
  After weeks of anticipation, Google is finally accepting a limited number of new users into its Google Voice phone system. Google Voice allows you to unite all of your phones under a single number and then use a powerful set of controls to determine how calls are handled. It packs plenty of other impressive functionality, too, including voicemail-to-text transcribing and advanced call-screening. (Check out PC World's review of Google Voice) At the same time, though, adopting Google Voice as your communications commander introduces some potential negatives, ranging from privacy-related concerns to questions about reliability. Here's a breakdown of five pros and five cons to help you determine whether the service is right for you.
  (tags: google voice)

links for 2009-06-29

• Adobe's New Tools for Web Apps
  Users can preview two new Adobe products, Flash Catalyst and Flash Builder 4, starting today. Both programs aim to simplify the process of designing Web applications. Catalyst, which has never before been released to the public, is aimed at designers. Built to resemble Illustrator and other Adobe products, Catalyst allows a nonprogrammer to design working interfaces for Web applications. Builder, which updates a previous product called Flex Builder, is aimed at developers. Specifically, it's a tool for developers building Internet applications, and Adobe says that it has been improved to better handle data and to work easily with Catalyst.
  (tags: adobe Web design development)

links for 2009-06-28

• Nokia Launches Answer To Apple's App Store
  Nokia (NYSE: NOK)'s answer to Apple's App Store rolled out to a bumpy start, as the company's debut of the Ovi Store was plagued with problems. The over-the-air mobile content store was launched late Monday night, and users reported issues such as problems signing into their accounts, lack of applications, and overall sluggishness.
  (tags: nokia symbian mobile apps)
• Palm's WebOS SDK Not Coming For Months
  Despite its use of HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and other standard Web coding, developers still need the tools from Palm in order to create official apps that can take advantage of the hardware. Developers looking to create applications for the Palm Pre will have to wait awhile, as Palm said its software development kit likely won't be available until the end of summer. Palm intentionally built its webOS operating system to be developer-friendly, as it enables content makers to create mobile apps using HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and other standard Web coding. But these developers still need an SDK in order to create official apps that can take advantage of the hardware. "We've been working very hard on the SDK and are eager to open access on a wider scale, but the software and the developer services to support it just aren't ready yet," Palm wrote on its developer blog. "Our goal is to make the SDK available to everyone by the end of summer."
  (tags: palm pre webos mobile apps)

links for 2009-06-27

• Icann Hires Former Cybersecurity Chief as New C.E.O. - NYTimes.com
  The Internet agency with key oversight of the monikers behind every Web site, e-mail address and Twitter post named former U.S. cybersecurity chief Rod Beckstrom Friday as its next chief executive. The board of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers approved his hiring in a voice vote Friday as ICANN capped weeklong meetings in Sydney, Australia. Beckstrom becomes CEO next Wednesday. Beckstrom, who had resigned after less than a year as cybersecurity director amid persistent turf battles, brings credentials in industry, government and diplomacy -- but little direct experience with domain names and broader Internet addressing issues, ICANN's chief mission.
  (tags: domains icann)
• Corporate Creation Myths, and Why We Need Them
  Why do Americans need to attach creation myths to everything, including the origins of our most visible business ventures? We idealize the lone inventor over the company man, the garage over the office space. We tell the story of Apple Computer not as that of two former Atari and Hewlett-Packard employees launching their own product, but two starry-eyed inventors in a garage, building a dream from scratch.
  (tags: PR Entrepreneurship myths)

links for 2009-06-26

• ATT Tolerates iPhone Tethering Technique
  When Apple unveiled its iPhone 3GS earlier this month, AT&T was noticeably absent from the list of providers that would provide tethering capabilities for the smartphone. AT&T has since said that the technology, which allows users to connect their iPhones to a laptop and use the phone's network to connect to the Web, will eventually be available. But what if you want it right now? Austrian blogger Benjamin Miller has posted a tethering workaround for the iPhone that will reportedly allow you to use the device to connect to the Web either via USB or Bluetooth.
  (tags: att apple iphone tethering app)

links for 2009-06-25

• Just Another Online Fad--or the Biggest Revolution Since the Internet?
  According to its advocates, cloud computing is poised to succeed where so many other attempts to deliver on-demand computing to anyone with a network connection have failed. Some skepticism is warranted. The history of the computer industry is littered with the remains of previous aspirants to this holy grail, from the time-sharing utilities envisioned in the 1960s and 1970s to the network computers of the 1990s (simple computers acting as graphical clients for software running on central servers) to the commercial grid systems of more recent years (aimed at turning clusters of servers into high-­performance computers). But cloud computing draws strength from forces that could propel it beyond the ranks of the also-rans.
  (tags: Cloud)
• Is America Losing The Social Networking War?
  While Twitter and YouTube have proven strategic for election protesters in Iran, the US Defense Department is "way behind the power curve" on social networking, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said last week. Military leaders need to get on Facebook and other social networking sites themselves, to learn how they're used firsthand. “How do we communicate better with [young people]?” Gates asked. “How do we get reactions from them to things that we're doing? How do we get better plugged in with what they're thinking?” The answer to those questions, in Gates’ view, is to harness social media to enable DOD reach out to the world.
  (tags: social networking government)

links for 2009-06-24

• Google Offering 'Gmail Ninja' Lessons
  Google (NSDQ: GOOG) wants you to be able to take on Uma Thurman (a.k.a., The Bride from the "Kill Bill" movies) -- and win. At least, as far as cleaning up your Gmail inbox is concerned. Starting today, Google has published a tutorial called "Become a Gmail Ninja." The goal? To become a master in the art of Nin-Gmail-su.

  Someone over at Google is putting his/her 20% time to creative use. The Gmail Ninja guide is a collection of tips and tricks that can be used to save time, increase productivity and better manage email. Gmail organizes the lessons by how many emails you receive in a given day.

  The breakdown goes something like this.

  
  
  (tags: google gmail)
  
  

links for 2009-06-23

• Free Microsoft Antivirus, Security Suite Arrives Tomorrow
  Tuesday is the day for release of the free public beta of Microsoft Security Essentials, Microsoft's security and anti-virus suite. The price is certainly right. Question is, will the program change the security landscape? Bigger questions is whether or not it provides the security your business needs. The new security and anti-virus suite, Microsoft Security Essentials, formerly known as Morro will be available for public download tomorrow. Assuming Microsoft's servers survive the demand, this beta, which replaces Microsoft OneCare (which wasn't free), should answer questions about the program's anti-virus and general security viability pretty quickly. It's hard to imagine that that this won't be one of the largest beta tests ever, with plenty of the testers being small and midsized businesses and their employees.
  (tags: microsoft Security)

links for 2009-06-21

• Kleiner’s iFund May Exceed Its $100M Cap For Mobile Apps
  Despite the skepticism of some in the investment community, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers is still a big believer that a single application for handheld phones – be it a game, a utility, a social network or a productivity app – can be grown into a venture-scale business. In fact, the venture firm known for being the most bullish on the prospects for independent developers may one day lift the $100 million cap on its year-old fund devoted to backing them, the iFund. “We will exceed that cap,” said Matt Murphy, the Kleiner partner who oversees the iFund, to a room full of eager – if still unknown – app developers at the business school of Stanford University on Tuesday.
  (tags: mobile vc)
• Adobe Insists Flash Will Survive HTML 5
  At Google (NSDQ: GOOG)'s developer conference last month, VP of engineering Vic Gundotra declared that "the Web has won" and suggested that emerging open Web standards such as HTML 5 have become the preferred platform to create Web applications, even graphically rich ones. Adobe (NSDQ: ADBE) begs to differ. Its Flash platform remains the de facto standard for rich Internet applications, and the company would be happy for that situation to continue. To make sure that happens, some from Adobe are expressing doubts about HTML 5.
  (tags: adobe)

links for 2009-06-20

• Do Venture Capitalists and Angel Investors Who Use Twitter Invest More in Startups?
  Being the technology-savvy group that they are, it is not surprising to find that many venture capitalists and angel investors are on Twitter. In fact, many of them are quite active and have attracted fairly large followings putting them in the upper echelons of Twitter users. So we wondered whether all activity on Twitter by venture capitalists and angel investors translates into or at the very least correlates with them making more investments in startups? As our analysis below reveals, we applied many tests to see if there was any pattern/correlation, but the end result, perhaps not surprisingly, is that one doesn’t exist. Irrespective of the test, there was no correlation between any metric measuring Twitter activity and investment levels by VCs and angels. But in our examination, we did uncover a select group of investors on Twitter who we’d classify as Rockstars (9 firms) or Unsung Heroes (14 firms) based on their 2009 startup funding and Twitter activity.
  (tags: vc)

links for 2009-06-19

• BlackBerry maker Research in Motion dominates Apple and Palm
  Apple's iPhone 3GS and Palm's Pre has captured a lot of hype but don't count out Research in Motion's BlackBerry just yet, say experts. "The buzz about other signature devices can make people overlook RIM's success," said Ryan Reith, senior research analyst at IDC. While the iPhone enjoyed an initial pop in market share after the second generation version was released last July, that share has been nearly cut in half. In the first quarter of this year, BlackBerrys had a 55.3% share, compared to 19.5% for iPhones, according to IDC data.
  (tags: rim blackberry iphone pre mobile)

links for 2009-06-18

• T-Mobile Soon Launching Second Android Phone
  T-Mobile is prepping to announce its second Android handset next week, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal that cites unnamed sources. The fourth-largest U.S. carrier did not confirm the report, but has already said it would have Android-related announcements over the summer. The report said the next Android smartphone will be the HTC Magic, but it will be rebranded as the myTouch 3G. The handset is expected to go on sale this summer.
  (tags: google Android tmobile mobile)
• 22 contestants text while running and blindfolded for cash
  Next time you ask your teen to “stop texting,” you may want to think twice. Your teenager may be gearing up for the National Texting Championship – and the fat check that’s bestowed upon the winner. In New York yesterday, 22 contestants, 22 years old or younger, stretched their thumbs and prepared to test their texting dexterity at the third LG US National Texting Championship. The contest was sponsored by the mobile-phones division of LG Electronics, based in Seoul, South Korea. The 22 finalists, plucked from 250,000 eager texters, competed against each other over two days. Some of the challenges consisted of texting while blindfolded (a Harris Interactive Study reported that 42 percent of teens say they can text blindfolded) and texting while walking on a treadmill.
  (tags: mobile texting)

links for 2009-06-17

• Email – The Original Social Graph
  I’ve been an Internet email user since early 1984 when I got my first Project Athena account as an undergraduate at MIT. Notwithstanding all the “email is dead” messages over the years, I continue to use email as my primary online communication mechanism. There are an enormous number of things that frustrate me about email, most notably the lack of fundamental innovation in email clients and servers. That said, as a messaging tool – it still dominates for me. Several years ago I started saying that “my social graph is in email.” I found it interesting that Facebook and LinkedIn used email as a primary messaging layer to remind me to come back to Facebook and LinkedIn respectively to check what was going on. This signaled confirmation to me that these systems were making sure they were using the most persistent messaging layer to build and reinforce their social graphs.
  (tags: email)
• Online Reputation Service Launches for Twitter Users
  Lots of services try and rate the reputation of online users, particularly in the world of online commerce. So it's not surprising that attention is being paid to rating users in the social networking space. Enter TweetGrade. Purewire Inc. launched TweetGrade last week, calling it the authority in online user reputation on Twitter. "TweetGrade provides a quantitative assessment of a user's reach and influence in the Twitter community, and it helps people understand a user's online reputation, legitimacy and safety." The company pointed to some of the scams encountered on the micro-blogging site as evidence that its service is necessary, such as a "Best Video" scam. "Attacks such as this make it imperative to know the reputation of those people with whom you interact online. TweetGrade assures this trust by providing evidence of Twitter account legitimacy, protecting users from malicious or illegitimate accounts that attempt to send spam or spread malware."
  (tags: tweetgrade Twitter)

links for 2009-06-16

• Facebook Users Rush for Personalized Vanities - ABC News
  Competition on Facebook was fierce late Friday night, as scores of users scrambled to personalize their Facebook pages in what many have likened to a virtual land rush. It's a land rush Friday night for personal domain names. At exactly 12:01 a.m. ET Saturday, on a first-come, first-served basis, the vast social networking site gave users the green light to claim variations of their names or other nicknames of their choosing. Within three minutes, 200,000 usernames were registered, according to the social media blog Mashable, which covered the registration process live from Facebook's headquarters Friday night.
  (tags: facebook)
• ATT: iPhone MMS Feature To Come 'At No Extra Cost'
  Anyone worried that AT&T (NYSE: T) was going to charge a price premium for the ability to send picture and/or video messages can breath easy. AT&T recently noted that it won't charge more to add the feature. As far as I am concerned, AT&T had zero wiggle room here. Every other carrier offers unlimited messaging -- which typically includes text, picture, video and instant messaging -- for $20 per month. iPhone users who have unlimited messaging plans today are already paying $20 per month -- just for text messages.
  (tags: att apple iphone mobile)

links for 2009-06-15

• iPhone Hackers Get a Break
  In March, the organizers of a computer-security conference called CanSecWest challenged attendees to break into any one of five smart phones, among them Apple's popular iPhone. The perceived difficulty of the task--especially breaking into the iPhone--meant that few researchers made any attempt to hack the devices, and none succeeded. Now two researchers hope to make things considerably easier for would-be iPhone hackers. Next month, Charles Miller, a principal analyst at Independent Security Evaluators, and Vincenzo Iozzo, a student at the University of Milan, in Italy, will present a way to run nonapproved code on Apple's mobile device at the Black Hat Security Conference, in Las Vegas.
  (tags: iphone Security)
• Ten Commandments from Entrepreneurial 'Evangelist' Guy Kawasaki
  When Guy Kawasaki talks about business innovation, as he did recently at a University of Pennsylvania technology conference, he brings more than 25 years of major-league experience to the conversation -- a background that the good-humored investor and entrepreneur calls "my checkered past." After getting a psychology degree at Stanford and an MBA at UCLA, the Hawaii-born Kawasaki became the second software "evangelist" at Apple Computer, where his job from 1983 to 1987 was to convince people to create software for the Macintosh. Kawasaki fondly recalls his colleagues at Apple as visionary, driven and "arguably the greatest collection of egomaniacs in the history of California -- though the record has subsequently been broken by Google."
  (tags: Entrepreneurship marketing pitch Product)

links for 2009-06-13

• The Hidden Secrets of Online Quizzes
  I am a genius. I'm charismatic, kind and understanding. I'm also a Disney princess named Aurora and the reincarnation of Marilyn Monroe. But I'm not crazy (at least, not completely). I've just been taking a lot of online quizzes lately -- you know, the ones all over the Web promising to reveal your IQ, personality traits or celebrity resemblances. Aside from discovering my inner Sleeping Beauty, I've also learned something important: These quizzes are about far more than providing users with enlightening or entertaining information.
  (tags: marketing)
• Apple unveils new, faster iPhone 3GS
  Apple Inc. announced a new version of its popular iPhone on Monday, upping the stakes in the fast-growing market for smart phone devices. The new iPhone was the highlight of Apple's annual gathering of developers in San Francisco, in which company also cut the price of its current iPhone 3G to $99 and debuted a revamped line of MacBook Pro notebook PCs. Also, Apple showcased major software updates that include new operating systems for both its computer line as well as existing iPhones. Shares of Apple /quotes/comstock/15*!aapl/quotes/nls/aapl (AAPL 136.79, -0.18, -0.13%) ended the day down by 82 cents to close at $143.85. The stock has surged by more than 60% over the last three months.
  (tags: apple iphone)

Hanging in my hood... Arlington, Virginia

I live and work in Arlington, Virginia, and as this hilarious video points out, it is the toughest town West of the Potomac and East of the Beltway.

The funniest part of the video for me was that I was sitting in a Starbucks wearing my brown flip flops when I first watched it.  Check out this video if you want to understand the inside humor here.  :)

links for 2009-06-12

• What are the most dangerous search terms on the Internet?
  If you like to search for "music lyrics" or "free" things, you are engaging in risky cyber behavior. And "free music downloads" puts 20 percent of Web surfers in harm's way of malicious software, known as "malware." A new research report by U.S.-based antivirus software company McAfee has identified the most dangerous Internet search words that place users on pages with a higher likelihood of cyber attacks. The study examined 2,600 popular keywords on five major search engines -- Google, Yahoo, Live, AOL and Ask -- and analyzed 413,000 Web pages.
  (tags: Security)
• Study: Internet economy has created 1.2M jobs
  As the automobile industry sheds jobs, it comes as good news that over the last decade or so the Internet has created 1.2 million jobs, many paying higher salaries than average, a new study finds. Internet business contributes 2.1%, or $300 billion, to the total GDP (gross domestic product) of the U.S. And IT and related online business may be faring better in this recession than they did in the dotcom bubble of 2000-2002, still growing revenue but at slower pace. Consumers are now making 10% of their retail purchases online, with the exception of groceries, on the Internet, and Internet-based advertising has increased four-fold since 2002 to more than $20 billion, said John Deighton, a professor of business administration at Harvard Business School, and one of the authors of the study along with Hamilton Consultants Inc.
  (tags: economy internet)

links for 2009-06-11

• How To: Getting Started with Amazon EC2
  Amazon EC2 is among the more potent items in Amazon’s web services arsenal. You’ve probably heard of many of the other services such as S3 for storage and FPS for payments. EC2 is all about the “elastic compute cloud.” In layman’s terms, it’s a server. In slightly less layman’s terms, EC2 lets you easily run and manage many instances (like servers) and given the proper software and configurations, have a scalable platform for your web application, outsource resource-intensive tasks to EC2 or for whatever you would use a server farm. There are three different sizes of EC2 instances you can summon and they’re all probably more powerful than the server currently running your blog. Unless you’re offloading video processing or something intense to EC2, the default small instance with its 1.7GB of RAM and 160GB disk should be more than fine. It’s just nice to know that if for any reason I need a farm of machines each with 15GB of RAM, I can get that easily.
  (tags: amazon ec2 Cloud)
• "Compensation Czar"?... Completely ridiculous!!! "White House to Propose New Rules for Executive Compensation" - washingtonpost.com
  The Obama administration is set to announce today two proposals that would empower shareholders and the Securities and Exchange Commission to have more oversight over executive compensation at all publicly traded firms, government sources said. The measures would require legislation, which is expected to be sent to Capitol Hill soon, one of the sources said. Under a so-called "say-on-pay" plan, shareholders would have a greater voice over what top earners at firms are paid. A second proposal aims to provide company compensation committees more independence as they determine what executives should make.
  (tags: Politics)

links for 2009-06-09

• Official news on the new iPhone 3G S
  Here it is, kiddies: the latest iPhone. Just one year after Apple announced the iPhone 3G, the iPhone 3G S has been announced. There is much to love in this update including larger storage options, a faster CPU, HSDPA support and a better camera all for the same price as the current set.

  The OS should now run faster thanks to a 50% bump in CPU speed; it now runs at 600MHz. The system memory has doubled to 256MB as well.

  Apple didn’t forget about the camera - well, sortof. The iPhone 3G S did get an upgrade in that department too, but it’s only with a 3MP camera. It does finally support auto-focus, but it’s still not up to par with other flagship smartphones. Plus, this iPhone can now shoot video at 30 FPS with auto lighting and auto focus.

  
  
  (tags: iphone mobile)
  
  
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  How To Handle Unhappy Customers
  
  
  It sucks to receive complaints. I mean, it is a blow to the ego for sure. But there is a silver lining (or perhaps its platinum)… a complaining customer is an opportunity to improve your service not only for them, but for all future customers. And, if you do it right, you can turn that unhappy customer into your biggest, most vocal fan. Here are 55 tips, donated by TPErs, on exactly how to turn that raging customer into a raving fan:
  
  
  (tags: service operations Business)
  
  
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  Ranks Of Active VCs Dwindling By Any Measure
  
  
  How big is the U.S. venture industry?

  The National Venture Capital Association says that in 2008 there were 882 firms that had raised at least one fund in the last eight years, a substantial drop from 2007 when there were 1,019 fitting that definition.

  Another measure is to look at the number of venture firms that made a U.S. investment in 2008. While that methodology yields a number of active firms – 848 – that is in the same ballpark, it shows a less dramatic decline. But all bets are off this year and next as many funds raised during the tech bubble hit the end of their natural lives.

  
  
  (tags: vc)
  
  
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  Big Banks May Not Be Free From U.S. After TARP Repay
  
  
  Tense negotiations over the value of warrants held by the Treasury Department could prevent some of the biggest U.S. banks from fully shaking off government ownership after they repay billions of dollars in bailout funds in coming days.

  Some big banks, including JPMorgan Chase & Co are wrangling with officials over the warrants they want to buy back from Treasury, which the government owns in addition to the banks' preferred stock. The banks argue they should get a discount on the warrants because they did not want the money in the first place.

  
  
  (tags: Politics finance)
  
  

links for 2009-06-08

• Motorola Switches Phone From Windows Mobile To Android
  According to BetaNews Motorola (NYSE: MOT) is switching a phone that was supposed to ship with Windows Mobile to Google (NSDQ: GOOG)'s Android platform. Is this a cost issue or a marketing decision? From a licensing perspective, Android is free whereas Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) charges for each phone that Windows Mobile is put on. Motorola's handset division has been in financial straits for some time now so this could be a cost cutting maneuver. It may also be that Motorola is trying to get the device out the door as soon as possible with a more modern OS. Windows Mobile 6.1 is a bit long in the tooth since it is visually almost indistinguishable from WinMo 5, a platform that shipped nearly 4 years ago. WinMo 6.5, which is substantially updated, was just completed this month, but it will be three months or more before the first devices start showing up.
  (tags: Windows mobile Android motorola)
• Sprint: The Palm Pre Is All Ours...For 2009
  Sprint (NYSE: S) threw a cold bucket of reality on the pipe dreams of AT&T (NYSE: T)'s Randall Stephenson and Verizon (NYSE: VZ) Wireless's Lowell McAdam. It verified that it will be the sole distributor of the Palm Pre "through 2009." Sprint spokesperson James Fisher spoke in no uncertain terms. He said, "We have the Pre through 2009." That means AT&T and Verizon Wireless will have to wait at least six months before they can sell the device, which won't put the Pre on their shelves until very close to the December holidays, if not into January. This statement comes after AT&T's Randall Stephenson and Verizon Wireless's Lowell McAdam both indicated they'd be offering the Palm Pre at some point in the future. Verizon's McAdams went so far as to say, "Over the next six months or so you will see devices like Palm Pre and a second generation Storm."
  (tags: palm pre mobile)

links for 2009-06-04

• Building Your Brand. Part 2: How to Write a Brand Positioning Statement
  Every time customers experience your brand, you want them to remember what you do, why it is important to them, and why it is unique to you. By developing a clear expression of what is important to your customers and unique to you -- and reinforcing it with every customer interaction -- you will help your customers remember what your brand stands for. This starts with developing a brand positioning statement. Developing a brand positioning statement involves four steps: 1. Describe your customers 2. Define yourself in terms of your competition 3. Explain your greatest benefit 4. Put it together into your brand positioning statement
  (tags: marketing positioning)
• Google Riding 'Wave' To Redefine Collaboration
  Structured like Gmail, the developer and end-user software interoperates with other Web services, such as IM, forums, wikis, and blogs. At its developer conference on Thursday, Google plans to offer attendees a chance to try Google Wave, the company's new real-time collaborative communication system. Lars Rasmussen, who was lead engineer for Google Maps before co-founding the Wave team with his brother Jens, describes Wave as "what e-mail might look like if it were invented today."
  (tags: google wave)

links for 2009-06-02

• How To Motivate Employees (Hint: You Can’t)
  I get it. You want a dream team, a devoted group of employees who would move mountains, face their fears, and work tirelessly to help you meet your entrepreneurial goals. I hate to break it to you bucko, but they ain’t you. They may love you and their job, but nobody will ever be as determined as you to make your business a success. And if you think money will make the difference, you are fatally wrong. Money does NOT motivate. In fact, money is the world’s greatest anti-motivator. If you pay people too little, they will right that wrong by under performing, coming in late, or even engaging in a little sabotage. If you pay people too much, they will work hard, but they will not work harder. No one can put in more than 100% effort, even if they try.
  (tags: Leadership)

links for 2009-06-01

• Five reasons why the Palm Pre will be a homerun
  Palm has done a platform reboot with its new webOS and the company is swinging for the fences with its first webOS device, the Palm Pre. So will Palm strike out or hit it out of the park? Here are five reasons why I expect it to be a homerun.
  (tags: palm webos mobile)
• Thirteen key characteristics of a great startup culture by Greg Gottesman
  For the last decade, I have been convinced that the three most important factors in determining the success of a start-up are (1) team, (2) product or service, and (3) market (timing, size, etc.). Take an A+ entrepreneur, with a great idea for a new product or service, at the right time, and about as fast than you can tweet Susan Boyle you’d have a success brewing. Recently, I have added one factor to the must-have list: the right start-up culture. In other words, add a dose of bad culture to a team of superstars, a killer product and good market opportunity, the result is almost always death by a thousand backstabs. What defines a great start-up culture? Justice Stewart’s “I know it when I see it” standard seems particularly apt here, but not actionable.
  (tags: vc Entrepreneurship)