As a startup, the ability to create publicity for your business at minimal to no cost can be invaluable. We've listed below some of the more creative ways that we've seen our portfolio companies and others attract the media.

MAJOR CONFERENCES SEEKING STARTUPS TO FEATURE (AT NO CHARGE)

Conferences are a great venue for educating influencers about your business, plus they're fun! For a useful guide on how to gain PR from high-profile startup conferences, check out

Conference Tips For Startups: Where To Go And What To Do Once You Get There , and 15 Tips from Keith Ferrazzi: Conference Commando.  For a full list of major tech conferences, see technologyconference.com .  For a database of major startup competitions or large events that help startups promote their business, see this very helpful database from SocialCompare.

hackNY is not really a conference, but definitely will help boost your profile.  (We're a sponsor.)  Selected startups show a demo of their API at the beginning of the hackny hackathons and - just as importantly - are encouraged to stick around to help the hackers integrate your code into their projects. This is a chance to impress NYC's next generation of code powerhouses, many of whom will be looking for summer internships.

PERSONAL COMPETITIONS

NYC Venture Fellows: Selective, international program to help successful entrepreneurs take their ventures to the next level. Each year, 20-30 "rising star" entrepreneurs from New York City and around the world are selected through a competitive nomination process.  Established by NYCEDC in conjunction with Fordham University, the program is designed to:

- Assist successful entrepreneurs in scaling ventures that have the potential to create jobs in NYC

- Encourage international and non-NYC entrepreneurs to open offices in NYC

- Build connections among entrepreneurs, established NYC companies, and international businesses

I list many other elite programs for "young leaders" in a talk I gave at NYU on squeezing maximum value out of school.  See the section on "Selective Programs" (slide 35 and there after).  I'll be blogging more on this topic soon.

BUSINESS PLAN COMPETITIONS

For an exhaustive list of business plan competitions, check out MIT Global Startup Workshop's list.  Of course, keep in mind that business plans are a very poor predictor of a successful business. 

Some of the most noteable contests:

TechStars Startup Madness: March Madness-style tournament bracket of 64 startups meeting the following requirements

- Haven't raised funding of $250,000 or more and haven't generated revenue of more than $250,000 in a single year.

- Have a live, usable public site or an accessible demo on their home page

- Have not already been in the TechStars program - this is not for TechStars companies or alumni companies

- Must be an internet, software, or hi-tech company

Global AWS Start-Up Challenge: a way for promising start-ups to get noticed and compete for an opportunity to win up to $100,000 in cash and AWS credits. Eligible start-ups that are using the AWS cloud computing platform can submit an entry into the contest which describes their business plan and use of AWS paid services

The Buckminster Fuller Competition: The Buckminster Fuller Challenge is an annual international design challenge awarding $100,000 to support the development and implementation of a strategy that has significant potential to solve humanity's most pressing problems. It attracts bold, visionary, tangible initiatives focused on a well-defined need of critical importance. Winning solutions are regionally specific yet globally applicable and present a truly comprehensive, anticipatory, integrated approach to solving the world's complex problems.

William James Foundation Socially Responsible Business Plan Competition: The William James Foundation (WJF) seeks to identify, promote, and support entrepreneurs who have financially viable ways of integrating social and/or environmental sustainability into a for-profit business model. There is a processing fee of $50 to enter the competition. Competitions have three rounds: Executive Summary, Full Plan, and Public Presentation.

Participants: Entrants can be of any age or from anywhere in the world. The business must either not have started yet, or be in start-up phase.

Award: The cash and in-kind prizes as a whole are worth more than $100,000

NUDITY

If all else fails, you can always take your clothes off.

(Photo from laverrue)

If you are a student anywhere in the world seriously interested in venture capital, angel investing, and/or entrepreneurship, please consider working with us on your research papers.  We're obsessed with research and data, and have a number of research topics we'd love to dig into with the right student partners.

If you are highly qualified and your research is pertinent to our work, we can help provide you with research materials, guidance, introductions to interviewees and other experts, and access to unique data sets. If your research results are high quality, we'll also help you publicize and potentially publish your final research paper. We have relationships with many of the leading finance media which have published our own research.

To learn more, contact us with: your proposed research topics; the full resumes of your team members; the course for which you are writing the paper; your professor's name and website; timeline; and your targeted deliverable (length, format, etc.). We cannot respond to inquiries which do not provide all of this information. We prefer to work with graduate students (MBA/PhD/etc.), but are open to exceptional ambitious undergraduates also.  We have a strong preference for team projects as opposed to individual projects.

We've listed below some of the research questions about which we'd like to learn more. We're particularly interested in working with you if you choose one of these topics for a research paper or field study.

• Analyze advantages/disadvantages of investing personally in early-stage tech companies, vs. investing in an early-stage fund.  Create checklist of criteria which could help guide decision-making around when to invest personally and when to invest in a fund.
• Research best practices of VCs and angel networks in supporting portfolio operations. Among the issues to consider: identify the right technology stack to share documents, contacts, and best practices between different operating companies.  Research correlation of investing success with the nature of VC involvement in portfolio companies.
• Research diversification in early-stage investing vs. returns.  How much diversification is optimal?  What aspects are best to diversify in (sector, stage, geography?)
• Identify best practices in being an early-stage board member. Create case studies highlighting high- and low-performing board members, and companies who do and do not effectively leverage their boards.
• Novel, demonstrably-effective techniques to predict the success/failure of startups and revenue-stage companies based on pubicly visible data (e.g., YouNoodle). Similarly, techniques to assess forthcoming needs of particular startups (e.g., which ones are best off seeking more experienced management in the coming year).  
• Research and publicize best practices in managing a virtual file server for a diverse international team.

• Execute an analysis of the leading New York-area angels, superangels, and early-stage VCs.  Evaluate number of deals, size of deals, future activity, assets under management, industries of interest, and returns. Create formal ranking.
• Compare returns of NY vs. California vs. Boston VCs.
• Analyze contribution of the New York VC community to local job creation.

• Study characteristics of the most successful Entrepreneurs in Residence.
• Research characteristics of successful angel-backed companies run by older entrepreneurs (50+).
• A study of the value that acquiring access to someone else's patent can add to a startup in a range of sectors.

• Write a guide to market mapping a new industry sector. 
• Create a systematic approach for identifying industries ripe for disruption, and disruptive companies, using the ideas in Clayton Christenson's "Innovator's Dilemma" and its followup books.  E.g., look for hated companies (AT&T, cable companies); look for the largest private companies (which may be seeking to hide their profitability).
• Analyze the most rapidly-growing open-source tools/ecosystems in order to identify entrepreneurial opportunities in those spheres. Analyze opportunities that emerged from the growth of earlier ecosystems, e.g, Ruby -->Heroku.  Identify opportunities that emerge from growth of HTML5.
• Analyze the fastest-growing companies in every significant country, and then identify if we can create a comparable company in the US market.  This is the reverse of the strategy used by many emerging market entrepreneurs copying US models that are successful.
• Identify white space on market maps: Target sectors that are not yet transformed by the internet: finance, healthcare, energy, education, etc.  

• Identify how, when, and why senior executives/time-pressed professionals are using social media, and business opportunities that emerge from the use of social media by this most influential demographic.

Photo from BillWard

We took our interns out for dinner last night and one of the topics we discussed was their career planning.  Walking to work today, I saw the woman below at 38th & Broadway.  According to her T-shirt, "I survived the CFA exam." 

We've received a very positive response to our post about creating a fitness-friendly office.  Daily Burn posted some photos, and we thought some additional ones would be interesting. Our intern Matt Fairbank took the photos below.

When visitors enter the office, the first thing they see is our portfolio:

Though most of the office is set up in an open layout, the four closed conference rooms are separated by glass, allowing them to feel much more open than most. The conference rooms include opaque, writeable white glass walls for projecting slides and whiteboarding.

The Edison conference room (below left) is set up in the photo for standing meetings, and the Galileo room (below right) features many spheres (appropriately). It has been a favorite among visitors. Our model is Franklin Bi, another intern.

Electronically adjustable desks, below, allow for quick transitions between sitting and standing.

We've found that the standing-only work set up encourages much more active participation and sharing of ideas on the white boards (just as we had hoped!).

The Parse.ly team (who sublet from us) have embraced the standing desk culture.

Einstein, the main conference room, includes a wine rack. We hold regular idea dinners, intern lunches, board meetings, and other events in this room. We have several volunteers who've offered to write wine reviews on this blog.

ff Venture Capital is launching a periodic Meetup for people who work in the innovation community and who are parents of pre-teen children. Our Venture Partner Michael Yavonditte (father of a 2-year-old) and I (girls ages 6, almost 4, and 8 months) are leading this. We envision organizing activities that our kids, partners, and we will all jointly enjoy. For example:

- Visit to the NY Hall of Science/Childrens' Museum of Manhattan/Sony Wonderland

- Meeting at a playground in Central Park

- Craft projects

Our first event is free and is Sunday, July 31, 10am-1pm, at the Sakura Park Playground, off Riverside Drive, between Claremont Ave and West 122nd St, New York.  We're holding this event jointly with the Columbia Venture Community, with Alex Poon, co-founder & VP of data modeling of Visual Revenue, as our liaison.  However, you don't need any affiliation with Columbia to attend.  Wear a white shirt if possible so we can identify you.

(Note that 1pm-4pm on July 31 is the Columbia Alumni Association picnic on the Columbia campus, so many of us will walk directly to that event after the playdate.)

-----> RSVP <------

Now that I'm up to my 3^rd child, effectively all of my weekend/spare time is spent with the kids. That's great, but it also means that I'm somewhat cut off from some of the great activities that the NY innovation community organizes every week: the classes, panels, presentations, networking events, pitch contests, etc. That's why we're working on this initiative.

We are extremely receptive to creative suggestions from the community for activities we can do. In particular, if you are on the board of any organizations serving pre-teen children, we'd love you to host a special event for our community (in the 9am-5pm window, so the kids can come). I think that we can generate a strong turnout relatively quickly, given how many people have a family situation similar to Mike and me.

Some of my friends in the corporate world think that people in the innovation community spend an excessive amount of time going to the 2-5 events happening every night in the NY innovation community. I've given some thought to this, and I think that they're in most cases incorrect. If you work for a large company, a big part of your job is internal meetings to align different parts of the organization and to learn from your peers. When you work for a VC/startup, you don't have to worry very much about those issues. That's one of the reasons a lot of people want to work in startups!

However, regardless of your work situation, you still have a need to benchmark with peers, advance your professional development, and so on. Even if you work for a 5-person startup, you really are working for "NY Startups Inc.", which in aggregate is quite a large company. (The VC community collectively functions like the CFO's office of NY Startups Inc., allocating capital to projects which promise the highest return.) All of those events are the equivalent of the internal meetings that I spent time on when I worked in a prior life at Bear Stearns and Procter & Gamble.

As one more general comment: I think that the Internet startup world is currently focused disproportionately on services relevant to the single crowd, e.g., yet another app to find where the girls are.  As people in the innovation community partner up and have kids, hopefully more tools will emerge to serve the large percentage of the population that are parents and have very different social needs.

(Cute photo, not of my kids, courtesy Epsos.)

I am delighted to announce that I'm joining ff Venture Capital as a Partner. Official blog post and more details here. In addition, Michael Yavonditte, CEO of Hashable, is joining as a Venture Partner.  

Since 1999, ff has made over 100 investments in over 35 companies, and from the beginning has been highly focused on generating industry leading returns. Among the firm's most successful seed investments that have reached maturity are Cornerstone OnDemand (which raised $137m in a March 2011 IPO, ticker CSOD) and Quigo Technologies (sold to AOL for a reported $340m). We have a large crop of exciting growth companies that are starting to come into their own.

I've known John Frankel, the firm's founder, for a year and a half. I'm very impressed by the organization he's built and his track record. I'm honored to be the second partner since the firm's founding.

Before making the decision to join the firm, I did some research on early-stage tech investing as an asset class. What was striking was what an attractive asset class it was. Although any given early-stage company is quite risky, when aggregated across a large portfolio, returns are very attractive. There is also low correlation to risks that investors inherently have in most of their other investments, e.g., interest rate volatility, exchange rates, macro factors such as unrest in the Middle East, commodity fluctuations, unfunded pensions, etc. In addition, angel investments historically have a low correlation level with other asset classes, given the nimbleness with which small companies can adjust to changes in the economy, and the great diversity of companies in the typical early-stage portfolio. As a result, various analyses have shown annualized returns of 18-37%, 27%, and 30%.

As part of my new role, my mandate is to continue the institutionalization of the Firm, accelerate the growth of our portfolio companies, and look for great entrepreneurs and companies with which we can work. In addition, we're extending our successful summer intern program and looking for 1 additional summer and several fall interns . If you know of any companies or people with whom we should talk, please be in touch! 

Due to my new responsibilities with ff, I'm transitioning to a Chairman role with Navon Partners, the startup that I've been working on with our all-star team for the last year.

I'm in the midst of assembling the founding team for a new startup, and seeking a head of Engineering. I've attached details below.  I welcome suggestions!

Seeking Head of Engineering for Navon Partners, Internet Finance Startup, NY

We are seeking a Head of Engineering for the founding team of an internet finance startup, based in New York and soon Asia. This is your chance to get in on the ground floor, shape a new company's technology and culture from scratch, and create a significant company.

Our first product is DealOrigination.com, an automated research and analysis engine focused on private companies, leveraging our experience in sourcing new investments for private equity investors. Our technology is somewhat parallel to that developed by such firms as Alacra, Bloomberg, Capital IQ, Connotate, FirstRain, InfoNgen, SkyGrid, and ThomsonReuters; we particularly value experience from these and similar companies. We are also comparable to traditional investment banks. The startup is led by David Teten, a serial entrepreneur.

YOUR RESPONSIBILITIES

+ For each segment of our software platform, make buy/build/tweak decision.

+ Manage full product lifecycle including infrastructure, development, design, scalability and security.

+ Recruit and manage additional team members.

+ Research strengths and weaknesses of different data vendors we are considering.

+ Build hooks into APIs of major online networks (LinkedIn, Facebook, etc.)

+ Design and implement logic and scoring algorithms.

REQUIRED EXPERIENCE

+ Over 2 years management and 5 years development experience.

+ Proven success in large scale, high transaction systems engineering.

+ Use of formal and agile development methodologies

+ Built complex, integrated, sanitized, normalized databases based on many messy data sources (linear, non-linear).

+ Passion about our startup's vision.

+ Highly motivated self-starter who has a track record of continuous self-improvement, high achievement, and aggressiveness.

+ Strong analytical and math skills. High attention to detail.

+ Have managed development teams over time, with hiring and firing responsibilities.

+ Familiar with machine learning, natural language processing (NLP), screen-scraping technologies, semantic web, and/or agent-based systems.

We also value:

+ Experience in social networks, online dating, and/or finance industry, particularly investment banking and private equity.

+ Built consumer-oriented web applications.

+ Belief in the Edward Tufte school of communication.

+ Strong writing experience. Value a high GPA in writing-dependent courses.

+ Strong verbal communication/sales skills. Experience in debate, public speaking, and acting is pertinent.

+ Familiarity with startup environment and networks with local business/ government related organizations

+ Fluency in languages other than English.

COMPENSATION

+ Primarily equity initially. We are currently self-funded and expect to raise outside capital in late 2010/early 2011.   You can start on a part-time basis while staying in your current role.

HOW TO APPLY

Please include with your detailed resume:

+ Link to your LinkedIn profile (or other online identity).

+ Availability.

+ Writing sample

Please send resume and cover letter to Careers(@)Teten.com with "Head of Engineering" in the subject line. We prefer that you save your resume in Microsoft Word format with the name "Last Name-First Name-Year.doc", e.g., "Hayward-Tony-2010.doc".

(Image via Wikipedia)

I'm very excited to be visiting Singapore for the first time April 23-29; I may stay longer in Asia depending on business exigencies. I'm visiting as part of the faculty for the local launch of Founder Institute, with sponsorship from the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore and others.  I will also be meeting with some local investment funds, incubators, and  entrepreneurs. If you have any suggestions of people or institutions with whom I should meet, please contact me.

Thank you to Jeffrey Paine, Partner, Battle Ventures, for coordinating the trip.

I have scheduled six speaking engagements as part of my trip, and I hope that some readers can join us:  

_______________________________________________

Where are the Deals?! Private Equity and Venture Capital Funds' Best Practices in Originating New Investments

Sponsors: Singapore Venture Capital & Private Equity Association and CFA Singapore

Preview presentation at http://teten.com/deals .

Monday, April 26, 12-2:00pm

FTSE Room, Level 9 Capital Tower, 168 Robinson Road

Members: $0, Candidates: S$15, Non-members: S$30. RSVP: programs(@)cfasingapore.org

Details.

_______________________________________________

Earning Revenue and Business Models for Startups 

Sponsor: Founder Institute

Panel with Chester Ng, Co-Founder, Chief Business Officer at OpenCandy, and Derrick Morton, CEO at FlowPlay

Preview presentation at http://www.teten.com/business-models/ .

Monday, April 26, 7:00-9:00 PM

Microsoft Singapore, Level 22, NTUC Centre, One Marina Boulevard, Singapore

No Cost. Very limited room for guests. RSVP: jeff(@)battleventures.com

_______________________________________________

Bulldog Conversation: Best Practices in Deal Origination for VC and Private Equity Funds

I'll be discussing the findings of my research study on best practices of venture capital and private equity investors in sourcing new investments.

Sponsor: Yale Club of Singapore. Also invited are members of DUAL, the organization for graduates of some of the more distinguished universities globally.

Preview presentation at http://teten.com/deals .

Tuesday, April 27, 12-2:00 PM

Brewerkz Riverside Point, 30 Merchant Road #01-05/06 Riverside Point

Cost: S$10 for Yale Club members, S$20 for others. RSVP: shawn(@)yaleSG.org .

Details: http://alumninet.yale.edu/clubs/fbfq/

_______________________________________________

Hiring and Firing for Startups

Sponsor: Founder Institute

Panel with Eric Tachibana, Director at Bank of America- Merrill Lynch, and Derrick Morton, CEO at FlowPlay

Preview presentation at http://teten.com/Hiring .

Tuesday, April 27, 07:00 PM

NUS - Extension @ PARK MALL, 9 Penang Road, #12-01, Park Mall (opposite Dhoby Ghaut MRT)

No Cost. Very limited room for guests. RSVP: jeff(@)battleventures.com

_______________________________________________

Free (or Nearly Free) Market Research for Entrepreneurs and Other Misers

Sponsor: National University of Singapore Techno Venture Forum

Preview presentation at http://www.teten.com/market-research .

Wednesday, April 28, 6-8:00pm: National University of Singapore, I³ Auditorium, 21 Heng Mui Keng Terrace Level 1

No cost. RSVP . 

_______________________________________________

Presentation of New Business

Host: BANSEA

PINES, 30 Stevens Rd.

Cost: S$40-S$60

Details: http://sgentrepreneurs.com/events/2010/04/21/bansea-network-lunch-29-apr/ 

A map of all the presentations is at  http://bit.ly/bZbpZN

Among the other speakers for Founder Institute are Nolan Bushnell (Founder of Atari),  Michael Robertson (Former CEO of MP3.com), Aaron Patzer (Founder and CEO of Mint.com), Phil Libin (CEO of Evernote), and many more.  More background from the site:

The Founder Institute in partnership with Battle Ventures and Ascendas iAxil is bringing to Singapore a four month training program for both new and seasoned entrepreneurs. The Institute prepares founders to lead the next generation of world-class technology companies across a wide range of industries, from the biotech to the internet. Weekly company-building sessions are guided by experienced CEOs from the US and Singapore/region, and they are held in the evening to allow participants to keep their day job or develop their companies during business hours. All of the program stakeholders, from the participating founders to the experienced CEO Mentors, share in the upside generated by the companies formed during the program. Participants also enjoy free services from three dozen Institute Partners, fundraising opportunities at fair market value, and a teamwork-oriented environment to build a company.

(Image by Storm Crypt via Flickr)

As usual, I'd welcome your feedback.

The heritage shows.  Speed of Trust is written in a very similar style to 7 Habits, and I mean that as praise.  It contains reasonable advice, based on the author's work with clients, and is seasoned with anecdotes from Stephen M.R.'s clients and family/personal life.  It discusses five 'waves'; thirteen 'behaviors'; and the four 'cores of credibility' that inspire trust.  I know management consultants are often mocked for their love of the numbered list, but there's a reason why they use it: it enhances recall for the reader.

Echoing Ronald Coase's argument for why firms exist in the first place, Stephen M.R. argues that a high-trust workplaces receive two main benefits: they get things done faster, and at a lower cost.  This certainly echos my own experience, both inside and between firms. 

What's particularly interesting to me, given my experience building Circle of Experts, is how economic capital can be used to substitute for social capital in building trust.  The whole power of an expert network is that it allows a customer to very rapidly open up a high-trust conversation with a source, without all of the lengthy relationship-building that historically was necessary.  This can reduce the amount of effort required to build trust.

I think that the book has a lot of wisdom and encourage you to take a look.