Ventureweek

Belly is a hot new shopping rewards startup that is making waves and has secured some strong Venture Capital support. Belly works by providing businesses with everything they need to provide their customers with a digital rewards system, including cards for shoppers iPads, software and promotional materials, and marketing information on the backend, including analytics related to customer shopping patterns.Once consumers sign up for Belly, they can also use the app or website to find other merchants that accept Belly.

This is a business friendly service works on a subscription basis, through a variety of tiered offerings that start at around $50 per month and range upward depending on how many tools and how much support a business is looking for. The company announced a $10 million investment  from Andreessen Horowitz, which the company intends to use to help fuel its growth and kick its U.S. expansion into high gear.

Niche social networking sites are starting to grow  such as JockTalk co-launched by  retired and former Major League Baseball Player Shawn Green. The new site combines profile pages, back-and-forth conversations, and original sports content. JockTalk is debuting with 60 athletes on board, including representatives from the NHL, NFL, NBA, MLB and the Olympics, to name a few. The network isn’t just targeting players and fans, however; the team thinks it also has the right mix to appeal to sports publishers, marketers and leagues and teams, too. It includes monetization options that intend to take advantage of those possible connections, too, including an e-commerce platform for selling tickets and merchandise. Revenue will also be derived from advertising and content syndication. With lots of sports sites online, can JockTalk succeed? Remains to be seen.

Rover.com, an online marketplace connecting dog owners with local dog sitters, announced a $3.4 million Series A financing.The company enables dog owners to leave their pets in a home environment with other dog lovers, including fellow owners, neighbors and professionals. Rover.com provides dog lovers with a community of like-minded people who love to take care of dogs and more often than not are willing to do it for less money than a traditional kennel charges. The company takes a percentage of each transaction. Moreover, Rover has launched “Barkline’, a 24-hour customer service and an absolute satisfaction guarantee that covers the dog, the owner and the host. On Rover, people can review homeowners’ profiles, so they can get a sense of how the owners would treat their dogs. This is a growing space that has some strong revenue potential.

Hailo, is a UK  mobile network that matches passengers and licensed taxi drivers to help keep them busy. It is similar to popular mobile service Uber but Hailo focuses on taxi cabs.

The Hailo Driver Network can be accessed via iPhone or Android apps and allow drivers to accept credit cards and factor in tipping options.

Launched five months ago, the service has acquired 3200 drivers and 200,000 passengers in London, The app makes money by taking a small cut of a Hailo-enabled cab ride. . Hailo just received a $17 million round of Series A financing. The company is quickly going to  expand into the States, starting with New York, then Chicago, Boston, Washington, DC., and Toronto and Montreal in Canada.

YO!Sushi is a fast, casual concept that serves Japanese-inspired dishes, including sushi, sashimi, maki and nigiri, using both the conventional sit-down-and-order model and a moving conveyor belt that gives the option of self-service to customers in a hurry. Yo!Sushi is the market leader in the UK and is launching a full assault on the North American market, beggining with the United States.

So far, the chain has closed its first agreement with a Washington, D.C.-based franchisee for 10 restaurants located throughout Washington and Philadelphia, the first of which are scheduled to open this summer.The company plans to sign two more 10-site franchise deals over the next 18 months. Ultimately, there might be an opportunity to open up to 400 YO!Sushi locations in the U.S.  Canada won’t be far behind in expansion as well.

From Mashable.com

Nick Hughes is the CEO and co-founder of Seconds, a mobile commerce platform that provides text messaging and mobile payments for local commerce. In his spare time, he inspires entrepreneurs to build meaningful and enduring companies through his writing. Follow him on Twitter @jnickhughes.

Startup founders are fascinating creatures. They have to be multifaceted and dynamic, yet laser sharp and narrowly focused. During the early days, they must wear many hats and perform a variety of foreign duties, such as HR, PR, sales, marketing and product design. Above all, they have to be just a little bit crazy to even think about stepping into the roller coaster lifestyle called entrepreneurship.

As crazy as they may seem, the entrepreneur’s many duties create a uniquely talented individual. Yet subtle differences in personality and perspective can determine success or failure.

The talents listed below are detailed in the book Now Discover Your Strengths, a great read for anyone looking to improve on his or her unique talents.  In the book you’re introduced to the StrengthsFinder metric, which measures the presence of 34 different categories of talent. According to the StrengthsFinder, “Talents are people’s naturally recurring patterns of thought, feeling or behavior that can be productively applied. The more dominant a theme is in a person, the greater the theme’s impact on that person’s behavior and performance. ”

Some talents are essential to a startup founder. Without the presence of these five specific talents, it would be very difficult to start and grow a new venture.

1. Activator

According the the StrengthsFinder, “People strong in the Activator theme can make things happen by turning thoughts into action. They are often impatient.”

If there is one talent all founders must possess, it’s the Activator. Activators find ways to simply get things started and make things happen, which is synonymous with the definition of a leader. Activators build out the core founding team, establish the general “idea” and strategic direction, line up legal representation, find office space, organize meetings, etc.

An Activator jumps up and say to his friends “Hey, let’s start a new company!” Some people have a hard time breaking from their ruts in life, but not Activators. They never fall into ruts because they are always starting something different or recruiting others to join them and their new pursuits.

Take for example Jason Jacobs, co-founder of the fitness app RunKeeper. While training for a marathon in 2007, he was using Nike+ and realized the world needed a simple, independent, open health metrics platform. As an Activator, he formed a company and convinced others to join. Another truism of entrepreneurship in action? You usually have no idea what you are doing, but you just learn as you go.

Do you have what it takes to make the jump, knowing you’ll be learning as you go?

2. Adaptability

According the the StrengthsFinder, “People strong in the Adaptability theme prefer to ‘go with the flow.’ They tend to be ‘now’ people who take things as they come and discover the future one day at a time.”

Nothing in a startup ever goes as planned, and thus, startup founders must be able to adapt to changing circumstances. Successful founders go with the flow of startup culture, where markets change quickly, funding seems both eminent and impossible, co-founders come and go, and products evolve.

Pivoting (i.e., adaptability) is essential to today’s startups. Smart founders should initiate the process not with the “dream company concept” in mind, but rather, with the commitment and pursuit of solving a consumer problem.

You’ve probably heard of Instagram, the breakout photo sharing app that has attracted more than 27 million downloads. But you might not have heard of Burbn, which was what the founders built before changing to “Instagram.” Co-founder Kevin Systrom explains how they launched the service primarily as a checkin, social geo-location app, on which users could quickly upload photos and share them with friends. Burbn had attracted a core following of users, but was not exactly taking off. Upon further evaluation the founders noticed that photo uploading was the strongest and most used feature. Going with the flow, they cut all other features and moved forward with the newly minted Instagram. Twenty-seven million users later, I think they made the right choice.

Do you have the guts to cut 95% of your existing product and redirect its focus if necessary?

3. Strategic

According the the StrengthsFinder, “People strong in the Strategic theme create alternative ways to proceed. Faced with any given scenario, they can quickly spot the relevant patterns and issues.”

Acute pattern recognition, finding alternative ways to succeed, spotting signal and relevance from all the noise — this is strategic thinking. It’s what separates the idea-and-fail group from the execute-and-succeed group.

Strategic thinking names the company, defines what makes you unique, finds where in the market to position your product, determines how to best orient the value proposition, discovers how users will find your service, and figures out who will ultimately become a strategic partner. This requires a founder to see the entire competitive landscape, to understand where the holes are, and to align the company in the appropriate position for success.

Steve Jobs was probably the best strategic thinker we have encountered in recent history. It’s no coincidence Apple has risen to become the most valuable company in the world; Steve Jobs realized computing was not just about productivity, but that people wanted to be liberated, creative and entertained. Jobs determined to create a computing and entertainment ecosystem around the entire consumer.

How did he recognize this potential? Jobs turned the corner when he decided to make a better portable music player and integrate iTunes into the computing experience. He noticed that consumers wanted a hub, one place to access all their music and entertainment. After taking the music industry by storm, he made computing mobile with the iPhone and the iPad, again reinventing computing for the post-PC era. Finally, the advent of the App Store opened an entirely new market for millions of entrepreneurs, and has already generated billions of dollars in less than five years.

Although we lost him late last year, Jobs may not be done transforming our world. Apple TV has the potential to change how we interact with digital content. Jobs did all this by seeing around corners, observing the how and why of the consumer, and using strategic thinking every time he made a decision.

Do you see and understand all angles of your market, and have the ability to spot patterns or counterintuitive trends?

4. Discipline

According the the StrengthsFinder, “People strong in the Discipline theme enjoy routine and structure. Their world is best described by the order they create.”

Entrepreneurship has an entropic feel to it — each day is totally different. Roles and responsibilities can pull a founder in so many directions that he can feel lost in the chaos. Therefore, establishing routine and structure is essential to moving a business forward.

Discipline is what forces a founder to fill his calendar with customer discovery interviews each week to help uncover the problem they are trying to solve. Discipline is also what keeps foundering teams together, often when founders are working two jobs and struggling to make time for the business. Discipline keeps the startup lean, efficient and moving forward.

The “lean startup movement” can be loosely defined as a focus on discipline. Eric Reis and other lean startup proponents teach principles such as “fail fast,” “iterate quickly,” and “release, test, evaluate, toss out what doesn’t work and stick with what does.” Validated learning — or the constant search to establish your market, value proposition and ultimately your initial customer segments — is all about discipline for the early founder.

Based on the teachings of people like Reis, we have finally determined startups aren’t all built on lucky breaks, but rather on a methodical and disciplined approach to finding a sustainable business.

Do you have the daily discipline to methodically test your value proposition, product and customers to find a sustainable and repeatable business model?

5. Focus

According the the StrengthsFinder, “People strong in the Focus theme can take a direction, follow through, and make the corrections necessary to stay on track. They prioritize, then act.”

You have 100 things to do today, but you only have time to accomplish three. Which ones do you get done?

You may have all the talents described above, but if you cannot focus on the right things, you will not succeed. Focus takes your discipline, narrows it down on the essential few things that are important, and makes sure you get them done. How many people do you know who have said they are starting some new venture only to tell you six months later they just couldn’t get going and are already doing something different? These people might be an Activator and even excel in strategic thinking, but if they cannot focus in on what’s important each day, they will never get to the next level.

Launching a successful company can be one of the most challenging experiences in your life. Don’t make it any harder than it needs to be. Focusing on the critically important and dismissing all other distractions will make all the difference.

Noah Kagan, chief Sumo of AppSumo, explains how focusing on the important tasks will not only improve daily efficiency, but will significantly benefit business as well. He describes it as “maximizing the best use of your time.”

Ask yourself, which are the most important tasks on which your business depends?  Now, focus on those and only those tasks. Evaluate all the other stuff on your plate and delegate accordingly. Trying to do everything will result in getting nothing done.

Startup founders are indeed uniquely talented individuals. Do you think you have what it takes to be a successful founder?

Scoot Networks, an exciting green automotive startup, is looking to become the Zipcar of electric mopeds. Scoot Networks will have a  fleet available to rent for various time periods, under a plan that  combines aspects of bike-sharing with the business model of Zipcar. Customers will be able to reserve a scooter through their smartphone app.  The company is testing out the service in San Francisco and is looking to expand quickly. Their  unlimited monthly pass would cost $100 to $150. It will be interesting to see if electric scooters catch on and what other players will enter the industry.

Written by Greg Muender who is President of of Ticket Kick

From: entrepreneurinmaking.com

Getting your startup off the ground takes cash. There are a number of ways to raise funding for your business, but with every investment dollar you accept you sell a piece of the startup’s soul. You want to be able to focus on building a great product, not on balancing the ideas and priorities of a pool of investors.

That means bootstrapping. Bootstrapping opens up a whole new set of possibilities that you just don’t have with investors. Here are some of the ways bootstrapping can help your startup shine:

From under30ceo.com

One of the scariest things to do is drop your day to day nine to five. The paycheck is steady and it comes with a nice health-care package. Lunch with co-workers provides time to unwind and talk about what’s going on in the world. The hours are steady and while it may be demanding, there isn’t much mystery to what you can expect from work.

Venturing out of the workplace leaves a fear of uncertainty. Working for yourself day in and day out is nothing like being in the steady work force. The paychecks are scarcer and health benefits will be coming directly out of your pocket. Lunch consists of only you. And the hours, let’s just say, are not set in stone and work is way more demanding. Starting your own business/career comes with a lot of mystery.

The common misconception is that once you work for yourself, things become “easier”. On the contrary, working for yourself is actually more involved than working for someone else. And truthfully when you are the commander of the ship you call income, you must work for others in order to establish yourself in the niche in which you are diving into.

Do not fret. Below are some tips if you’re ready to take that step out of the office.

Come up with a plan.

You can’t start ANY new venture without a plan. Take time to make a detailed plan of action, which includes ways to achieve your goals. You should map out time frames and any other relevant information to know exactly where you want to go. Keep in mind that a house can’t be built without floor plans.

Build a routine.

If you want to seriously get where you would like to be you must plan your day. Yes, this is another planning exercise. You have to have the day in order so that you remain organized. Also, work in the chores and other duties that consist with your day that are not a part of your work. Maintaining a routine will allow you to be more focused on the tasks at hand.

Only leave if you can.

If you cannot manage to leave the workplace, DON’T. Use the employment that you have to save up so that you can remove yourself from your job without putting extra hardship on you or your family. There are discounts and coupons all over the web to help you save more. Remember, you can begin your dreams while still working. You just have to split your time productively.

Be productive with all your time.

Use all of your time wisely. Even if you do have a routine, it doesn’t mean you are confined to it. Take a pen and pad where ever you go. You never know when an idea will hit you. The worse things you can do are run your errands or do other chores and an idea comes to you, but your computer or planners are no where around. All your time is precious and important to being successful.

Never fold to failure.

No business jumps off the ground as soon as you start. If you get rejected just chalk it as a learning experience and move on. Don’t dwell on the things you cannot change. Focus on what comes next and use your knowledge to lessen the failure and aim to succeed.

Never give up.

Keep pushing no matter what. No matter how hard or discouraged you get, keep moving. It will get easier with time. If you are consistent things will get better. Just think, what would life be like if the makers of companies like Apple or networks like FaceBook gave up?

Don’t judge yourself through others.

Do not judge your capabilities by what others are doing. So what if a person is doing better or at a level that you would like to be? Don’t be discouraged by their work ethic. Just work your way to a status that is comfortable for you. Also, keep in mind that what works for someone else may not work for you.

Read and Research.

Stay on top of what is going on in the industry you are heading into. Research ways to reach your goals and apply what you learn to your work. Read about trends in your niche as well as best practices of those at the top in your niche. You never can know everything about a business because industries are constantly changing.

If you have the gumption to leave the norm of the workplace and start your career/business, you get kudos from me. It takes a daring and driven individual to do such a thing. I commend each and every person who does it. That’s not to say anything against those who are okay with the workplace. Everyone is different.

Please remember it’s not for everyone to walk out on their nine to five. Only the most determined ones succeed in the long run.

Trina Lynne is a freelance writer whom writes for blogs with promotional codes and coupons such as Sierra Trading Post Coupon and Rock Creek Coupon. These Sierra Trading Post and Rock Creek coupon codes can help you save on outdoor gear and clothing.

Rocky Agrawal is an analyst focused on the intersection of local, social, and mobile. He is a principal analyst at reDesign mobile. Previously, he launched local and mobile products for Microsoft and AOL. He blogs at http://blog.agrawals.org and tweets at @rakeshlobster.

From Venturebeat.com

I attended the Launch conference in San Francisco yesterday and saw quite a few pitches. Unfortunately, many entrepreneurs are still making the same mistakes they’ve been making for years.

Here are a few tips for pitching. Because many of the presenters were first timers and early stage companies, I’m not going to name names of companies that I thought did poorly. My goal is to help companies improve.

Booth

• Have a sign! You’re competing with dozens of other startups for attention. People aren’t going to stop and talk to everyone. You’ve already invested money for the booth space and the people to be on site. Spend the money to get a decent sign that talks about what your company does in a few bullet points. See the example at right for a good sign. That’s the right amount of text.
• Do your elevator pitch and then ask the person you’re talking to what his or her role is. You want to be able to meet their needs. It helps if you know that they’re press, investors, general user or competitor. Then adjust the rest of the pitch from there.
• Make sure everyone working your booth is familiar with the basics of your company. Things like expected launch, funding, investors. If the answer is that you’re not disclosing something, that’s what you should say. I talked with one company I was interested in and the guy just responded to my questions with, “I don’t know. I’m just an engineer.”
• Direct people to the right person. If there are others on the team who know the answer, make the connections. The same engineer just motioned at other people who were gabbing among themselves and said they might know the answer, without making any effort to introduce us.
• Don’t lie. I asked one company if they had an Android app. They said they did. I pulled out my phone to download it. All of a sudden, they didn’t have an Android app. “It’s in development.”
• Be prepared to answer questions about where you fit relative to the competition. The people most interested in talking to you likely know your competitors. (Saying you have “none” is a bad move.) One of the most frequent questions I ask is “How are you different from…”
• Pay attention to badges. Many conferences have different types of badges for attendees. If there are a lot of green badges and only a few purple badges, you might want to pay special attention to people with purple badges.
• Know who the players are in your space. If there are specific press, analysts, or investors your company is targeting, the people at your booth should know about them.
• Don’t waste money on pens, T-shirts, and other giveaways. Investors and press don’t care about these things. Put your money into product. (Though you may want to get shirts for your own team to make it easier for people to find you.)

  Presentations

• Grab attention from the get go. Many people are multitasking during these things and if you don’t grab them immediately, you might never grab them. Even if you have a 5 minute slot, that doesn’t mean people are paying attention the whole time. I was sitting next to a VC yesterday. We both would pay attention to the start of each pitch and if it didn’t resonate, start working on email, Twitter or other things. (We were also refreshing our screens to see if the Apple Store was back up; both of us bought the new iPad before the show was over.) Every once in a while we’d tune in or ask each other if the pitch was worth paying attention to.
• Show your product. We don’t want to see a video of how great your theoretical product might be. Show us what is today, warts and all. Smart people will be able to fill in the blanks and see your vision. Dumb people — well, you don’t want them as investors.
• Tell us why you are the right person or team to do this. What makes you better than most? What in your background inspired this idea or concept?
• Be prepared to back up claims you make about traction. If your engagement is through the roof, show us with graphs. Everyone has heard the “we’re in discussions with major retailers” line. No one believes it. If you don’t have traction, don’t claim you do.
• Have a back up plan if you run into technical difficulties.
• Follow up
• Pay attention to who is tweeting about you during and after the event. I tweeted that a company was interesting last night and because they followed up right away, I was able to meet with them this morning before the founder returned to New York. If you have a larger team, you may want to have someone who isn’t attending the conference monitoring Twitter and filtering leads.