Showing category "Entrepreneurship" (Show all posts)

In the Arena - Start-Up Life

Posted by Admin Admin on Tuesday, November 20, 2012, In : Entrepreneurship 
This is an excellent article for anyone interested in some insights into the grit required to build a high potential venture.   This article by Entrepreneur turned Venture Capitalist - Mark Suster from GRP Partners is excellent. 

It reminds me of Teddy Roosevelt's quote - about “The Man in the Arena” tells us that the man we should praise is the man who’s out there fighting the big battles, even if those battles end in defeat. In our day, when cynicism and aloof detachment are conside...
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Useful tips and insights for angel investing by Dave Balter

Posted by Admin Admin on Saturday, July 14, 2012, In : Entrepreneurship 

My friend and fellow entrepreneur- Dave Balter wrote the following post that I highly recommend to anyone considering an angel investment.  I was an angel investor in BzzAgent which is Dave Balter’s first company.  Dave and I have also co-invested in TheBump and continue to consider early stage ventures.  I have great respect for Dave’s entrepreneurial insight and instincts. So I highly recommend the article he wrote below.

The article appeared on Dharmesh Shahs websi...


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Thoughts on Networked Businesses

Posted by Admin Admin on Wednesday, May 2, 2012, In : Entrepreneurship 
I have had some experience in trying to build networked businesses.  I have learned many lessons the hard way.   Growing quickly sounds better to investors than to the sponsors and revenue sources who you will depend upon to build your business.  As a result, though VC's tend to love these types of networked businesses - the VC math of generating a high internal rate of return on their investments is not perfectly aligned with the go-it-slow / measured approach of major sponsors. 

I view thes...
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Reid Hoffman's 10 Rules of Entrepreneurship -

Posted by Admin Admin on Monday, March 28, 2011, In : Entrepreneurship 
There are many good lists and ideas to consider for entrepreneurs.  The best advice I find come from serial entrepreneurs such as Reid Hoffman, the founder of LinkedIn.

What follows are some of his comments from the 2011 South by Southwest Interactive conference in Austin, he recited a list of 10 rules of entrepreneurship.   Hoffman, who is now a partner at venture firms Greylock Partners, cautioned that he “reserves the right” to change the list later on. But for now, here are his rul...
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What I Wish I Knew When I was 20 - by Tina Seelig

Posted by John Fees on Saturday, February 12, 2011, In : Entrepreneurship 
A friend recently suggested Tina Seelig's - What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20 - and I found it to be a terrific collections of the messages I try to frequently share with young-adults and fellow entrepreneurs.   The stories that illustrate the importance of mindset to problem solving, the practical tips about how to build a career and reputation are not just good reminders but the book also contains practical advice about how to do it in life.

My 12 year old son, asked me - why are you reading ...
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MBA and Entrepreneurs - Meet at Harvard Business School

Posted by Admin Admin on Thursday, January 6, 2011, In : Entrepreneurship 
If you are curious about the value of an MBA to becoming an entrepreneur you should first consider the experience of those who participate in the Harvard Business School Business Plan Contest.  

It is an event I co-chaired as a student in 1999 and is an experience I continue to encourage others to support and be involved in.   Listen to this brief overview of the value of the HBS entrepreneurship efforts.
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What Motivates Us?

Posted by Admin Admin on Wednesday, August 4, 2010, In : Entrepreneurship 
A couple of great messages to consider and think about for leaders of all types and all types of organizations.

What Motivates Us - Daniel Pink and his new book Drive - is great and offers useful insights for entrepreneurs and leaders.  

Watch - http://youtu.be/u6XAPnuFjJc

A second article worth reading is from David Brooks in the NYTimes - which is a summary of  two ways of thinking about life, one that emphasizes the individual and one that emphasizes circumstances.

Read - http://nyti.ms/b9IX...
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The moral of the story: Fail Fast

Posted by John Fees on Monday, April 26, 2010, In : Entrepreneurship 
Today's New York Times has a great article - posted below regarding a new model for starting companies.   I am not sure it is a new model or a reminder of adapting to customer focused feedback.  My view is that the real theme captured by the thinking below is to "fail fast".  Which means, most entrepreneurs have a great hypothesis for creating a business - they identify a problem, they have a solution and they choose a medium and price to deliver it at.   The challenge is not to over design t...
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The Big Short - the value of being an outsider

Posted by John Fees on Wednesday, March 17, 2010, In : Entrepreneurship 
I have enjoyed reading The Big Short by Author Michael Lewis.   I recommend the book to everyone,  not to learn about CDO's or even the money laundering machine that was built on Wall Street, but to discover the value of being an outsider.   The value of being outside the system, immune a bit to the group think of heards / of the momentum of markets.   Maybe that is why it is good to live in Omaha or other places where you can get perspective on how to create real value and identify opportuni...
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Best Year Yet?

Posted by John Fees on Monday, January 18, 2010, In : Entrepreneurship 
I am keenly interested in innovations in how society approaches learning.  Outstanding content is always the starting point for great learning.   With content as the base assumption there are many  considerations for how which mediums to convey this content to students.   The written word is still very powerful and I believe an integral part of many of the most effective approaches.  Three companies that I have invested in approach learning in different ways.   Flypaper enables content to be ...
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New Business - the engine for jobs and recovery

Posted by John Fees on Friday, November 6, 2009, In : Entrepreneurship 
This is a useful insight by the Koffaman Foundation regarding the real source of new employment. For anyone worried about a jobless economic recovery, we should take the focus off of just small business and look to how our nation supports innovation. Today's WSJ article by Carl Schramm, Robert Litan and Dane Strangler correctly points out the facts behind job growth. "The conventional wisdom is that such businesses account for half of the labor force and are therefore the engine of future...
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No matter what type of leader you are - find the people with the Eggs and move them out of your organization

Posted by John Fees on Thursday, October 22, 2009, In : Entrepreneurship 
This article by David Koretz posted on MediaPost, struck me as something that would benefit my entrepreneurial friends, so I am passing it along not as a (tweet) but as something that will help make us think about our own companies and the organizations we are involved in building.

Organizations require different types of people at different stages.  Although my business life is mostly spent in the first category, I am thankful to have always had a good team surrounding me that were strong 2s ...
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About Me


John Fees John Fees is an entrepreneur, strategic marketing executive and business leader in the fields of affinity, collegiate and partnership marketing. During the course of his career, John has founded and led successful companies specializing in strategic marketing and media, affinity, partnership marketing and financial services. Currently, he serves as the co-founder & managing director of NGI Group. NGI Group is a large shareholder in portfolio companies including GradGuard, MassDrive & MyLifeProtected.