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The Resource Center has all the info you'll need From content to user feedback, the resource center has the information you need for every level of the entrepreneurial process.
Mike Maples, Jr. is the managing partner of Maples Investments, and is an entrepreneur in his own right. Before becoming a full-time investor, he worked in a variety of executive and management roles in high-growth companies. His background spans a variety of markets including consumer technology, small business, and the enterprise, and he has served in various executive roles in product development, marketing, and corporate strategy. Mike began his technology career in high school, when he started a software company that developed games and educational products for the original IBM PC. He has been passionate about the technology industry ever since. Most recently, Mike co-founded Motive, Inc., the world's leading broadband software company in 1997 and played key roles in its growth from raw start-up through sales of $100 million. Motive was one of the only successful technology IPOs in 2004, and the most successful infrastructure software IPO for the prior three years. At Motive, Mike was General Manager of Motive's Corporate Business Unit, as well as Chief Marketing and Strategy officer. Prior to Motive, Mike was responsible for worldwide product marketing at Tivoli Systems, where he managed the company's product portfolio from its early-stage development through its 1995 IPO and growth to a $750M line of business within the IBM Software Group. Mike began his professional career at Silicon Graphics, where he served in business development and product marketing roles. In his spare time Mike is an amateur artist, movie-maker, and calligrapher. He holds an Engineering degree from Stanford University, an MBA from Harvard Business School, and is a frequent speaker at industry conferences and a guest-lecturer on entrepreneurship at Harvard Business School, Stanford University, Princeton University, and the University of Texas.
Mitch Kapor has been at the forefront of the information technology revolution for a generation as an entrepreneur, investor, social activist, and philanthropist. Most recently, Mr. Kapor founded Foxmarks, an upcoming search engine based on bookmarks and related metadata. He received a B.A. from Yale College in 1971 and studied psychology, linguistics, and computer science as part of a major in Cybernetics. He attended the Sloan School of Management at MIT before leaving for a Silicon Valley startup. Mr. Kapor founded Lotus Development Corp. in 1982 and with Jonathan Sachs created Lotus 1-2-3, which made the PC ubiquitous in business in the 1980's. In 1990, he co-founded the Electronic Frontier Foundation. He founded the Mitchell Kapor Foundation in 1997 and the Open Source Applications Foundation in 2001. He became the founding Chair of the Mozilla Foundation in 2003 and is a trustee of the Level Playing Field Institute. From 1994-1996, he served as Adjunct Professor at the MIT Media Lab. From 1999 to 2001, Mr. Kapor was a partner at Accel. In 2006, he became an Adjunct Professor at the School of Information at Berkeley. Mr. Kapor has contributed pieces on information infrastructure policy, intellectual property, and antitrust in the digital era topublications such as Scientific American, The New York Times, and Forbes.
Ashwin Navin is the President and Co-Founder of BitTorrent, Inc. He joined Bram Cohen, the inventor of BitTorrent, in 2004, moving from Yahoo! where he was an influential member of the company's Corporate Development group. He possesses extensive experience in structuring and negotiating acquisitions, partnerships and alliances in the tech industry. While at Yahoo!, Ashwin was responsible for M&A, divestitures and company strategy in the U.S. and key global markets such as India and Korea. Before Yahoo!, Ashwin worked with Wall Street powerhouses Goldman, Sachs & Co. and Merrill Lynch as an investment banker and research analyst. Ashwin earned a dual B.A. from Claremont McKenna in Government and Economics.
Ping Li from Accel and Ashwin Navin, the President and Co-Founder of BitTorrent, Inc. talk about BitTorrent's journey from an open-source project to being a global standard for delivering high-quality files over the Internet. He discusses how their team worked on changing the landscape of digital media distribution. His company evolved to provide a revenue proposition to some of the largest media companies in the world. Navin mentions the company's plan of scaling internationally in countries like Japan as being key to its success in the future.
Although brands are usually evaluated based on competitive those of competitors, this article points out that customers apply much broader criteria. They use how they feel about your company (even the logo), how they interact with your employees, especially those in customer service reps; advertising, and your name, among many others. Key point: Remember that your customers own your brand, not you. Treat them accordingly.
Dominic Orr is the President and CEO of Aruba Networks, a supplier of secure mobility and wireless Local Area Network (LAN) solutions for enterprises. Orr unveils Aruba's approach to building solutions for mobile workforces at Fortune 500 and Global 2000 companies like Microsoft, NTT Data, and SAP. He articulates Aruba's strategies for competing with mammoths like Cisco, and emphasizes that speed of execution in this highly competitive market is key to his company's success.
Innovative ideas that come to reality require legal protection. Establishing a copyright, patenting, licensing, branding, and other issues related to intellectual property must be addressed , and many times require professional assistance from an attorney or other professionals. This guide includes links to specific resources and FAQs. A great introduction to the topic!
Straight from Uncle Sam, these are brief definitions of key intellectual property terms and what they are intended to do. Bonus: a link to the Copyright Office of the Library of Congress.
Setting prices that yield profits means testing and monitoring. Test offers for responsiveness and for cost effectiveness. Monitor competitors to stay one step ahead (or keep up!) and suppliers to reduce costs as much as possible.
Dan Bricklin, co-creator of VisiCalc (the first spreadsheet program for personal computers) and an accomplished entrepreneur, conducts an in-depth discussion with himself on the complexities of patent law and patent litigation. If you're headed that way, it's an informative read for you . . . and probably your lawyer, too.
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