Darren Herman

Blinksale - Invoices

One of the least fun parts of business is actually sending out invoices and chasing them.  Lots of times, consultants and early stage companies don't have the capabilities (both human and software) to prepare professional style invoices.

Enter Blinksale, a company that allows you to track your invoices online as well, as send professional invoices straight to ones email box.  You can even subscribe to the invoices using ical (mac) or RSS.

Quickbooks offers the service of emailing invoices and does it extremely well.  However, there are tons of people who want to issue invoices who aren't set up with a professional bookkeeping package or don't want to make the monetary investment.

Tags:  blinksale, invoices, startup

Try Before You Buy*

I was reading Stowe Boyd's blog /Message this evening and he posted about a model used by many web companies - but most recently gootodo.  The company is irrelevant to this post, but it's a post that looks at the business model of "try before you buy... but provide your credit card first, and oh yeah, cancel your membership before the 30 day trial period is over."

I'd argue against Stowe Boyd in some context here.  I think that this business model can be correct depending upon the startup you are working with.  Lets take a vertical social network that is looking to qualify their users higher than most open social networks.  By providing a credit card, it makes the user work harder to join the network, thus eliminating many of the unwanted low value registrations.

To the point where Stowe talks about how the user must contact the company to make sure their credit card isn't charged... I agree and disagree with him.  Many adult websites (not that I visit them) actually have this model as a good % of registrations forget about their registration within the first 30 days.  This is a way that companies can generate some revenue (users forgetting).  Another reason why this model isn't so bad is that it makes the user give more to the community/site/organization, which in turn, should lead to a much more invested experience and the switching cost becomes higher.

Just a few thoughts - would love to hear yours.

Tags:business model, marketing, stowe boyd, gootodo

Great Resource: Startup School

It's a gorgeous Sunday morning and I'm in the West Village at the Soy Luck Club enjoying a nice mint chocolate soy steamer and a banana soy butter pressed bagel.  The sun is shining and I'm doing my weekly research about startups, media, and technology.

I stumbled upon the "startup school wiki".  There are some excellent presentations in PPT format that discuss the entrepreneur mentality, case studies and the needs of a financial background in a startup.  I highly suggest even clicking through the site even if you do not read it.

For someone dealing with Venture Capitalists and "deal terms" and are lost in the terminology, check out the funding area where it explains all of the terminologies and what to look for.

Technorati Tags: startup, funding, investment, seed capital, web 2.0, and VC

Tips For Raising Angel Capital

Raising angel capital can be a daunting task for an entrepreneur as it is often the first time the entrepreneur goes to the market for fundraising.  Since the market is much smaller than institutional investors, it's often hard to locate and qualify the right people for your capital raising needs.  A recent blog post by Guy Kawasaki outlines much of the processes and tips that any entrepreneur should read before going down the angel fund raising path.

Two major points that I should reiterate from Kawasaki's posting are to make sure that the investors are sophisticated and that your story/pitch is simple enough that your spouse can understand it.  When you are going to raise later rounds of funding (if you go down that path), your Series A investors will probably want to know who your seed investors are.  If you have quality seed investors (angel), you will make the Series A investors feel a bit more comfortable.  As for selling your idea to your spouse - it's important.  If they can't understand it, an angel investor who may not be in the finance industry or industry you're within will never understand it.  The goal here is not to raise just money, but raise money from folks who get your idea and who know who the right people are to help you advance your idea further down the line.  Not only are you getting Angel Capital here, but you're getting advisory capital.

Technorati Tags: angel capital, funding, investment, seed capital, and VC

Silicon Alley Back?

I've been to 3 networking events in the past 96 hours here in NYC and have to say that the amount of companies hiring is on the rise.  I've been receiving an increasing number of job descriptions across my desk in the past few weeks and have to say that this is starting to feel like 1998 and it's extremely refreshing. 

With the increasing hiring - salaries will go up, perks will start to kick in, and the stories will begin...again.  I think everyone in New York City knew who Herman Miller was - due to their extremely popular (and still is!) Aeron chair.  This >$800 chair was the quintessential throne for anyone working in a technology/media company.  Are they coming back into fashion?

For recruiters and HR execs, the hard part is not finding the talent in the marketplace.  Rather, it's about keeping the talent at a company.  We've all heard Google's "perks" such as free meals, dry cleaning, Naked drinks, etc - they do a great job retaining people.  With new jobs increasingly opening up here in NYC, companies are going to have to work harder than ever to keep their employees so they don't jump ship to the next hottest start up or media company. What will these perks be?  I'm looking forward to monitoring this....

Where's the next Silicon Alley?

nextNY Networking

I was invited by a friend at Union Square Ventures this evening to take part in a networking event down on Hudson Street here in Manhattan to meet top entrepreneurs, media folks, investors, and movers/shakers here in the city..... all under 30 years old.  I'm sure there were a few people well over 30, however, I was delighted to see many peers within the same age bracket.

I met some great people from Seamless Web, Warner Music Group, RadioTail, Rave Wireless, Vantage Point Venture Partners, and Venture Voice...amongst many other amazing folks.  One of the feelings that I received from talking to people was that Silicon Alley is back.  When I was working at i33 Communications back in the day, we were in the heart of Silicon Alley.  Now, I'm not sure where it exactly is (downtown, uptown, Union Square, Flatiron District, etc) but it is here.... I met about a dozen folks who moved to NYC recently to work in media and/or technology.  This reminds me of the "job-rush" of moving out to San Jose/San Francisco of the late 90s.

I am looking forward to continuing conversations with the folks I met this evening, and if I didn't get around to chatting, I apologize but I look forward to the next exclusive mixer.