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HP’s Early Customers Came From Fred Terman’s Social Network

The founding team for a startup typically provides the basic intellectual capital, and frequently the initial seed capital. But a young team often has to rely on advisors for social capital–existing relationships based on mutual trust and prior shared success. These relationships act as points of departure for market exploration and social navigation to early …

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We Sign NDA’s

We get asked “Will you sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement?” fairly often, to the point that we are proactive, suggesting that a prospect take a look at our Mutual NDA [PDF] and sign it if it would increase their comfort level. A Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) allows us to have a deeper and more useful discussion. We …

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Hello 2008

Let’s hope the New Year finds us all healthy, surrounded by loved ones, and living up to our potential. A quartet of quotes from Mignon McLaughlin to help kick off 2008 The time to begin most things was ten years ago. Courage can’t see around corners, but goes around them anyway. Every day of our …

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CINA Holiday Mixer

The CINA Holiday Mixer had a nice turnout: it was networking followed by a traditional twelve course Chinese lunch. All in all a relaxing couple of hours, and I enjoyed playing emcee. There were a number of folks who were new to Silicon Valley who got to make new friends and connections, as well as …

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Legal Issues: Q&A with Pete Tormey of Action Patents

Today I was able to sit down with Pete Tormey, founder of Action Patents. Pete is a registered patent agent who specializes in providing patents for Software, Electronics, Life Science Instrumentation and Business Methods. Legal Issues: Q&A with Pete Tormey of Action Patents From blogs to entrepreneurial events, patents are always a controversial topic. This …

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Entrepreneurial Innovation Comes More From Borrowing & Combining Than Invention

I came across a good quote on innovation and invention in a  2004 article in Fortune Magazine by Harold Evans called “What Drives America’s Greatest Innovators“ (emphasis added) [The] defining characteristic of the innovator: a determination to bring a brainwave into the bustle of the marketplace. […] More innovations come from borrowing and combining than …

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We Added a Second Idea to Revenue Workshop on January 19, 2008

To keep our workshops interactive we limit them to a dozen people. We’ve got two seats left in our Thursday December 6th “Idea to Revenue workshop” so we have added a second one Saturday January 19, 2008. This one will be held at the Moorpark Hotel in San Jose. We got a number of requests …

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