For newcomers: StartupDigest Reading List is the members-only weekly email newsletter of the best articles in the startup world.

You can become a member for free here.

Special heads up for everyone – we will soon be launching a new digest that will feature the most interesting startup in the world every week. 500+ people have already signed up for it in advance. You can sign up too here. Stay tuned :)

Also, we changed up the messaging and process of becoming a StartupDigest VIP. What do you think of it?

- Chris

StartupDigest Reading List is curated by:
Chris McCann – Co-Founder, StartupDigest
Chris Burnor – Lead Engineer, StartupDigest

 

 

StartupDigest Reading List is supported exclusively by:
Watch the Kauffman Foundation’s first-ever Super Bowl ad for entrepreneurs. The next great entrepreneur is out there with ideas that can change the world. Will it be you? Pass it on.

 

 

What You Need to Read This Week

An epic rant on how you should stop being intimidated and just build a product you would use.

 

The Hacker Way

Buried within the Facebook’s S-1 filing is a personal message from Mark Zuckerberg on Facebook’s hacker culture.

 

There is a slew of wonderful JavaScript libraries out there to aid in adding dynamism to your webpages. But how do you actually put them together without turning your webpage into a Cthulhuesque nightmare?

 

A look at how investors think about risk in a startup from Brendan Baker, who used to work with AngelList and is now with Greylock Partners.

 

Sometimes profits aren’t always the right answer. Here are the tradeoffs between growth and profit and how to decide which path is right for you.

 

A brief guide to tech internships

An in-depth guide to getting an internship at a startup from Alexey, who interned at Facebook, started the PennApps hackathon, and was an engineer for the Israeli Defense Forces.

 

Love this. We definitely need more articles like this written from a designer’s (and woman’s) perspective.

 

See all of the best startup resources here.

Below is an archived version of the LA StartupDigest Events List – a weekly curated listing of the best tech startup events in LA. If you would like to get next week’s digest on Monday, sign up here.

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LA StartupDigest is curated by:
Matthias Galica - Founder/CEO, ShareSquare

 

 

LA StartupDigest is supported exclusively by:
Check out these sketchbook videos on “finding the magic sauce of entrepreneurship” and “three things entrepreneurs do” narrated by Carl Schramm, president and CEO of the Kauffman Foundation.

 

 

What’s Going on in the LA Startup Community

Learn Lean Startup Methodology from the man, the myth, the legend himself.

 

Learn Lean Startup marketing lessons from a pro that deployed it at AppSumo, Mint and Facebook.

 

After getting Lean early in the week, here’s a great way to get fat and part with some cash in a show of thanks, while celebrating the kick-off of LA’s newest social entrepreneurship venture. And of course, drinking heavily.

 

 

Top Upcoming LA Startup Events

Below is an archived version of the Philadelphia StartupDigest Events List – a weekly curated listing of the best tech startup events in Philadelphia. If you would like to get next week’s digest on Monday, sign up here.

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Mornin’ Startups, We’ve got a pretty solid lineup for you all. Get out there and help Philly’s finest. Some newbies to the digest: Philly Force.com, GirlDevelopIt, ElectNext.-Brad & Yuriy

Philadelphia StartupDigest is curated by:
Brad Oyler – Founder, W3Portals
Yuriy Porytko – Principal, Adapt Technical Group

 

 

Philadelphia StartupDigest is supported exclusively by:
Global Entrepreneurship Week kicks off in one week. Be among of millions of people in 123 countries celebrating, networking and learning about entrepreneurship. Find an event near you or plan your own. Visit gewusa.org for U.S. info. or unleashingideas.org for all other countries.

 

 

What’s Going on in the Philadelphia Startup Community

Philly Force.com Monthly Meetup
When: Mon Nov 7, 6:00pm
Where: 500 E. Swedesford Rd Wayne, PA 19087

Philly Force.com Developers November 2011 Meetup – Java & Play!

 

PSL Book Club – “The Lean Startup” by Eric Ries.

 

GirlDevelopIt Philly Happy Hour
When: Mon Nov 7, 6:30pm
Where: Black Sheep Pub, 247 S. 17th St Phila 19103

Girl Develop It Philadelphia. With more than 125 members, it’s time to get together and mingle! Part of the reason I started this group was to meet other women interested in technology and development and I’m sure you’d like to do the same.

 

TEDx comes to Philly. You know the drill.

 

ElectNext Turns Zero!

 

This is a weekly open house for Hive 76, where people drop by to work on software or hardware, and eat Pizza. We also have our weekly scrum (planning) meetings at 7 PM on Wednesday’s, during our open hours.

 

Online grant opportunities are changing the way foundations receive and evaluate grant proposals. Web-based grant systems streamline the application process, make it easier for funders to collect necessary information, and improve communication between nonprofits and foundations.

 

The event will begin with a panel of five speakers who will each present two trends in specific technologies. A short debate on the technologies presented will follow and the judges and audiences will vote on the top trend.

 

 

Top Upcoming Events

Nov 16 – Build Guild Philly
Nov 17 – PSL Founder Factory

 

 

For newcomers: StartupDigest Product Manager is the members-only weekly email newsletter of the best resources in product management.

You can become a member for free here.

Welcome back to StartupDigest Product Manager, the members-only guide to becoming a better product manager every week. Whether you’re a Product Manager at an early stage startup or at a large corporation, you’ll find yourself spending a lot of time solving problems. The nature of each problem differs. Sometimes they present themselves obviously: an engineer on your team suddenly takes a personal leave and you’re on a deadline to deliver your first demo. In this case, there’s a clear path toward resolving the problem and getting the project back on track.The harder problems are less noticeable and slowly brew behind the scenes. How do you deal with degrading team morale or declining code quality? As a PM how do you prepare your team to anticipate, identify and solve these problems? This week’s digest article delves further into this topic.

StartupDigest Product Manager is curated by:
Herman Ng – Program Manager, Microsoft

 

 

Resource of the Week

In The Ring: Problems, Problems Everywhere
By Seth Sternberg, TechCrunch

Meebo CEO Seth Sternberg shares his thoughts on problem solving from a startup CEO’s perspective. Seth sums up his thoughts well: “don’t run from your problems, but do everything you can to empower your people to solve them early and often.”

Since PMs are essentially mini-CEOs, the insights shared in this article are relevant for this digest too. 

 

 

Past Resources

What I Learned From Steve Jobs
By Guy Kawasaki

 

How to Give Your Product Personality
By Jason Shen

 

The Lean Startup, by Eric Ries with case studies, Intuit’s Scott Cook and Instagram’s Kevin Systrom
From TechCrunch Disrupt

 

 

For newcomers: StartupDigest Product Manager is the members-only weekly email newsletter of the best resources in product management.

You can become a member for free here.

Welcome back to StartupDigest Product Manager, the members-only guide to becoming a better product manager every week.
 
Stories about Steve Jobs’ passing dominated news media coverage last week. I think what we’ll miss most about him would be the lessons learned and product inspirations enabled by his presence. We’ll no longer be able to interview him or invite him to speak at university commencements. What we can do, however, is ask people what they’ve learned through working and interacting with him in the past. I’d like to share one such article in this week’s digest.
 
StartupDigest Product Manager is curated by:
Herman Ng – Program Manager, Microsoft

 

 

Resource of the Week

What I Learned From Steve Jobs
By Guy Kawasaki, CNET News

Former Apple Fellow and cult technology figure Guy Kawasaki was one of the early employees at Apple and experienced first-hand what it was like to work with Steve Jobs. In this article, he shares a list of his top 12 lessons learned from Steve Jobs over the years.

 

 

Past Resources

The Lean Startup, by Eric Ries with case studies, Intuit’s Scott Cook and Instagram’s Kevin Systrom
From TechCrunch Disrupt

 

Getting to the Top in Product Marketing & Product Management
From Stanford GSB

 

 

Below is an archived version of the NYC StartupDigest Events List – a weekly curated listing of the best tech startup events in NYC. If you would like to get next week’s digest on Monday, sign up here.

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Good morning, NYC startups! Applications are still open for Lean Startup Machine.

Our featured startup of the week: KickoffLabs provides a no-gimmick platform to launch, validate, and share your next great startup idea. Members of NYC Startup Community can get 75% off their first 3 months here.

For newcomers: The NYC StartupDigest is a curated events list, created by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs, that is laser-focused on the needs of startups in NYC. Please send feedback to frank.denbow@thestartupdigest.com.

- Frank
 
 
NYC StartupDigest is curated by:
Frank Denbow – Founder, Songsicle
 
 
NYC StartupDigest is supported exclusively by:
Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) has been working with the startup community for almost 30 years.  The SVB NYC office has been running for 10 years and we work with many NYC startups.  If you want to learn more about how we can help your startup, get in touch with Shai Goldman at sgoldman@svb.com.
 
 
What’s Going On in the NYC Startup Community:

Monday, October 10

Graphic Design Fundamentals

1pm at General Assembly, 902 Broadway, 4th Floor

Learn the fundamental concepts of graphic design and how to discuss these ideas using key terminology.

CTOSchool (developers only!)

6:30pm at Skylabs, One State Street Plaza, 22nd Floor

Lead and senior developers will discuss the role of the CTO.

Eric Ries Interview & Book Signing

6:30pm at 40 W 4th Street

Erick Schonfield, Chief Editor of TechCrunch, will interview Eric.

Ignite NYC (discount code: startuplove)

6:30pm at Sheraton New York Hotel & Towers, 811 7th Ave, 2nd Floor

Check out some awesome 5-minute talks by some of NYC’s brightest geeks.

Tuesday, October 11

Introduction to HTML5 and CSS3

6pm at General Assembly, 902 Broadway, 4th Floor

Get up to speed on the two emerging frontend development languages.

Creatives Raising Funds

6:30pm at Galapagos Art Space, 16 Main St, Brooklyn

Take the seat of the investor to see how creative leaders are fund-raising or crowd-funding to bring their startups and initiatives to life.

NY Tech Meetup

7pm at NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts, 566 Laguardia Place

Join the largest gathering of NYC technologists for an evening of live demos.

Creating Financial Sustainability for Social Enterprises & Nonprofits

7pm at General Assembly, 902 Broadway, 4th Floor

Learn from a group of instructors with decades of experience in social entrepreneurship.

Going Big With Twilio

7pm at Union Square Ventures, 915 Broadway, 19th Floor

Come share stories and a few beers with Twilio CTO Evan Cooke and FakeGirlfriend.co creator Ricky Robinett.

Wednesday, October 12

Twitter Dev Teatime

6pm at Betaworks, 416 W 13th St, Suite 203

NY Twitter devs unite!

VC’s Unleashed: Mock Pitches and Real Feedback

6:30pm at General Assembly, 902 Broadway, 4th Floor

Learn firsthand exactly what venture capitalists both love and loathe to hear in a pitch.

How to Get Your First Million Users

7pm at Metro Baptist Church, 410 W 20th St

Come to hear Michael Geer’s story of how he helped found Badoo, and built the site from an idea to a network with over 100m users and $100m in revenue.

Thursday, October 13

NYC Startup Ideation Bootcamp

6pm

The Founder Institute will help you improve your idea and come up with new ones.

ER Accelerator Happy Hour

6pm at Connolly’s NYC, 121 W 45th St, 3rd Floor

Free beers and good conversation!

Investor Feedback Forum and Pitch Showdown

6:30pm at NYU Stern Business School, 44 W 4th St

Check out 10 startup pitches and the advice they receive from 4 experienced panelists.

How to Get Your Worth in the Work Place

7pm at dzine it, 26 W 23rd St, 4th Floor

Hear from three women who will share their own personal experience of how they got what they want in the work place.

NYC Gaming Meetup

7pm at General Assembly, 902 Broadway, 4th Floor

Come meet NYC’s top game designers, developers, businesspeople and creatives across multiple platforms.

Lean Startup Machine

Through Sunday 10/16

Lean Startup Machine is a metrics-driven startup competition where teams learn to identify the key risks in their business model through hands-on mentorship and our framework of tools. Apply to join here.

Friday, October 14

Brown Bones Benefit Party

9:30pm at New Work City, 412 Broadway, 2nd Floor

Entrepreneur Amit Gupta was recently diagnosed with leukemia. To fight it, he needs matching bone marrow, and we can help!

 

What’s Going On Next Week:

Monday, October 17

6:30pm – I’ve got this great idea for a tech startup, now what?

6:30pm – The UX of Lean Startup: Replacing Requirements with Hypotheses

6:30pm – Targeting the Mobile Shopper

6:45pm – NJ Tech Meetup

Tuesday, October 18

6pm – Rocking Out in the Empire State Building

6pm – The Tablet Revolution

6pm – How to Help Your Relationship Survive the Startup Life

6:30pm – Wall Street to Startups Meetup Group

Wednesday, October 19

1pm – Business of API’s Conference

6pm – Hatchery – Are You Serious?

7pm – A Survey and Explanation of the Art Market

Thursday, October 20

 

8pm – Social Selling with Facebook Apps on the Open Graph

Saturday, October 22

9am – Web Navigation and Faceted Search Design Workshop

 

Top Upcoming NYC Startup Events

Nov 1 – HTML5 Live

Nov 7-9 – Future of Web Design

For newcomers: StartupDigest Product Manager is the members-only weekly email newsletter of the best resources in product management.

You can become a member for free here.

Welcome back to StartupDigest Product Manager, the members-only guide to becoming a better product manager every week.
 
This week let’s take a look at a follow-up piece to Fred Wilson’s amusing blog post on product personality. I also thought this would be a good place to recommend some learning material. With the increased focus on metrics and analytics in recent years, it’s useful to acquire skills on how to make all this data more consumable via visualizations. Check out this homepage for a data visualization classat Stanford. The slides from recent lectures are available for public viewing and are great inspiration for PMs looking to hone their data skills.

- Herman

StartupDigest Product Manager is curated by:
Herman Ng – Program Manager, Microsoft

 

 

Resource of the Week

How to Give Your Product Personality
By Jason Shen, jasonshen.com

As you’re planning to build a new product or feature for your company, it’s also worth thinking about giving it a personality. Why is personality important? How do you give your product personality? How does personality differentiate your offering from competitors? Jason Shen shares some examples of product personality done right from popular sites like turntable.fm and CodeAcademy, to illustrate his perspective on product personality.

 

 

Past Resources

The Lean Startup, by Eric Ries with case studies, Intuit’s Scott Cook and Instagram’s Kevin Systrom
From TechCrunch Disrupt

Getting to the Top in Product Marketing & Product Management
From Stanford GSB

Why Leading a Product Org is Hard
By Tom Leung

 

For newcomers: StartupDigest Product Manager is the members-only weekly email newsletter of the best resources in product management.

You can become a member for free here.

Welcome back to StartupDigest Product Manager, the members-only guide to becoming a better product manager every week.

Following on from last week’s digest, I’d like to share another video! This one deep dives on the essences of managing a “lean startup.”

- Herman

StartupDigest Product Manager is curated by:
Herman Ng – Program Manager, Microsoft

 

 

Resource of the Week

The Lean Startup, by Eric Ries with case studies, Intuit’s Scott Cook and Instagram’s Kevin Systrom
From TechCrunch Disrupt

This half-hour Q&A presentation features Eric Ries (the author of The Lean Startup, a highly recommended read), Intuit founder Scott Cook and Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom. The panelists share their views on the benefits and motivations behind moving to agile product development processes.

It’s particularly interesting to learn how an established business like Intuit retains a startup-like culture instead of sticking with traditional waterfall approaches to development.

 

Past Resources

Getting to the Top in Product Marketing & Product Management
via Stanford GSB

Why Leading a Product Org is Hard
by Tom Leung

Managing Product Management Distractions
by Jim Holland

 

Below is an archived version of the Chicago StartupDigest Events List – a weekly curated listing of the best tech startup events in Chicago. If you would like to get next week’s digest on Monday, sign up here.

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Chicago StartupDigest is curated by:
Bernhard Kappe - Founder of Pathfinder Software

 

 

Chicago StartupDigest is supported exclusively by:
U.S. college graduates with innovative new business ideas can apply to the Kauffman Foundation’s Global Scholars Program, newly expanded to include U.S. scholars. Participants learn and network with an international group of fellow aspiring entrepreneurs from January through June 2012. Apply here by Oct. 17, 2011.

 

 

What’s Going on in the Chicago Startup Community

Orbitz VP of Product Strategy Chris Brown on how to innovate in a disruptive mobile market from an incumbent Ecommerce position: lessons for both startups and established enterprises.

On the last Tuesday of every month, a group of impassioned entrepreneurs, developers, designers, tech companies, investors and general tech enthusiasts will gather to bear witness to the most innovative Chicago companies presenting their newest products.

The other attendees will all be in startups. It will be a chance to compare notes on operational, development, and business issues with peers. One of my favorite events for startups – highly valuable.

Prototyping Mobile Apps without Coding presented by Pek Pongpaet.

What do you call an interaction designer who doesn’t design for a computer screen? While it sounds like a a precursor to a joke, it is a deep and uncertain question, or rather one of many questions that interaction designers should be exploring as the future of interaction is about to change dramatically.

 

 

Top Upcoming Chicago Startup Events

October 1: Chicago Lean Startup Challenge (application deadline)
October 12: Entrepreneurs Unpluggd
October 22 to 23: Camp DevOps
December 15: Chicago Lean Startup Challenge Finals

 

Below is an archived version of the Toronto StartupDigest Events List – a weekly curated listing of the best tech startup events in Toronto. If you would like to get next week’s digest on Monday, sign up here.

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Good morning, Toronto Startups and Entrepreneurs!

Choices, choices… just a heads up to all of you awesome subscribers: this week (and the next month or so) you’re going to be seeing a lot top notch events being run. The conflict will arise in terms of choosing which events you want to spend your precious time on when you could be closing deals, perfecting pixels, working on copy or coding, choose wisely so you don’t get lost in all the noise.

This notable events include (Startup Godfather) Eric Ries’ visit to UofT to talk about his new book The Lean Startup, Best in Klass SaaS Conference, TEDxToronto and Ladies Learning Code. Have a fantastic week and be sure to see a number of upcoming events at the end of the newsletter!

Please let us know if we’re missing any key events and we’ll be glad to include them in future digests through our submission form.

- Will

 

Toronto StartupDigest is curated by:
Will Lam – Founder of Date Ideas and keeps a blog on Entrepreneurship
Josh Sookman – CEO, Guardly

 

 

What’s Going on in the Toronto Startup Community

Startup Experts Series with Eric Ries
When: Monday, Sept 19, 5 PM (sharp) to 6 PM
Where: Rotman School of Management, 105 St. George St, Toronto, ON

 

Join Eric Ries in an intimate setting, where he talks about his new book, The Lean Startup.

RPN is free of cost and everyone interested in web development is encouraged to join us for a pint. Please note that this is a social event, not a user group. There are no technical demonstrations at Pub Nite.

Why can’t the Gaming people meet the TV people, the Publishing people meet the Web Video people, and everyone get to meet the Advertising people? Let’s be honest, in the end, it’s all about the money. Each month we focus on one of the 5 key cross media sectors (motion, mobile, marketing, publishing, gaming).

Let’s discuss the mobile platforms out there (from native to HTML5 to hybrid) and the tech-side of building an HTML5 (offline capable), Native, PhoneGap, Titanium, etc app!

Klass Capital and PwC would like to invite you to learn from some of Canada’s leading internet sales and marketing gurus at our quarterly “Best in Klass” SaaS Conferenceon Thursday, September 22, 2011 at the Pears on the Avenue Presentation Gallery. See how Rypple, Intelex, Firmex, and FreshBooks built their online and on-premise sales and marketing engines. The discussion will be moderated by Daniel Klass and Mark Roberge of HubSpot.

Meet and connect with other front end developers, UI/UX designers and all those who share the visual aspect of web or mobile app development.

Our 2011 conference theme is Redefinition: Definitions impose a frame on the world, shaping communities, social and political structures, our relationships, and ourselves. We rely on them, yet we struggle to break free of their limits. Forces all around us are shifting our definitions, and changing our realities — sometimes violently. A changing definition can be the most powerful force on Earth. A re-definition can change the world.

If you are looking to get your feet wet when it comes to programming, then this is the workshop for you. HTML and CSS are the backbone of all websites, and knowledge of them is a necessity if you are interested in things like web development, creating marketing emails, or even blogging!

 

 

Top Upcoming Toronto Startup Events

Sept 26 – Drupal User Group
Sept 26 – Hackernest Tech Social
Sept 27 – Women In Tech: Who’s enrolling and sticking to it
Sept 28 – Startup Drinks
Oct 1 – SEO, Online Marketing and Social Media Group
Sept 28 – Enterpreneurship 101 – Finding and Validating Your Idea
Sept 29 – FilmConnect
Oct 3 – Mobile Monday: Women in Wireless
Oct 10 – Toronto Blackberry Developer Group
Oct 14 – FITC – Emerging Technology and Advertising
Oct 24 – CloudCampTO
Oct 24 – X-Summit
Oct 26 – AndroidTO
Oct 26-30 – DigifestTO
Nov 9 – AccelerateTO