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.

Happy Holidays! This week I’d like to introduce everyone to our new co-curator for the StartupDigest Reading List, Chris Burnor! Chris is our lead engineer and felt the reading list needed some more technical articles. Super excited to have him with us :)- ChrisStartupDigest Reading List is curated by:
Chris McCann – Co-Founder, StartupDigest
Chris Burnor – Lead Engineer, StartupDigest

 

 

StartupDigest Reading List is supported exclusively by:
Check out these sketchbook videos on “finding the magic sauce of entrepreneurship” and “three things entrepreneurs do” and more from the Kauffman Foundation.

 

 

What You Need to Read This Week

An interesting interview with Nick Swinmurn, the original founder of Zappos, about the company’s early days.

 

An internet of people
by Chris Dixon

 

A short post about why companies that have been tried before like Etsy, Kickstarter, and AirBnb are succeeding today.

 

A Tmux Crach Course
by JDClayton

For developers who spend most of their day in the terminal, tmux is a great GNU Screen replacement to augment your workflow.

 

Hiring the best people
by Scott Wiess

Why the best people join the best companies.

 

Finance for Geeks
by Eric Sink

A quick overview of financial statements, profit margins, and funding.

 

Exploring Client-side MVC with Backbone.js
by Jared Carroll

A rails developer tries out a different MVC framework: Backbone.js

 

Assessing a Company: Questions you need to ask in an Interview
by Michael Chen

This post will help you decide if the startup you are thinking about joining is right for you.

 

See all of the previous resources and articles we’ve featured here.

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.

Last night we visted Causes to hang out with them after they hired our friend Herman Ng through StartupDigest VIP. Check out the awesome view from their office of downtown SF!

- Chris

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

 

 

StartupDigest Reading List is supported exclusively by:
How do new businesses get ahead in the “Money Game”? Navigating the growing startup financing landscape is the focus of the latest animated video from the Kauffman Foundation’s sketchbook series. Watch “Money Game,” where Kauffman Senior Fellow Paul Kedrosky breaks down the methods entrepreneurs use to raise capital, and the benefits—and hazards—of each.

 

 

What You Need to Read This Week

David is a partner at SV Angel, Ron Conway’s investment fund.

 

 

Everybody loves to talk about starting new companies (and exiting them) but no one talks about the many projects that struggle to take off and when to stop working on them.

 

Some of the most creative ideas come from the empty space while you aren’t working.

 

Sometimes old-fashioned sketching is the best way to visualize a design idea and iterate on it. Our team does this all the time on our whiteboards at home :)

 

Make sure that you surround yourself with some people who don’t just pat you on the back all of the time.

 

Derek started CD Baby, which became the largest seller of independent music online with $100M in sales for 150,000 musicians. Here is his talk on 8 different profit models.

See all of the previous resources and articles we’ve featured here.

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

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Baltimore StartupDigest is curated by:
Brian Sierakowski - Product Manager at LocalUp Solutions
Kyle Fritz - VP of Engineering for LocalUp
David Troy - Founder of Shortmail

 

 

Baltimore StartupDigest is supported exclusively by:
Check out these sketchbook videos on “finding the magic sauce of entrepreneurship” and “three things entrepreneurs do” and more from the Kauffman Foundation.

 

 

What’s Going on in the Baltimore Startup Community

B’more on Rails – Jasmine-headless-webkit — John Bintz will help us get up and running with Jasmine specs in a headless WebKit browser. Surely, this is the fastest way to test your Javascript code.

 

Will Mitchell (from Washington City Paper and Longform.org) will demo Longform’s soon-to-be-released iPad app and talk about where it fits into the growing market for readers. We’ll find out what’s new with Instapaper and the Safari Reading List, and look at some ways to optimize long online stories for readability, including an overview of the News microformat developed by the AP. We’ll also take a survey of sites curating longform journalism, and talk about the ways some publishers have integrated “distraction free” reading services and layouts.

 

Monthly meeting of the Baltimore Perl Mongers.

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.

This week I got to hang out at one of the Singularity University sessions with Vivek Wadwha and I saw a talk on cyber crime that completely blew my mind. Not startup related but if you’re interested in this kind of stuff check out this video. I have a whole new perception on privacy and security now.

- Chris

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

 

 

StartupDigest Reading List is supported exclusively by:
How do new businesses get ahead in the “Money Game”? Navigating the growing startup financing landscape is the focus of the latest animated video from the Kauffman Foundation’s sketchbook series. Watch “Money Game,” where Kauffman Senior Fellow Paul Kedrosky breaks down the methods entrepreneurs use to raise capital, and the benefits—and hazards—of each.

 

 

What You Need to Read This Week

A heavy and emotional post about the lows of startup life by Ben Huh, previously founder of a failed startup, now founder of the Cheezburger Network.

 

 

A firey post on why programming can be for anyone if you are really interested in learning. The site is a little confusing but if you’re interested in learning to program the free book starts here.

 

A very tactical post on how to respond to investor emails. Much of this also goes for responding to intro’s in general.

 

An older post about the different stages of a company’s growth and the different people needed at each stage.

 

It’s easy to blame external factors for your company or product not succeeding. It’s even harder to take responsibility and action to make it better.

 

The video was taken at Hackers and Founders to answer the question what is marketing and why is it important? Rand Fishkin is a co-founder of SEOmoz, one of the largest SEO and inbound marketing companies.

 

See all of the previous resources and articles we’ve featured here.

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.

This is probably the most epic reading list I’ve put together so far. Hope you have as much fun reading the articles and watching the video as I did. Enjoy :)

- Chris

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

 

 

StartupDigest Reading List is supported exclusively by:
How do new businesses get ahead in the “Money Game”? Navigating the growing startup financing landscape is the focus of the latest animated video from the Kauffman Foundation’s sketchbook series. Watch “Money Game,” where Kauffman Senior Fellow Paul Kedrosky breaks down the methods entrepreneurs use to raise capital, and the benefits—and hazards—of each.

 

 

What You Need to Read This Week

It takes genuine hard work to build something great. Hard work does not equal success, but it’s a pre-cursor to it.

After Arrington wrote this post, one of the engineers he quoted wrote a scathing response. Arrington responded to that here.

 

 

Sahil, who was on the founding team of Pinterest and built Turntable.fm (famous for their pivot from StickyBits) talks about the realities of pivoting.

 

It looks like Alejandro Mayorkas, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director, is getting serious about fixing U.S. immigration law for startups. This is good news for the Startup Visa movement.

 

An eye opening article for both men and women about the importance of salary negotiation.

 

Once you officially make the leap to join a startup, that’s when the fun begins. Here’s what to expect.

 

An awesome video with Ben, previously CEO of Opsware (sold to HP for $1.6B) and co-founder of Andreessen Horowitz, on the realities of starting a tech company.

He has an epic story about his company Loudcloud IPO’ing at the height of the tech bubble, everything falling apart, breaking apart its software and hardware businesses, and eventually turning Opsware (the software piece) into a success.

 

See all of the previous resources and articles we’ve featured here.

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

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Good Morning, Taipei Startups! 

I’ve been reading a lot of articles about the so-called PayPal Mafia recently and this great article from David Sacks outlines several key elements to the group’s success. Of course, we at StartupDigest also have a reading listfor more inspiring entrepreneurial tidbits. Happy reading! For Newcomers: Taipei StartupDigest is an events list, curated by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs, that is laser focused on the needs of startups in Taipei. We aim to bring you the best of what the tech community has to offer in Taipei and from time to time, across Taiwan. If it’s worth going to, you’ll find it here!

Please send feedback and event info to jhill@thestartupdigest.com.

 

Taipei StartupDigest is curated by:
James Hill

 

 

What’s Going on in the Taipei Startup Community

Startup Weekend Hsinchu
When: Friday 2 – 4 December
Where: NCTU MITC, 1001 University Road Hsinchu City
Language: Chinese & English

The second Startup Weekend event to be held in Taiwan, taking place in the hardware tech hub of Hsinchu. Follow along on Facebook or Twitter for the latest updates.

 

Help test out ICEBERG, an app for all the night owls in Taipei that launches soon.

 

 

Top Upcoming Events

12/5 – Hadoop User Group
12/6 – Intel Innovation & Research Forum 2011
12/12 – CEP Forum: Apps
12/17 – TEDxTaipei Salon “The Power of Journey”

 

 

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.

Happy Thanksgiving! I’ve been spending the week in Madrid, Spain speaking at FICOD & Netday.es and enjoying an “American Thanksgiving” dinner :) Here are the best articles on startup life for you to read after you wake up from your food coma!- Chris

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

 

 

StartupDigest Reading List 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 You Need to Read This Week

Don’t be scared to admit what you don’t know.

 

 

Here is a quick crash-course on design, explaining its background and the differences between information architecture, user interface, user experience, and more.

 

Your customers don’t care what bank you use, how your company is financed, what office food you eat, or the 100′s of other things you do to run a company that don’t directly affect them.

 

A personal story of how Matt, an ex-Marine turned entry-level PR employee, learned programming and became a paid programmer.

 

A letter from one co-founder to another that reveals the emotional bond between good business partners.

 

Find all of the best articles on starting, joining, and leading a startup here.

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.

 

Welcome back to the StartupDigest Reading List, the members-only guide to the best articles on startup life. This week features a look into the proposed Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). Take time to read more about it and decide for yourself how the startup community would be affected if it were passed.- Chris

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

 

 

StartupDigest Reading List 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 You Need to Read This Week

Learn more about what the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) is and how it affects internet freedom.

 

 

One person’s take on why he works with startups instead of bigger companies.

 

A summary of a class taught by Brendan Baker (previously with AngelList now with Greylock Partners) on how to communicate traction.

 

An inside look into Amazon and how its founder Jeff Bezos thinks about building a lasting company.

 

A sketchbook video narrated by Carl Schramm, president of the Kauffman Foundation.

 

Find all of the best articles on starting, joining, and leading a startup here.

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.

Welcome back to the StartupDigest Reading List, the members-only guide to the best articles on startup life.StartupDigest officially turns 2 today! Thanks to all of you for helping more people get involved in this incredible community. Woo hoo! :)- Chris

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

 

 

StartupDigest Reading List 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 You Need to Read This Week

Paul Graham, founder of Y Combinator, explains the larger impact of starting or joining a startup.

 

 

It won’t happen overnight. You should expect the learning process to take 3-4 months.

 

The biggest takeaway here is to not be scared. Walk up to people and tell them what you’re working on and why you are so excited to work on it.

 

Amazing code does not equal success. Make sure that you are making something useful.

 

Marc, who exited two companies worth more than $1 billion and started the VC firm Andreessen-Horowitz, gives an epic overview of the startup world at Stanford.

 

Find all of the best articles on starting, joining, and leading a startup here.

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

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Gooooood morning, Startupnam! Waking up in Barcelona this week (yeah, I know, I’m on the road again). I’m here for the Scrum Weekso swing by and say hi if you’re around.I was impressed by the number of emails I got last week about the immigration issues in Europe. Not only I got emails from people having problems in Spain, but in other countries like Germany as well (via Twitter):”We actually have to wait 3 months for a new US employee to arrive because of VISA. Should be much easier!”

So again, as I said last week, it’s a disgrace that we’re behaving like this. Not only that, it seems that verbal attacks on foreign are getting harsher. This past week, a good friend told me he had to sustain these attacks in the university. That professors were attacking him for not being Spanish and because he spoke English. I can’t even start to describe how ashamed I am of those behaviours. How mistaken these people are and how they can’t see past their miserable lives…

It’s sad to think that high qualified foreign are being accused of taking our jobs. Not only is this not true, but it’s actually quite the opposite, diversity is needed for innovation. Yeah, that innovation that politicians love to through around.

Anyway, other interesting news of the week I’ve posted on the Press42 Facebook page, Traction verticals (which appeared on our reading list Digest) on different ways your startup can do PR and get exposure, four destructive myths most companies still live by (this one should be read and printed in many companies) or the current status of raising seed and series A rounds for startups.

And after this rant, off we go to the events of the week!

 

 

What’s Going on in the Madrid Startup Community

InterQue (Spanish)
When: Fri Nov 11, 9:30am – 7:15pm
Where: La Casa Encendida, Ronda Valencia, 2, Madrid

One of the most interesting events this week. Opening up the program, my good friend Antonella Brogllia from TEDxMadrid, and a bunch of other good friends will be talking in different round tables. From online revolutions, to education 2.0, going through online journalism or magic 2.0.
 
iWeekend (Spanish)
When: Fri Nov 11, 5:00pm
Where: garAJE, calle Matilde Díez nº11, Madrid

Named, the Spanish Startup Weekend, it brings entrepreneurs, developers, designers, etc., together for a weekend of coding and working on new projects. A definitely must attend this week if you’re looking for inspiration, developers or co-founders.

 

6th Annual Social Responsability Forum (Spanish/English)
When: Fri Nov 11, 3:30pm – Sat Nov 12, 3:00pm
Where: Caixa Forum, Paseo del Prado, 36, Madrid

If you’re into the social entrepreneurship and Social Responsability areas, this forum is definitely a must go. With people like Erik Joule SVP from Levi Strauss, Sarah Murray from the Financial Times or Indy Johar, founder of The Hub, I think it’s a great weekend starter.