StartupDigest Reading List – March 2, 2012

2/03/2012

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.

————————————————————————————————————–

We’ve started to organize all of the past articles by topic on our startup articles page. Check out our top three article topics: big ideas, becoming a better programmer, and hiring for startups. 
- 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

Looks matter – good graphic design can compel viewers to process information and use software differently.

 

Wisdom: Business folks believe that conversation solves all problems. Designers believe visualization solves all problems. Engineers believe that optimization solves all problems. Communication mayhem ensues!

 

If you are going to SXSW or any big upcoming conference, this is a must read.

 

Startups can startup anywhere but here’s what you will encounter outside of the major startup hubs.

 

Traction trumps everything
By Gabriel Weinberg

What investors (and press and employees) look for is traction. Traction is real customers for your product or service.

 

Here are a few tips on getting visitors to click and engage, not just view and go away.

 

File system links are great for structuring your application for flexibility and space, but do you know that *nix systems have both hard and soft links?

 

If you’ve read Paul Graham’s essays, you know how much he loves LISP and functional programming, but if one is writing for high performance web services, Java is still one of the fastest languages out there.  How can one take the benefits of LISP and apply them to Java?

 

Mercator: A Scalable, Extensible Web Crawler
By Allan Heydonand Marc Najork

This paper outlines a system for building a scalable web crawler. Even for those who are not trying to take down Google, it is a great way of seeing a case study in designing a scalable system.

 

[Video] Peter Diamandis on Abundance

Peter Diamandis founded the XPrize Foundation and Singularity University. Here’s his talk on why we should be optimistic about the future.

 

See all of the best startup resources here.

 

1 Comment

Why StartupDigest VIP isn’t just another recruiting service

13/02/2012

Life is too short to wake up with regrets.
Love the people who treat you right.
- Bob Marley, Let it

Since we founded StartupDigest, we’ve helped more than 200,000 people around the world get more involved in their local startup communities. Recently, we started a VIP service that helps engineers, designers, and product managers (VIP’s) join funded, growing, and meaningful startups. The most common questions we get are:

  • How do both of these products fit together? What do a media company and recruiting company have in common?
  • Isn’t StartupDigest VIP just another recruiting service?

 
 
To get to the answer, it’s useful to consider what type of person most actively uses StartupDigest newsletters. These people have been, generally, people who are new to the startup world including: people new to their city, people coming out of large companies, recent graduates, and people wanting to switch to more meaningful companies.
 
Brendan and I discussed this often and wondered what more we can do to help this group of people who wanted to become part of the startup world through joining a startup.
 
We realized that most existing groups always focused on the people wanting to start startups but no one had ever focused on the people wanting to join startups. We wondered if we could help our members by making joining a startup an accesible and fun experience for any talented person.
 
Brendan and I shared this belief which became the basis of our VIP service: in general, talented people who want to join startups should always have the opportunity to meet each other and join the best ones. Life is too short to work at a boring company. 
 
As we set out to design a VIP service to help talented people do this, we began by asking – what stops people from doing this today?
 
The most common obstacles we’ve heard are:

  • It’s hard to know which startups are good and which ones aren’t.
  • It’s difficult to get in touch with decision-makers at great startups directly. Applying to jobs@ email addresses or cold emailing is possible, but it’s much better to get a personal introduction to the people who lead the company.
  • It’s hard to find people who are thinking about joining a startup or who work at interesting startups already.

 
 
Next we asked, how could we close these gaps?
 
To address these gaps we created StartupDigest VIP to allow the best engineers, designers, and product managers who want to join startups to easily meet the decision makers at the best companies through personal introductions.

  • We leveraged the StartupDigest network to choose only the best companies
  • We personally introduce VIP’s to only the best companies that they are excited about
  • We produce events to help current and alumni VIP’s meet each other and make friends with other talented people who are already working at interesting startups.

 
 
We decided that we can create a VIP community for the best engineers, designers, and product managers to meet each other and join the best startups. As a result, we could choose the best companies (since hiring the best people is so important), companies would be excited to talk to VIP’s directly without the middle man, and every VIP would be able to meet talented people just like them.
 
Next we’ll be privately inviting select engineers, designers, and product managers who actively read StartupDigest and have already been through the experience of joining an awesome startup into the VIP community. All of us are excited to meet them.
 
- Chris
 

No Comments

StartupDigest Reading List – February 3, 2012

4/02/2012

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

By Eric Ries

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.

 

Let’s peak under the hood of Ruby’s run time environment and see how the garbage collector works. While we’re at it, maybe we can help save your application from slowing to a molasses mess.

 

A brief guide to tech internships

By Alexey Komissarouk

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.

No Comments

StartupDigest Reading List – January 20, 2012

20/01/2012

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 was a historic one for the internet. We stood up to the progess of SOPA and PIPA in the US government, but more pushback is coming. This was the week that government realized that the internet matters. This was also the week that the internet realized that government matters too. Let’s make sure that government continues to hear our support for an open and free internet.

- Chris

 

StartupDigest 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

Paul Graham, partner at Y Combinator, has noticed that the startups that are hungry to take action and can take care of themselves are the ones who tend to do better than the others.

 

 

Growth is the lifeblood of new companies. Here is how Jeff, a partner at Andreessen-Horowitz, thought about growth while at OpenTable, PayPal, and eBay.

 

Stop SOPA Page
by Zachary Johnson

Probably the most amazing Stop SOPA page to come out of Wednesday’s blackout was Zachary’s flash-light page. Check out the repo and see how he did it.

 

Here’s a broad overview on the different types of design: graphic, interaction, and UX.

 

Border Radius
By Jacob Bijani

Forget what all the browser-specific tags are for using border radius in CSS3? Forget no more with the simplest, but most useful way to instantly see and get the CSS for a cool rounded-border box.

 

Joel Spolsky built Trello to be a horizontal product similar to how he built Microsoft Excel back in 1991.

 

Here are the resources and timeline Eddy went through to learn Python/Django himself and become his own technical co-founder.

 

Here is a video on the historical context of SOPA/PIPA and what companies that support these bills are really aiming for.

 

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

 

No Comments

StartupDigest Reading List – January 6, 2012

6/01/2012

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 we have two incredible videos, a technical vidcast, and 6 articles with one from us on how compensation at a startup isn’t much different than a large coproration.
Welcome to the new year!
- Chris

StartupDigest 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

I’m sure a lot of people have “learning to code” on their new year’s resolution list, but don’t fall into the learn code in 4 hours trap. Learning to code is awesome but takes a lot of hard work.

 

 

Charles Hudson, who is both a founder of Bionic Panda Games and investing partner at SoftTech VC, details out the minimum four things you should update your investors on.

 

How to organize your app’s JavasScript without relying on third party libraries.

 

Don’t worry, have focus, and be nimble. In the post are 5 examples of startups who won the war against the Goliath.

 

Meet people in real life, have a mission people want to join, treat people well, and don’t be stingy with equity or compensation.

 

Oh My ZSH
by Ryan Bates

If you aren’t a Rails Developer or don’t regularly watch RailsCasts, this one’s worth making an exception to watch. Ryan Bates details how to get started in the supremely powerful z-shell using Oh-My-zsh.

 

We asked some of our alumni VIP’s about the difference in compensation between their big corporate job and their new startup. The differences were much smaller than we anticipated.

 

[Video] Peter Thiel on building companies with purpose

A quick talk (Q&A section is long) by Peter Thiel on how he evaluates companies as an investor & entrepreneur.

 

[Video] Bonus Steve Jobs on the early days of NeXT

An awesome old school PBS documentary on Steve Jobs after he was fired from Apple in the middle of starting NeXT. Shows real scenes of Steve conducing meetings, product brainstorming, and motivating the team.

 

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

 

No Comments

StartupDigest Reading List – December 30, 2011

30/12/2011

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 early New Year’s! Over the holiday break I watched this vintage Steve Jobs video, filmed in 1980, and it was one of the best videos I have seen recentley. Definitley reccomend watching this when you have time.- Chris

StartupDigest 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

Here is a basic rundown of what SOPA is, where it is now, and why its important for the startup community to know about.

 

 

When companies start they need to make one very important decision at the beginning of their life: do you want to build organically or get big fast?

 

If you have 1,000 servers each individually rated at 99.9% uptime, on average, one of those machines is always failing.

 

Alison shares some lessons she learned from working at Box.net and now starting her own company.

 

Co-founder and hiring problems, especially with the first 5 hires, trouble shipping, and trouble communication are all deep problematic signs for new startups.

 

CanCan is a great authentication system for for Rails, but how do you rigorously test it’s magic?

 

People love to talk about working on meaningful things but Elon Musk, who started Tesla Motors and SpaceX, is one individual who lives and breaths making a huge difference.

 

A rare video filmed at the Computer History Museum in 1980 of Steve Jobs talking about the beginning of Apple and his plans for the future.

 

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

 

No Comments

StartupDigest Reading List – December 23, 2011

25/12/2011

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.

 

 

No Comments

Tokyo StartupDigest – December 12, 2011

13/12/2011

 

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

——————————————————————————————————————————————————-

Hi comrades,

Loki Ng, the co-founder of Hong Kong’s startup of a translation bridging platform, was visiting Tokyo last week and I helped him meet tech geeks and VIPs in the city. That makes me think deeply about the point of helping foreign startups engage the Japanese startup community. I’ll learn much more about it.

Also this week, there are a bunch of events wrapping up this year’s all things tech in Japan.

 

Highlighted Events

 

Contents:
Wednesday, December 14th – KDDI Mugen Lab 2nd MEETing
Wednesday, December 14th – Mobile Monday Tokyo – Bonenkai
Wednesday, December 14th – CODE_n12 Contest (Application Deadline)
Thursday, December 15th – SXSW 2012 Pre-Startup Pitch Battle in Tokyo
Thursday, December 15th – Innovation Weekend Grand Finale 2011
Friday, December 16th – The 3rd Engineer Start-up Meeting (ESM)
Saturday, December 17th – The 6th KBS Business Contest

 

KDDI Mugen Labo – 2nd Meeting

When: Wednesday, December 14th, 4pm to 7:30pm
Where: UDX Gallery, Akihabara

This is a kick-off event for marking the start of the new period of their incubation program. Followed by a meet-up with presentations by the startups who have graduated from their first period program.

 

Mobile Monday Tokyo – Bonenkai

When: Wednesday, December 14th, 7pm to 11pm
Where: VierBana, Akasaka

We have two local rising stars confirmed to give “lighting talks” followed by hands-on demo action. The team from remembAR.me, winners at Tokyo Startup Weekend earlier this year, and Kawabata-san from AdLib, aka @Kabayan of Bar Android fame, with his ToneConnect application that just won Silicon Valley Award at A3 Together competition.

 

CODE_n12 Contest (Application Deadline)

When: Wednesday, December 14th

Calling all programmers, developers and entrepreneurs who are changing the world with technology! Do you have the next big idea that’s shaping mobile life? It could be an app, service, technology, or anything else that will make up our mobile future. Enter the Code_n contest to win €25,000 or one of fifty spots to exhibit and network at CeBIT 2012, the world’s largest and most important event for the IT industry in Hanover, Germany. Entries must be received by December 14th. Show the judges your amazing idea and potential, and start moving on a global level.

 

SXSW2012 Pre-Startup Pitch Battle in Tokyo

When: Thusday, December 15th, 7pm to 10pm
Where: Samurai Startup Island, 2-2-28-2F, Higashi Shinagawa, Tokyo (Tennozu Isle)

There will be a pitch battle session by 10 startups who will participate in an upcoming SXSW event from Tokyo.

 

Innovation Weekend Grand Finale 2011

When: Thursday, December 15, 13:30-19:15
Where: Academy Hills, Roppongi Hills 49th Flr.

This event is jointly organized by Silicon Valley- and Tokyo-based incubator Sunbridge, startup-oriented media Venture Now and angel investor Kiyoshi Nishikawa, and aims at hooking up potential startups and providing networking opportunities and seed money to them. It’s held on a monthly basis in cooperation with Cyber Agent Ventures and Voyage Ventures.

 

The 3rd Engineer Start-up Meeting (ESM)

When: Friday, December 16
Where: Pasona Career Company, Pasona Inc.

This event is a place to meet business plan holders and engineers who are interested in launching their business.

 

The 6th KBC Business Contest

When: 1pm, Saturday, December 17th, 2011
Where: Kyoseikan (Hiroshi Fujiawa Memorial Hall), Keio University

Six business proposals that have been polished with mentors during the last five weeks since their first posts will be presented at the event. Please share the moment when a new business that leads us to the future is born.

 

 

No Comments

Taipei StartupDigest – December 12, 2011

13/12/2011

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.

——————————————————————————————————————————————————-

Good Morning, Taipei Startups! 

Regardless of whether the Red Herring award is still relevant or just a pay-to-receive prize, it’s always nice to see local startups included in the fun. Congratulations to the guys (and girls) over at Bounty Hunter. 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

2011 CEP Forum: Apps (Free)
When: Monday 12, December 6.30pm – 8.30pm
Where: NTU, 1 Roosevelt Road Section 4 (MRT Gongguan)
Language: Chinese

A discussion about apps, and whether they are a viable business proposition or a short cut to business hell.

 

TEDxTaipei: The Power of Journey ($1500)
When: Saturday 17, December 1.00pm – 6pm
Where: Huashan Creative Park, 1 Bade Road Section 1 (MRT Shandao Temple)
Language: Chinese & English

A variety of entrepreneurs, explorers and thinkers will share their experiences.

 

 

Top Upcoming Events

12/21 – TEDxTaida
12/21 – Hsinchu Python Meetup
12/21 – Garage Party

 

No Comments

Singapore StartupDigest – December 12, 2011

13/12/2011

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

——————————————————————————————————————————————————-

For newcomers: Singapore StartupDigest is a curated events list created by entrepreneurs that is focused on the needs and interests of startups in Singapore.Do drop me a note at gwen@thestartupdigest.com if you have any feedback, questions, or ideas.
Singapore StartupDigest is curated by:
Gwendolyn Regina Tan – Co-founder & Editor-in-Chief, SGEntrepreneurs

 

 

What’s Going on in the Singapore Startup Community

HTCdev by MobileMonday
When: Monday, 12th December 2011, 6pm onwards
Where: Upstairs@Harry’s, 28 Boat Quay, Singapore 049818
A Mobile Monday meetup focused on HTC.

 

Seminar on Venture Capital Industry in Turbulence?
When: Monday, 12th December 2011, 430pm-7pm
Where: Function Room 4-2, Level 4, Mochtar Riady Building, 15 Kent Ridge Drive, Singapore 119245

A line up of investors talking about the global VC industry and “Funding Challenges Faced by High Tech Start-ups in Singapore.”

 

DEMO Asia Auditions
When: Thursday, 15th December 2011, 2pm-6pm
Where: Plug-In@Blk 71, Blk 71 Ayer Rajah Crescent, 2nd level

Yes folks, if you haven’t heard, DEMO is coming to Asia. There has been a few auditions already with this Thursday 15th being the next. Teams can also audition via Skype.

 

Creative and Hacker Mixer
When: Thursday, 15th December 2011, 7pm-10pm
Where: Smartspace, 261 Waterloo Street, #02-24 Waterloo Centre, Singapore 180261

What will happen when creatives mix it up with hackers? 50 Hackers, Entrepreneurs and Creatives from six different industries: Design, Photography, Film, Architecture, Animation and Illustration will be present. If you would like to share a creative idea in five minutes, you can email sarah@relayroom.com.

 

 

No Comments