Best Friday Entrepreneur Links

by Nathaniel Whittemore

Published November 06, 2009 @ 11:55AM PT

It's been a while since I've done a link post. There has been a lot of great content over the last couple weeks - enjoy:

Ten Rules for Webstartups: Twitter CEO Evan Williams shares some tips that, while aimed at web startups can be useful for any young startup leader.

30 Under 30: America's Coolest Young Entrepreneurs: Inc. magazine puts out their annual list of the coolest young entrepreneurs in the country. One of my favorites? Ideapaint, the product that turns any wall into a whiteboard.

Manhattan Institute Social Entrepreneurship Award 2009: The conservative think tank Manhattan Institute demonstrates social entrepreneurship political-barrier-crossing appeal and has been supporting the work of social entrepreneurs since 2001 with a $25,000 award. Meet their new class.

Legatum Center for Development and Entrepreneurship: The very awesome MIT center is recruiting fellows for next year's class.

20 of the Best Resources To Get Your Startup Off the Ground: Mashable puts together a great list of free advice and tools relevant for any type of entrepreneur.

(Photo: Matti Matilla)

For Startups To Succeed Means to Evolve

by Nathaniel Whittemore

Published November 05, 2009 @ 03:36PM PT

PayPal started as a payment and cryptography platform for palm pilots. Apple - perhaps the savviest consumer company of our era - began by selling assemble-it-yourself computer kits for the uber geeky. Change.org started without any of the content features through which I'm now writing this post. In the land of startups, the ability to adapt and seize new opportunities is perhaps the essential required skill.

I was thrilled yesterday to see a Wired piece on Groupon, the group-purchasing tool for local services. Every day, Groupon emails its subscribers a new offer, or "Groupon." A Groupon is a certain service - like a massage, or a dinner or something else - that has a discount included. The Groupon is only applicable, however, if a certain threshold of people sign up for it.

In that way, the services harness collective buying power to enable businesses to reduce cost in a great big exciting circle. Launched just a year ago, the service now has over a million subscribers, operates in 23 cities, and has sold 600,000 Groupons.

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The Power of Partnerships in the Coming Fundraising Season

by Nathaniel Whittemore

Published November 05, 2009 @ 06:20AM PT

The end of the year is the biggest part of the fundraising season for many nonprofits, but with the economy continuing to struggle, this year is likely going to be harder than ever on many. Some are trying to address this by participating in contests like America's Giving Challenge; others are sending me direct mail trying to guilt me back into funding (sorry - it's not happening). Others are discovering their DNA as collaborative, 21st century nonprofits who, when times get rough, ask how partnership and the skills of those around them can help.

Catapult Design is a startup nonprofit based out of San Francisco that, in the tradition of leaders like Paul Polak, are using engineering and design solutions to help people out of poverty. Embracing the notion of human-centered design and community partnerships for appropriately designed technology, Catapult is a group that has collaboration at the center of their social mission.

More than that, however, their collaborative DNA extends to their work in the states. Like many collaboration-oriented organizations, they have a fiscal sponsor, share office space with others, work to harness the power of engaged interns, and embrace openness in the form of things like their weekly open sessions where anyone can come and learn more about the organization.

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Watch TEDIndia Live Tomorrow

by Nathaniel Whittemore

Published November 04, 2009 @ 09:11PM PT

The first ever TEDIndia conference is streaming live tomorrow (well, in a few hours, to be precise), and you can get all of the details on their site: http://conferences.ted.com/TEDIndia/

There are some amazing folks speaking at the event - more in fact than I can tell you about, as the reality is that I'm just not as familiar with many of those they have from around India. Some notables that you might know already, though, who are speaking tomorrow include Hans Rosling, who has wowed TED before with his completely nontradtional statistical visualizations, and Tony Hsieh, the renown (at least over in this part of the world) CEO of Zappos, the online shoe company that has built its brand around innovative customer service.

In addition to watching, it's worth your while to check out the TEDIndia fellows, whose project range from Samasource's computer based work for the poor to CellBazaar's marketplace for mobile users.

(Photo: VS Ramachandran speaks at yesterday's session of TED U. See more pics of TED U. Photo: TED/ James Duncan Davidson)

Victors & Spoils: The Entirely Crowdsourced Creative Agency

by Nathaniel Whittemore

Published November 04, 2009 @ 05:07PM PT

There are few industries as impacted by the onslaught of social media as marketing and communications. Whereas companies once were able to craft carefully controlled brand messages, they are now subject to the whims of the collective conversation. This can be a good thing, as exciting new products or ideas can spread in ways never before possible. Yet at the same time, it also means that the angry, the frustrated, the haters can find eachother much more quickly.

Victors & Spoils is a new creative ad agency trying to harness the best power of crowdsourcing to discover talent. Just launched in the last week, the group will carefully manage client projects - just as they would in a traditional ad agency - but all of the design, concepting, and other elements of the branding, marketing, and other creative processes will be carried out by a mobile dynamic group of creative professionals as well as average folks.

The announcement has caused quite a bit of buzz, including this post by frog design marketing head Tim Leberecht, who says that while it may be the "jump the shark" moment for crowdsourcing, it is also a bold experiment that's worth watching closely.

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Self-Less vs. Self-Aware Giving

by Nathaniel Whittemore

category: philanthropy

Published November 04, 2009 @ 11:50AM PT

Is there such a thing as selfless charity? That's the question being debated in the comments on a great post on Tactical Philanthropy. Inspired by the new book "The Art of Giving: Where the Soul Meets a Business Plan," TP author Sean asked about motivations and why people give? While I don't believe there is such a thing as selfless giving, I do believe that giving can be much more self-aware - and in the process, much more fulfilling, sustainable, and effective.

This notion of selfless acts is fascinating not only from the standpoint of philanthropy but from economics, psychology, and faith as well. Economists might think of this from the standpoint of utility. If a $10 gift to charity gives you more valuable feelings than $10 spend on a CD, you're going to give to charity because we're utility maximizers.

That idea of maximizing utility brings up psychology - or more specifically the idea that reward is emotional and not necessarily monetary. Perhaps even more profound, emotional reward can come even at the expense what is psychically or financially good for us.

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Distribution vs. Promotion and The Rise of the Email List

by Nathaniel Whittemore

category: Trends

Published November 03, 2009 @ 05:05PM PT

Nonprofits are increasingly a fan of Facebook and a flutter with Twitter. Yet there is a new old medium that is poised to make a comeback as a key vehicle for interpersonal communication: the e-mail list. The launch of the new All Day Buffet project TBD provides an interesting occasion to examine the power and problems of the medium.

For many of us, e-newsletters have always been a part of the online experience, for better or worse. I find myself hunting for the 'unsubscribe' button at least once a week. Nonprofits I've worked with, companies I've accidentally signed up for information from, or worse, who have purchased my information from third party sellers - it all becomes a little much. So why proclaim (and acclaim) the medium?

The difference between a good email list and an annoying newsletter is, often I think, the difference between treating the list as a distribution channel for great content versus as a promotion channel for your brand.

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