Some recent blogs/articles which every entrepreneur/start-up should take a look at:
Mark Suster, an entrepreneur who is now a GP at GRP Partners in 2007 as a General Partner, has a very informative blog post (How to Work with Lawyers at a Startup) over at his blog, Both Sides of the Table. He discusses the importance of a start-up finding the right lawyer, and provides some useful tips when doing one’s search.
Being a lawyer for many start-ups, it’s always nice to see a non-lawyer emphasize the need for the right legal representation. As I continually tell potential start-up clients, when thinking about legal representation, start-ups should consider it a part of its team-building efforts, just like getting the right management. In addition to Mark’s advice, I would add:
- Gregg J. Lallier
WSJ’s Yukari Iwatani Kane and Geoffrey A. Fowler are live-blogging the Apple announcement of its new tablet product, which they are reporting is to be called the iPad. As I expected, it sounds, from their transcribing of Jobs’ words, that the iPad product will be a sup’d up version of the iPhone, which isn’t as powerful (or big) as a laptop but offers much of the core, day-2-day capabilities (email, internet, video, etc.) of a laptop.
Update:
So far, based upon what I’m reading in the WSJ live blog, I’m not all that impressed with the iPad product. It seems to be a larger version of the iPhone (or, really, iTouch), running many of the same apps. NYT is going to have an app for it for reading the NYT (now, moving to subscription-based online makes much more sense for them), and they have agreements with book publishers (and will have an iBookstore for purchases). Still, the memory is so small that it doesn’t look like you’ll be able to replace your laptop. The comments from readers of the WSJ live-blog have much of the same initial reaction. It’s going to be interesting to see if there will be the same type of furor for this device, but, my initial thinking is that it will sell great with Apple-enthusiasts, but probably won’t have the same type of mass appeal as the iPhone. WSJ provides the following video of Jobs’ unveiling of the iPad:
- Gregg J. Lallier
Although the buzz surrounding the Apple Tablet has become a load roar over the past weeks, we would be remiss if we didn’t highlight the fact that ConnTIP was talking about the Tablet, and its potential with the electronic medical records, close to a year ago (Electronic Medical Records to be “Apple-ized”?). If reports from VentureBeat are true, it looks like Apple is also thinking about such potential on EMR, as it reported earlier this month that “[r]epresentatives from Apple have visited executives for Los Angeles’ Cedars-Sinai Medical Center ‘three or four times’ to talk about the Apple tablet’s potential for medical professionals at Cedars-Sinai” (See Apple tablet reps spotted at LA hospital). Chris Thorman at Software Advice writes about the report here, and has a short, 8-question survey about the potential of Tablet-like product in the healthcare industry.
- Gregg J. Lallier
Considering that ConnTIP is a blog with a focus on technology, we are, I guess, obligated to add to some more free PR to the Apple Tablet craze by having a post about it. Anyone who bothers to read ConnTIP undoubtedly has read ad nauseum about the new Apple product which is rumored to be unveiled today. Just do a Google search for “Apple” and “tablet” and you’ll find many articles ranging from main stream media news sources (e.g. CNN, NY Times, CNBC (where McGraw-Hill Companies CEO appeared to “unwittingly” spill the beans during an interview) and WSJ (which has its own sub-page on the subject entitled “Apple Tablet“)) to more tech-centric sites (e.g. TechCrunch, Inc. and Web 3.0). This doesn’t even count the plethora of blog entries out, including blogs focused entirely on the Tablet product.
What has fascinated me just as much as the product and its potential is watching the Apple marketing machine go at full force. It’s become a somewhat old routine, as far back as the introduction of the Macintosh (and those cool Super Bowl commercials) Apple, and Steve Jobs in particular, has had a flair for the dramatic. This somewhat viral marketing strategy is all that more effective in the current media/information environment where rumors and hype intensify via Twitter, blogs, YouTube, etc. Still, hype is not enough to get the type of success Apple enjoys. I’m reminded of plethora of internet rumors leading up to the unveiling of the Segway, where a new type of transportation was said to have been invented that would revolutionize how we got around (I distinctly remember that some type of hovercraft device was a prevailing thought). Although somewhat successful in its own right, Segway is nowhere near Apple’s products, and I think it’s because Apple not only has marketing hype and innovative products, but also develops products which appeal to the masses insofar as the products (1) are relatively easy to learn to use, (2) are relatively priced and (3) recognize how people live and work and, as such, serve to make our living experience easier and more enjoyable.
Apple serves as a great model for any start-up to study and emulate, as, even in one of the worst economic climates in our lifetime, where people have less disposable income, Apple, Inc. posted a 50% rise in profit and a 32% increase in revenue for its fiscal first quarter ended 12/26/09.
-Gregg J. Lallier
ConnTIP has previously written about the importance of Connecticut Innovations, Inc. for start-up and tech companies in Connecticut. , Well, now there is a study that backs those claims up, The Economic Impact of Connecticut Innovations’ Portfolio on the Connecticut Economy. CI is a quasi-public corporation that has invested in CT-based tech and start-up companies since as early as 1995. According to CI’s blog entry, the study, commissioned by CI and covering 1995-2008, found that:
- Gregg J. Lallier
I was recently quoted in a Connecticut Post article regarding immigration options for winners of a business plan competition. The article illustrates the immigration challenges faced by foreign students at the University of Bridgeport who, despite their proven potential as entrepreneurs and ability to attract financing, nevertheless face difficulties in obtaining a visa or a green card in the U.S.
Such difficulties are typical within our immigration system despite the contributions that immigrant entrepreneurs have made and continue to make to the U.S. economy. According to a National Venture Capital Association study on The Impact of Immigrant Entrepreneurs and Professionals on U.S. Competitiveness:
Yet the U.S. immigration laws are just as restrictive, if not more so, towards these foreign entrepreneurs. To begin with, with very few and strict exceptions, there is no special visa or green card available to an entrepreneur who wants to start up a business in the U.S., even though the entrepreneur can attract venture capital or private equity financing. Our current immigration system focuses more on visas for employees who can work for U.S. employers than on visas for foreign entrepreneurs who want to start up a business in the U.S. Thus, recommending immigration options for foreign entrepreneurs takes some creative thinking.
Following are some of the immigration options available to early-stage entrepreneurs:
Each of the options above is subject to strict eligibility requirements and complex documentation. Thus, advance consultation with an immigration attorney is highly recommended.
For a brief presentation on Immigration Law with a focus on business- and employment-based visas, see my webcast.
Dana is an immigration attorney at Updike, Kelly & Spellacy, P.C., and contributing author to ConnTIP
Back in November, we first posted about the US Supreme Court case of Bilski v. Kappos (Not Looking Good for Method/Software Patents). The Supreme Court heard oral arguments at the end of 2009, and should rule on the case in 2010.
The invention in Bilski basically was a method where information was analyzed and acted upon. Such a method has been referred to, and probably rightly so, as a pure business method. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit called into question the patentability of such business mentods, as well as software and other processes. As stated by Gene Quinn at IPWatchdog (Praying the Supremes Get Bilski Right in 2010):
So in order to kill pure business methods the Federal Circuit shot at and killed much more. In truth, what the Federal Circuit did was akin to pulling out an elephant gun to shot a fly. There has been and will continue to be enormous collateral damage unless and until the Federal Circuit Bilski debacle is fixed.
How the Supreme Court deals with the Court of Appeals’ decision in Bilski will have a profound impact on current patents and patent applications for software and other method/process patents such as medical, analytical and diagnostic processes. Gene Quinn also states in the same IPWatchdog post:
It is not at all an overstatement to say the fate of future innovation in the US rests squarely on the Supreme Court getting the Bilski ruling correct. Long ago the manufacturing jobs started leaving and they are gone and not coming back. To the extent that the US has anything other than a service economy it is thanks to intellectual property and intangible assets, and everyone who seriously considers the matter knows that the chief intangible asset for businesses is software. Just take a look at the technology sector and the companies in that space and you can’t help but notice that the major employers in the US all have one thing in common — they use, create and exploit software. Erase software patent protections and hundreds of thousands of jobs will be erased from the economy and investment dollars will go elsewhere.
- Gregg J. Lallier
As 2009 and the first decade of this new millenium comes to a close, there comes the flood of retrospectives on what the last decade “means” and how life has changed. Much of what’s out there focuses on terrorism and foreign affairs (rightly so given that the decade has been essentially bookended by 9/11 and the would-be underwear bomber, with a couple of wars in between). However, in tech/business circles, much of what I have read focuses on the decade being the dawn of the “Digital Age”.
Fortune recently had Steve Jobs on its cover, naming him the CEO of the Decade (The decade of Steve), which, I think, is apropos as Apple has been on the forefront of this digital convergence of entertainment and life. In fact, after Jobs came back to Apple in 1997, he began the “digital lifestyle” strategy that resulted in the iPod, iPhone and the soon-to-be-released iTablet. The result, as reported by the Fortune article, is that Apple “was worth about $5 billion in 2000, just before Jobs unleashed Apple’s groundbreaking “digital lifestyle” strategy, understood at the time by few critics” and ”[t]oday, at about $170 billion, Apple is slightly more valuable than Google”.
Such Apple products helped, in part, the spark and accelerate the advancement of the Digital Age, as more and more digital products that can work together came onto the scene. And now, a consumer has the ability to use various different interrelated lifestyle digital products such as: cell phones (including smartphones), computers (including personal, laptop, netbook and business), televisions (especially HD), television recording devices (e.g. DVR’s and Tivo), game consoles (e.g. PS3, Wii, XBox), and media players (e.g Blu-Ray).
I’ve been fortune enough to have lived through some pretty exciting technological ages/revolutions before this digital revolution: the 1980s with the development of the PCs (which, incidentally, Jobs/Apple also had a hand in sparking; and the 1990s with the develop of the Internet. Only now can I see how those two previous innovative jump-starts were the foundations for this new digital age, which makes me excited for the future when I find out what the digital age is a foundation for.
- Gregg J. Lallier
P.S. Web 3.0, a blog by Independent Software, has a bunch of different posts about the digital convergence, which people might want to check out, including:
As most know, throughout 2009, I’ve posted about the dismal VC market in ConnTIP. The drying up of exit opportunities, with fewer M&A’s and even fewer IPOs, didn’t help matters much. Here’s a chart posted by the WSJ which is a pretty way of showing the awful 2009 VC market:
![[VCYEAR]](http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/images/MK-BA230A_VCYEA_NS_20091222185250.gif)
Still, an article posted today on WSJ suggests that 2010 may be a pretty good year in the VC market (After Dry Year, Start-Ups Are Poised to Get Cash). Some encouraging observations made by VCs in the post:
Bottom line is for everyone in the field to chalk up 2009 as a learning experience, and, hopefully, start ramping things up to 2010!
-Gregg J. Lallier
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