InSITE Board Member Mac Lipscomb Joins RRE Ventures
InSITE’s very own Board Member, Mac Lipscomb, who many Fellows remember from their very first InSITE session for his annual “14 points” lecture on the perfect funding pitch, has just joined InSITE Venture Capital Advisory Program Sponsor RRE Ventures as Operating Partner. RRE is re-aligning to reemphasize their efforts here in NYC. Mac gives InSITE a great shout-out in the press release. Mac has given a great deal of time and energy to InSITE since our founding 10 years ago, and recently retired as a leader of the Communications Industry Practice at Accenture and formally...
Read MoreNYC Startup Job Fair
On Friday, April 9th, the NYU Venture Community (led by InSITE Alum Chris Gimbert and InSITE Fellow Nick Hurley) and Columbia Venture Community (led by InSITE Alum Mark Davis) will be co-hosting the first annual NYC Startup Job Fair at AOL’s headquarters*. The purpose of the event is to help build the NYC startup and venture community by bringing together graduate, undergraduate and recent alumni from NYC-based universities and numerous venture-backed and bootstrapped startups from the NYC area. NYC Startup Job Fair Details Where: AOL HQ (770 Broadway) When: Friday, April 9th...
Read MoreThoughts on Don’t Pull a Patzer
Since 2007, the world has freaked out about finance, and for good cause. Publicly traded equity markets have frozen, or stalled, depending on which politician you listen to at which press conference. Some say that debt issued by the American Treasury, typically referenced as the gold standard of safe, long-term investment vehicles, is on the precipice of a Moody’s downgrade from a Aaa to Aa rating. Small businesses still can’t make ends meet because they can’t get loans from banks well after the federal government pumped hundreds of billions of dollars to alleviate that specific...
Read MoreOn the First Mover Advantage
Questioning the wisdom of conventional axioms in early stage companies. Many entrepreneurs believe they have a “first mover advantage.” While this phrase is regularly overheard in entrepreneurial conversations and stated in venture capital pitch presentations – it is often misunderstood. Truthfully, the first mover may or may-not be in an advantageous position. In the Harvard Business Review article, The Half Truth of First Mover Advantage, Fernando Suarez and Gianvito Lanzolla argue the technology innovation trajectory and the speed at which the market is evolving determine if the...
Read MoreCommercializing University Technologies
Creating a new marketplace to license university inventions was listed as one of the “Ten Breakthrough Ideas for 2010” in the January-February issue of the Harvard Business Review. Under the current licensing system each university relies on its own technology licensing office to commercialize new technologies. But, many have criticized the current approach as an inefficient way to quickly commercialize promising new technologies. Authors Litan and Mitchell advocate for a new approach in which faculty are able to choose their own licensing agents in the hope that a free market will drive...
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