Being a lean startup back then, we had no choice but to answer customer queries ourselves.
However, a desire to make everything perfect, combined with a fear of letting go of complete control, can sometimes hold a startup back.
And, I reasoned, with the job market the way it was I could always find something to fall back on if my startup leap of faith turned out to be a disaster.
FORBES: Why Big Questions And Bad Decisions Make Better Entrepreneurs
Since credit card companies back then wouldn't service startup mail-order firms, the Crowns leased a tiny storefront as a retail facade.
In their simplest forms, debt financing is when a startup agrees to pay back a loan with a predetermined timeframe and interest rate and equity financing is when the business sells ownership shares in exchange for funding.
At my firm, we prefer to open the door for our startup clients, then step back to let them directly interface with the journalist.
But more than 60 years later, a startup company in Japan is bringing back the Smell-O-Vision concept for a smaller screen.
The Winklevoss twins are back, again, investing in another Harvard startup.
FORBES: Winklevoss Twins Are Back, Again, Investing In Another Harvard Startup
Determined to spend more time with Tess, Randall moved back to Boston and took the helm of another startup, in sports medicine, called Innovasive Devices.
Video startup is nearly instantaneous because of the back-end proprietary Microsoft technology developed by Zune that seamlessly transitions between many different bitrates and resolutions of video.
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Raul found my company, Growthink, back in 2010 when he was first launching his fashion startup and needed a business plan.
Zynga conquered the world with a simple little farm simulator back in 2009, turning the company from a small Facebook startup into a social gaming titan that drew praise and vitriol from all corners of the tech world.
FORBES: Zynga Puts it on the Line: Farmville 2 Launches on Facebook Today
Incubators are designed to give a several startup companies a place to work and some degree of back-office support while they are in their most formative stages.
Back in 2007, Eric Lefkofsky and Brad Keywell invested in a struggling Internet startup, Groupon.
When the center opened in 1999, the first customer was a single-person startup, LAD Industries, which wanted to improve abdominal and lower-back training on workout machines.
Or when The New York Times published a lengthy business feature on another Andreessen Horowitz-funded startup Factual, an admittedly ambitious company with a purpose and a neat back story.
Melland explains that while the tech startup market is still healthy, the financial services sector has continued to cut back, depressing salaries.
When a partner at Sequoia called an Internet music startup to say he was interested, the entrepreneur told him he'd get back to him in a few days.
Things like Startup Weekend Edu provide the catalyst they need to walk into those classrooms and take control back.
Sales grew 18 percent from the year before, but the startup of production lines for multiple new products like the iPhone 5 and iPad Mini held back profits.
According to Small Business Association figures, about six million Americans a year make the bold leap onto the startup path, with many more worldwide, and many have no corporate safety net to fall back on.
These declines pre-date the current recession, and besides, startup activity has always held up well in past recessions as unemployed workers try entrepreneurship as a path back to prosperity.
The compelling argument is that out of 50, 000 US graduate school and PhD graduates annually, 17, 000 return back to their homeland because no appropriate visa option exists for them to stay in the US to run a startup or take on engineering jobs.
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