Harkaview has moved to http://harkador.com/blog/

I converted my website to WordPress and I am now using their blogging software. If you have been following me, please read my newest post and subscribe via email or RSS at the bottom of the page.

Thanks,
Brad

Bending iron in a facebook world

I like software companies. I really do. In fact, I sit on the board of a software company, consult to another, advise a couple more and I am in the early stages of building a web based business. Super Angels such as Ron Conway are investing into up to four businesses (generally software/social media plays) a month looking for the next facebook or more likely the next company sold to facebook, Google and the like.

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Summer time or is business slowing ?

I started conceiving this blog post in August when things were indeed slow. My consulting business had very little new sales activity and I got to thinking: is it me, the economy or just summer. My first approach was to gather some data. I thought for a long time that email traffic, at least the volume of quality (more about quality later) email traffic, was a strong indicator of business activity in general and a good indicator of successful new business activity. Mid month, I found out how to Analyze (My) Email Usage with Mail Trends. Being that August was slow, I took the time to install Mail Trends on my Mac. I went back to my geek days and pulled up a UNIX terminal window and collected some insightful data on the 74,119 emails in my Gmail account.

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5 questions every startup needs to answer

Before I start laying out my vital five questions, I have a couple of disclosures.

These questions although straight forward are not fully answered in many of the businesses that I am working with including BPG Motors where I am the CEO. So, if you have already nailed the answers to these questions in the early stage of your business, congratulations. If you are like the rest of us, and you still have work to do before you have a winning strategy for your business, keep working it. These are fundamental questions if you are trying to launch a successful business of any scale.

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Web2.0 Businesses, Adam Lambert, pizza parlors, Google

There is no doubt that the Web 2.0 ecosystem has dramatically shrunk the development time to launch a web-based business. My friend Robin Chase has written several blog posts (Web 2.0 is like Yeast: Rampant Growth Possible) recently about just how easy it is to create these businesses. So, my question is, how do investors and entrepreneurs think about Web 2.0 business models? What kind of investor is right for your business?

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Boston entrepreneurial leaders please stop whining about Boston

I went to my third entrepreneurial event in the last two months last night where the panel discussion degenerated to a groupthink discussion about how Boston sucks for young entrepreneurs. There are no angels that fund anything and how the best course of action is to head to the left coast if you want to start a business. This panel discussion was held at MIT and was sponsored by the MIT Enterprise Forum of Cambridge. That is Cambridge Massachusetts for those of you paying attention and not Cambridge, Silicon Valley, California.

This thinking is counter-productive and has got to stop. At the vast majority of these events, we convince all the smart entrepreneurial graduates that they should take the first train to California and seek their fortunes, much like the 49ers searching for gold.

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