Ticked off: How stock market decimalization killed IPOs and ruined our economy


Well it took me more than the one day I predicted to finish this column, which purports to explain that dull feeling so many of us have in our hearts these days when we consider the U.S. economy. Our entrepreneurial zeal is to some extent zapped. For a decade it seemed we needed to jump from bubble to bubble in order just to drive economic growth — growth that ultimately didn’t last. What happened? Initial Public Offerings (IPOs) went away, that’s what happened.

I wrote several columns on job creation over the last year, columns that explained in great detail how new businesses, young businesses, and small businesses create […]

By |September 5th, 2012|2012, Business, Economy, Entrepreneurship, Finance, Industry, Startups, Venture Capital|79 Comments
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What if Steve Jobs — The Lost Interview isn’t available in my country?

Then you can stream it here.

If you try this link from the USA or any other country where there is already a distribution deal for the film then you’ll just get a trailer. But if you are connecting from Pakistan or some other country where there is currently no distribution, then you should be able to stream the film.

Once there’s distribution in your country through, say, iTunes or similar services, this link will revert to showing just the trailer.

 

 

 

 

By |July 12th, 2012|2012, Breaking News, Business, Entrepreneurship, Internet, Media, Movies, Technology|33 Comments
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The crowdfunding bubble of 2013 part 3 — how to make it successful

This is the third and final part of my series on crowdfunding. In part one we learned how important crowd funding can be for helping tech startups and the economy. In part two we worried about how criminals and con men might game the eventual crowdfunding system when it starts in earnest next January. And in this final part I suggest a strategy for crowdfunding success that essentially comes down to carpe diem – seize the day!

Crowdfunding done right will have a huge positive impact on any economy it touches. But by done right I mean done in a manner that maximizes impact and minimizes both corruption and unnecessary complexity. This […]

By |June 14th, 2012|2012, Entrepreneurship, Finance, Startups, Venture Capital|28 Comments
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The crowdfunding bubble of 2013 part 2 — crooks and con men

Legal crowdfunding is coming, as I explained in the first part of this series. Thanks to the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act, investors big and small will soon have new ways to buy shares in startups and other small companies. This should be very good for growing companies and for the economy overall, but there’s peril for individual investors from scammers likely to be operating in the early days of this new law.

Most concerns hearken back to the Banking Act of 1933, enacted to bring order and regulation to the banking industry during the Great Depression.  It was the collapse of the banking industry, not the stock market crash, that did most of the damage […]

By |June 7th, 2012|2012, Economy, Entrepreneurship, Finance, Startups, Venture Capital|22 Comments
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The crowdfunding bubble of 2013

When President Obama signed the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act on April 5th, the era of crowdfunding began as individual investors everywhere were promised an opportunity to gain access to venture investments previously limited to institutions, funds, and so-called qualified investors. Come January 1, 2013, we’re told, anyone can be a venture capitalist, but hardly any of these new VCs will know what they are doing. Spurred by the new law we will shortly see a surge of crowdfunding startups giving for the first time unqualified investors access to venture capital markets. And it will be a quagmire.

Like disk drive startups in the 1980s each of these new crowdfunds will […]

By |June 5th, 2012|2012, Entrepreneurship, Finance, Government, Internet, Startups, Venture Capital|33 Comments
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The Gate is Closed

Update — Startup questionnaires go out this evening (Monday, May 17th).  If you don’t receive one and think that you should have, please contact [email protected] or [email protected] to that effect.  The list of MIA nominees below is current as of Monday afternoon. — Bob

Nominations for the Cringely (NOT in Silicon Valley) Startup Tour are officially closed.

The next step is distributing to a designated founder or executive at each nominated company our festive questionnaire.

Despite the hard work of Mary Alyce Cringely and Miss Courtney, we still have more than 100 nominated companies for which no official contact e-mail address yet exists.  We have written to all these companies and called all of them but for some […]

By |May 14th, 2010|2010, Entrepreneurship, Startups|76 Comments
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Question Time

We have less than a week to go for nominations to the Cringely (Not in Silicon Valley) Startup Tour.  Mrs. Cringely (Mary Alyce) and Miss Courtney are contacting all 400 companies so we can distribute our festive company questionnaire to the right person. This is a harder task than we had guessed.

We need this questionnaire for two purposes: 1) it gives us standardized data with which to most fairly select the final 24 companies, and; 2) companies that don’t bother to return the questionnaire will be eliminated from the competition, saving us some work.

The questionnaire goes to the CEO or CFO or whomever in the company is supposed to be providing adult supervision.

What we are discovering, however, is that:

1)  Many nominated startups don’t have […]

By |May 11th, 2010|2010, Entrepreneurship, Startups|75 Comments
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Dry Powder

There are approximately two weeks to go for nominations to the Cringely (NOT in Silicon Valley) Startup Tour.  With just under 400 companies nominated so far, both in the open and in stealth mode, my goal for the next two weeks is to break 400, making it that much harder to decide on a final 24.

Our model for the tour is evolving slightly.  I have venture capitalists and angel investors now asking to tag along, guessing that what I find worth writing about they may find worth investing in. This is small but serious money, by which I mean that while I can’t lay direct claim to the zillions these participating outfits manage, if the […]

By |May 3rd, 2010|2010, Entrepreneurship, Startups|57 Comments
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Get a Life

Update — Apparently I wasn’t clear enough below for some readers.  Her is the deal: I have so far about 340 candidate companies for 24 positions in my upcoming reality TV series.  That means I have to reject 93 percent of all nominated companies.  Chances are that your startup will not be selected.  So I thought it might be a good idea to point out to those who are true believers in what they are doing that this might be a great time to emphasize more than just the technology and the business.  Emphasize the people who have been, in nearly all nominations so far, ignored.  If you want a better chance of making the […]

By |April 14th, 2010|2010, Entrepreneurship, Startups|53 Comments
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Turn Your Head and Cough: The Startup Tour Questionnaire is Coming!

We’re halfway through the selection process for the Cringely (NOT in Silicon Valley) Startup Tour with more than 300 companies nominated including half a dozen still in stealth mode. I love to sign NDAs and welcome more stealth mode nominations because they tend to be interesting companies that are fresher. With a major PR push about to begin I am still hopeful we’ll get 500 companies from which to select the final 24.

If you have a startup and are discouraged about the competition for those 24 slots, I urge you to try anyway for two important reasons: 1) The nomination process alone offers real publicity for your company and has already produced unexpected […]

By |April 8th, 2010|2010, Entrepreneurship, Startups|50 Comments
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