Provo Labs
Resources for Entrepreneurs
Recommended Books for Internet Entrepreneurs
General Internet Marketing and News Resources
- Newslinx.com : our favorite portal for high-tech news.
- MarketingSherpa.com : the best single source of case studies and how-to for internet marketers. Sign up for all the free email newsletters now (or pay $9 per report later).
- Cyberatlas.com : the world's leading resource for internet trends and statistics.
- Red Herring Online
- DM News : The Online Newspaper of Record for Direct Marketers
- ecommercetimes.com
- Bambi Francisco : read the latest 100 articles by the best, most insightful journalist covering internet stocks
- Frank Barkano Internet Daily Column
Financing Your Start-Up Company
- David Bailey (founder of Iomega) on Reverse Mergers
- A valuation model : how to value your company when selling equity to investors: provided by First Capital Development.
Articles and Papers
- " The VC Perspective: How You Can Tell if Your Business Concept Makes Sense " by Steve Jurvetson and Andreas Stavropoulos
- Serial Entrepreneurs, Venture Funding and Social Capital : Excellent paper by David H. Hsu on why second-time entrepreneurs can raise more money more quickly and with higher valuations than first-timers (November 2003)
- Deseret News articles for entrepreneurs
- Reading Assignments for an internet business formation taught at UVSC: UVSC Business Management 3180
Utah Angel Investors and Venture Capital
U.S. Venture Capital
- National Association of Seed and Venture Funds
- Vfinance.com: 1,800 VC firms (free) and 23,000 angel investors (fee per record)
- Bill Gurley : publishes an excellent newsletter ("Above the Crowd") with some of the best VC insights on markets and trends.
- PricewaterhouseCoopers Money Tree Survey
- Guy Kawasaki article in Forbes Magazine (Jan 2004) about how to raise money from venture capitalists
- Forbes Magazine 2004 Midas List (highest return for investors from those in venture capital)
Utah Networking
- Utah Valley Entrepreneurial Forum : monthly lunch meetings with excellent speakers and opportunities for investors and entrepreneurs to interact.
- Mountain West Venture Group : reports on Deal Flow in Utah. Meets on third Thursday at Little America in Salt Lake City.
- Utah Information Technology Association (UITA): calendar of events
- University of Utah Business School Calendar
- BYU Faculty Directory
- Utah Entrepreneur Center Speaker Series (University of Utah)
- List of Founders (Contributors) to BYU Center for Entrepreneurship : An incredible group of successful business people that are giving back.
- vSpring 100 : Top Venture Entrepreneurs with Utah Connections
U.S. Networking
- LinkedIn.com : we consider this the leading social networking web site with high quality contacts, a six-degrees of separation concept that can lead to personal introductions for business purposes, while maintaining a high degree of privacy. Highly Recommended! Read PC Magazine review of LinkedIn.com .
- Red Herring article about 18 social networking services .
- thehivenetwork.com : message boards to connect entrepreneurs in the high-tech community
- The MIT Entrepreneurs Club helps develop new business ventures
- The Indus Entrepreneurs , an organization of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs
Market Research
- BigResearch: provides market intelligence (shopping habits) from panel of 8,000 consumers to Fortune 1000 companies. Free headlines .
- ShopperTrak: offers national retail sales estimates .
- Nielsen NetRatings holiday shopping eCommerce index .
- RoperASW press releases announcing surveys and research.
- Gallup Polls on Business and Economy
- TVeyes : Free email service alerts you when keywords of your choice (company name, competitors) are used on television.
- Trendsetters.com : from Michael Tchong, the talented and well-connected founder of Iconocast and Cyberatlas, comes this excellent email with data about important trends and new technologies. Lots of good statistics here.
Internet Statistics (Compiled by 10x Marketing )
- Internet Facts
- E-Commerce Statistics
- Search Engine Statistics
- Internet Advertising Statistics
- Executive Decisions and the Internet
- International Internet Statistics
Profiles of Successful Entrepreneurs
- Internet Serial Entrepreneurs to Watch
- 207 ebusiness lectures on streaming video given at the BYU eBusiness Center (2000-2004)
- nPost.com : interviews with entrepreneurs and executives
- Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year competition
- Incomplete list of entrepreneurs in Utah history , includes some active entrepreneurs
Publishing/Content
- PaidContent.org : the best site in the world for information about content-based web sites and business models
- Online Publisher's Association
- Publisher's Weekly
- EContent Magazine : my favorite periodical for tracking online content, business models, search engines, syndication, XML and RSS and related technologies, and much more. Tip: scroll down the to Featured Articles section.
Building a Startup Team
- Build a Winning Startup Team . Gary Williams, BYU Center for Entrepreneurship
Incubators
- Idealab: 1998 Business Week article about Bill Gross and Idealab!
Business Plans
- Business Plan Archive : The University of Maryland and Webmergers started collecting dot-com business plans in June 2002. As of January 2004 they have documents relating to more than 1,000 dot-com startups, including 516 that were B2C companies -- everything from 1stUp to Zoza.com. Not all documents are business plans and many won't be available to the public for a period of time, but the archive will someday be a treasure trove of documentation for the dot com era. Registration is required.
Domain Names
- GoDaddy.com : #1 registrar of domain names in 2002-2003.
- Nameboy : Use this service to find alternate domain names
- Naming Your Company or Product: 10 Things to Consider
- Naming Tool from WriteExpress
Online Marketing
- MarketingWonk.com archives: more than 3,200 articles about various online marketing topics.
Search Engine Marketing
- Bruce Clay chart showing interrelationships of all major search engines
- Google Algorithm Explained by Founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin (1998)
- 131 Legitimate Link Building Tactics
- Free competitive analysis or search engine market share report on keyword rankings
- " Topic Sensitive Page Rank ": paper by Stanford's Taver H. Haveliwala, an employee of Google since October 2003
- Webmaster World Forums : excellent message boards for search engine topics
- What's Next in Paid Search? Part I . Part II . Interview with Tim Armstrong, Google VP Sales
- Tools For Keyword Research
Affiliate Marketing
- Be Free
- Commission Junction
- LinkShare
- Kowabunga Software : do it yourself affiliate program
- Affiliate Newswire: recent news about affiliate marketing
Web Site Design, Usability, and Development Tools
- Useit.com Usability Web Site by guru Jakob Nielsen
- All Web Usability Articles by Jakob Nielsen
- Bravenet: offers dozens of free tools, scripts and webmaster tricks
- If your web site needs a search engine, consider Freefind.com and Atomz.com
- Free Web Site Testing Tools : Run your web site through these web site tests to optimize your code and speed up your site.
Online Retailing
Email Marketing
Web Site Hosting
- Bluehost.com : 1 GB web space for only $6.95 per month!
- iPowerWeb: has been voted top web site host for 2 straight years. Web Hosting - $7.95 - Free Setup - Rebates
- Globat.com: 2 GB of storage for as little as $6.95 per month, via the Globat Affiliate Program
- Award Winning web site hosting services
- Learn details about the hosting and performance of any web site at Netcraft.com
Web Site Analysis and Performance
- Omniture : world's best enterprise-level web analytics service
- Keynote Systems : monitor your web site's performance continually
Advertising and Media
- MediaPost : excellent resources for advertisers
Legal and Government Resources
- Information on how to Incorporate in 50 states
- Utah Technology Alliance
- Starting a Business in Utah
- Free Online Training Courses for Entrepreneurs from the SBA
Patents, Copyrights, and Trademark Protection
Helps for Start-ups
- Steve Gibson's review of booklet called " Leading Practices of Fast-Growth Entrepreneurs " (1998)
- Kaufmann Foundation's Entreworld.com : more than 1,000 articles, audio clips, tools, databases and even town-to-town small business event listings
- FREE Biz Cards
(just pay shipping) at Vistaprint.com. This is a no-brainer. I remember printers charging about $100 for 250 glossy business cards PER EMPLOYEE. Vistaprint.com provides a great service to startup companies. I use it myself. Highly Recommended!
- Company Logo Design services for under $500 by logoworks.com
- Low cost web site hosting at Freeservers.com
- Free press release distribution at Press-World.com and PRWeb.com
- Make free long distance calls P2P and hold free teleconferences using Skype
- Helps for entrepreneurs listed at About.com
Industry Information
- SEC EDGAR corporate financial report filings
- Search EDGAR by SIC code to find competitors. For example, here is a list of publicly traded software companies in Utah.
- Browse or search SIC codes
- Hoovers.com
- Dun & Bradstreet : free email alerts about your customers, competitors or prospective customers. Highly recommended!
Entrepreneurship Education
- Kaufmann Foundation provides $25 million in grants to 8 U.S. universities that will provide entpreneurship education across their campuses.
- Success Magazine 1996 List of the Top 25 Business Schools for Entrepreneurs (BYU is #5)
Key People: Watch and Learn
- Tim Berners Lee
- Mark Andreesen
- Seth Godin , author, entrepreneur and inventor of "permission marketing" talks about his next book. Seth's Blog .
- Joshua Kopleman
- Great article about Josh getting Halfway, Oregon to change it's name
- Kopelman Foundation
- Story of Half.com , sold to eBay for more than $300 million
- Jim Clark: July 1999 article. Shutterfly article. 2003 Business Week article says Jim Clark lives in Florida and is happy to be away from the "insanely depressing" Silicon Valley.
- Bill Gross
- Curt Allen
- Steve Jenkins
- John Doerr
- Tim Draper / Steve Jurvetson
Giving Back
Pages in Progress
- Raising Capital
- Angel Investor Directories
- Early Stage Venture Capital Firms
- Angel Investor Networks