Christopher Mirabile's blog
Yep, we’ve stepped on the rake again. In what is becoming an almost weekly ritual, we’ve had yet another user revolt and PR fiasco because of revised user terms and conditions. Instagram’s turn this week. The line in the damage control note from Instagram Co-Founder Kevin Systrom today that grabbed me was: “Legal documents are easy to misinterpret.”
This statement is stupid in so many ways. For starters, [Read more…]
I’ve been meaning to post this video of a pitching clinic I gave at MassChallenge 2012. For the diehard viewer, my talk is followed by a panel discussion critiquing a couple live pitches. The first 30 minutes or so capture what I think are the key concepts in constructing an early stage fund-raising pitch. Enjoy. [Read more…]
The NYTimes Magazine recently published a piece about solar that did such an excellent job of pinpointing the problem as a business model problem rather than a techical problem, that I decided to devote an entire post to it. What it makes you understand is that our basic solar problems are mental obstacles – nothing more. Well worth a read, but here’s one of the more interesting passages to give you a taste:
Enough sunlight falls on the earth’s surface every hour to meet the entire world’s energy needs for one year. A plot of roughly 100 miles by 100 miles in the American Southwest, if covered with today’s industry-standard 15-to-20-percent-efficient solar panels, could generate enough power for the entire United States. This is not the whole story, of course; [Read more…]
[This post is part of a series about our net-zero residential solar project – see a list of links to the full series here, a list of frequently asked questions here or click here to bring up all Green-related posts. Previous Post in Series.]
[Posted in Dec 2012] This week marked the first anniversary of our solar conversion. A year ago we flipped the switch to begin powering our house with a solar panel array. So how did we do our first year? [Read more…]
George McQuilken just did a nice write up of a couple of Launchpad’s recent exits. You can read about them in his post here: Launchpad, Retaining Momentum, Announces Two Successful Exits.
Comments, questions or reactions to this post? Leave a note below and I will respond to your questions.
If you enjoyed this post, you might enjoy: Why Angels Chase Electrons, Top Angel Investors in New England, Launchpad Overview – Angel Video Interview Series, Angel Video Interview Series, Pitch Clinic at MassChallenge (Video), Top 20 Dos & Don’ts with Angel Groups & Early Stage Financing, What I Look For In An Entrepreneur, The Overture, Open Forum with Angel, Seed and VC Investors (Video), When Do You Need My Slide Deck?
Subscribe – To get an automatic feed of all future posts subscribe to the RSS feed here, or to receive them via email enter your address in the box in the upper right or go here and enter your email address in the box in the upper right. You can also follow me on Twitter @cmirabile and on Google+.
Regular readers know it had been a life-long dream of mine to live in a solar house and also a life-long dream to drive a solar-powered car. I got the roof done. Cars with enough solar panels on their roofs to power themselves will almost certainly never be be practical in my lifetime, nor probably that of my kids. But stationary residential solar arrays already generate more than enough power for transportation use. As I outlined in my post 365 Sunrises, my residential solar array makes about 1,350 kWh in excess of what we need to power our house for a year. Could that be enough to power all my personal transportation needs? [Read more…]
[This post is part of an on-going series of video interviews with members of the start-up community – see a list of links to the full series here.]
Auditor, commercial banker, venture lender, investment banker, private equity investor, venture capitalist, angel investor. If it relates to evaluating the prospects of a business, Maia Heymann has done it. Maia has an absolutely staggering amount of experience for someone still at the midpoint of an average person’s career. She’s a delightful person to speak with and a fount of wisdom. So when we got together for a cup of coffee this week week, I knew I had to capture lightning in a bottle and add her to the video interview series. This conversation was recorded in October 2012. (Email subscribers, click here for video.)
Comments, questions or reactions to this post? Leave a note below and I will respond to your questions.
If you enjoyed this post, you might enjoy: Angel Video Interview Series, The Long Road to Instant Success, Thoughts on Crowdfunding, The Crowdfunding Interview (Frank Peters Show), Pattern Matching Can Cause Blindspots, Getting Off The Ground; Early Formation Economics, Pitch Clinic at MassChallenge (Video), Why Angels Chase Electrons, Boards vs. Advisory Boards, Delusional Economics, Ten Rules For Navigating in The Age of Outrage, That Vision Thing, The Power of An Advisory Board, Loch Ness, Unicorns & The First-Mover Advantage, Are Entrepreneurs Wild Risk-Takers?, Top 20 Dos & Don’ts with Angel Groups & Early Stage Financing, What I Look For In An Entrepreneur, The Overture, Do The Right Thing, Open Forum with Angel, Seed and VC Investors (Video), Should I Wait For A Technical Co-Founder?, and 20 Bootstrapping Ideas.
Subscribe – To get an automatic feed of all future posts subscribe to the RSS feed here, or to receive them via email enter your address in the box in the upper right or go here and enter your email address in the box in the upper right. You can also follow me on Twitter @cmirabile and on Google+.
New entrepreneurs show a lot of confusion on the subject of advisory boards and corporate boards of directors. It’s justified; there is some conceptual overlap. But they are very different animals. [Read more…]
Yes, I have been a little productivity-challenged with the blog posts lately, and I promise things will pick up again now that it is Fall. But I’ve been busy, and I guess on good stuff – I was psyched to be included in Erin Kutz & Greg Huang’s story ‘Top Angel Investors of New England.” Great bunch of people doing awesome things for entrepreneurs and for Boston and I am proud to be associated.
Comments, questions or reactions to this post? Leave a note below and I will respond to your questions.
If you enjoyed this post, you might enjoy: Angel Video Interview Series, Pitch Clinic at MassChallenge (Video), Why Angels Chase Electrons, Boards vs. Advisory Boards, Delusional Economics, Ten Rules For Navigating in The Age of Outrage, That Vision Thing, The Power of An Advisory Board, Loch Ness, Unicorns & The First-Mover Advantage, Does This Slide Deck Make Me Look Fat? Are Entrepreneurs Wild Risk-Takers?, Top 20 Dos & Don’ts with Angel Groups & Early Stage Financing, What I Look For In An Entrepreneur, The Overture, Open Forum with Angel, Seed and VC Investors (Video), When Do You Need My Slide Deck?, and 20 Bootstrapping Ideas.
Subscribe – To get an automatic feed of all future posts subscribe to the RSS feed here, or to receive them via email enter your address in the box in the upper right or go here and enter your email address in the box in the upper right. You can also follow me on Twitter @cmirabile and on Google+.
[This post is part of an on-going series of video interviews with members of the start-up community – see a list of links to the full series here.] This one is a bit off the usual beaten path. I was asked to give an interview about Launchpad and US angel investing in general for an entrepreneurial course being taught to entrepreneurs from Latin America. I figured I’d toss it into the Angel Video Interview Series. Here’s an overview of Launchpad and some of my thoughts on current trends in the angel and start-up world. Enjoy. [Read more…]