In this weeks edition of the Weekly Wrapup, we discuss the implications of the recently passed health care reform bill on startups and small businesses, as well as some hiring tips, and 6 venture capitalists weigh in on what they look for from an entrepreneur's pitch. We also discuss how to make better use of email, and we look into lingering concerns about the stability of Facebook's application development platform.
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In the waning moments of Sunday evening (quite literally the eleventh hour), the U.S. House of Representatives passed was some are calling the most comprehensive changes to the American health care system in over 100 years. The bill passed by a narrow margin of just seven votes, and could be signed into law as early as Tuesday after the Senate passes a small amendment known as the "fix-it bill," though many changes won't be seen for several years. For entrepreneurs, startups and venture capitalists, the legislation ushers in an entirely new set of circumstances and opportunities.
From knowing who to hire next, to ethical and legal concerns, to how to interview the best candidates, to how to evaluate them once they're hired - startups have their work cut out for them when it comes to hiring.
If you can afford to hire a trained professional, someone who's skilled in evaluative testing, do so. But if not, you need to learn as much as you can about how to hire the right people. Here's our contribution to your endeavor.
I have a few different friends who are trying their hands at entrepreneurship; some have met with investors already, while others are closing in on their meeting date with anticipation and uncertainty. Based on hearing some of the things they were doing to prepare for their meeting, I thought it would be wise to roundup some of the best pitch advice I've come across not only for them but for the other first time entrepreneurs out there who may not know what typical VC pitches are like.
Investors get lots of emails. Jason Mendelson of Foundry Group wrote just this morning on how he wishes email were slower so he wouldn't suffer from what he calls "Email Compulsive Disorder." That being said, there are ways to write better messages when communicating with investors (or anyone who receives a lot of email daily) that will make the process simpler, quicker and will better your chances of hearing back from them.
There is a significant risk and reward that comes with developing products that leverage third-party application programming interfaces, or APIs. Twitter has used its API to let others spread the word for them; applications like Tweetie and TweetDeck help Twitter reach a broader audience on a variety of devices while making money for themselves. However, downtime for a service offering their API to developers means downtime for every service that relies on it for its API data. In the case of Facebook application developers, continuing reliability issues with the platform have become a cause for concern.
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