August 5, 2011
3 guys, 44 days, 11 countries, 18 flights, 38 thousand miles, an exploding volcano, 2 cameras and almost a terabyte of footage… all to turn 3 ambitious linear concepts based on movement, learning and food ….into 3 beautiful and hopefully compelling short films…..
= a trip of a lifetime.
move, eat, learn
Rick Mereki : Director, producer, additional camera and editing
Tim White : DOP, producer, primary editing, sound
Andrew Lees : Actor, mover, groover
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commentary, future trends, open innovation, Uncategorized, yet2.com, yet2Ventures | Tagged: open innovation, venture, yet2ventures | 
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Posted by bendupont
May 3, 2011
I wrote a blog about Crowdfunding back in November (http://wp.me/pxRjC-kq).This article was Taken from Venture Beat and written by Dean Takahashi
The Securities and Exchange Commission may adopt rules to let internet-age technologies be used in fund-raising.
The agency is considering whether to let fast-growing companies use social networks such as Facebook and Twitter to raise funding by tapping thousands of investors for small amounts of money, the Wall Street Journal reported. Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted by bendupont
April 28, 2011
This is an excellent article from VenturBeat and written by Anthony Ha. It ties into a blog I wrote on the New Now. A key mega-trend is wireless speed.
LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman presented his vision today for “Web 3.0” at the South by Southwest Interactive conference in Austin.
Hoffman, who is now a partner at Greylock Partners, sounded dismissive of most of the buzzwords that have been tied to Web 3.0 — bandwidth, “appification”, video, location, real-time, and mobile. (He said mobile is probably the most significant trend of the bunch, but it’s “kind of boring”.) Instead, he said that the next big trend in the evolution of the Web, and the next big opportunity for entrepreneurs, is data.
Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted by bendupont
April 25, 2011
Venture investments in Q1 2011 increased by $1 billion over Q4 2010 to $7.5 billion. The increase was driven by an increase in investments in Internet and cleantech-renewable energy startups, according to CB Insights.
This was a 25% increase in the number of dollars invested over the same period last year. The money was spread of 738 deal, which is approximately the same as last year.
This represents a return to the pre-recession levels. The CB Insights “left it to others to decide whether that represents a return to normalcy or an untenable VC investment bubble.”
1 Comment | commentary, news release, Venture capital, yet2.com, yet2Ventures | Tagged: Ben duPont, Investments, open innovation, VC, VC Bubble, venture capital, yet2.com, yet2ventures | Permalink
Posted by bendupont
April 19, 2011
Join us to hear how experienced deal-makers are succeeding, at our upcoming webinar:
Conference Preview: Successful Deal-making with Small Companies April 21, 2011, 11:00am EST.
We’ll be discussing relationship building, cross-cultural appreciation, ongoing consulting, and step-wise deal structures, among other topics. We’ve gathered representatives from both the small and big company perspectives to share their thoughts — tune in to learn how you can hasten and improve your own deal process.
Webinar speakers:
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Steve Baggott, Director, External Business Development, Procter & Gamble |
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Robert Michelson, President, Butler Home Products |
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Dr. Greg Williams, Director of Research and Development, Monteco Ltd. |
April’s webinar is an exclusive preview of a live panel discussion to be held at yet2.com’s upcoming Open Innovation conference in May, in Boston.
Register today for the Successful Deal-making with Small Companies Preview Webinar here:
https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/311188682
Leave a Comment » | commentary, news release, Uncategorized, yet2.com, yet2Ventures | Tagged: innovation, open i, open innovation, P&G, technology scouting, venture, yet2.com | Permalink
Posted by bendupont
April 6, 2011
HOUSTON, April 6, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — NASA’s Space Life Sciences Directorate (SLSD) at the Johnson Space Center in Houston announced results of a pilot program conducted by yet2.com that identified partnerships to work on six technical needs related to human spaceflight. The needs range from better food packaging materials to a portable bone-imaging device.
SLSD engaged the services of open innovation service provider yet2.com as part of a series of pilot programs during the last two years. In an effort to expand open communication and to create additional opportunities for public involvement with NASA, open innovation service provider (OISP) platforms are under evaluation.
“Open innovation has been a critical component of SLSD’s broader innovation strategy,” said Jeffrey R. Davis, director of SLSD. “This strategy has strengthened our ability to make connections with organizations to address our research and technology needs that we would not have known about using more traditional approaches. Given the favorable results achieved through this pilot study, we will continue to pursue the use of OISP as one tool in our innovation toolkit.”
Based on NASA’s specific technological needs, yet2.com acted as a technology scout, providing a broad external network of experts as potential collaborators with NASA. A relationship can be established with these contacts to develop new technologies. Yet2.com’s system also can be used to maintain established networks for future collaborations. The results from the pilot study show potential for long-term efficacy of OISP platforms.
Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted by bendupont
March 18, 2011
For over ten years I have been going to Japan frequently. I’m going again in 2 weeks. Their; technology, discipline and focus have always amazed me. This was sent to me by a friend and I thought is was worth sharing.
Don’t underestimated Japan’s capability and resolve. The below picture is a good example. The left is the state of a highway right after the earthquake. The right is the same highway four days later. Message? The Japanese economy and people will rebound from this crisis, and be stronger and better then ever.
Leave a Comment » | commentary, future trends, open innovation, yet2.com | Tagged: Ben duPont, Earthquake, efficiency, Japan, open innovation, technology, technology licensing, technology transfer, Tokyo | Permalink
Posted by bendupont
March 16, 2011
This is a great post from Rob Go’s Blog. I love his blog and though it was worth sharing.
I love playing sports (although as I’ve gotten older, I’ve become more of a watcher than a doer). In particular, I love the mental side of sports. I’m convinced that sports are a great training ground for many different disciplines. I remember when I was interviewing for Spark, excellence at some sport was an important factor in the hiring process. Of course, it’s a good measure of competitiveness, but I think it’s even deeper than that.
This got me thinking about the emotional and mental characteristics that are important for entrepreneurs, and the sports that best hone these characteristics. This isn’t an exhaustive list, but there were three sports that really hone a particular strength that I see in great entrepreneurs. Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted by bendupont
March 1, 2011
I read this article and thought it was worth sharing….enjoy – Ben
(Editor’s note: Doug Collom is vice dean and an adjunct lecturer on venture capital and entrepreneurship for Wharton|San Francisco. He submitted this story to VentureBeat. I reprinted it here)
Starting companies is hard. And it’s critical to make sure that your venture is pointing in the right direction from the moment it leaves the launch pad. Any misdirection or miscue on the basic organizational steps can be fatal.
It’s a lot like launching a rocket aimed at the moon—if the launch is only 2 degrees off target at blast-off, it will miss by hundreds of thousands of miles.
There’s no end to the advice and opinions entrepreneurs will hear in a company’s early days, but three basic rules that every company founder should take into consideration:
Keep it simple – In setting up the capital structure and the first equity of the company, many founders either try to innovate or try to accommodate the wishes and desires of every co-founder and early stage employee. The result is too much complexity.
In most cases where there is more than one founder (probably on the order of over 80 percent of startups), the stock should be split equally. If it isn’t an even split, then you should re-evaluate whether your co-participants really deserve to be in the “founder” category. Establish uniform stock vesting provisions that apply equally to both founders (although maybe with some “credit” for pre-formation activities) and early stage employees. Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted by bendupont
February 23, 2011
Starting in the fall last year I began spending at least a week a month in the Valley. I came across this great article by Steve Blank which describes a bunch of things to do in the Valley…. it almost a beginner guide to Silicon Valley. I highly recommend the read – Ben
If you’re a visiting dignitary whose country has a Gross National Product equal to or greater than the State of California, your visit to Silicon Valley consists of a lunch/dinner with some combination of the founders of Google, Facebook, Apple and Twitter and several brand name venture capitalists. If you have time, the President of Stanford will throw in a tour, and then you can drive by Intel or some Clean Tech firm for a photo op standing in front of an impressive looking piece of equipment.
The “official dignitary” tour of Silicon Valley is like taking the jungle cruise at Disneyland and saying you’ve been to Africa. Because you and your entourage don’t know the difference between large innovative companies who once were startups (Google, Facebook, et al) and a real startup, you never really get to see what makes the valley tick.
If you didn’t come in your own 747, here’s a guide to what to see in the valley (which for the sake of this post, extends from Santa Clara to San Francisco.) This post offers things to see/do for two types of visitors: I’m just visiting and want a “tourist experience” (i.e. a drive by the Facebook / Google / Zynga / Apple building) or “I want to work in the valley” visitor who wants to understand what’s going on inside those buildings.
I’m leaving out all the traditional stops that you can get from the guidebooks.
Hackers’ Guide to Silicon Valley
Silicon Valley is more of a state of mind than a physical location. It has no large monuments, magnificent buildings or ancient heritage. There are no tours of companies or venture capital firms. From Santa Clara to South San Francisco it’s 45 miles of one bedroom community after another. Yet what’s been occurring for the last 50 years within this tight cluster of suburban towns is nothing short of an “entrepreneurial explosion” on par with classic Athens, renaissance Florence or 1920’s Paris. Read the rest of this entry »
1 Comment | commentary, future trends, open innovation, Venture capital, yet2.com, yet2Ventures | Tagged: Ben duPont, Google, open innovation, Silicon Valley, Startups, venture capital, yet2.com, yet2ventures | Permalink
Posted by bendupont
A Trip of a Lifetime
August 5, 20113 guys, 44 days, 11 countries, 18 flights, 38 thousand miles, an exploding volcano, 2 cameras and almost a terabyte of footage… all to turn 3 ambitious linear concepts based on movement, learning and food ….into 3 beautiful and hopefully compelling short films…..
= a trip of a lifetime.
move, eat, learn
Rick Mereki : Director, producer, additional camera and editing
Tim White : DOP, producer, primary editing, sound
Andrew Lees : Actor, mover, groover