Instigator Blog

For most first-time entrepreneurs, intellectual property is a giant black hole. Most of us are familiar with the concepts of intellectual property - copyrights, patents, etc. - but few of us have been involved in really assessing and understanding intellectual property, its value and whether it’s important or not.

Jason Mendelson does a great job of looking at the value of patents for startups, with input from Brad Feld and Rob Shurtleff.

My thinking is much the same as theirs — the value of patents for startups is unclear. The one caveat is that I’m speaking specifically of Web 2.0-type / Web-based startups and not companies in biotech, life sciences, high-tech or clean-tech (where patents are almost a must.)

Most Web 2.0 startups are about execution. It’s not about a catalog of patents you use to defend your technology, or add value upon an acquisition. Rob Shurtleff (a VC), points out, “Software patents have in our experience not added significant value to early stage companies when they are acquired…”

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A good friend of mine, Raymond Luk, is involved with Facebook Weekend in Toronto. It’s a combination BarCamp-style unconference and StartupWeekend. For anyone involved in Facebook development or looking at it for their companies, it’s a good chance to meet the community in Toronto.

From what I’ve heard there will be a good number of experienced entrepreneurs as well, to help companies with their startup plans.

Facebook Weekend is this weekend (starting on Friday) and you can sign-up here: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=5803124517.

I should have gotten this notice out earlier, but such is the life of a crazed entrepreneur.

This is your brain.

This is your brain while you’re trying to get funding.

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Too many companies treat their customers like crap. It’s frustrating and inexcusable. You don’t like being treated like crap, right?

So why treat your customers that way?

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The pros and cons of freelancing are fairly well known. And freelancers have no shortage of stories about bad clients. But what about bad freelancers? Does such a thing exist? Of course it does. And there’s no worse feeling than paying someone a lot of money to do work for you only to have them screw it up or bail on you completely.

So what can a client do in a situation where the vendor screws up?

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