The Venture Cafe : Secrets, Strategies, and Stories from America's High-Tech Entrepreneurs

Average customer rating:

Interesting in parts

Captures the happenstance nature of entrepreneurship

The Venture Cafe offers a great cup of Joe

Educational and Entertaining

Packed with Knowledge!

The Venture Cafe : Secrets, Strategies, and Stories from America's High-Tech Entrepreneurs
Teresa Esser
Manufacturer: Business Plus
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Strategy & Competition | Management & Leadership | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
Leadership | Management & Leadership | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
General | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
Entrepreneurship | Small Business & Entrepreneurship | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
History of Technology | Technology | Science | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 0446527831

Book Description

The most creative minds of high technology like to get together and talk shopfrom the lessons theyve learned and the accomplishments that theyre most proud of to what keeps them awake at night. The Venture Caf shares their invaluable insights and provides the personal anecdotes, war stories, insider information, and advice vital to success in todays fast-paced business environment.

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Every few weeks in Cambridge, Massachusetts, a group of entrepreneurs and MIT students, alumni, and faculty get together at the Muddy Charles Pub. Here, the experts talk, uncensored, about the work they do, the lessons they've learned, and what keeps them awake at night in the world of business and technology. In The Venture Cafe, MIT alumna Teresa Esser collects these real-life, insider stories and insights to provide readers with a behind-the-scenes look at the world of the recent high-tech business boom, the characters and ideas behind it, and an account of the recent market downturn. By tapping into the knowledge and experience of leading venture capitalists and entrepreneurs, The Venture Cafe entertains as well as provides practical answers to common queries such as:
· How to launch a business idea and pitch a business plan.
· Making the decision to leave the comfort of a big company for a startup.
· How to manage and deal with employees and coworkers.

Overall, The Venture Cafe provides an informative history of the rise of technology and the ideas of the people behind it.

Customer Reviews:

Interesting in parts.......2005-02-11

Book is interesting in parts. Heavy on anecdotes, light on data and insight.

Captures the happenstance nature of entrepreneurship.......2003-08-05

What separates a successful entrepreneur from an unsuccessful one? The successful ones have these seemingly serendipitous things happen to them - meeting the right investors, hiring the right employees, getting supportive beta customers, getting prominent play in the press.

Teresa Esser's point is that what often seems to happen by happenstance, isn't so random at all. She believes that successful entrepreneurs have put into practice - knowingly or unknowingly - the "ideal" of what she calls "The Venture Café."

One of Esser's subjects, Joost Bonsen (who runs informal networking events in Cambridge, MA), has the book's best take on what a Venture Café is:

"It is a venue for adventurous thinking or a cauldron of creative ferment. Who knows what will pop up from it? In fact, nothing is likely to. But you never know. When it does happen, it does have powerful consequences."

Bonsen goes on to add that his role is to be "a catalyst - some type of connection machine. An engine of introduction. A tangible mechanism by which two people who ought to connect do." Esser spends the book driving to the heart of how best to capture and create the essence of what Bonsen describes.

Let other books tell you how to put together a business plan, how to sell your products, and other "blocking and tackling" elements of a start-up. Teresa Esser's fine work captures a key piece of the puzzle that you you'd be crazy to ignore.

The Venture Cafe offers a great cup of Joe.......2003-06-24

There are many business books out there that discuss entrepreneurship, so why do we need another? The Venture Cafe offers a different brew. For those who live too far from Cambridge to experience networking events like evenings at the Muddy Charles Pub or gatherings of the MIT entrepreneurial committee, this book provides the next best thing to being there. Teresa Esser weaves together a tapestry of personalities, stories and anecdotes that reveal many of the subtleties and hidden pitfalls that both would-be entrepreneurs and those going at it again could learn from. The beans roasted for this brew include numerous inventors, entrepreneurs, angel investors, and vulture capitalists that make up the dramatis personae of the entrepreneurship theater that performs day in and day out in and around MIT.

The most important message Teresa Esser brings to light is that no matter how great your idea is, no matter if you have "an idea whose time has come," if you don't have ALL of your ducks lined up in a row, you are likely to fail. Like serving the perfect cup of coffee (the venture cafe analogy works at so many levels), it requires more than just a good idea, it requires a source of quality beans, reliable deliveries of raw materials, a method of roasting, the right brewing equipment, meticulous quality control, sufficient capital, the right marketing, unwavering commitment ... the list goes on and on and on.

Sip from Teresa's cup and you will come away a great deal wiser. It's like spending an afternoon at the cafe surrounded by the best and brightest entrepreneurs. I'll have a double latte, no foam, what can I get for you?

Educational and Entertaining.......2003-03-06

Through over 150 interviews and two years of research, Teresa Esser provides a narrative account of the experiences of company founders, their families, their investors and their partners. Based on their succeses, failures, or breakevens, she exposes you to the emotional peaks and valleys of entrepreneurship, and corresponding management advice. She provides recipies for handling various entrepreneurial challenges including patent preparation and filing, term sheet creation and negotiation, and PR generation. This excellent, well written, entertaining book is recommended for anyone who may face such entrepreneurial challenges.

Packed with Knowledge!.......2003-02-26

Teresa Esser has provides an insightful collection of anecdotes, horror stories, case studies and advice from seasoned veterans of the dot-com boom. Though she admits she's not the entrepreneurial type, her marriage to a successful entrepreneur gives her a unique vantage point on the joys and frustrations of starting a high-tech company with little more than a dream. This fun, quick read contains valuable tips on hiring a good lawyer, pitching ideas to VCs and surviving both failure and success. Much of the advice is still practical, even though the Internet bubble has burst. However, some of the interviews retain a bit of the breathless hype of the days when anyone with a domain name could land first-round VC funding. We from getAbstract recommend this book to would-be entrepreneurs, especially corporate types who are thinking of launching their own companies, and to those who want a level-headed view of the mysterious workings of high-tech startups and their funding.

Book Description

This is the best, most up-to-date consumer guide to leasing a vehicle. The author helps you decide between leasing and purchase and outlines the financial advantages and disadvantages of each. He includes all the pitfalls one needs to avoid when buying or leasing.

Customer Reviews:

Offering Leasing rather than selling it........2004-02-28

Having had the pleasure of visiting with Mr. Doering personally while working in a north Chicago dealership, he provided a very down to earth, easy to understand way of looking at the pros and cons of leasing an automobile. The book has been a tool for me ever since. Good Job and I'll look forward to more.

The Buzz on Leasing.......2000-11-01

Buzz Doering's, "The Buzz on Leasing" is terrific! While many articles on car leasing seem to lean toward the negative, Mr. Doering clearly describes how leasing can be much better than purchasing.

I like the idea of pocketing the difference in payments and investing or utilizing that amount over the term of the lease. I also like having a new car that is in warranty. If you purchase, your warranty would expire in the third year with perhaps 2 more years to go on the financing.

Thanks Mr. Doering for your easy to understand ideas!

Angelo Stalis

BUZZ makes it "easy" to understand modern auto leasing!!.......1999-09-05

I have had the pleasure of attending a seminar given by BUZZ. I am a car salesman. I learned more about LEASING in 1 hour than all the leasing classes I have taken in the last 4 years. Easy to understand. His book is for the buyer as well the salesperson. My sales have increased as a DIRECT result. My customers have complete understanding AND they are very happy. Many say they will NEVER pay cash or buy a car again!! Leasing is the way to go!! Thank You BUZZ

Great book! Made leasing a car easier &more understandable.......1998-11-30

My wife and I both read this book -- and we both learned how to lease a new family car correctly! The book is written to the audience of private consumers. The author explains the pluses and minuses of leasing and compares leasing vs. buying. I'll read it again before I lease our next car.

This is the best guide to leasing I have seen!.......1998-10-08

Buzz is THE expert on leasing. His down to earth and easy to understand explanations are great for everyone, expecially those who know very little or nothing about leasing. Don't get another car without reading this book! I know I will never own another vehicle. Leasing is the way to go!

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This Elibron Classics book is a facsimile reprint of a 1858 edition by Guillaumin et Cie, Paris.

Book Description

This series covers applicable theses published in the U.S. since 1955. Since Volume 18 it has included Canadian theses. Volume 37 covers thesis year 1992. All back issues are still available.

Book Description

After a brief introduction to the distribution of deep-sea sediments, we show how the activities of marine organisms cycle nutrients and other dissolved constituents within the oceans, and influence the rates at which both solid and dissolved material is
removed to sediments. Chapter 3 reviews the carbonate system and ends with a brief excursion into palaeoceanography. We conclude by describing the biological and chemical processes that continue long after sediments have been deposited on the deep-sea floor.

Book Description

David Hilbert (1862-1943) was the most influential mathematician of the early twentieth century and, together with Henri Poincaré, the last mathematical universalist. His main known areas of research and influence were in pure mathematics (algebra, number theory, geometry, integral equations and analysis, logic and foundations), but he was also known to have some interest in physical topics. The latter, however, was traditionally conceived as comprising only sporadic incursions into a scientific domain which was essentially foreign to his mainstream of activity and in which he only made scattered, if important, contributions.

Based on an extensive use of mainly unpublished archival sources, the present book presents a totally fresh and comprehensive picture of Hilbert’s intense, original, well-informed, and highly influential involvement with physics, that spanned his entire career and that constituted a truly main focus of interest in his scientific horizon. His program for axiomatizing physical theories provides the connecting link with his research in more purely mathematical fields, especially geometry, and a unifying point of view from which to understand his physical activities in general. In particular, the now famous dialogue and interaction between Hilbert and Einstein, leading to the formulation in 1915 of the generally covariant field-equations of gravitation, is adequately explored here within the natural context of Hilbert’s overall scientific world-view.

This book will be of interest to historians of physics and of mathematics, to historically-minded physicists and mathematicians, and to philosophers of science.

Leo Corry, David Hilbert and the axiomatization of physics (1898-1918) , Springer, Netherlands [A book review from: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics]

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Leo Corry, David Hilbert and the axiomatization of physics (1898-1918) , Springer, Netherlands [A book review from: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics]
L. Beklemishev
Manufacturer: Elsevier
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital
ASIN: B000RR94VW

Book Description

This digital document is a journal article from Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics, published by Elsevier in 2006. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Media Library immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Description:

David Hilbert And The Axiomatization Of Physics 1898-1918

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David Hilbert And The Axiomatization Of Physics 1898-1918
Leo Corry
Manufacturer: NY
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000N6BYMY

Book Description

Henry Adams' letters are among the best in the language. They are, in Alfred Kazin's words, "magnificent, his most spontaneous arid freest literary works." With the completion of this edition, they may well be judged his most significant achievement. "The letters are not a gloss on a life's work; in a real sense they are his life's work' the reviewer for American Literature stated.

We encounter Adams in 1892 at a turning point in his career, at the beginning of the period in which his leading ideas would he crystallized and his major literary works take shape. He had survived the shock of his wife's suicide and had completed his great History of the Jefferson era, and after his long journey in the South Seas his frustrated passion for Elizabeth Cameron had begun to calm. His wanderlust now took him to the Carolinas and the Rockies, to Mexico, Cuba, Egypt, the Near East, Greece, Italy, central Europe, Russia, and the North Cape. His interest came increasingly to center on the geopolitical present and the medieval past. Prompted by the Panic of 1893, he began an intensive study of the new finance capitalism and the imperial power it created; by the end of the decade he was beginning to foresee the shift of global dominance from Britain to the United States and Russia. Meanwhile a tour of the churches and abbeys of Normandy fired his imagination and led to the absorption in the art and culture 0f medieval France that would bear fruit in Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres

At his home on Lafayette Square, across from the White House, he became an informal adviser to statesmen, John Hay and Theodore Roosevelt among them. Out of his friendly association with scientists arid his own study of science came his conviction that the dynamo and radium were bringing a revolution in physics. His germinating ideas about science, technology, and economic power were conveyed in his letters over many years before they were formulated in The Education of Henry Adams, his "Study of Twentieth-Century Multiplicity."

The Adams who emerges from the letters is far more complex, contradictory, and human than the protagonist of the Education. He writes to women, Mrs. Cameron above all, about politics, economics, and science as well as social news and palace gossip, just as he writes to men about art as well as power. The multiplicity of his interests, his sharp perceptions, eye for telling detail, and passion for generalization, together with his irony and wit, make his letters the engrossing record of an extraordinary life-in-progress and an incomparable commentary upon his age.

Book Description

World War II changed the face of the United States, catapulting the country out of economic depression, political isolation, and social conservatism. Ultimately, the war was a major formative factor in the creation of modern America. This unique, twelve-volume set provides comprehensive coverage of this transformation in its domestic policies, diplomatic relations, and military strategies, as well as the changing cultural and social arenas. The collection presents the history of the creation of a super power prior to, during, and after the war, analyzing all major phases of the U.S. involvement, making it a one-stop resource that will be essential for all libraries supporting a history curriculum.

This volume is available on its own or as part of the twelve-volume set, The American Experience in World War II. For a complete list of the volume titles in this set, see the listing for The American Experience in World War II [ISBN: 0-415-94028-1].

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In the late nineteenth century the U.S. government attempted to reshape Lakota (Sioux) society to accord with American ideals. Catherine Price charts the political strategies employed by Oglala councilors as they struggled to preserve their autonomy.

Book Description

As the selection of material for particular engineering properties becomes increasingly important in keeping costs down, methods for evaluating material properties also become more relevant. One such method examines the geometry of grain boundaries, which reveals much about the properties of the material. Studying material properties from their geometrical measurements, The Measurement of Grain Boundary Geometry provides a framework for a specialized application of electron microscopy for metals and alloys and, by extension, for ceramics, minerals, and semiconductors. The book presents an overview of the developments in the theory of grain boundary geometry and its practical applications in material engineering. It also covers the tunneling electron microscope (TEM), experimental aspects of data collection, data processing, and examples from actual investigations. Each step of the analysis process is clearly described, from data collection through processing, analysis, representation, and display to applications. The book also includes a glossary of terms. Exploring both the experimental and analytical aspects of the subject, this practical reference guide is essential for researchers and students involved in material properties, whether in physics, materials science, metallurgy, or physical chemistry.

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