Entrepreneurship Resources

These are some of my favorite tools / sources of content that I've come across. Will update as I come across other things. The green portions are what I feel are most important.

1. Business model canvas:


(1) This is the framework to work out of. It's nice and concise and highlights the key things a startup needs to focus on. One starts by guessing the answers in each of these sections, and then figuring out what info s/he needs to verify all assumptions, and thus the canvas gets refined iteratively, even after a product is launched:  http://www.businessmodelgeneration.com/canvas

2. Two must-read books:

(1) The Lean Startup (by Eric Ries) teaches you how to validate, learn, test, and refine your concepts without wasting time, energy, money, etc. - it's so essential that some investors are now only investing in startups that get this way of thinking - http://goo.gl/0Vf3y

(2) A strongly related book that goes into more depth (but it's dense and I would only tackle it after reading The Lean Startup) is The Startup Owner's Manual: The Step-By-Step Guide for Building a Great Company (by Steve Blank) - http://goo.gl/5z879 --> I read chunks of the precursor to this book (Four Steps to the Epiphany), but this newer one should be much better and more up to date.

3. Some blogs:

(1) Steve Blank's blog: http://steveblank.com/
(3) On Startups: http://onstartups.com/
(4) Tech Crunch: http://techcrunch.com/
(5) Startup Digest: http://startupdigest.com
(6) Tech Cocktail: http://techcocktail.com/
(7) Venture Hacks: http://venturehacks.com/

4. Some other resources:

(1) Angel Funding: http://angel.co/

(2) Tech Cocktail: http://techcocktail.com/

(3) Various meetups on http://www.meetup.com/ like “NY tech meetup”, “DC tech meetup”, “Phily Tech Meetup”, “Lean Startup Circle”, co-working groups, etc.
(4) AngelList: https://angel.co/
(5) Startup Digest: http://startupdigest.com/

5. Some books that have been recommended to me that I haven't read yet (but intend to):

(1) The art of the start - http://goo.gl/5IKov
(2) Rework - http://goo.gl/IwNLC
(3) Business Model Generation: A Handbook for Visionaries, Game Changers, and Challengers - http://goo.gl/VkGZ7

6. Local Resources:

(1) http://www.cofounderslab.com (it's a web resource / social network to help people find potential teammates). Their meetup group is here - http://www.meetup.com/Co-founders-DC/
(2) http://foster.ly/ is a hub that tries to hook people up with people and entrepreneurship resources in the VA/DC/MD area.

7. Teaching Resources (coding, other tech, entrepreneurship, all FREE):

(1) By far the best resource I've found is  http://www.udacity.com/ , which is completely free, started by top Stanford professors and backed by one of the most respected VCs in Silicon Valley. The professors are all excellent, and the teaching style is really clear and easy to follow. The catch is that it goes in 8 week cycles and there is a homework due each Tuesday, and then a final in week 7 - you get a certificate if you do well. The first week of this cycle is this week - so you can catch it before Tuesday.

I'd recommend the intro class "CS101 - building a search engine", which focuses on teaching the basics of coding in Python (the search engine is just a way for them to teach you the computer science concepts and make it interesting and applicable). The fact that it's on a timeline actually forces you to keep up and not put it off.

 An exciting course on entrepreneurship, taught by Steve Blank (same material he teaches at Stanford)": http://www.udacity.com/overview/Course/ep245/CourseRev/1

Other good teaching sites:

(2) http://www.codecademy.com/#!/exercises/0  (no teaching videos - just exercises and written explanations. Easy to follow. Simple step by step approach).
(3) https://www.coursera.org/ (has classes from top universities - Stanford, Princeton, U-Mich, U-Penn).
(4) http://mitx.mit.edu/ (MIT's versoin of this)

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