Tipping Point Trumps First Mover Advantage

By Tim Berry

Two interesting milestones: a note last week that Ebook Sales Surpass Hardcover in the U.S. coupled with the fact that digital music overtook physical media for the first time in 2011, something I expected since 1998. In both cases what surprises me is not that it happened, but how long it took. And what interests me is who makes... Read More »

Crabgrass Theory of Tech Startups

By Tim Berry

I’m fascinated by Fred Wilson’s recent post he called The Darwinian Evolution of Startup Hubs, on his AVC blog from late last month. This is so much like my own sense of how it was, beginning with the first semiconductor companies appearing in what was then called the Santa Clara Valley in the 1950s. I was in... Read More »

Shocking Post-Recession Economic Bar Chart

By Tim Berry

The great recession, it seems, goes on. While I don’t like statistics as morality, and I hate how much this stuff lends itself to inane talking points in politics, this was just striking. I saw it on CNN Monday: Family net worth plummets 40%. The illustration is by CNN, and sources are cited in the small... Read More »

Is There a Tech Bubble? We’ll Know If It Pops

By Tim Berry

Earlier today I posted disruption vs. revenue and the tech bubble on the gust.com blog. I’m suggesting in that post that some special-case web-based startups have to choose between disruption or revenue, because they can’t have both. That may or may not be true, but I’ve been guilty of suggesting it is to a couple... Read More »

What To do When Business Research Collides

By Tim Berry

I follow two reports on small business employment, one done by Intuit, the king of small business accounting, which also has a payroll service, and the other by SurePayroll, which is a small business online payroll service. But here’s the rub: reporting on small business jobs in April, the Intuit index has good news …... Read More »

Quick Dollar View of National Priorities

By Tim Berry

Andrew Sullivan posted this as Infographic: Tax Breaks vs. Budget Cutson his Daily Dish blog on The Atlantic. He traced it back to this possible origin, which has a lot of detail at the bottom about sources and assumptions. I apologize for politics, not my normal fare on this blog, but it’s such an eloquent... Read More »

Small Business Labs on Trends for 2011

By Tim Berry

Sure, there are lots of trends pieces going around these days, but Steve King of Emergent Research is the best expert I know on researching trends and putting them into sensible pieces. His company does some really good trends research that is often published by Intuit. , so I’d like to share his Top 10... Read More »

Helping Women Fight Poverty With Entrepreneurship

By Tim Berry

I don’t know much about this, but it certainly impressed me, so I decided to share it here. I assume the video here speaks for itself, but, just in case you’d like a summary, it’s about an organization called FITE, for Financial Independence Through Entrepreneurship, that is powered by Kiva.org and focuses on  microloans for... Read More »