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How much is Twitter worth? Raise pinky to lip…

According to a new report by Michael Arrington at TechCrunch, Twitter is currently worth 1 beeeeellion doll hairs.

The company is rumored to be closing an additional round of funding estimated at $50 million, which will purportedly place Twitter at a $1 billion valuation as a result.

Earlier this year Twitter closed a round of $35 million in a round led by Benchmark Capital and Institutional Venture Partners, which valued the company at $250 million.

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Now available! (click below to purchase the new book or poster):

by Brian Solis

Last week, the Microsoft BizSpark team, in partnership with The TechSet (Stephanie Agresta and yours truly), celebrated Southern California startups and the spirit of innovation at Ingnition-LA. Hosted at the beautiful Beso, owned by Eva Longoria, in Hollywood, 300 entrpreneurs converged to demo, network, and forge alliances that will carry them forward for years to come.

Thank you to everyone who helped make this such a tremendously successful event!

San Francisco, you’re next! See you on 12/16 at the beautiful Carnelian Room, 52 floor above the city!

RSVP for the San Francisco event here.

I’ll let the pictures tell the rest of the story…

Shira Lazar and Geri Hirsch

Anand Iyer of BizSpark

Tyler Crowley of Mahalo

Efren Toscano and Linda Sherman

Kedric Van De Carr, Arad Rostampour, Jacob Mullins, Anand Iyer

Streamy.com

Girl Gamer

Dan Portnoy

Shira Lazar keeps people in line

Rock Band

Robert Yang, Lolita Carrico, Jim Lin, Matt Singley

Stephanie Agresta and Nina Bargiel

Kedric Van De Karr, Misty LaChance, Angela Costa Roque Baptista

Raj Chauhan of Rubicon Project

Hayden Black and Michael Pilla

Marc Russell Hustvedt, Jessica (need last name), Taryn O’Neill, Michael Davies

Jessica Wilzig Gottlieb and Erin Kotecki Vest (QueenofSpain)

Dragana Ognenovska & Wm. Marc Salsberry

Todd Sawacki

Frank Sinton of Meefeedia

Stephanie Agresta

Kurt Daradics and Heather Meeker

Linda Sherman and Amanda Coolong

Blackberry Storm

Jason Nazar of Docstoc and Shira Lazar

Jonathan Dingman

For more pictures from Ignition-Los Angeles, visit my album on flickr. Within the set, you’ll also be treated to a few pictures from the after party at Bao, Hollywood, where we also celebrated @queenofspain’s birthday!

Here are a couple of pics to get your started…

If you’ve missed our previous events, you can relive the experiences below:

New York

Austin

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by Marissa Louie

ZOMG Our angel and VC friends have done it again. They’d rather roast our insides than roast the turkey. Turn that portfolio company from turkey to turnkey. Joke’s on us, VC billionaires.

Purchaze

-1- Paul Kedrosky: Somali Pirates and TARP

*PAULSON: TARP PIRATE EQUITY IS AN `INVESTMENT,’ WILL PAY OFF.”

-2- Brad Feld: Take Responsibility for your Actions

“I tried calling 1-800-BAIL-OUT to see if I was missing something.  They wouldn’t help me…”

-3- Joi Ito: Loic for a Day

“I thought about selling Loic on eBay, but I realized that would be too selfish.”

-4- Jeff Nolan: I am a Bond

“4 basic types of bonds, Schoolhouse Rock style.”

-5- Fred Wilson: Do You Ever Do Any Real Work?

“Slowly but surely people are wising up to the fact that blogging is work and its a very valuable use of my time.”

-6- James D. Robinson IV: The More Things Change, The More They Stay The Same

“VC’s are too arrogant and the pitching process is too inefficient.”

-7- Daniel Cohen: New TeeVee Live!

“”The best part was his reply to a question on how Fred changed his life: “I get attention from the senior girls in school, which is cool”. Excellent.”

-8- Josh Kopelman: Road Trip

“Chris Fralic, organized a two-day road trip to the four largest advertising agencies in country.  We rented a bus.”

-9- Bing Gordon: Looking for Killer Apps

“Look how smart I am (how dumb I am not!); I got this new (insert hardware model here) and it can do this!!!”

-10- Mark Cuban: Proud to be an American

“I can tell you that no entrepreneur or CEO worth a damn in this country gives up or works less because of a change in tax policy.”

**Honorable mention**

-11- David Cowan: It’s a Smule World After All

When Jeff’s team isn’t cleaning out Bessemer’s kitchen, they’re churning out ass-kicking Chuck-on-iPhone (CHiP) apps.

**Your turn**

Suggest funny angel and VC blog posts through Turkey Day (you know these are going to be ridiculous!)

Marissa Louie is the Founder and CEO of AD Village (http://ad-village.com) which helps bloggers monetize and advertisers optimize. If you liked this post, you might also like You Know You’re a Young Female Entrepreneur When…, 10+ Funniest Angel and VC Blog Posts October 2008, and The Future Co-existence of PR and Advertising. She gets esoteric on Twitter, where she announces Entrepreneur 2 Entrepreneur Office Hours and broadcasts her entrepreneurial journey.

by Brian Solis

Microsoft StartupZone, The TechSet and Austin’s Startup District launched “Ignition” on Thursday night at Speakeasy. The event commemorated the launch of Microsoft BizSpark and celebrated the local spirit of entrepreneurialism and innovation.

Austin pulled out the stops with local tech leaders, enthusiasts, and champions packing the Speakeasy with rich and invigorating conversations, networking, product demos, and a refreshing diversion from the day-to-day aspirations of improving the world, one app at a time.  It was simply an incredible event, courtesy of the very people who participated.

SD|2020 kicked off the night with a showcase of the best early-stage startups in Texas.

Presenting companies included:
BizSpark
Piryx
Minggl
Gendai Games
QikCom
Ringlight
OtherInBox
RUWT? Sports
GAMEWAGER
TechRanchAustin

Microsoft BizSpark was recently launched at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco as a new program designed to support those founders and service providers who contribute to the dynamic ecosystem that help startups flourish.

I’ll let the pictures tell the rest of the story…

John Erik Metcalf

Joshua Baer

Tom Serres

Dewey Gaedcke of Minggl

Tan Tran

Christopher St. John, Nikhil Nilakantan, Blake Burris

Hugh Forrest of SXSW and Stephanie Agresta (TechSet, InternetGeekGirl)

Dusty Reagan of FriendorFollow

Kristine Gloria and Erica O’Grady

Cesar Torres

Jacob Mullins, Microsoft BizSpark

Clinton Schaff

Katie King of SXSW

Silona Bonewald, Bill Erickson

Anand Iyer, Microsoft BizSpark

Jacob Mullins, Anand Iyer, Josh Dillworth, Tammy Lynn Gilmore, Brian Solis, Silona Bonewald

Speakeasy

Michelle Greer, Archana Ramachandran, Whurley – William Hurley, Erica OGrady, Sara Dornsife, Tammy Lynn Gilmore, Stephanie Agresta, Anand Iyer, Giovanni Gallucci, Silona Bonewald

RockBand!

Cesar Torres, Dane Hurtubise, Kristine Gloria

Jacob Mullins and Tammy Lynn Gilmore

Next stop:

December 4, 2008 – Silicon Valley

December 10, 2008 – Los Angeles

For more pictures from the Microsoft BizSpark, TechSet, SD|2020 event in Austin, please visit my album on Flickr.

To see pictures from the Ignite New York, please visit my this album on flickr.

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by Brian Solis

Austin, what are you doing tonight?

Microsoft StartupZone, The TechSet and Austin’s Startup District present “Ignition,” an event to commemorate the launch of Microsoft BizSpark and celebrate the spirit of entrepreneurialism.

Join Stephanie Agresta, Brian Solis, Austin entrepreneurs, the BizSpark team and partners for this can’t miss event from 7-10pm with free drinks and hors d’oeuvres. Plus, you will have the opportunity to meet some of the most influential technologists around.

RSVP here.

SD|2020 is also bringing together the best early-stage startups in Texas – 20 slides, 20 seconds each slide, on the 20th of this month.

Pitching at SD|2020:
BizSpark
Piryx
Minggl
Gendai Games
QikCom
Ringlight
OtherInBox
RUWT? Sports
GAMEWAGER
TechRanchAustin

In attendance:
Rudder
Nectar
DailyMile
Volunteer Spot
Bet Arcade
Moximity
turn2live
SnapPages
FriendOrFollow
Saltlick Labs

BizSpark is a new program launched by Microsoft designed for those founders and service providers who contribute to the dynamic ecosystem that help startups flourish.

Where:

Speakeasy
412D Congress Ave
Austin, TX 78701

If you can’t make it to the Austin event, hopefully you can join us in one of our other cities:

December 4, 2008 – Silicon Valley

December 10, 2008 – Los Angeles

To see pictures from the Ignite New York, please visit my album on flickr.

For more pictures from Ignite New York hosted by Microsoft BizSpark and TechSet, please visit my album on Flickr.

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Our guest blogger, Larry Chiang, is an instructive humorist and blogs at Business Week. If you liked “10 Things They Don’t Teach You at Business School“, How to Work a Cocktail Party and “10 VC Mistakes,” you’ll like this submission on some all-important mistakes VCs make when they become entrepreneurs themselves.

By Larry Chiang

Jumping from venture-capitalist-board-member to “start-up founder and CEO’ is near impossible for the HBSer / GSBer to successfully do. The b-school molded HBS-Harvard Business School / Stanford Graduate School Business (GSB) need to navigate eight pitfalls.

-1- Too self indulgent.

Being smarter than a billionaire you met during b-school show-and-tell, does not make you a better entrepreneur. This fundamental fact sinks many want-preneurs.

Stop the ego massaging and set aside all 170 IQ points and dumb it down. Robert Downey Jr recommends going, “partial retard” in his character from Tropic Thunder.

Look at the biggest hits:

“eBay” – pretty retarded selling beanie babies and Pez dispensers in the 90s

“Yahoo” – a dumb but cute-funny, pre-orgasmic sound upon discovering a search result on a Stanford server with the same name.

“Google” – please. The site (and campus) still looks like romper room time with Barney. No not that one…

THIS ONE

“Duck9″ – are you effen kidding? The whole site is a logo with a dumb riddle.

-2- Too focused on perfect formula vs market pain.

What do you call a mish-mash or under experienced payment executives doing peer-to-peer payments? The payPal founding team.

You can bet, the PayPal mafia (since their $1.5B exit) focuses on market pain.

-3- Too cerebral.

They do not pay you to be smart. They do not pay you for researching a silver bullet technology. They pay you to promote. They pay you to raise the $0.02/share stock price by promoting adoption of your
technology.

Another trapping of too cerebral-palsyness is knowing too much about too many things. Entrepreneurs hone in like a laser beam. Heck most entrepreneurs do not even know what a credit FICO score is or a credit crisis or have talking points on the impending Obama Presidency [insert pic here]

VCs read coverage and this rss habit needs to be KICKED when you put the CEO hat on.

-4- Too unproductive.

Why are VCs turned entrepreneur lame-duck?! Maybe it is the ex VC’s pedigreed family. Maybe it is the blue blood family money… Maybe criticizing and producing are too different from each other. Maybe consulting and executing are too different from each other.

Also, meetings taken by VCs for your new upstart can not be logged as productivity. Those charity meetings are taken as a hedge because they think you will fail and be a VC again.

Fire the wife. Fire the girlfriend. Your new wife and your new mistress have a new name… and it is called D-u-c-k-9. Or Asse9. Or Buck9. Or elephant9 if you are stealing my URL (yes “Elephant9″ is
registered to a Sand Hill Road squatter).

-5- Too talentless.

Academic talent does not usually translate into entrepreneurial talent — some would argue academic talent NEVER translates into entrepreneurial talent, but then they’ve never met Tom Chiang (dad).

SOLUTION. Re-gear, retool and start sandbagging for success. I mention sand-bagging because it is defined as deliberately misleading someone to think you NEVER did b-school. You can not ramp up entrepreneurial talent while clutching your tier one MBA status.

-6- Too inflexible.

Welcome to beta male-ness. You were an alpha (sort of) back when you were quoting the size of Fund XIX. Live, embrace AND WALLOW in your new tier two status.

Mr. Ex-VC, want an exercise in ego flexibility? Hand out slices of pizza at the next blogger meet-up that WordPress produces. Kiss blogger ass (or Asse9) right near the butt crack.

SOLUTION: sell your condo and go “native”. I own three homes but live in a dorm room on University Avenue… Eff you, because this advice is falling on deaf ears.

-7- Too non promotional.

Sell it. Rarely does something sell itself. I can not repeat this point enough.

Sell it don’t smell it

“The key to sales is to get them to sign on the line which is dotted,” Alec Baldwin in Glengarry Glen Ross.

-8- Too historical.

Majors from the last war that are now Generals historically fight to re-win lost battles. B-school does something similar to us when we pour over HBS (Harvard Business School) case studies.

So you are damned if you know case studies, and you’re damned if you don’t. But the biggest factor VCs have in not making the jump to entrepreneur is…

-9- Too unable to weather a storm.

Entrepreneurship is 90% crap so weathering a first storm motivates most exVCs into “cutting their losses”. Get ready for a future storm with my litmus test…

TOUGH QUESTIONS TO ASK YOURSELF.
Can you handle a mutiny?
Can you ramp up while 70% of your staff is severed?
Can you buy your assets back in BK court and restart?
Does the thought of that make you cringe?
Can you sell your way out of a wet paper bag?
Can you charm you suppliers and vendors for 2-10 net 90 terms after you
signed docs for net 30?
Can you negotiate your debts with collectors minutes before you go on a
Tony Perkins panel?

Most entrepreneurs wither-and-wilt during the third storm they face. The over-under on the number of “storms” a VC HBSer can handle: 1.3. Smart money bets the under. TRANSLATION. An over under but is when the “house” calls out a prediction that is eerily spot on. You place your “bet” and pick ‘over’ or ‘under’. Easy, weasy, Chin-easy. Gawd I just made that up.

The one hit wonder has an over under number of 1.8. Being more fragile than a one-hot wonder is NOT a good position to be in.

Stay tuned. When I cover (err crash) the SAG Awards and Oscars, I’ll cover the four mistakes of actors turned directors.

My focus is, “What They Don’t Teach You At Stanford Business School” and I have a book coming out 09-09-09. The next conference I am going to is Tony Perkins VC Conference

Larry Chiang is the founder of duck9, which educates college students on how to establish and maintain a FICO score over 750. He is a frequent contributor to GigaOm’s Found|Read. His earlier posts include: How to Work The Room; 8 Tips On How to Get Mentored ; and 9 VCs You’re Gonna Want To Avoid. You can read more equally funny, founder-focused-lessons on Larry’s Amazon blog.

by Brian Solis

During day one of The Web 2.0 Summit, we were treated to an incredibly eye-opening conversation between billionaire investor John Doerr and John Heilemann, a contributing editor at New York magazine. Heilemann had just flown in from Chicago where he spent time with Barack Obama. Believe it or not, Obama had a couple of questions for Doerr that he channeled through Heilemann.

This is where the conversations begins.

Obama requested Doerr’s recommendation for chief technology officer of the United States. Within seconds, Doerr replied with ease.

“Bill Joy,” he said quickly.

Joy is the co-founder of Sun Microsystems, in which Doerr was an early investor and is now a partner Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.

Doerr added, “It would be a sacrifice to lose him to the Obama administration, but there is no greater cause.”

Obama’s second question sought Doerr’s guidance on which single policy issue would most help entrepreneurs.

Again, with a prompt and convincing response Doerr jumped, “Kickstart research and innovation in the energy sector.”

He then focused on the fact that the US also needs to invest in graduating a greater number of capable professionals. His goal is to double it from 30,000 to 60,000 graduating in physical sciences and engineering. Doerr highlighted the fact that a majority of students are studying from foreign countries. After they graduate, we send them back home, “what kind of foreign policy is that?” he quipped. His advice, “Staple a green card to each diploma!”

The conversation traversed a multitude of subject matter. One such discussion focused on the financial crisis.

His observation is that Silicon Valley and technology is a big part of the economy. But that venture capital investments and startup performance are not to blame this time. He also said that the mortgage industry is not solely responsible either. We’re enthralled in a “crises economy” according to Doerr.

“People lost faith in our government, leaders, and they lost faith in their money,” Doerr believes.

Doerr continued, “Wall Street and Main Street are intertwined. Kicking people out of their homes makes no sense at all. What lenders should do is revalue their homes, issue a new 30 year mortgage and have them restart their lives in their existing house.”

Mr. John Doerr also discussed the startup market.

“There’s been a lot of activity that doesn’t deserve to be funded,” Doerr exclaimed. “Good ideas will still get funded, but it’s a buyers market, not a sellers market, so terms are going to be different.”

His main concern nowadays is how can his team get those companies to produce a return.

“Google is just not going to buy a lot of these startups, so who else will?” he asked.

He warned startup founders to get ready for a longer haul than most anticipate. To help startups survive the financial crisis, he offered the following 11 tips:

1. Act now

2. Cut once, cut deeper than you need. You only want to do this once – use a scalpel, not an axe

3. Have or secure 18 months of cash

4. Defer facilities expansion and expenses on technology infrastructure

5. Evaluate R&D priorities and focus on what truly is necessary and important

6. Renegotiate all contacts – you’d be surprised that everything, right now, is negotiable

7. Everybody in the company ought to be selling

8. Pay people in equity in addition to reduced cash

9. Secure cash – treasuries. security backed agency loans

10. Figure out the leading indicators of your business dynamics so you can react quickly

11. Over communicate without sugarcoating

“Most importantly,” he added, “do not cut hope. We will emerge much stronger.”

Pictures from the Web 2.0 Summit Day One are available in my album on Flickr.

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by Marissa Louie

Has the current economic climate caused our dear angel and VC friends to be delectably off-humor in their blog posts? Or are they merely giddy at the thought of becoming VC billionaires in the downturn?

10 Funniest Blog Posts by Angels and VCs this month:

-1- Brad Feld: It’s Monday. Do you know what your VC is doing?

“This doesn’t mean sit around with your thumb up your ass.”

-2- Dave McClure: Fear is the Mindkiller

“If you are running an existing startup, you are probably going to have to cut spending, cut hiring, and you may even end up firing people / doing layoffs.  And then you pay taxes and then you die.“

-3- Guy Kawasaki: Guy’s Index of Absurdity: The Top Ten Ways to Tell If Things Are Really Bad

“Pierre Omidyar starts selling stuff on eBay.”

-4- RRE Ventures: RRE Bikini Bottom Franchise

“Another way to think about the team at RRE.”

-5- Dave Winer: Flirting Her Way to Victory

“At least three times, Sarah Palin, the adorable, preposterous vice-presidential candidate, winked at the audience.”

-6- Jeff Nolan: Display Ads Gone Wild

“Apparently there is a new television show on CBS….”

-7- Fred Wilson: SWOT Analysis on America

“Your country is extremely lucky that it will have as a President someone who is universally acknowledged as the “deepest thinker to ever get in the Oval Office” “

-8- Mark Cuban: The Only Mavericks that Matter

“Anyone know of any decent players named McCain and Obama that I can sign for the preseason?”

-9- Jeff Clavier: One of the 25 Most Influential People on the Web. Moi?

“It is obviously very nice to share the investor spot with peeps like Peter Thiel and Paul Graham.”

-10- Christopher Griffin: “Sabers Up!” — Peter Thiel’s Criteria for Quality Entrepreneurs

“Create an internal drive to succeed unmatched by hopping from Ivy League to Wall Street to Stanford to employee #80 at successful startup X.”

**The black shih-tzu**

-11- Larry Chiang: Nine Biggest VC Mistakes in a Downturn

“Sell something you don’t own.”

**Honorable mention**

-12- David Cowan: Militant Avamparists are So Irritating

“Paschalepist – one who believes that on the Sunday following the full moon closest in time to the vernal equinox, a fluffy white mountain hare (of the species lepus timidus) hides chocolate eggs.”

**Your turn**

Suggest funny angel and VC blog posts through Halloween (you know these are going to be ridiculous!)

Marissa Louie founded AD Village (http://ad-village.com) to empower bloggers to maximize their ad space monetization and to enable advertisers to improve their audience targeting. She has written 10 Types of Ad Targeting, Top 10 Tips to Increase Traffic to Your Blog, and dabbles in blog poetry like *I REVOLT* (A Blog Monetization Poem). She is one of the Geekgirl GFs (The Gigis) and gets esoteric on Twitter.