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LOOT by Kirsten Grind on Portfolio.com You might recall all the hand-wringing that took place last month over whether startups were facing a serious cash crunch, a debate sparked by a Wall Street Journal article and then continued over numerous other online venues. TechCrunch naturally followed the debate as well, and decided to do a bit of its own research. Pulling data from its CrunchBase funding profiles, the tech blogging site found just the opposite—sort of. As it turns out, startups are handily raising angel and seed funding: The number of those deals jumped 33 percent from 2008 to 2010. [...]

By MARC ANDREESSEN This week, Hewlett-Packard (where I am on the board) announced that it is exploring jettisoning its struggling PC business in favor of investing more heavily in software, where it sees better potential for growth. Meanwhile, Google plans to buy up the cellphone handset maker Motorola Mobility. Both moves surprised the tech world. But both moves are also in line with a trend I've observed, one that makes me optimistic about the future growth of the American and world economies, despite the recent turmoil in the stock market. In an interview with WSJ's Kevin Delaney, Groupon and LinkedIn [...]

Replicating the power and connectivity of today's modern cloud applications is a full-time job—literally—that can cost a company hundreds of thousands of dollars a year regardless of the company's size. Read Full Story

“MESA has been a tremendous asset to EmergingSoft.  As a growing business, access to the broad base of executive talent and experience offered at MESA has helped us with strategic planning and goal setting.  They hold us accountable to our plans and challenge us to focus on long term success.”

June 16, 2011 | by Jeff Pesek A humble group of Minnesota Software / IT CEOs have come together to reconstitute the local software industry and ‘spark a movement to make Minnesota’s software economy rank among the most vibrant and respected in the nation.’ Click here to read article... http://bit.ly/muhjSF

Trying to mentor an early stage growth company is no easy task. By our very nature we’re a squirrely lot; our cash flow is erratic, our sales process a work in progress, and our business controls a blip on the distant horizon. Even though it’s difficult to help this stage of company anticipate what’s next, MESA took on the challenge with RAI Stone Group. They don’t pretend to have insights they don’t have but instead, create a focused dialogue of discovery. They offer their experience of what has worked and not worked so we can map those learnings onto our [...]

The need to protect consumer privacy online has been in the spotlight lately, more than ever. In February the U.S. Senate created a new Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology and the Law, which will be chaired by Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn. AdWeek quoted Franken saying, “The boom of new technologies over the last several years has made it easier to keep in touch with family, organize a community and start a business. It has also put an unprecedented amount of personal informationinto the hands of large companies that are unknown and unaccountable to theAmerican public.” Read full story

U.S. venture capital firms raised more money last quarter than in any period since 2001. The total raised for new funds was $7.7 billion, according to Dow Jones LP Source. The capital going into VC funds was up 97 percent from a year ago, when they raised $3.9 billion. (Venture capital funds benefited from an overall influx of money into U.S. private equity funds overall, which attracted a total of $31.6 billion in the quarter, up from $13.5 billion a year ago). Read full story

Part 1. The innovation environment in Minnesota has been gaining steam in recent years due to a number of initiatives by both the private and the public sector.  There are interesting new software ideas, opportunities, and technologies being developed, and market opportunities are plentiful. We’ve all seen plenty of situations where innovators, founders, and entrepreneurs develop viable software products with ample market demand; however, they never quite reach their potential.  It all starts with leadership. The wrong hire at a start-up or emerging software company can stymie its growth, prevent it from realizing its objectives, or in the worse case, [...]

As a child, we grow up with a number of teachers / professors in school and coaches / instructors in outside activities ranging from sports to arts.  At a very early age, “instruction” focuses on skills and “what to do.”  As we get older, the good instructor focuses as much on “how to think about” a challenge or opportunity with the thought the maturing individual has the skill set to figure out his own best approach to achieve the desired outcome. Unfortunately, when we become an adult, thoughtful instruction often ends.  There are some bosses who appreciate the benefits of [...]