We're in the last lap of editing our research study on best practices of private equity and venture capital investors in originating new investments, which has a particular focus on use of social media.  We plan to publish this in a major private equity journal.

If you would like to review a copy of the 12,000-word report, please contact us.  We would greatly value your feedback.

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We have another Founder Institute semester spooling up in NYC, and the early admissions deadline is August 15th, with final admissions on August 29th.  Our host will be local entrepreneur Gabe Zichermann, and the applicant pool so far looks very strong. 

If you are an early-stage entrepreneur, this is a very powerful way to upgrade the sophistication of your company and significantly increase your odds of success.  Among the noteable companies from the inaugural New York Founder Institute are Profitably, Simple.PR, and Plan.fm, and VIMOTA.  Complete list here.

Apply: http://www.founderinstitute.com/apply/24
Applications Due: 08/29/2010
Sessions: 09/07/2010 to 12/15/2010

I hope to see you there!

I'm glad to report some great news from Profitably, a firm I'm advising and Founder Institute graduate.  Profitably provides analytics to increase revenues and lower costs for small-medium businesses.

About 2 months ago, they won the North Bridge Venture Partners venture competition, which included a $50k convertible note. The firm opened that note up to private angel investors, and we are pleased to announce that we closed a $300k seed round last week to get us comfortably through to Series A financing Q1/Q2 of next year. VentureBeat has picked up the story.  

Also, Emmy-nominated Chad Pugh Joins Profitably as Chief Aesthete. From day one, Adam Neary (CEO) and Francis Hwang (CTO) knew that design was critical for a consumer-facing website like Profitably, and so hiring a highly talent chief creative office was critical.

Lastly, Profitably has entered private beta. If you know any business using QuickBooks, they can register to receive free analytics of their business. I've already signed up my mother and cousin as members of the private beta.

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   Integrity Research wrote a nice blog post about the new startup I'm working on: 

"As more research providers emerge to analyze the public markets (there are now over 3,500 research providers in our database), one gap in the market are research providers for the private markets.  David Teten, founder of the expert network Evalueserve Circle of Experts (formerly Nitron Circle of Experts), is moving into this space.  His new firm . . . will provide origination tools and other analytics to private equity firms.  Teten's exit from expert networks was well timed in retrospect, and his new focus on private equity looks opportune."

You can read the post here.  (Thank you to Sandy Bragg for reaching out to us.)

I'm in the midst of assembling the founding team for a new startup, and seeking a head of Engineering. I've attached details below.  I welcome suggestions!

Seeking Head of Engineering for Navon Partners, Internet Finance Startup, NY

We are seeking a Head of Engineering for the founding team of an internet finance startup, based in New York and soon Asia. This is your chance to get in on the ground floor, shape a new company's technology and culture from scratch, and create a significant company.

Our first product is DealOrigination.com, an automated research and analysis engine focused on private companies, leveraging our experience in sourcing new investments for private equity investors. Our technology is somewhat parallel to that developed by such firms as Alacra, Bloomberg, Capital IQ, Connotate, FirstRain, InfoNgen, SkyGrid, and ThomsonReuters; we particularly value experience from these and similar companies. We are also comparable to traditional investment banks. The startup is led by David Teten, a serial entrepreneur.

YOUR RESPONSIBILITIES

+ For each segment of our software platform, make buy/build/tweak decision.

+ Manage full product lifecycle including infrastructure, development, design, scalability and security.

+ Recruit and manage additional team members.

+ Research strengths and weaknesses of different data vendors we are considering.

+ Build hooks into APIs of major online networks (LinkedIn, Facebook, etc.)

+ Design and implement logic and scoring algorithms.

REQUIRED EXPERIENCE

+ Over 2 years management and 5 years development experience.

+ Proven success in large scale, high transaction systems engineering.

+ Use of formal and agile development methodologies

+ Built complex, integrated, sanitized, normalized databases based on many messy data sources (linear, non-linear).

+ Passion about our startup's vision.

+ Highly motivated self-starter who has a track record of continuous self-improvement, high achievement, and aggressiveness.

+ Strong analytical and math skills. High attention to detail.

+ Have managed development teams over time, with hiring and firing responsibilities.

+ Familiar with machine learning, natural language processing (NLP), screen-scraping technologies, semantic web, and/or agent-based systems.

We also value:

+ Experience in social networks, online dating, and/or finance industry, particularly investment banking and private equity.

+ Built consumer-oriented web applications.

+ Belief in the Edward Tufte school of communication.

+ Strong writing experience. Value a high GPA in writing-dependent courses.

+ Strong verbal communication/sales skills. Experience in debate, public speaking, and acting is pertinent.

+ Familiarity with startup environment and networks with local business/ government related organizations

+ Fluency in languages other than English.

COMPENSATION

+ Primarily equity initially. We are currently self-funded and expect to raise outside capital in late 2010/early 2011.   You can start on a part-time basis while staying in your current role.

HOW TO APPLY

Please include with your detailed resume:

+ Link to your LinkedIn profile (or other online identity).

+ Availability.

+ Writing sample

Please send resume and cover letter to Careers(@)Teten.com with "Head of Engineering" in the subject line. We prefer that you save your resume in Microsoft Word format with the name "Last Name-First Name-Year.doc", e.g., "Hayward-Tony-2010.doc".

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