The Startup Owner's Manual and Customer Development Manifesto By Steve Blank

Ever wish there was an owner's manual for how to build a startup and a great company?  Well, now there is..thanks to a new book by Steve Blank and Bob Dorf called "The Starup Owner's Manual."

In the book, the principles of customer development are summarized by the poster below (buy a large print).

Steve also helps explain what a "startup" actually is...see the definition or watch him explain it in the video below.

A startup is a temporary organization designed to search for scalable and repeatable business model.

Dennis Crowley and the Future + Business of Foursquare

Dennis Crowley
CEO, Foursquare

One more thing...I know Dennis is talented, successful (previously founded Dodgeball, which was acquired by Google in 2005) and Foursquare is going to take over the world, but I had no idea he was also attempting to become an Olympic athlete...see below :)

Ideas Worth Spreading | Shaffi Mather, A New Way to Fight Corruption (TED)

Shaffi Mather, who became a social entrepreneur in India by providing emergency response, life-support ambulances, has a concept to change and directly confront corruption, a very common and substantial obstacle in many societies.

The idea is simple, but perhaps powerful.  Make it cheaper to pay someone to fight corruption instead of paying someone who is causing the corruption.  The for-profit model could give a person financial incentive to save the limit of corruption.  Corruption appears have an unlimited supply chain, so even if you could reduce it, won't there always be a need to fight it?