ReadWriteWeb

More often than not, an entrepreneur with a great idea looking for funding will pitch his or her startup dozens, if not hundreds of times to potential investors. There is an endless amount of resources out there for entrepreneurs looking to learn the best practices for their pitch, including what to include in their decks, how long to speak, and what pitfalls to avoid. By the time an entrepreneur actually gets funding, they've probably mastered their pitch to a point where they could recite it in their sleep and provide advice of their own to newcomers. The problem with this is they can get stuck in their pitch mentality and it can creep into areas of their business that need the ole straight talk express.

We hear a lot about how starting a company takes some serious entrepreneurial DNA with traits like ambition, drive, relentlessness, and above all, passion. But some might argue that these are just the good sounding attributes that can lead to success; what about the other characteristics that may not sound so great? According to WePay co-founder Rich Aberman, starting a company also requires some arrogance and naïveté, so here's his advice on founding a startup straight from the entrepreneurial front-lines.

Over the weekend, Frist Round Capital Entrepreneur in Residence Charlie O'Donnell wrote an interesting blog post that is making its way around the venture capital and startup communities and drawing a variety of responses. O'Donnell suggests that while some VCs began their careers as entrepreneurs, most native venture capitalists have trouble making the switch the other way. His reason behind this is that VCs operate with different goals, methods and mindsets which make the transition from VC to entrepreneur is an uphill climb.

It has been quite busy this week on the Web as loads of announcements leading up to SXSW have hit the newswires. This weekend's festivities in Austin look to top last year's Twitter invasion with a location-based show down between Foursquare and Gowalla. It was a busy week at ReadWriteStart as well, so here's a run down of the top stories in this edition of the Weekly Wrapup. This week we've got tips for not killing your startup, how little changes can make big impacts, the truth about VPs of sales and marketing, an early look at some data from TechStars, and an entrepreneur's take on coworking facilities.

We've all heard of the big company that started as two guys in their garage, but these days, with startup organizations and incubators, more and more success stories seem to feature companies that built their success from group collaboration. One excellent example of how startups can take advantage of collaboration is to work in a coworking environment with other companies and entrepreneurs.

Chances are, if you've called customer service to enough companies, you've come across a representative who works for a call-center which has been contracted to handle a comapany's account. Large corporations that don't want to employ their own agents and maintain their own facilities will often outsource customer service to a third party, which at times can mean a company in another part of the world. Bangalore, India was famously portrayed for its role in call-center outsourcing in the Thomas Friedman book The World Is Flat, servicing many large American companies. But tools like outsourcing or crowdsourcing are not always beneficial to every breed of company.

Earlier this month we noticed PRManna climbing up the Hacker News front page and reached out to the creator for an interview. Ryan Waggoner started PRManna in his spare time and was open in saying that the project was inspired by Peter Shankman's Help a Reporter Out. The difference between PRManna and HARO is that Waggoner's product was specifically meant for startup companies to answer blogger and journalist tech queries. Whereas, HARO is a general news service. The question is, are the sites far enough apart to be considered different products?

A few weeks ago we brought you a brief list of social networks for meeting and conversing with entrepreneurs, and in the comments section we received lots of suggestions that could have made the list as well. One such suggestion was Sprouter, which is, for lack of a better description and despite having a few unique features, a Twitter clone for entrepreneurs.

Foreign startups with their sights set on targeting a U.S. market will be happy to note that as of this morning, Senator John Kerry and Senator Richard Lugar introduced the Startup Visa Act in Washington. In late December we covered the details of the legislation as well as comments from some of the act proponents including YCombinator's Paul Graham and Foundry Group's Brad Feld.

Kevin Rose, Digg's founder, spoke this week at Webstock in Wellington, New Zealand and covered 10 amazing tips for entrepreneurs. They were truly insightful

1: Just Build It: You don't need anyone's approval and in fact, you probably won't get it, so don't even try.

It's easy to construct an "us" versus "them" mentality between startups and investors, especially when there are so many disgruntled founders who've had the door slammed in their face. But I'd hardly make the generalization that investors avoid innovation. While it's true that proven returns are required in the majority of portfolio companies, it's these revenue generating deals that tend to lift up the longer term innovation-based investments.

The Guidewire Group just launched its Innovate!100 competition to highlight the most promising companies of the year. Early-stage startups are encouraged to submit applications and compete in one of 22 pitch slam events across Europe and North America. Winners will enjoy global visibility and may share in sponsored awards including cash and in-kind prizes, valued at over $1 million dollars. In addition to being an international competition, one of the things that makes this contest different from other events is the fact that shortlisted companies' assessments will be made public. ReadWriteWeb caught up with former DEMO producer and Guidewire Group President Mike Sigal to find out why he's sharing his company's secret sauce through something called the G/Score.

As the first week of February closes out and football fans gather in living rooms and sports bars across the nation for the Super Bowl, for us here at ReadWriteStart its the time of the week when we take a look back at the more popular posts from the past week. In this week's Weekly Wrapup we discuss the debate between freemium and subscription models, the best practices for an effective "sign up" button, running online contests, networking with entrepreneurs online and some tips for public speaking.

As more of the business world flattens with the expansion of online services, social networking is increasingly becoming a critical factor to success in many industries. Whether you're for a small businesses selling art at a craft fair or a Fortune 500 company trading on the stock exchange, social networking has the power to expand your brand among both your audience and fellow business owners. For the latter, entrepreneurs can take advantage of specialized social networks to meet, communicate share and partner with others.

Florida-based entrepreneur, business consultant and blogger Matthew Ringer recently posted an extensive list of the his top 40 Social Networking Sites Specifically for Small Business, Entrepreneurs, and Startups on his site Small Biz Bee. The list is an excellent resource for anyone looking to expand their professional network, but for those looking for a quick dose of business social networking, here are profiles of three great sites from Ringer's list for connecting with entrepreneurs.

Earlier this week we told you how New York Times op-ed contributor and author Thomas Friedman urged President Obama to take steps to help foster a new age of innovation and entrepreneurship. Well it seems that Obama may have received that message, as Wednesday night during his State of the Union address to Congress the president proposed a bill to help small businesses and entrepreneurs.

Perhaps Obama listened to Friedman, or maybe he saw the frenzied excitement that grows around new innovations like the iPad - either way, the president seems to have taken the first baby steps toward a more entrepreneurial culture in America.

The media feeding frenzy around the newly released Apple iPad has finally reached critical mass as the device was unveiled to the masses today in San Francisco. Some people love it for features like the $499 entry-level price tag, while others are disappointed to learn the device lacks a camera.

One of the biggest announcements Apple made today was the updated versions of the iWork productivity applications, which will run on the iPad with full multi touch integration. Keynote, Pages and Numbers will all be available on the iPad when it goes on sale in a few months - and all at just $9.99 per app.

With the highly anticipated Apple event finally underway in San Francisco, tech fans around the globe are already speculating how Apple's new iPad might change the state of computing. Another group of people listening intently to the happenings at the Yerba Buena Center are iPhone application developers, who are curious to see when they may be able to begin developing apps for the iPad.

As we've seen, the iPad is a blend of the iPhone OS and OS X, and it opens up opportunities for new business models for developers, so we thought we would point out a story of a man who rejuvenated his business by taking advantage of new iPhone and iPod Touch business models.

Just in time for tax season, online bookkeeping service Outright.com will begin providing a 1099 tax filing service for entrepreneurs and sole proprietors on top of its current W-9 service. The site is also launching what they say is the first community for the self-employed where startups and entrepreneurs can find bookkeepers.

For most of us, tax day is April 15, but for entrepreneurs required to meet the February 1 deadline for providing 1099 forms to contracted employees, the madness starts now.

In the mid-1980s, Pierre Bellanger launched Skyrock pirate radio station as a continuation of his efforts with the French free radio movement. A community inclusive of a diverse voices and agendas, Skyrock inspired a generation of 18-25-year-olds who had never lent their unscripted opinions to a mass distribution medium. As Skyrock developed an IRC channel and later its own blogging software, the community evolved into what it is today - the third largest social networking site in Europe.

This is one post/chapter in a serialized book called Startup 101. For the introduction and table of contents, please click here.

You did it all: you built a valuable venture and sold it. The contract was signed... finally! The wire transfer came through. You are wealthy. Congratulations! So, what's next?

Why even think about that ahead of time? Two reasons. First, if you think about it clearly now, you will be better positioned to know what you want when you negotiate your exit. Secondly, many people go a bit "off the rails" when they finally get to relax after years of hard venture-building. This post assumes you had a big payday; if the exit was just enough for you to pay off some debts, you'll probably be back at work on Monday -- not much else to consider.