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From our piece inPE HubEvery entrepreneur has met them. Big company executives with big company swagger. They ignore you. They dismiss the business problem you spent your life solving. They think they can crush you. Then the tables turn. They push for strategic relationships. They want to give you money, frequently at irrationally high... Read More

Justin Oberman, Ben Smith: America’s Biggest Startup And Its Lessons For Entrepreneurs is a piece I did recently forPEhubwith Justin.Can you name America’s largest startup? It’s not Facebook or Amazon or even Home Depot. It isn’t even a technology company.This little known giant is the Transportation Security Administration and it... Read More

Why Startups Innovate Better Than Big Companies is a piece I did in PEhub recently With all their resources and talent, why do big companies have trouble innovating? How can a Blekko exist when there is a Google? Or a Tapulous when there is an Electronic Arts? Even more puzzling, why couldn’t Yahoo create Facebook with Yahoo 360 instea... Read More

Ben Smith: Building Startups Is Cheap But Never Run Out of Cash A recent piece I did for PEHub Internet startups have been getting cheaper to build for 10 years. So why is it more important than ever not to run out of cash? We built MerchantCircle into one of the 100 most trafficked U.S. sites and I honestly never remember signing a pu... Read More

A recent article I did for PE Hub One of the biggest misconceptions in technology is that small acquisitions are less risky and require less attention than large ones. It is not true. When Reply bought my company, MerchantCircle, in May it put several of my top execs in key financial and legal roles. The move was a clever way to bridge... Read More

Are the Billions Justified for Groupon? originally published inVC Journal Groupon’s potential $15 billion valuation may seem astronomical, but its high price tag may be justified. Groupon is one of only a handful of companies that has seemingly built a viable model for serving the massive local online ad and marketing opportunity.The o... Read More

My recent article in VC JournalHow to Blow Up an Ecosystem (and Prosper Within One) Are you a part of an ecosystem or do you plan to destroy one? You must decide before plotting a path to success During the four years we spent building MerchantCircle, I didn’t set out to work with Google. I just wanted to bring local merchant... Read More

I originally posted this onPEhub. When gambling on high-risk startups, the more bets you place the better, right? Maybe not. There is an unspoken discussion going on in Silicon Valley now about the value of “Portfolio” versus “Persistence,” especially among people who have never started a company. The claim is that you can improve the ... Read More

As originally published inpeHub.I never met a great entrepreneur who was afraid of failure. Or who didn’t take over-sized risks to win big. This is why many get fired.I spent the first 10 years of my career at A.T. Kearney, a long way from the risk taking that is Silicon Valley. Kearney, at 85, is one of the oldest consulting firms in ... Read More

A piece I did recently inPEhubI heard two things recently. “Silicon Valley is a multi-inning game, relationships matter.“ And. “I am all business, I don’t care about relationships.” The first statement came from a seasoned venture capitalist with 20 years of experience. His point is relationships matter because you play with the same p... Read More

Originally printed in one of the boom time internet magazines, one of my co workers from the period saw one of my recent articles and dug this one up and send to me.  I wonder if you could right the same thing today... Economic Principles Return by Ben Smith Tuesday, May 08, 2001 Email this article... Print this article... Not so ... Read More

By Ben Smith and originally published onPEHUBIt is called fishing and not catching, and it is the dirty secret of Silicon Valley. Unless your startup hits a grand slam, or you are its founder, CEO or a key engineer, your post-exit payday isn’t more than a few months salary. Then you may lose your job.So why join a startup?The answer be... Read More

       It is called fishing and not catching, and it is the dirty secret of Silicon Valley. Unless you are at a grand slam, if you aren’t the founder of a startup, or running it as a CEO, a key engineer your post-exit payday isn’t more than a few months salary. Then you may lose your job.   So why join a startu... Read More