Author Archives: Simeon Simeonov

About Simeon Simeonov

I'm an entrepreneur, hacker, angel investor and reformed VC. I am currently Founder & CTO of Swoop, a search advertising platform. Through FastIgnite I invest in and work with a few great startups to get more done with less. Learn more, follow @simeons on Twitter and connect with me on LinkedIn.

Startup anti-pattern: ignorance

Posted on March 4, 2013

Listening to a startup pitch a few weeks ago I had to exercise effort not to shake my head in disbelief. The presenters were describing the products and business model of an established company I was very familiar with and … Continue reading →

Posted in Anti-pattern, startups | Tagged , , , , , | 5 Comments

One more vote for functional languages

Posted on March 4, 2013

I’ve been doing a lot of work on startup anti-patterns recently so it seems fitting that I look at other things through that lens. Every few months I fall into the same debugging anti-pattern: I start using a debugger to … Continue reading →

Posted in Code | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Top startup anti-patterns

Posted on March 3, 2013

Following my post on the value of startup anti-patterns, with the help of readers of this blog and friends from the startup ecosystem, I put together a list of the more common ones that I encounter. The list used to … Continue reading →

Posted in startups | Tagged , , , | 7 Comments

The value of startup anti-patterns

Posted on February 26, 2013

The TechStars Boston spring startups are looking very promising. At the mentors dinner tonight I had conversations with several of the companies and a common question came up: “What makes startups succeed?” My usual answer to this question is along … Continue reading →

Posted in FastIgnite, startups | Tagged , , , , , | 7 Comments

The fastest way to learn a new programming language

Posted on February 11, 2013

In school, I used to pick up new programming languages for fun. I could take my time to learn & explore them in whichever way felt right, without pressure. I implemented for fun and the code rarely ended up in … Continue reading →

Posted in Code, Swoop | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Startups and intellectual property: how much is a muse worth?

Posted on January 25, 2013

Startup founder agreements has been the top post on my blog for a long time. The post has become much more valuable due to the many interesting questions & situations described in the comments. Every now and then, a comment … Continue reading →

Posted in startups | Tagged , , , , , | 3 Comments

The Swoop Credo

Posted on December 7, 2012

I just updated the Swoop entry on my Linkedin profile with the following: Swoop is a native advertising platform that puts users first. Web democracy is powered by advertising-supported content. Traditional online advertising makes the Web suck. Swoop can fix … Continue reading →

Posted in Advertising, Native Advertising, Swoop | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Raising money for revolutionary startup ideas

Posted on September 22, 2012

Between the work we do at Swoop and some big idea startups I’m advising, revolutionary innovation has been top of mind for me recently. That is why the following statement Richard Feynman makes in a lecture about the difficulty of … Continue reading →

Posted in startups, Swoop, VC, Venture Capital | Tagged , , , | 14 Comments

Startup Weekend Rocks

Posted on April 28, 2012

Startup Weekend has become a real force for fostering entrepreneurship. I had the pleasure of speaking at the BostonEDU Startup Weekend kick-off yesterday. Some of the ideas were impressive and I do expect to see a couple of interesting companies … Continue reading →

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Solve hard problems and fly robots

Posted on October 5, 2011

Because we are in stealth mode, people regularly ask me what we do at Shopximity. Stuck between changing the topic and saying that we make shopping better for everyone, I decided to take a different tack and tell the cold, … Continue reading →

Posted in Shopximity | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments