This either represents denial or reality, depending on your perspective. In any case, maybe it brightens your day:)

Quoted: All is not lost. If you, like me, run a technology startup, then you are in a better position than most to weather, and even profit, from the coming recession. Here’s why:

I would say this is accurate.

Quoted: This is a guest post on capitalizing on — vs. countering — the “entrepreneur’s disease” (manic depression) through 4 cyclical stages. This is done by pairing appropriate activities to specific — though not necessarily positive — emotional states…

Quoted: Quoted: The liquidity drought for venture-backed startups, which was already declared to be a crisis in the second quarter when not a single VC-backed IPO went out, continued in the third quarter.
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For the first three quarters of the year combined, IPOs brought in only $470 million and M&A activity totaled $11.3 billion, a steep decline from prior years (see chart). Don’t expect the situation to get better any time soon.

Hard to argue with these points.

Quoted: 3. Focus on “must have” products/features with large markets. Nice-to-have stuff all goes out the window quickly. This means avoiding merely “lower cost” or “higher productivity” plays. At CMEA we see a lot of technology entrepreneurs optimizing a small part of the solution.
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4. Look for existing sales channels you can tap into. Developing new channels can be the highest cost for a startup, and is not a good use of venture capital.

More on the Zoho story. They have employed some interesting tactics...

Quoted: Pay one year of college fees. This is a salary, not a loan, with no strings attached. According to Raju, 90% join Zoho at the end of that year, but there is no obligation. This gives Zoho an edge with the brightest at school as they have an unusual offer.

Quoted: Instead of selling, they’ve raised their first real round of financing after the seed funding from Y Combinator - $900,000 from True Ventures, Chris Sacca, Tim Ferriss (author of the 4-Hour Workweek), Mike Seckler and Mike Koss.

We used TripHub for a group ski trip last year. I though the concept was good but the execution was a bit lacking. And, as with many consumer Web plays, it takes a lot of work (and luck) to reach critical mass and positive cash flow before funding runs out.

Quoted: TripHub, a Seattle-based group oriented travel site, has closed its doors. We originally covered the company’s beta launch in September 2006, when we described it as a good way to help compile and centralize information for a group trip, but questioned if it was viable as a standalone business, especially against other players in the travel space like Yahoo Travel.

Helpful article if you plan on starting a business that intends to make money via advertising.

Quoted: As a result, I believe the vast majority of this ad inventory is being monetized by arbitrageurs via ad exchanges. Ad exchanges such as Right Media differ from ad networks primarily in their pricing model, which works like a stock exchange. This facilitates an arbitrage model where those who know something about your audience will buy your ad inventory at very low rates and resell at higher rates. Of course, this doesn't always work well for you the publisher -- they don't share what they know about your audience with anyone, because the lower their price the more money they make.

Interesting

Quoted: The news that some Facebook employees are selling their stock privately naturally focuses on the price/valuation (a deep discount to the $15bn that Microsoft paid).