February 1st, 2012 12:37pm
Sean Murphy
It’s not uncommon for a beginning entrepreneur to define prospects as “anyone who can use my product.” This is what Jerry Sternin calls “true but useless information.”
I see a number of startups make similar mistake in circular logic in defining their mission. Here is one example:
“Our goal is to deliver innovative disruptive solutions that meet the product development and improvement challenges faced by our customers.”
If a startup doesn’t meet their prospect’s challenges they probably won’t become or long remain your customers. It’s a necessary but not sufficient condition for success.
The deeper challenge is that the majority of startups claim to offer innovative solutions and disruptive products. This alone does not differentiate you in any meaningful way and is not a specific promise.
Consider how to embody your technology in a prototype that would allow you to make specific credible claims of differentiated or unique value.
For example we worked with a firm that had a nanotechnology fabrication capability. They used it to make very thin heat pipes. They produced a sample kit that had two six inch long one inch wide 2mm thick pieces of metal. One was solid aluminum; the other was their aluminum heat pipe, which had about half the mass.
In a customer development interview we would ask a thermal engineer or mechanical engineer to dip both into a cup of steaming hot water or coffee. The engineer would normally drop it in less than a second as it had become too hot to hold: it was as if they had dipped their hand directly in the hot water. The solid aluminum would take several seconds to heat up to an equivalent temperature. They used this as a compelling demonstration of the difference in heat transfer rates at equivalent thickness. This was a very attractive proposition not only for mobile devices where thickness is at a premium but also applications like hybrid or electric vehicles where the weight and volume of the thermal transfer network can exceed that of the battery packs they are designed to protect. Less weight and higher heat transfer means either more battery storage or lower weight or both: the net impact is longer range.
If your software demo is not compelling prospects to take action, consider attending our Great Demo workshop on Wed-Feb-29.
January 31st, 2012 06:20am
Sean Murphy
You can follow @skmurphy to get these hot off the mojo wire or wait until the end of the month when they are collected on the blog. Enter your E-mail if you would like Feedburner to deliver new blog posts to your inbox.
+ + +
“What everyone in the astronaut corps shares in common is not gender or ethnic background but motivation, perseverance, and desire — the desire to participate in a voyage of discovery.”
Ellen Ochoa
I think entrepreneurship requires not only the motivation to discover your own strengths but also the perseverance to discover opportunities in the marketplace that these strengths enable you to capitalize on.
+ + +
“Don’t just follow your passion unless your passion produces something other people will pay for.”
Tim Berry in “Lessons Learned from 22 Years of Successful Bootstrapping“
It’s not enough to make something that people want, they have to need it and be willing to pay for it. See also “Solve Real Problems That People Will Pay For Where You Add Unique Value.”
+ + +
“A hamlet with a church becomes a village. A town with a cathedral becomes a city. And, a Google search with ADHD becomes a morning.”
Merlin Mann
It’s a matter of “I always Google too long” vs. “I always Google too late.”
+ + +
“If you board the wrong train, it’s no use running along the corridor in the other direction.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
+ + +
“When anyone asks me about the Irish character, I say look at the trees. Maimed, stark, and misshapen, but ferociously tenacious.”
Edna O’Brien
I think this also matches the character of many successful entrepreneurs who are not Irish as well.
+ + +
“If you see a line get in it, because you’re going to want what’s at the end.”
USSR aphorism
and too often the basis for a poor launch message. Too many “viral launch” strategies require a prospective user or customer to tweet or e-mail friends or post a badge on their blog before they have had a chance to experience any aspect of the service. This reminds me of a joke from the USSR era:
Two women walk by a long line of people on a Moscow street. They reach the end and one says, “Let’s get in it!” “Why”, asks the other, “I cannot tell where it ends.” So they ask the last person in line, “What are you in line for?” He answers, “I am not sure but with a line this long it must be something good!”
+ + +
“A new broom sweeps clean but an old broom knows the corners.”
Irish aphorism
See also:
+ + +
“All is flux, nothing stays still.”
Heraclitus
To which Kevin Donovan replied “We are as clouds that veil the midnight moon…” which is actually the first line to Shelley’s Mutability
We are as clouds that veil the midnight moon;
How restlessly they speed, and gleam, and quiver,
Streaking the darkness radiantly!–yet soon
Night closes round, and they are lost forever:
Or like forgotten lyres, whose dissonant strings
Give various response to each varying blast,
To whose frail frame no second motion brings
One mood or modulation like the last.
We rest.–A dream has power to poison sleep;
We rise.–One wandering thought pollutes the day;
We feel, conceive or reason, laugh or weep;
Embrace fond woe, or cast our cares away:
It is the same!–For, be it joy or sorrow,
The path of its departure still is free:
Man’s yesterday may ne’er be like his morrow;
Nought may endure but Mutability.
+ + +
“A man’s character is his fate.”
Heraclitus
+ + +
“Learning from customers is like learning from a teacher via a game of charades.”
Odera Ume-Ezeoke (@oderau)
+ + +
“There are ventures where no reassurance is possible.
There is important work for you to do where no proof is available.”
Seth Godin in “The Problem With Reassurance“
More context:
The lizard brain seeks constant reassurance. It will wheedle and argue and debate with the rest of your head, pushing for one tiny bit of evidence, some sort of proof that everything will be okay.
Don’t do it. [...]
Developing the reassurance habit is easy to do and hard to kick. The problem is this: there are some ventures where no reassurance is possible. There is important work for you to do where no proof is available.
If you’ve trained the lizard brain that reassurance is forthcoming, it will scream even louder when those projects that don’t come with proof are at hand.
+ + +
“Principles don’t change with circumstances. That’s what makes them principles.”
George Colombo in “Great Quotations 2/21/2005“
+ + +
“If despair will yield at all, it will yield to a good night’s sleep.”
Mignon McLaughlin
+ + +
“Long-term planning is understanding the future consequences of today’s decisions.”
Gary Ryan Blair
+ + +
“Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia.”
Mary Schmich in “Advice, Like Youth, Probably Just Wasted on the Young“ (June 1, 1997)
More context:
Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia. Dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it’s worth.
+ + +
“Perseverance is not a long race; it is many short races one after another.”
Walter Elliott in “The Spiritual Life”
+ + +
“There is nothing to keeping a band together. You simply have to have a gimmick, and the gimmick I use is to pay them money!”
Duke Ellington
+ + +
January 26th, 2012 06:16pm
Sean Murphy
We have had a number of attendees at Bootstrapper Breakfasts talk about the value of a StartupWeekend as a way to see the early process of forming a startup team and exploring a market in a very compressed time frame. This allowed them to get to know other potential co-founders or partners in their community and to get a better perspective on some of the stresses and strains that every new team goes through in forming and storming on the way to performing.
I was delighted when Tristan Kromer, one of the organizers of the San Jose Startup Weekend for January 27 to 29, invited me to attend as a mentor for teams that are focused on solving business problems. It promises to be an interesting and educational experience.
January 4th, 2012 09:08pm
Sean Murphy
We have Fortune 500 clients who are launching new products and who want to take advantage of customer development methodologies (or have come to the conclusion that they need a framework to revisit assumptions that are not working).
There are broadly two types of situations where a large company is launching a new product:
- It’s a new product that they can sell to current customers through established channels and/or a direct sales force
- It’s a new product that they want to sell to new customers and are uncertain if established channels will work (or know that they won’t, don’t want to de-focus their message).
Each comes with different challenges.
In the first you can get a false positive. I spoke to a product manager at a networking company that had introduced a video phone booth. It was after a talk given by Steve Blank and she expressed the opinion that Blank’s model might be useful for startups but was less applicable to established firms with effective sales forces like hers. They had just launched the product and had already collected several hundred orders (for systems that would cost more than 100K each). They had provided special incentives to the field to close evaluation units. Given the size of the total quota or book of business a sales team might be carrying with a major customer I suggested a better test than initial orders would be how many re-orders. She called me a few months later looking for customer development assistance: the special incentive had expired and the field had moved on to selling existing products that customers were requesting and new products that now had special incentives. There had been almost no re-orders or system expansions. No one wanted to admit that they had made a 100K mistake so the systems were in token use, but no one could justify buying any more. When startups hire a “closer” sales person for their new product they run the risk of leveraging pre-existing relationships such that they close the sale but don’t uncover the real needs of their customers or the real problems with their offering.
In the second case you can get a false negative. A few years ago we helped a recently acquired division of a software company whose new parent that had a dominant market position in their primary market. The division was at best fifth in its market but the legal department was forcing them to take negotiating positions on contract terms that were both inappropriate to the product line and unwinnable due to their lack of bargaining power. Their prospects for this new product had many viable options where the parent company’s prospects had few if any viable alternative vendors they could buy from. Launching a new product into a new market requires everyone to revisit what the total product has to be, and this is especially painful when many of their current practices are what have made them profitable–if not loved by their customers–in their primary market. Failure to comprehend that a new type of customer may have different needs–even in ancillary areas–may cause a good product to fail to gain traction.
It’s probably easier to introduce customer development methods either as part of a risk assessment phase, where it’s acceptable to revisit a product team’s optimism, or in a turn around situation where it’s clear that the initial approach has not borne fruit but it’s too early to give up.
January 2nd, 2012 04:59pm
Theresa Shafer
MyPermissions: Checks for third party application access to your Facebook, Twitter, Google, Yahoo, LinkedIn, Dropbox, Instagram, and Flickr accounts.
SocialMention: Allows you to do keyword and phrase search across more than one hundred social media sites including Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed, YouTube, Digg, Google, etc…
HackerFollow: follow comments and posts by your favorite Hacker News contributors
January 1st, 2012 04:51pm
Sean Murphy
“We succeed in enterprises which demand the positive qualities we possess, but we excel in those which can also make use of our defects.”
Alexis de Tocqueville
My New Year’s resolutions for 2012:
- Record to Remember
- Return to writing Morning Pages.
- Keep my Done list up to date.
- Pause to Reflect
- Quarterly Crows Nest meetings with our partners and advisors
- Take a break from work every hour or two.
Return to writing “Morning Pages.” Based on a technique outlined in Julia Cameron’s “The Artist’s Way at Work” I mentioned in “Maintaining Perspective on the Entrepreneurial Roller Coaster”
One technique you can use to maintain perspective is the “Morning Pages” approach concept from “The Artist’s Way at Work” Write three pages in longhand first thing in the morning every day. It can be stream of consciousness, a journal, a story, or even “I don’t know what to write” over and over. There are a number of good techniques in the book, but this is the best one to start with. If, like me, your handwriting skills have deteriorated to the point that writing out more than a 3×5 card is both painful and illegible you can use a typewriter or a computer, but do it in a way that it stands out from your regular work location. Write in a coffee shop or at the breakfast table or a place you can associate with this activity distinct from work. You can also do it in the afternoon or late in the day if that’s a “dead spot” but you have to do it in a way that it represents a clear break from work.
Keep my Done list up to date. I believe it’s as important as a To Do list for maintaining your gumption. Ford Harding describes it as an Accomplishments list in “To Do Lists vs. Accomplishment Lists”
I recommended he create an accomplishments list. This starts as a sheet of paper with the word, Accomplishments, at the top and the date and nothing else. Lars is to add business development activities to the list as he completes them. He has agreed to add no fewer than one accomplishment each day.
It’s easy to fall into the trap of seeing everything that’s still to be done and focus on what’s not been accomplished and how far you are from your major goals. I see merit in taking time once a day to feel good about what’s been accomplished. Many times a set of activities are like drip irrigation, small accomplishments accumulates every day and over the course of a quarter or a year put you in a fundamentally different place. If you can’t enjoy the journey and celebrate small victories along the way, why are you on it?
Do quarterly “Crows Nest” meetings with our partners and advisors as a vehicle for focused review and reflection. We have been doing this once a year for the last five years or so but opened up the format in 2011 for a longer meeting in a conference room instead of a long lunch at Chef Chu’s. It’s as much a sense-making and agenda setting exercise as an effort to foster more effective coordination and collaboration around emerging opportunities. The working consensus was that the objective was good but it would be more effective as a shorter meeting on a quarterly basis. The real value is in the preparation and follow up for the conversation, which acts a crucible for identifying opportunities and refining plans to prosecute them.
Take a break from work every hour or two. Stand up and take a short walk. Get up and move for a few minutes. Get my mind off myself and my work. Call, E-Mail, write, or visit a friend. Sit in a different chair and read for pleasure. Shift gears so that I can restart with a fresh perspective. This was inspired both for health reasons and Tony Schwartz’s “Energy Project” findings (see for example “How to Accomplish More by Doing Less“).
“When in doubt, choose to go deeper rather than faster. Accept the idea that reflection and understanding your own nature, including the dark side, is the key to effective action.”
Peter Block in “The Answer to How is Yes“
December 31st, 2011 02:51pm
Sean Murphy
You can follow @skmurphy to get these hot off the mojo wire or wait until the end of the month when they are collected on the blog. Enter your E-mail if you would like Feedburner to deliver new blog posts to your inbox.
+ + +
“When you choose your friends, don’t be short-changed by choosing personality over character.”
William Somerset Maugham
+ + +
“It’s not that we need new ideas, but we need to stop having old ideas.”
Edwin Land
This reminds of Peter Drucker’s “organized abandonment” model for firms. He suggests that every year a business re-evaluate products and markets by asking themselves “if we did not do this already, would we go into it now, knowing what we now know?” If the answer is no then it no longer represents an opportunity. Further investment should be considered very carefully and deferred where possible in favor of new and emerging growth opportunities. See also:
- Brad Pierce’s “Reversify Your Product Offerings: Do Less with More“
- Carmine Gallo’s Fast Company article on “Innovation Secrets of Steve Jobs” in particular this excerpt:
Early in Apple’s history, lead investor Mike Markkula sent a memo to Apple’s employees that outlined his marketing strategy. In that memo he talked about the importance of focus. Markkula wrote, “To do a good job of those things that we decide to do, we must eliminate all the unimportant opportunities, select from the remainder only those that we have the resources to do well, and concentrate our efforts on them.
+ + +
“Bootstrapping is not seeking outside funding until you have a business that both requires and merits investment.”
Sean Murphy
This is similar to an entrepreneurial proverb that Marc Hedlund offered:
The pitch that goes, “We could accelerate our growth with more money” is much more compelling than, “I need your money or our doors will close.”
More context:
The best way to get investment is not to need it — if you have a running business with real customers and you’re paying all your bills, you are much more likely to get a funding round than if you need the round in order to survive or succeed. The pitch that goes, “We could accelerate our growth with more money” is much more compelling than, “I need your money or our doors will close.”
+ + +
“Few things are impossible to diligence and skill.
Great works are performed not by strength, but perseverance.”
Samuel Johnson
+ + +
“Don’t undertake a project unless it is manifestly important and nearly impossible.”
Edwin Land
+ + +
“Zoom in for traction, zoom out for impact.”
Sean Murphy
I used this as the title for “Zoom In For Traction, Zoom Out For Impact”
+ + +
“Science is a method to keep yourself from kidding yourself.”
Edwin Land
+ + +
“Treat your customers as if they were newspapers reporters; this is the new mantra for savvy companies of all sizes.”
Matt Mickiewicz in “Why Customer Service is the New Marketing“
+ + +
“It’s the picture on the box that sells the LEGO set.”
Sean Murphy
I used this as the title for “It’s the Picture on the Box that Sells the LEGO Set.”
+ + +
“It’s a whole year between Christmases, but it’s a short Christmas between years.”
Ashleigh Brilliant
For Christmas I was given a CD that collects all of Ashleigh Brilliant’s Pot Shots (epigrams). They are quite good: I will be weaving more of them into my quotes for entrepreneurs in 2012.
+ + +
“We succeed in enterprises which demand the positive qualities we possess, but we excel in those which can also make use of our defects.”
Alexis de Tocqueville
I used this quote to open “Record to Remember, Pause to Reflect“
December 26th, 2011 05:27pm
Sean Murphy
And you ask me what I want this year
And I try to make this kind and clear
Just a chance that maybe we’ll find better days
Cause I don’t need boxes wrapped in strings
And designer love and empty things
Just a chance that maybe we’ll find better days
John Rzeznik “Better Days“
Entrepreneurs are by definition optimists. They see possibilities that others may discount or overlook. If we are to reach better days we need as much entrepreneurial imagination applied to the hard challenges facing us.
“The only certainty is a reasonable probability.”
Edgar Watson Howe, “Country Town Sayings”
December 25th, 2011 07:47pm
Sean Murphy
“It’s a whole year between Christmases, but it’s a short Christmas between years.”
Ashleigh Brilliant
December 19th, 2011 09:37pm
Sean Murphy
We have four Silicon Valley Bootstrappers Breakfasts® scheduled in the last two weeks of December. In addition to our regular roundtable format of introductions followed by each attending suggesting issues they would like to discuss or questions they have for the group we are going to discuss “What did you learn in 2011 that will make you a better entrepreneur in 2012?”
Here are the four breakfasts we have scheduled in the last two weeks in December
- 7:30am Tue-Dec-20-2011 Coco’s Bakery, 1206 Oakmead Parkway, Sunnyvale, CA (back room)
- 9am Fri-Dec-23-2011 Red Rock Coffee, 201 Castro St, Mountain View, CA (upstairs)
- 7:30am Tue-Dec-27-2011 Heavenly Cafe 3116 Oak Rd, Walnut Creek, CA
- 9:00am Thu-Dec-29-2011 1206 Oakmead Parkway, Sunnyvale, CA (back room)
Cost is $5 in advance / $10 at the door plus the cost of your own breakfast (separate checks). Check us out over the holidays if you want an early morning conversation with other technology entrepreneurs.
Previous Posts