5 Scaling Up Stage

Agile Hardware

10 Best Practices for Agile Hardware Product Development

5 Scaling Up Stage, Lean Culture Videos, Lean Startup, tshafer / By /

Mike Keer discusses the concept of agile hardware, which involves cycles of innovation and testing requirements throughout the prototyping phases. He emphasizes the importance of learning from each cycle and making necessary adjustments to meet specifications and performance goals. He also highlights the need for flexibility and the ability to pivot in response to unexpected […]

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Interview with Patricia Watkins on Managing Sales In a Downturn

4 Finding your Niche, 5 Scaling Up Stage, Audio, Sales / By /

This is a ten minute interview (audio and edited transcript) I did with with Patricia Watkins on July 24-2020. Patrica is an experienced salesperson and sales executive who’s been helping companies drive sales for more than two decades. We discuss some of the challenges you need to manage during a major economic disruption. We look

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Paul Tyma on “The Old Man’s Business Model”

5 Scaling Up Stage, Design of Experiments, Rules of Thumb, skmurphy / By /

Paul Tyma defines the Old Man’s Business Model as taking the sure way, even though it may be longer than shortcuts that may not work. Tyma calls a “trade-off of investment up-front versus brute-force hope.” The “old man” makes an investment up front instead of hoping a quick and dirty approach may work.

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SKMurphy Support Letter for Kinetic River SBIR

5 Scaling Up Stage, Founder Story, skmurphy / By /

SKMurphy Support Letter for Kinetic River SBIR Wed-Sep-5-2018         I am writing to support the Kinetic River Phase II SBIR on a novel flow cytometry instrument. Since 2003 I have worked at SKMurphy, Inc. as a business development consultant for dozens of early stage technology startups. I have been an advisor to

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Q: We Have Grown From One Project To Many Projects, How To Manage?

5 Scaling Up Stage, skmurphy, Startup Advice Column / By /

Three keys to making the transition from a one project startup to scaling up with many projects: keep a list of all projects, finished, active, unstarted and contemplated; maintain a status page that is the single source of truth for where the project it; conduct, document, and act on post-project assessment findings.

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Constructive Pessimism

4 Finding your Niche, 5 Scaling Up Stage, Design of Experiments, skmurphy / By /

Constructive Pessimism: to anticipate problems you have to be willing to acknowledge their possibility and look for them. Many entrepreneurs who are naturally optimistic make a serious mistake in discouraging pessimistic thinking instead of putting it to good use. The clever utilization of constructive pessimism is one of the keys to success.

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Choosing the Right Targets and Metrics

3 Early Customer Stage, 5 Scaling Up Stage, Design of Experiments, skmurphy / By /

The targets that founders set for a startup, and the metrics they choose to measure their progress toward these targets, are key decisions in the definition of the business. The wrong targets–in particular selecting only targets that are easily achievable–will not only postpone difficult choices that will bring clarity but may doom a team from

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