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Outstanding Panel for Wed-Sep-14 Book Club on “Great Demo”

We have an outstanding panel lined up for next Wednesday’s Business Impact Book Club: Matt Cameron,  CEO, WhoTo.com Jon Cline,  Principal, Cirrus Path Brian K. Seitz, Managing Director, Intellectual Arbitrage Group We will discuss lessons learned applying Peter Cohan‘s methodology from his “Great Demo” book. If you are interested in improving your sales presentation you …

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Len Sklar: Be Clear About Payment Terms And Consequences

Len Sklar, author “The Check is NOT in the Mail”  has spoken several times at Bootstrapper Breakfasts.  Here is a recent talk he gave where he stresses the importance of putting payment terms and the consequences on non-payment in writing, communicating them in advance, and ensuring that they are understood. It all seems so obvious …

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The Search for Validation is Baggage, and You Need to Travel Light

Jon Carroll wrote a wonderful column on July 5, 2000 titled “As You Get Older.” The whole thing is worth reading but there is a section that begins “This is your challenge…” that reads like poetry. So I have re-formatted it as blank verse, it contains a number of observations on advice and influence that …

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Erecting Barriers to Competition That Are Difficult to Duplicate

Competition is inevitable, that is why it’s wise to prepare for it and immunize yourself with difficult to copy differentiation where possible. A pure focus on implementing new features as fast as possible in an effort to outrun the competition is unlikely by itself to be enough. Here are some barriers you can erect that …

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Venkatesh Rao Thought Provoking on Tempo at Bootstrapper Breakfast

We had Venkatesh Rao, author of “Tempo“, and blogger at RibbonFarm as  guest at today’s Bootstrapper Breakfast. He has had an eclectic career: between 1997 and 2011, he pursued a traditional research/entrepreneurial career (a PhD, a postdoc, a startup, and an industrial R&D lab where among other things, he founded trailmeme.com as Entrenrepeur-in-Residence at Xerox). …

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Tony Schwartz’s Principles For Fiercely Complex Times

Tony Schwartz offers “Ten Principles For Living in Fiercely Complex Times” that  you can “rely on to make choices that reflect openness, integrity and authenticity.” Here are the top three for me: “Emotions are contagious, so it pays to know what you’re feeling.” Tony Schwartz One of the balancing acts of entrepreneurship is control vs. …

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Narrative Rationality: Be Mindful Of Your Self-Description

Pay attention to self-description: the story you tell yourself and about yourself. Cultivate productive habits that don’t require conscious decisions. “It is a profoundly erroneous truism, repeated by all copy books and by eminent people when they are making speeches, that we should cultivate the habit of thinking of what we are doing. The precise …

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A Simple Sales Schema

A schema is a conceptual model that offers an organizing principle for how business buyers evaluate and purchase. The challenge is to match your sales effort to where they are in the process. Doug Hall’s Three Laws of Marketing Physics Jerry Weissman’s Power Presentations John Boyd’s OODA Loop Simple Schema 1. Overt Benefit Understand Observe …

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Reminder: Book Club July 13 Community of Practice

The Book Club for Business Impact looks at “Communities of Practice” Wed-Jul-13 from Noon to 1pm PDT. I think the key difference between social networks, communities of interest, and communities of practice is that a community of practice has a focus on shared learning. Entrepreneurs of all sorts should consider taking part in communities of …

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A Nicely Furnished Room In A House That’s Burning Down

Silicon Valley is a nicely furnished room in a house that’s burning down, the state of California. From Joseph Vranich‘s blog “CA Business Departures Increasing–Now 5x 2009” June 20, 2011. From Jan. 1 of this year through this morning, June 16, we have had 129 disinvestment events occur, an average of 5.4 per week. For …

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When Do I Need a Model? I am Bootstrapping

I have condensed this from a recent series of conversation with bootstrapping entrepreneur. I thought it captured many of the key questions that you need to be consider once you are “open for business.” Bootstrapping  Entrepreneur: I am just getting started on a new project. I have several advisors and one has suggested that I …

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Find A Peer Group Who is Interested In What You Have To Say

Humiliation “My own view is,” I began, but no one listened. At the next pause, “I always say,” I remarked, but again the loud talk went on. Someone told a story. When the laughter had ended, “I often think—”; but looking round the table I could catch no friendly or attentive eye. It was humiliating, …

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Look Forward

Stonehenge They sit there forever on the dim horizon of my mind, that Stonehenge circle of elderly disapproving Faces—Faces of the Uncles and Schoolmasters and Tutors who frowned on my youth. In the bright center and sunlight I leap, I caper, I dance my dance; but when I look up, I see they are not …

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