Don’t do a big launch before you have completed customer discovery or you are running a very expensive test of your key customer and market hypotheses.
Q: Can We Launch First and Ask Customer Discovery Questions Later? Read More »
One of the hallmarks for success in a business-to-business market is the ability to form personal relationships as well as professional business relationships. Both require building trust. I am always dismayed when I read advice that advocates bait and switch or other forms of con games that erode trust and make it difficult for any
Building a Business Requires Building Trust Read More »
Without a revenue hypothesis your business model is just a list of activities users are engaging in. You need to map customer actions to revenue and costs.
Without A Revenue Hypothesis Your Business Model Is a List of User Activities Read More »
One question entrepreneurs ask themselves is whether to persevere or get a job. What follows is an email exchange that has been edited into a Q&A.
Q: Should I Persevere With My Product Or Get A Job? Read More »
Some startups just “go for it” and pursue their vision without any real strategy. In the same way that the losers are never interviewed after after the lottery numbers are announced, press and pundits draw startup lessons by restricting their focus to the winners. It’s bullshit.
Feeling Lucky Is Not a Strategy Read More »
The video from my “What is Lean–Lean Innovation 101” talk is up: Here is the description for the talk “Lean” provides a scientific approach for creating a product and developing new businesses. Teams can iteratively building products or services to meet the needs of early customers by adopting a combination of customer development, business-hypothesis-driven experimentation
Video from Lean Innovation 101 Talk at SF Bay ACM Nov-20-2013 Read More »
IEEE-CNSV Panel Explores Engineering in Japan vs Silicon Valley Mon-Mar-3 I am helping to moderate a panel 7pm Mon-Mar-3 at IEEE-CNSV on “Innovation: Work and Life of the Engineer in Japan and Silicon Valley” The event takes place at Agilent Technologies, Inc. in the Aristotle Room, Bldg. 5 located at 5301 Stevens Creek Blvd., Santa
IEEE-CNSV Panel Explores Engineering in Japan vs Silicon Valley Mon-Mar-3 Read More »
Five financial mistakes bootstrappers can avoid include financing with credit cards or high interest loans and taking on long term financial commitments like a lease or an employee too early.
Five Serious Financial Mistakes Bootstrappers Can Avoid Read More »
Q: We have started selling and are looking for resources for a lean approach to sales, in particular for new product introduction. Lean Approach To Sales at Lean Startup Conference 2012 Scott Sambucci and I presented a workshop at Lean Startup 2012 on “Engineering Your Sales Process.” The deck is posted at http://www.slideshare.net/SalesQualia/engineering-your-sales-process About 70%
Q: Resources For A Lean Approach to Sales, In Particular New Product Introduction Read More »
Let’s face it, finding customers can be quite a challenge. In this interactive workshop, we will cover a variety of proven marketing techniques for growing your business: attendees will select one or two that fit their style and develop a plan to implement them in their business in the next 90 days. Speaking – small
Getting More Customers Workshop on March 25, 2014 Read More »
Q: I have worked as a manager in corporate IT for many years, saved my money, and now have an idea for a new product. I need a plan to go from essentially nothing but the idea to building an organization that can support a service-first or concierge MVP and the metrics in place to
Getting Unstuck Revisited I had a conversation today with a good friend I had not seen in a while. Normally cheerful, he was feeling “stuck” in his startup I have started several businesses, tried to start quite a few more, changed direction more often than I ever planned and shut down more than a few–sometimes even
Getting Unstuck Revisited Read More »
The difference between a hypothesis and an assumption is that the first is typically explicit and the second implicit. A hypothesis is what you are testing explicitly in an experiment. An assumption is tested implicitly. By making your assumptions and hypotheses explicit, you increase the clarity of your approach and the chance for learning.
Difference Between a Hypothesis and an Assumption Read More »
It can be difficult to put a price on a new product service, much less to develop a pricing model you can use to offer pricing to many different prospects. Here are some tips.
Q: How To Pull The Trigger On A Pricing Model Read More »
Series profile Thinking about this using an OODA loop model – — Observe -> Orient -> Decide -> Act Orient part is sensemaking — its own kind of fast learning Often takes a long time in a complex situation (e.g., all situations where learning is involved); subject to error because it’s “culture bound” What we
Recap Semifore MVP Clinic: Selling To A Team of Diverse Experts Read More »
Justin Kan (@JustinKan) wrote “Startups Don’t Die, They Commit Suicide” in 2011″ (mirrored on his blog here) reflecting on what he had observed and learned as a serial entrepreneur. It was reposted on the Philly Startup Leaders list earlier this week which led me to write the following comments mixed with excerpts from Kan’s post.
The Likely Consequences of Entrepreneurship Require Perseverance Read More »
Semifore , Inc. was founded in 2006 by Richard Weber based on his system design experience at several startups and some larger systems firms. All of them struggled with the need for tools and methods to keep the hardware architecture in sync with software architecture and to ensure that the development and customer documentation was
Q: I am considering product market fit metrics for an add-on new product launching in a well established company that makes equipment to test electrical cables (for the last 29 years). We are introducing a new product that is an add-on to existing products (it is only useful if used with the existing product). This is
Product Market Fit Metrics Read More »
I re-read Tom DeMarco‘s “Slack” over the Thanksgiving break and came away with a couple of good ideas worth sharing. Slack: Speed Difference Between Prudent and Breakneck Tom DeMarco offers the following definition of slack in the second to last chapter “Working at Breakneck Speed” Back in the time of sailing ships, going anywhere by ship
Tom DeMarco on Leadership, Trust, and Training Read More »
Overview: This MVP clinic helps two very different people facing analogous situations: one is a researcher looking for action research topics in the KM4Dev community, the other is an entrepreneur who wants to make athletic contests more engaging for contestants and the audience by providing more information that is mobile device friendly. (You can also
Recap From Nov-20-2103 MVP Clinic Read More »
