Tristan Kromer suggests that there are many viable models for a business, all have advantages and drawbacks. Services are easy to start but hard to scale. Despite surface appearance, a software business still inventory of people, key assets in the form of ideas, and a manufacturing process in the form of software release.
Tristan Kromer on Businesses Models Read More »
I will often hear folks say “I think I can get a lot of users, I know that there is a market for this.” I worry because a market requires customers not just users: you can tell who your customer is because they pay for your product or service. When you say to yourself that
Users, Businesses, and Hobbies Read More »
A special announcement for our valued readers SKMurphy introduces a new service, Book Club for Business Impact. This is a call-in virtual discussion group that leverages the best ideas from business experts, best-selling authors, and thought leaders. Listen to the live action group review and discuss prominent books and articles that will inspire you to
SKMurphy’s Book Club for Business Impact Inspires You To Take Action Read More »
Call-in Book Club For Business Impact webinar recorded on June 22, 2011: Steve Mock, Francis Adanza and Sean Murphy recap “3D Negotiation” a 2003 Harvard Business Review Article by David Lax and James Sebenius. You can now view the recorded session
3D Negotiation By David A. Lax and James K. Sebenius Read More »
Call-in Book Review Recorded on Wednesday, June 8, 2011Massimo Paolini, Miles Kehoe, Dorai Thodla, and Sean Murphy recap Barry Moltz’s “You Need to Be a Little Crazy: The Truth about Starting and Growing Your Business”. They share how they personally found the courage to start their businesses and their desire to make “working for yourself”
You Need to Be a Little Crazy by Barry Moltz Read More »
Customer understand when they have unmet needs, persistent problems, and goals and risk. They are normally very good at describing their problems and constraints on a solution but less accurate in fully specifying a solution.
Interview Prospects To Find Unmet Needs, Persistent Problems, and Goals at Risk Read More »
Whether it’s in a conversation with your team, with prospects, partners, or customers, the ability to sketch and to encourage them to collaborate on a sketch of the issue that you are discussion can be very helpful. It can be on a white board in a conference room, on a sheet of graph paper, or
Webinar: Practical Insights From “Back of The Napkin” May 11 Read More »
“The only certainty is a reasonable probability.” Edgar Watson Howe, “Country Town Sayings” We help clients to interview prospects in the early market for customer discovery purposes, we also help them have serious conversations with early customers periodically to capture their evolving perspective on the client’s offering. Sometimes we will do this on the client’s behalf
We Use a Wiki to Organize Customer Interviews Read More »
Tom Van Vleck has a great collection of software engineering stories on his site. One particularly good article is “Three Questions For Each Bug That You Find” which offers the following key observation: The key idea behind these questions is that every bug is a symptom of an underlying process. You have to treat the
Tom Van Vleck’s “3 Questions” Complement Root Cause Analysis Read More »
You can follow @skmurphy to get them hot off the mojo wire or wait until the end of the month when these quotes for entrepreneurs are collected on the blog. Enter your E-mail if you would like new blog posts to your inbox.
Quotes for Entrepreneurs–April 2011 Read More »
On May 25, 2011, Howard Dernehl, Moe Arnaiz, Charles Baugh and Sean Murphy recap Drucker’s article “Managing Oneself” followed by examples of how they have incorporated how they learn and their strengths into their business. View the recorded discussion “Managing Oneself” by Peter Drucker This short seminal article by Peter Drucker tells us that we
From time to time I run into a business card that makes me think. Here’s one that I will model as I update my own cards. Also check out some cool business cards from last year. Back:
Time To Update Your Business Card Read More »
Call-in Book Review recorded on May 11, 2011 Charles Baugh, Terry Frazier and Sean Murphy recap Dan Roams’ “Back of the Napkin” followed by examples of how they have incorporated informal drawings into our business communication and collaboration. View the recorded session Buy NOW The Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with
The Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures Read More »
Please leave your comments on the book … Did you find Dan Roam’s The Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures insightful? What was one piece of advice you took away from it? Do you have any questions about the book?
Comments on Dan Roam’s “Back of the Napkin” Read More »
Hope to see you on Monday, May 23, 2011 in San Francisco, CA for the Second Startup Lessons Learned conference. The day-long event will feature a mix of panels and talks focused on the key challenges and issues that technical and market-facing people at startups need to understand in order to succeed in building successful
Signed up for Startup Lessons Learned Conference Read More »
To many of the current incubators seem focused on “on hit wonder” startups designed to be acquired quickly. Apps are the new pop songs and the incubators are the music labels, stoking the star maker machinery.
Stoking the Star Maker Machinery Behind The Popular App Read More »
After every Bootstrapper Breakfast® we E-mail all of the participants and ask them for “one thing you learned at the breakfast.” Georgi Dagnall left a nice comment after Steve Blank visited on Friday (I have added some links for context) Sean suggested that I read the book, Four Steps to the Epiphany written by Steve
Georgi Dagnall on Steve Blank’s Visit to April Bootstrapper Breakfast Read More »
[Note this post was written in 2011]. The recent troubles at Cisco have prompted a lot of commentary on the Cisco alumni e-mail list. One of the more thoughtful analyses was posted by Larry Lang (@llang629), who spent more than a decade at Cisco in a variety of positions. His last was as VP and
Larry Lang on Managing Incentives Read More »
I recently took part in a small reunion of folks who worked on the “router software release” team at Cisco in the early years and I took it as an opportunity to jot down some rules of thumb I learned, mostly the hard way, about managing software releases. There is always a strong reason to
Making the Trains Run on Time: Software Release Read More »
We had a great Bootstrapper Breakfast® in February in Milpitas with Isaac Garcia, CEO of Central Desktop, speaking very candidly about the challenges of Bootstrapping Central Desktop and some lessons learned. Bob Gerughty mentioned after the meeting that he had run into someone who remembered him from a comment he made at a breakfast almost
Conversations Entrepreneurs Remember Read More »
