Founder: Sean Murphy’s advice to “zoom in for traction” encouraged me to shift my focus from a region to a single city. This allowed me to generate references that encouraged other prospects to sign up.” […]
Here is video and slides from Feb-11-2021 talk “Landing Your First Ten Customers” at the Lean Culture Meetup. I have included some supplemental resources for further reading. […]
Ipaiku is a character in a “science fiction detective novel” that I wrote some drafts for in 1975-78. This vignette is one of the early scenes in the novel that tries to capture a particular sense of movement beneath the surface or the potential energy latent in apparent stillness. [...]
Quotes for entrepreneurs curated in January 2021. Theme is co-evolution and making adjustments to reflect new realities. […]
Recorded webinar: James Jimenez from MNST Company.com presents “Exit Strategies for Startups” to entrepreneurs at the Lean Culture meetup. […]
The key challenges to getting your first ten customers relate to understanding the customer buying process and managing the startup learning process for need, impact, customer definition and message. […]
Unasked questions linger after the death of a parent, along with all of the things that you wish you had said. […]
Entrepreneurs starting their first business often hunt for a cookbook of recipes to make sense of a journey that is alternating between bewilderment and frustration. But startups fight for existence in a competitive and evolving environment, where changes in the technical or social substrates can invalidate their strategy or enable [...]
Here are some reflections on 2020, our most challenging year since we started in 2003, and our current plans for 2021. […]
Quotes for entrepreneurs curated in December 2020. My themes for this month are two sides of the impact of change: resilience (improvements enabled by change) and Cardwel’s Law or how those who benefit from the status quo inhibit innovation. […]
Rob Fitzpatrick, author of the Mom Test, offers some evergreen advice on mistakes bootstrappers should avoid in 2021 (especially if they have not made already and won’t see them coming.) […]
While 2020 has been a year of withdrawal, 2021 promises to be a return to a “more normal” mode of operation. Great innovation and creativity often stream from periods of “withdrawal and return.” The break in regular routines can provide new and useful perspectives that are applicable to a range of conditions.
You learn sales by doing sales: as a founder you must sell. Sales is a conversation, marketing is a broadcast. Marketing gets the phone to ring, sales takes the call and closes the deal. […]
Bob Biglin, CEO of the Center for Advanced Emotional Intelligence, offers a review of “Working Capital: It Takes More than Money.” […]
Francis Adanza: “A key piece of advice from Sean Murphy was to focus on a specific vertical. Our initial customer base was all over the place, from Ranch 99 Markets to Netsuite. We needed to focus to be able to scale.” […]
Quotes for Entrepreneurs Collected in November 2020 I collect these quotes for entrepreneurs from a variety of sources and tweet them on @skmurphy about once a day where you can get them hot off the mojo wire. At the end of each month I curate them in a blog post [...]
Ed Ipser of IpserLab explains how Sean Murphy adds value as an advisor to startup teams: “he helps hold everyone accountable by digging in to uncover and address the real issues.” […]
Quotes for entrepreneurs collected in October 2020. My theme for this month is deliberate practice and walking down the learning curve. […]
Scott Swaaley: “A good advisor provides context and helps you to clarify the best approach to a deal. Sean Murphy provides a wealth of perspective on business rules of thumb, successful practices from larger firms in different industries, and established business theory.” […]
A simple view of organization structure is management and workers. The reality is three structures: formal controls, informal collaboration, and value creation networks. […]