We have all heard of brands like Google, Cisco, Nike, Starbucks , and Lowe’s. Have you ever wondered how these companies got a great name? You probably haven’t heard of Ansearch , N-TRON, InSport International, Caribou Coffee, and Handy Andy. To me Ansearch sounds more like a search engine than Google, N-TRON seems more like …
The best feedback from early customers is a story: this post explores four kinds of stories you should listen for and how to take advantage of them.
Resist the temptation to minimize the time you spend to get feedback from early customers. Focus on depth of insight. This can come only from conversation.
This event is Sold Out, No Walk-Ins accepted. Please sign up for waitlist we will be offering it again in 2008. Invest four hours now to save months later finding a path to revenue: most software startups fail after they have working functionality but before they find their market. You will leave this workshop with …
I have had two interesting conversations with friends who are frustrated with some of the internal deficiencies within their companies. Both of my friends are accountants, but work for different firms and in different departments. However, they are both part of itinerant work forces and have the same problem. While out of the office, they …
Using Web 2.0 Technology to Enable Strategic Selling: A Sales Executive Forum Read More »
One of the best ways to save money is to plan ahead: as simply as possible while being explicit about assumptions, defining what constitutes minimum acceptable forward progress, and identifying what results would justify external investment. For an example see Guy Kawasaki’s blog for Oct-1-2007: Financial Models for Underachievers: Two Years of the Real Numbers …
Some tips for planning in a bootstrapped startup. Planning is a means not an end, but without planning, everything encountered is completely new.
Success for a bootstrapper is a startup with positive cash flow; this enables ongoing market exploration and additional investments in innovation.
It’s appropriate on Thanksgiving to think of the things we have to be grateful for. My short list: Health Family Friends Opportunity As an entrepreneur I am interested in getting something new done. But life is what happens while you are making other plans. I can sometimes get so focused on trying to make a …
Bill Paseman offers this advice to entrepreneurs: find a problem so bad that people pay you to solve and and let you keep the software.
Peter Drucker outlines four entrepreneurial pitfalls, starting with rejection of a new product’s success in a market that is different than was expected.
Three tips for attending a trade show and scoping out breakthrough innovations: Start on the perimeter and work you way in to the main floor. All the innovation is in the startups booths on the outside. Before the show spend some time checking out exhibitors’ websites. Especially if you are not familiar with the company …
“People tend to mistake understanding for mastery. Mastery is the ability to execute under pressure.” Ford Harding “The secret for discovering the ability to focus all of our mental and physical energy on a single task is no secret at all: recall the concentration of a child at play.” Edward Niam “Necessity may be the …
Frank Hayes, a columnist for Computerworld, jotted down some “conventional IT wisdom” in 2000 in his “Frankly Speaking” column that they re-ran this month. Here were the best three nuggets:
“We live in a world built by scientists and engineers, but salespeople run it.”
So last night’s talk at the SF Bay ACM on “Crucial Marketing Concepts for Technology Introduction” was a blast. If you missed it we didn’t hand out slides but we did hand out copies of the short form of the Crucial Marketing Concepts article. It was a very technical audience, almost entirely software engineers and …
Crucial Marketing Concepts for Technology Introduction at SF Bay ACM Wrap-up Read More »
How do you plan when you are in a small software startup? Big company methods are not a good fit. Here are three tips for planning a startup.
Google’s acquisition of YouTube seems to have captured the imagination of a lot of entrepreneurs that we meet at various events, in particular everyone wants to start a consumer Internet or media oriented businesses based on “viral marketing.” Here are a couple of key questions to answer for your pre-viral marketing plan, or what you …
Join the ACM and improve your peripheral vision–keep track of technical developments in related fields that may impact your business
I had the opportunity to attend a “Dutch Business Breakfast” that morning. It was organized by the Netherlands Foreign Investment Agency and held at the US Market Access Center. There were three speakers who addressed the challenges of European firms coming to Silicon Valley, followed by individual presentations by about a dozen Dutch startups. Chris …
Dutch Business Breakfast at US Market Access Center Read More »
