I now see books being written and thousand dollar a seat conferences offered on how to use twitter. My model is fairly simple, starting in April of this year I post quotes that I believe are useful, thought provoking or otherwise inspiring for entrepreneurs on @skmurphy. I try and post about ten quotes for entrepreneurs …
Some post-Thanksgiving musings on my belief that most people want to do a good job. As you grow your startup find ways for everyone involved to work hard, see an impact, and improve. “Ancient Greeks defined happiness as the exercise of vital powers, along lines of excellence, in a life affording them scope” Edith Hamilton …
Offer Scope for Employees to Exercise Their Vital Powers Read More »
A quick note of thanks that even in the midst of a serious economic downturn for Thanksgiving 2008 I have my health, my family, my friends, and the opportunity to make a living.
A great write-up by Yatin Trivedi on the value of coopetition: the motivation for a partnership program in any company is to better serve the customers beyond one’s ability.
Here are three startup feeds that I use at last weekly (I am skmurphy on Hackers News and may check there two or three times a day) that represent three different models to generate a stream of topical links for folks in software startups. Hacker News http://news.ycombinator.com/ Techmeme http://www.techmeme.com/ Alltop http://startups.alltop.com/ What are your favorite …
Three Software Startup News Aggregators: Hacker News, Techmeme, Alltop Read More »
I had an unfamiliar pain recently. It was sharp, sudden, and unexpected: I ended up talking to my doctor about it. I have been trying to understand why it was more frightening, even though it was less painful than many other problems I have experienced.
Excerpts that I found thought provoking and useful from an interview with Jeff Bezos in the October 2007 Harvard Business Review.
Interesting web site demo at http://nextgenerationelectronicsdesign.com/ by the folks at Altium. Unlike any PCB demo I have ever seen and an interesting use of self-deprecating humor to talk about the challenges of linking FPGA, Board, and Mechanical design. Two time coded remarks at 2:25 “We did what any traditional EDA company would do, we denied …
A lot of is written these days about how to conserve cash in a downturn. In particular the need to cut expenses by cutting headcount and unnecessary fill-in-the-blank spending. But conserving trust is equally important. If you have been bootstrapping and only increasing expenses in response to revenue (versus in anticipation of revenue) then your …
Startups survive because they can live on the scraps of a market (a niche) that larger competitors ignore or would be unable to pursue profitably. This is doing less with less.
In April of 2001, as the euphoria from 1999 started to fall to earth again (by October it would be accessible only by Deep Submersible Rescue Vehicle) Daniel Pink wrote “Land of the Free” in Fast Company that was a teaser for “Free Agent Nation” as a hardback in May of 2001 and paperback in …
Daniel Pink’s “Free Agent Nation” Worth Revisiting Read More »
Nov-17: the last full week before Thanksgiving, if you are trying to close business it can get much harder between Thanksgiving and New Years Day [Full Week] Nov-24: a half week at best. [Half-Week] Dec-1: normally a good week [Full Week] Dec-8: normally a good week [Full Week] Dec-15: unless you are chasing end of …
Nurturing Referrals Is Critical to Growth Nurturing referrals is a critical activity for every entrepreneur. A referral is an introduction to a prospect with an endorsement. They come from shared success with your customers or colleagues, someone who knows your potential and can vouch for you or your team’s ability to deliver. These individuals are …
“We started with two empty hands.” Icelandic expression It’s hard to believe the frugal and hardworking Icelanders have gone bankrupt. I re-read Njal’s Saga every few years and find new nuggets each time. In Letter from Iceland, Robert Jackson reported November 14, 2008 in the Financial Times on the complete meltdown of Iceland’s financial system. …
When you are very angry, think about how momentary a man’s life is. Marcus Aurelius I worked in the router software marketing group at Cisco in the early 90’s. I had left engineering and taken up residence in the marketing department. I was playing asteroid to a number of dinosaur protocols: we had realized that …
Worry about a good customer reference more than getting paid. A reference will lead to payment, but just because they pay does not mean they’re a reference. Plan for gaining customer references by starting with a request for feedback don the quality of your services and the business results you enabled.
Having a public reference, testimonial, or case study is a significant risk reducing asset for a startup. It’s prudent to negotiate the level of reference in parallel with price.
On Veterans Day 2008 we honor those who have served in the military and lived: thanks for putting your life on the line for all the things we hold dear.
There will be be a birds of feather meeting for EDA bloggers at ICCAD 2008 on Wed-Nov-12-2008 at 4-6pm in the Fir Room.
The challenge with overnight success in a startup–like many things–is the time needed to integrate many inputs, your own hopes and fears among them.
