Month: February 2010

Use Wikis for Team Projects

Wikis dissolve voice and authorship. Use them where there are rewards and incentives at a team level, where a team is being held accountable for a result. Blogs and forums preserve voice and authorship. Use them where knowing who said what is important. Start with frequently updated information that is also frequently accessed: Meeting agendas …

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Iron Bars, Plexiglass, and Masking Tape

An actual dream I had of a tiger prowling a maze where some walls are iron bars, others are plexiglass, and strips of masking tape seem to bar some paths. I later realized it was a metaphor for three kinds of barriers that entrepreneurs need to navigate as they get a new business established.

George Grellas Answers Questions at Feb-16 Bootstrapper Breakfast in Sunnyvale

Join us tomorrow, Tuesday, February 16, in Sunnyvale where George Grellas will present a short legal guide for entrepreneurs. George is a veteran Silicon Valley startup business lawyer who heads a boutique firm that specializes in early-stage technology startups. Since 1984, as a founders’ lawyer, George has worked with thousands of entrepreneurs in helping them …

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Ripple

Customer Development Helps Entrepreneurs Assess the Value of an Invention

Colin Cherry in “The Telephone System: Creator of Mobility and Social Change” makes the point that the full impact of an invention is very difficult to predict. Invention Alters Society In Ways That Were At First Unthinkable Inventions themselves are not revolutions; neither are they the cause of revolutions. Their powers for change lie in …

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I Don’t Understand, We Won the Argument, Why Didn’t We Win The Sale?

It’s Rare That You Are Actually Bringing Fire To The Savages If you think you are so much smarter than your customers that you are “bringing fire to the savages” you will find it hard to learn from them and hard to actually close deals. What follows are three true stories. We Won The Argument, …

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Verdafero Profiled by SJ BizJournal “Sustainability Planning Over the Web”

I was pleased to see that Verdafero, a firm we have been advising for about a year, was selected last Friday by the San Jose Business Journal for their “The Pitch” column. The article, “Palo Alto’s Verdafero Offers Sustainability Planning Over the Web,” ran in the February 5th print edition: THE BUSINESS: Verdafero has developed …

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Saras Sarasvathy’s Effectual Reasoning Model for Expert Entrepreneurs

Update Feb-24-2011: Since I first wrote this in 2010 the Effectuation.Org site has been considerably upgraded and contains a lot more information on research on entrepreneurship by Saras Sarasvathy. Recapping ideas, papers, and books that had changed my life yesterday reminded me of Saras Sarasvathy’s Effectual Reasoning Model from her 2001 paper “What Makes Entrepreneurs …

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Articles, Ideas, and Books That Have Changed My Life As an Entrepreneur

This is a start articulating a set of resources for entrepreneurs that are for the most part not yet widely appreciated as applicable to entrepreneurship but that have had a significant impact on my perspective. I welcome any suggestions or lists from readers for what has influenced you, and opened you to new perspectives on your …

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Great Demo Workshop on March 17 2010

Rescheduled due to illness to April 9, 2010 8:15 – 5:00opm Special Offer for Groups and Organization Members Discounts are available for members of Bootstrappers Breakfast, Business Marketing Association, Women In Consulting, and organizations sending three or more employees: please contact us for discount codes. Create and Deliver Surprisingly Compelling Software Demonstrations “Do The Last …

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Jenny Allen’s Story “I Got Sick Then I Got Better

A client was kind enough to invite me to hear Jenny Allen present an abbreviated but very moving version of her one woman stage play “I Got Sick Then I Got Better” at a luncheon held by the Canary Foundation today. Mrs. Allen spoke candidly of her experience surviving cancer. Two different cancers actually. She …

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