We are offering our “Getting More Customers” workshop 9:00am-1:30pm on Sat-Apr-23-16. Spend a morning working on your business with a mix of lecture, discussion with peer entrepreneurs, and reflection and writing. You will leave with a plan for getting the phone to ring and your inbox to fill with inquiries.
Getting More Customers Workshop April 23, 2016 Read More »
Concerned about Silicon Valley values, William Davidow wrote “What Happened to Silicon Values” in 2012 and concluded, “Silicon Valley is no longer as concerned about serving the customer, and even sees great opportunity in exploitation.” Here are some excerpts with additional comments.
Bill Davidow on Silicon Valley Values Read More »
Getting better at customer discovery conversations requires preparation, practice, note taking, and follow-up. It can also be tremendously helpful if you can arrange for a partner who can observe, contribute, take notes, and de-brief with you. Even if you are a solo entrepreneur “trade interviews” with another entrepreneur: agree to help them with one of their
Getting Better at Customer Discovery Conversations Read More »
One of the most common questions I hear in conversations with entrepreneurs at a Bootstrapper Breakfasts, in Office Hours calls, or with clients–and not infrequently from myself when comparing notes with peers–is, “Am I making a fool of myself?” Here are some questions you can use to clarify your situation when you are starting to feel like a
Am I Making A Fool Of Myself? Read More »
There are no undefended markets. Established markets are characterized by entrenched competitors who have strong brand identify and deep customer relationships. Although Bill Hewlett always strove to “attack the undefended hill,” the reality is that any market worth having is at least lightly defended by the status quo of current alternatives. When scouting a new
Customer Development: Scouting A New Market Read More »
You can follow @skmurphy to get these quotes for entrepreneurs hot off the mojo wire or wait until they are collected in a blog post at the end of each month. Enter your E-mail address if you would like to have new blog posts sent to you.
Quotes for Entrepreneurs January 2016 Read More »
I led a very interactive session on customer development and pricing for startups on Jan-19-2016 with the Montreal Lean Startup Circle. I have included the slides and their text but they comprise only about 1/6 of the session, the bulk of which was having different entrepreneurs in the audience present their challenges with customer development
Recap Customer Development & Pricing For B2B Startups Jan-19-2016 Read More »
An entrepreneur who succumbs to the illusion of progress does a startup more self-inflicted damage than almost anything else. Working on the wrong things squanders effort and irreplaceable time without gaining the learning needed for the actual efforts required.
The Illusion of Progress Read More »
Technology markets look like a game of rock paper scissors. Startups have to find an effective counter to a competitor’s offering not just a slightly better version. Their pebble cannot beat the incumbent’s rock, they have to use paper (and scissors is a really bad idea).
Rock Paper Scissors Read More »
Dr. Alastair Hood, PhD, CEO of Verdafero, was our featured attendee at this morning’s Bootstrapper Breakfast® in Palo Alto. He offered a candid assessment of lessons learned bootstrapping Verdafero since 2009. The Verdafero platform is used by businesses to capture, analyze, visualize their waste, water, and energy utility bills. It allows them to compare locations
Alastair Hood: Lessons Learned Bootstrapping Verdafero Read More »
In your early customer discovery conversations to assess demand for a new offering a wide range of customer needs and symptoms can trigger a leap to a solution, which just happens to be yours. Guard against this by probing to understand the root problem–have at least three questions that allow you to dig out the
How To Test Your Leap To A Solution Read More »
New Year’s Eve is always a time for optimism. I hope to learn from my experiences in 2015 and to make new mistakes in 2016 instead of repeating the old ones. I hope to build on the skills I nurtured and the insights I gained this year.
New Year’s Eve 2015 Read More »
You can follow @skmurphy to get these quotes for entrepreneurs hot off the mojo wire or wait until they are collected in a blog post at the end of each month. Enter your E-mail address if you would like to have new blog posts sent to you.
Quotes For Entrepreneurs December 2015 Read More »
Retrospectives, Post Mortems, and After Action: end of year is a good time to assess what you have accomplished and what you have learned.
Newsletter: Retrospectives, Post Mortems, and After Action Reviews Read More »
Ten rules of thumb from”101 Things I Learned in Engineering School” by John Kuprenas and Matthew Frederick that I think entrepreneurs will find particularly useful. It’s a great book full of very clear illustrations and examples for most of its 101 two-page chapters. I purchased it as a Christmas gift for my sons and could not
Ten Rules of Thumb from “101 Things I Learned in Engineering School” Read More »
Christmas afternoon finds me reading “Courtesy.” It’s an essay by Ian MacLaren (pen name for Scottish author and theologian John Watson) that offers a recipe for keeping the spirit of Christmas alive in daily life. Here are some excerpts I found useful, the last finds me still clearly in the “before picture.”
Courtesy Keeps The Spirit Of Christmas Alive Read More »
No man is a failure who has friends. Clarence’s parting observation to George Bailey in “It’s a Wonderful Life” is good advice for all of us on Christmas Eve. Watching “It’s A Wonderful Life” has become a Christmas tradition in our family in recent years: it’s one of the few black and white movies my boys will watch.
No Man is a Failure Who Has Friends Read More »
Moore’s Law and the rise of cloud computing models that enable collaboration in networks of up to hundreds of thousands of individual CPUs on a single algorithm mean that old algorithms can find new applications and address much larger problems. I believe that this will have as profound an impact on knowledge work over the
Moore’s Law Enables New Uses For Old Algorithms Read More »
Another time capsule post: this one is an archive of a profile I had on the UnderTheOak wiki in the early 2000s that was maintained by Matt Simpson (wiki now offline).
Time Capsule: SKMurphy Profile at UnderTheOak Read More »
Scott Robertson had a great post up last month on how to make content marketing work: be relevant, be different, be real, be useful, and be consistent. Here are some excerpts along with additional thoughts and commentary.
Scott Robertson Offers Five Tips on Content Marketing Read More »
