We’ll be at SDWest Booth 318
We were at SDWest Booth 318 and gave away Steve Blank’s “Four Steps to the Epiphany” during the SDWest 2008 conference March 3-7.
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Jotspot Emerges From The Bowels of Google
Jotspot relaunches after Google acquisition: after being digested and processed, it bears little resemblance to its former self.
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Express ROI In Terms Your Prospect Will Understand
Peter Cohan makes the following points in his Great Demo! Seminar C level execs think in terms of dollars (budget) Managers think in terms of people and full time equivalents (FTE). Individual contributors think in terms of time spent vs. time saved So it pays to express the benefits of your application accordingly. There may
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Don Reinertsen: Priorities Are The Last Refuge of the Innumerate
Don Reinertsen, co-author (with Preston Smith) of “Developing Products in Half the Time” and “Managing the Design Factory: The Product Developers Toolkit” has a great article about managing products “Priorities: Last Refuge of the Innumerate” Don Reinertsen: Priorities Are The Last Refuge of the Innumerate Priorities: Last Refuge of the Innumerate What is our highest product
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While We Pursue Our Dreams, They Can Pursue Us
As entrepreneurs we pursue our dreams of improving the world. Sometimes I think our dreams can pursue us, that a vision of a better world can have the same effect as what the Scots call a geas. An obligation to use our talents in certain ways that unlocks their power if obeyed and punishes if
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Mission College Business Department Advisory Committee
Mission College Advisor for the Business Department I was invited to take part in the Mission College Business Department Advisory Committee for 2008 last Tuesday; it was a very interesting experience. There was a cross section of folks from education and business, both large and small. I was impressed by the diversity of perspectives and
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Burn Your Boats But Not Your Bridges
Burn your boats but not your bridges: commit to your startup but don’t do anything that damages relationships or would not allow you to build on prior shared successes with others.
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Paul Graham’s Six Principles for Making New Things
This article compares Paul Graham’s “Six Principles for Making New Things” with Bob Bemer’s “Do Something Small But Useful Now”, Gary Hamel’s Innovation Hacker, and Peter Drucker’s list of seven places to search systematically for opportunities.
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Some Days You’re The Potter, Some Days You’re The Clay
Successful entrepreneurship is an ongoing self-improvement project. Some days you are the potter, some days you are the clay.
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Improving The Techdirt Insight Community
Improving The Techdirt Insight Community I originally wrote this on Wednesday November 28, 2007 in response to a set of questions posed by Mike Masnick to the Techdirt Insight Community. I had applied and been accepted into the community after it was announced at the 2006 Office 2.0 conference (I blogged about in “Born With
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Leveraging Your Social Network to Find Early Customers Monday Feb 11 at SDForum
I will be speaking next Monday at the SDForum Marketing SIG on “Leveraging Your Social Network to Find Early Customers.” Social navigation is networking with a goal. Entrepreneurs will spend social capital navigating their way to getting trusted feedback and early sales. Like Google and web assisted selling tools, social network tools can improve the
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Three Features For A Webinar Or Conference Call
Three features for a webinar or conference call: let someone raise their hand and speak; break a larger group into small groups and then reconvene; automatically manage the “queue for the microphone” during the Q&A segment.
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Advanced Topics Session Added To The March 8 Great Demo! Workshop
Advanced Topics Session Added To The March 8 Great Demo Workshop include presenting to a mixed audience with different needs and vision generation.
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Focus On Your Prospect’s Pain Not The Brilliance of Your Product Idea
Many entrepreneurs find themselves in the grip of an idea, captivated by its seeming brilliance. But success comes from understanding a prospect’s pain.
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Three Tips for Minimizing Misunderstandings Among Co-Founders
Here are three tips for minimizing misunderstandings among co-founders: get clarity on the problem before arguing over solutions, maintain full transparency about spending, and work from a one-page operating plan.
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HP’s Early Customers Came From Fred Terman’s Social Network
HP produced its first brochure and sent it to a list of about 25 potential customers provided by Fred Terman. Orders soon came in from early customers.
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Lunch & Learn: Using Wikis for Projects
Pierre Khawand of People-OnTheGo and I were on a panel at GABA in October of last year on “Communication Today: Blogs, E-mail and More” and we had a great conversation on blogs and wikis. He has invited me to speak on “Wiki Use Case: Managing Team Meetings: Agendas, Minutes and Tasks” at today’s Lunch &
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Steve Blank on Customer Development Process for Startups
I was an early fan of Steve Blank’s customer development model. This post was written when “Four Steps to the Epiphany” was only available on Cafe Press and documents the early set of principles he espoused.
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Idea to Revenue Workshop on Jan-19-08 is Sold Out
The Idea to Revenue Workshop scheduled for January 19 is now sold out and no walk-ins will be accepted. We had added this in December in response to the overflow demand for the December 6 one and are now considering adding a third. Please contact us and let us know if you are interested or
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We Sign NDA’s
We get asked “Will you sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement?” fairly often, to the point that we are proactive, suggesting that a prospect take a look at our Mutual NDA [PDF] and sign it if it would increase their comfort level. A Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) allows us to have a deeper and more useful discussion. We