This chalk talk on Saras Sarasvathy’s effectuation model for startups outlines an approach that successful entrepreneurs use to establish and grow their startups. This approach is the most effective one that I have seen.
Many digital nomads and travelers to Silicon Valley are looking for good networking events to meet and compare notes with other founders. This guide gives an overview of networking and startup events in Silicon Valley.
We use a four phase project planning model we call 1-2-4-1 which allocates time to planning, prototyping key challenges, finishing the bulk of the work, and polishing.
A chalk talk on Stewart Brand’s model for how six layers in a building change at different rates from his book “How Buildings Learn.”
For startups, regardless of the niche or product being sold, visibility is arguably one of the single most critical challenges faced. You can have the coolest solutions in the world, but if nobody knows it exists, it’s essentially worthless. And this is why visibility is so important. In this video we share our reflections on …
Some thoughts on heroes using Joe Rogan’s admonition to “Be the hero of your own movie. If your life was a movie and it started now, what would the hero do right now?” as a point of departure.
This post on B2B customer development interviews builds on one of my most popular. If you would like help preparing for customer development interviews or reviewing results from recent interviews, contact us. Here are my lessons learned from taking part in interviews where the startup planned to offer a product or service to a business. …
Jason Roberts 2010 “Luck Surface Area” model explains the need for entrepreneurs to combine time spent doing and developing expertise with time spent communicating with others. It’s a very useful and actionable insight. Unfortunately, the diagram he chose to illustrate the model assumes that entrepreneurs have an unlimited amount of time to do both. I …
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Neuromancer, William Gibson’s first novel, was published in 1984. It helped to establish the cyberpunk genre of science fiction: a dark future where computing, communication, and artificial intelligence technologies were dominant, complemented by significant medical advances, large inhabited satellites in Earth orbit, and considerable drug use. I recently re-read it and was struck by how things …
Here is a list of the most popular SKMurphy blog posts Oct-2006 through Sep-2017 based on page view counts from Google analytics data. I have broken out the Lean Startup Conference roundups for clarity.
A thank you on Veterans Day 2016 to all of the men and women in our armed forces who made the United States possible, in particular this Silicon Valley oasis of invention and innovation I get to call home. Some quotes to meditate on follow.
An interview with Jerry Weinberg where we explore the applicability of his Fieldstone Method for entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs, the implications of Stewart Brand’s “How Buildings Learn” for Weinberg’s dry stone fence metaphor for creation, and managing a crisis as marker for an end of an illusion.
Recently, we worked with a startup on team building as they wrangled with the rapid growth of their business. They needed bring on new team members and wanted them to be productive and effective as quickly as possible. Working with the leadership team we reviewed Bruce Tuckman’s four stages of team development.
Optimizing the manufacture of an object requires an understanding of design options, mechanical and physical principles, and 3D printing tradeoffs.
This 3D Printing Evolution Functional Block Diagram shows the process flow of 3D printing in the X direction and the evolution of the functional blocks in the Y direction.
Q: I’m just about to get out of the building to validate hypotheses and start learning, but I have a problem with the business model canvas. I have been advised to develop detailed hypotheses before starting customer discovery. This is my startup and I have no idea how to fill in the business model canvas …
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The difference between a hypothesis and an assumption is that the first is typically explicit and the second implicit. A hypothesis is what you are testing explicitly in an experiment. An assumption is tested implicitly. By making your assumptions and hypotheses explicit, you increase the clarity of your approach and the chance for learning.
Three Great Books on Generating Innovative Business Ideas These three books contain a wealth of useful suggestions for generating innovative business ideas from observing, questioning, and networking with customers and others: Innovator’s DNA “The Innovator’s DNA” by Christensen, Dyer, and Gregerson outlines a set of five skills that innovator’s use to develop entrepreneurial ideas: Associating: …
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Beta customer conflates three categories of people who are using your product in a way that’s not healthy for your long term business prospects if you are selling to business users, in particular early adopter or pragmatic enterprise users.
Alberto Savoia defines pretotyping as determining that you are “building the right product before you invest in building your product right.” His book “Pretotype It” (Second Edition available as a Free PDF or on Kindle for $0.99) lists a set of seven techniques for pretotyping on pages 39-40. This post analyzes and elaborates on the techniques …
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