Theresa Shafer met Ari Halberstadt at a Bootstrapper Breakfast in SF earlier this year and was very impressed with his approach to his new startup, Catalee. Ari volunteered to talk with me about Noam Wasserman‘s “The Founder’s Dilemmas” as well as Catalee.
Founder Story: Ari Halberstadt of Catalee on Founder’s Dilemmas Read More »
A conversation with Pete Tormey on forming a team, dividing equity, and gaining early traction in a startup.
Podcast with Pete Tormey on Forming a Team, Dividing Equity, and Gaining Early Traction Read More »
Q: Appreciate your thoughts on qualitative vs. quantitative approaches to market exploration. Customer development is like qualitative research; it is good for exploring hypotheses (and associated issues) but cannot validate them (by its very nature it is small sample size). To validate startup hypotheses one needs to do quantitative research, e.g. surveys, measurements (A/B tests), and have
Market Discovery and Exploration Requires Models from Physics, Biology, and Psychology Read More »
How To Bootstrap Your Start-Up at ASL Mar-27-2013: I have been invited by the Emerging Business Group at Abbott, Stringham and Lynch to give a talk on “How to Bootstrap Your Start-Up.”
How To Bootstrap Your Start-Up at ASL Mar-27-2013 Read More »
Before you introduce a new product into an existing market you need to analyze the market structure and competitive landscape. This is a laundry list–not a prioritized list—of the set of challenges we currently wrestle with in helping clients monitor their external environment and craft strategies for new market creation and new product introduction into
Challenges in Analyzing Market Structure and Competitive Landscape Read More »
An exploration of some of the implications of Arie P. de Geus insight that “The ability to learn faster than competitors may be the only sustainable competitive advantage.”
Startups Where “We Are All In This Together” Learn Faster Read More »
A Conversation With A Bootstrapping EdTech Startup On Customer Interviews What follows is a sequence of E-mails with an entrepreneur bootstrapping an EdTech startup around the challenges of doing customer interviews that have been recast as a conversation, with the original content edited for length and clarity. Edtech Entrepreneur (EdTech): I am working with a
A Conversation With A Bootstrapping EdTech Startup On Customer Interviews Read More »
When a little boy sees or hears a bird he appreciates it without having to label or identify it. It’s useful for entrepreneurs to engage in direct observation and thoughtful reflection without having to classify or characterize.
Eric Berne: A Little Boy Sees And Hears Birds With Delight Read More »
Growth is an outcome of impact. Focus on impact and innovation before investing efforts in growth. Once you have identified an opportunity to make an impact you can plan for growth.
Startups Should Focus on Impact and Innovation Before Growth Read More »
Entrepreneurship gets a lot of hype but it’s not for everyone: here is a brief discussion of some of practical realities of what it’s like to work at a startup.
Q: Should I Get A Normal Job Or Work At A Startup? Read More »
For the third year in a row I will moderate a panel of startup founders sharing lesson learned bootstrapping a technology startup at Silicon Valley Code Camp. This “Working for Equity” session will be on Sunday Oct 7 at 9:15am. Here is the announcement Many of us in Silicon Valley seek to found or be
Startup Founders Announced for Working For Equity Panel at SVCC 2012 Read More »
When you are trying to choose from a range of opportunities, a key step is to consider what’s changed that makes this a compelling opportunity for you.
Consider What’s Changed And What You Bring To An Opportunity Read More »
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:
Three Great Books on Generating Innovative Business Ideas Read More »
George Gilder address the mental and spiritual elements of entrepreneurship in “Unleash the Mind” defining entrepreneurship as the launching of surprises.
George Gilder: Entrepreneurship is the Launching of Surprises Read More »
An exploration of Neal Stephenson’s suggestion that “whenever serious and competent people need to get things done in the real world, all considerations of tradition and protocol fly out the window.”
Serious and Competent People Read More »
You can fail to live up to your espoused beliefs due to hypocrisy or because the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. The difference is an important distinction and one with implications for the example you set in establishing the culture in a startup. Is there one set of rules that everyone strives
Neal Stephenson on Distinguishing Different Motives for Hypocrisy Read More »
Two excerpts from Neal Stephenson‘s “The Diamond Age” on the importance of culture of a startup or an economic region. These are from pages 24 and 25 and outlines two real life events as a part of the back story of one of the characters in the novel, hyperlinks have been added to provide context.
Neal Stephenson on the Importance of Culture Read More »
Tim Draper, founder of VC firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson, is taking a holistic approach to entrepreneurial education with Draper University in San Mateo.
Draper University of Heroes Takes Holistic Approach to Teaching Entrepreneurship Read More »
The last question in”The First Seven Questions Any Product Plan Should Answer” is What Are You Replacing? Every Product Has Competition But after careful experimentation we learned that most entrepreneurs would instinctively cast themselves in the role of the early bird who gets the worm and say “Nothing. We are brand new!” So we re-phrased
The Early Bird Already Has The Worm Read More »
The fact that your new application was a weekend project is not a feature! I see announcements like We just coded this up last weekend take a look… I wrote this on a Saturday afternoon check it out… We built the tool (over the last few weekends)… I don’t know if it’s Startup Weekend’s original
The Fact That Your App Was a Weekend Project Is Not a Feature Read More »
