Startup Fantasy Camp
Startup Fantasy Camp: throw a group of strangers together for 48-72 hours and have them pretend to be a startup.
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Rules of Thumb
Len Sklar: Be Clear About Payment Terms And Consequences
Len Sklar, author “The Check is NOT in the Mail” has spoken several times at Bootstrapper Breakfasts. Here is a recent talk he gave where he stresses the importance of putting payment terms and the consequences on non-payment in writing, communicating them in advance, and ensuring that they are understood. It all seems so obvious
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The Search for Validation is Baggage, and You Need to Travel Light
Jon Carroll wrote a wonderful column on July 5, 2000 titled “As You Get Older.” The whole thing is worth reading but there is a section that begins “This is your challenge…” that reads like poetry. So I have re-formatted it as blank verse, it contains a number of observations on advice and influence that
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Erecting Barriers to Competition That Are Difficult to Duplicate
Here are some barriers to competition that you can erect that are often difficult to duplicate, or at least duplicate rapidly.
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Tangible Costs, Time, and Pricing to Value
Amazon’s S3 and AWS platforms, and similar on demand storage and computing services, are becoming increasing popular as core infrastructure for software startups. There is a tendency, because the costs are well defined, to base your price on adding a margin to these services. There are three problems with that.
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Six From “A Few Rules That I Try To Live By” by Buster Benson
Buster Benson lists “A few rules that I try to live by” on his “Cultivate the Core” blog post. Here are my top six picks from his list of 17 (the bold wording is Buster’s) with some commentary
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Rehearsal
Rehearsal is key to making a successful presentation. If you can do at least two rehearsals of an important presentation it will pay huge dividends.
Tony Schwartz’s Principles For Fiercely Complex Times
Tony Schwartz offers “Ten Principles For Living in Fiercely Complex Times” that you can “rely on to make choices that reflect openness, integrity and authenticity.” Here are the top three for me: “Emotions are contagious, so it pays to know what you’re feeling.” Tony Schwartz One of the balancing acts of entrepreneurship is control vs.
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What Situation Is Your Team Training For?
What situation is your team training for: the key to effective and rapid execution is appropriate shared rehearsal and training.
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Focus Needs Buffers and Free Time
This is my first day off in about three weeks. A client has been preparing a proposal and presentation for a significant opportunity that they have been invited to compete for and between that and existing obligations it’s been hectic. It’s more clear than ever that focus needs buffers: letting administrative tasks pile up too
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Price, Value, and Your Prospect’s Perception of Risk
Here are a couple of rules of thumb you may find helpful in thinking about price, value, and your prospect’s perception of risk.
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We Use a Wiki to Organize Customer Interviews
Tips for using a wiki to organize customer interviews for customer discovery and to assess perspectives on their offering after purchase.
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Tom Van Vleck’s “3 Questions” Complement Root Cause Analysis
Tom Van Vleck has a great collection of software engineering stories on his site. One particularly good article is “Three Questions For Each Bug That You Find” which offers the following key observation: The key idea behind these questions is that every bug is a symptom of an underlying process. You have to treat the
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Making the Trains Run on Time: Software Release
Making the Trains Run on Time: Software Release I recently took part in a small reunion of folks who worked on the “router software release” team at Cisco in the early years and I took it as an opportunity to jot down some rules of thumb I learned, mostly the hard way, about managing software
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Address A Problem An Industry Promotes In Satisfying A Major Need
There is always a the hill behind the hill. Address the next problem an industry promotes when they have solved a major problem.
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Managing Email Conversations With Customers
A guest post by Edith Harbaugh that offers a number of practical tips and suggestions for managing email conversations with customers.
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Evaluating and Reacting to New Competitors
Intelligently reacting to new competitors requires you to give them the benefit of the doubt but if your prospects or customers are not asking about them then focus on what they are asking you.
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Zero Sum vs. Quid Pro Quo
The essence of entrepreneurship is a free exchange of value–what the Romans called “quid pro quo”–that leaves all parties better off: no one loses.
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Uncertain Times Are The End of an Illusion
Uncertain times may look like a crisis but in reality they mark the end of an illusion that we can predict the future.
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To See Ourselves As Others See Us
To See Ourselves As Others See Us And would some Power the small gift give us To see ourselves as others see us! It would from many a blunder free us, Robert Burns “To a Louse“ It can be very difficult to understand how we appear to others. When I was rehearsing the “2011 New
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