I use LinkedIn very differently than many of the folks I meet when I am out and about in Silicon Valley. I normally only link to people I have had shared success with. I do not link with folks who I have just casually met. I believe it’s important to keep track of folks I […]
Six Simple Suggestions for Using LinkedIn Read More »
A blog post from October 2006 “Administrivia in Startups” made the following points I had lunch with Sylvia Nessan, a veteran of Synopsys, CoWare, and several high tech startups and she made an observation that I thought was worth writing down: the founding team, and CEO in particular, don’t pay enough attention to how much
Administrivia Revisited Read More »
Many entrepreneurs planning their first software startup get stuck on funding and ownership issues. Here are some simple rules of thumb that may help you reframe an issue: Revenue, especially break even revenue, is never dilutive of your ownership. The right co-founders, while dilutive, substantially increase your chances of success: they give you a smaller
8 Tips for Evaluating Funding Alternatives Read More »
If you want to find any typos, misspellings, grammatical errors, or sentences with missing words we have found the quickest way is to take a final look at the copy after the hard copy is back from the printers. Errors that eluded your notice (and those of the client, independent proof reader, and the rest
Tip For Finding Typos Read More »
I very much enjoyed the opportunity to present our startup stages model and the “Software Startup Maturity Checklist” at Silicon Valley Code Camp today. I have posted the slides here.
“Startup Maturity Checklist” Slides From Today’s SVCC Session Read More »
Younger entrepreneurs bring several advantages to startups: a willingness to innovate, tolerance for failure, and a native facility with new technologies. “Action springs not from thought, but from a readiness for responsibility.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Three Advantages of Younger Entrepreneurs in B2B Startups Read More »
Lost in an all too frequent age discrimination promoted by many investors are some key advantages older entrepreneurs can offer a B2B startup: connections and social capital that can find early customers, domain knowledge, and patience.
Three Advantages of Older Entrepreneurs in B2B Startups Read More »
I blogged about mass E-Mails in “Please Take Me Off Of Your E-Mail Distribution List” in Sep-2007 but I got the following E-Mail recently which gave me some pause (names change to protect the repentant). Hi Sean, How is your summer going? Things are going great here at [XYZ Co]–in the past couple of quarters
Send Personal E-Mail Read More »
High availability is often expressed as “nines”, or the percentage of availability in a year. Six nines is 99.9999% uptime or no more than 31.5 seconds of downtime in a year.
Achieving “Six Nines” When You Launch Read More »
Both engineering and entrepreneurship alternate exploration and verification cycles to develop a solution that satisfies a customer’s need. Both of these rely on the scientific method of “observation, hypothesis formation, prediction, and experimentation” to develop and validate testable theories, engineering solutions, and profitable products. Both require that a new configuration or an opportunity be recognized
The Limits of “I Will Know It When I See It” Read More »
There is never enough time to do everything you have to do. While you should always seek to be more productive, the reality is that you have to focus for effect: priorities trump productivity.
Priorities Trump Productivity Read More »
One formulation of Conway’s Law is that communication problems in an organization will manifest in their finished products: communication channels matter.
Conway’s Law: the Co-Evolution of Business Organization and Product Design Read More »
Key takeaways from “Eight Rules for Prototyping” by John Hanks and Todd Dobberstein. A prototype is used both to assess technical feasibility and to provide a demonstration to a customer to get feedback. Customer development is a sequence of prototypes.
Customer Development is a Sequence of Prototypes Read More »
Cecily Drucker, CEO and Founder of Bottom Line Time–and daughter of the late Peter Drucker–has a good post up on the “What Would Dad Say” blog entitled “Secrets of a 64 year old Startup Virgin” that lists fourteen startup secrets she has learned with her first startup. She has a few more insights in her introduction
Cecily Drucker’s Startup Secrets Read More »
Be Here Now When Giving a Talk I spent Monday through Wednesday of this week at O’Reilly ETech and was struck by how infrequently the audience met the presenter’s expectations. We rarely seemed to be large enough. Since this is about emerging trends I picked a number of oddball sessions and saw the same reaction
Be Here Now When Giving a Talk Read More »
Yesterday’s post talked about traction as the ability to set and hit goals. Here are three tests for goals to determine if they well-formed for your startup team.
Three Tests For Goals Read More »
Networking is good questions, listening, and helping others. Carry more than your own card. Connect folks who will benefit from talking.
Three Things I’ve Learned About Networking Read More »
Three Answers We Need Before We Will Use a New Productivity App Do You Have a Pricing Model? We use many web applications to run our business and deliver services. Often our clients are also users of the application. If the application has a problem our clients hold us accountable. We need to see a
Three Answers We Need Before We Will Use a New Productivity App Read More »
Five tips for end of year planning for startup entrepreneurs. As the year draws to a close dates in calendar are closer than they appear.
Last Full Work Week of 2008: Tips for End of Year Planning Read More »
Last December Michael Arrington wrote “The Twice Shy Entrepreneur” lamenting that entrepreneurs like himself who had lived through the dotcom meltdown were more cautious. They were “once bitten, twice shy.”
Michael Arrington “Twice Shy” One Year Later Read More »
