Newsletter: Pricing to Value
Our September/October 2016 newsletter explores different aspects of the challenge pricing to value: setting the price of your product based on the value that it offers a prospect.
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skmurphy
13 Tips For Getting Up Early and Arriving Early
I like getting up early and arriving early. But I find the hours late at night can unlock a lot of creativity so I often get up late unless I schedule something early. I also like working up to the last possible moment–what is it about the last few minutes before you have to leave that are
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Working in Silence
I can be very productive with a certain amount of background noise. I find it easier to write if there is music playing or if I am in a moderately noisy coffee house where many conversations are going on in the background. But when I really need to think hard about a problem or a
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More Unsolicited Advice From David Cain
David Cain has many thoughtful and carefully observed posts on his blog “Raptitude: Getting Better at Being Human.” Here are excerpts from three posts that offer practical advice for entrepreneurs.
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12 From Sydney J. Harris’ “Winners and Losers” For Entrepreneurs
Sydney J. Harris was a journalist and newspaper columnist who wrote “Winners and Losers” in 1973. This slim 120 page volume packs a number of insights. I have selected a dozen that I thought were most applicable for entrepreneurs.
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Stephanie Shateria: How To Look and Feel Authentic On Camera
Key takeaways from a talk today by Stephanie Shaterian on at Women in Consulting event on “How To Look and Feel Authentic On Camera”
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15 Years After 9-11, Four After Benghazi
15 years after the 9-11-2001 attack on New York that left some 3,000 Americans dead and 4 years after the 9-11-2012 attack on a US diplomatic mission in Benghazi left four dead including a US ambassador it’s time for a look back. As to what difference this may make, George Santayana advises “those who cannot
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IVALA Joins Forces With VIN
I am delighted that Taimur Alavi and the team at IVALA are joining forces with VIN the Veterinary Information Network. They have bootstrapped a significant amount of progress and I think VIN will provide the resources to accelerate not only the development of innovative applications and their reputation for excellence will encourage the spread of IVALA’s technology into
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Constructive Pessimism
Constructive Pessimism: to anticipate problems you have to be willing to acknowledge their possibility and look for them. Many entrepreneurs who are naturally optimistic make a serious mistake in discouraging pessimistic thinking instead of putting it to good use. The clever utilization of constructive pessimism is one of the keys to success.
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A Half-Fast Entrepreneur with Half-Vast Experience
Some thoughts on the half-fast entrepreneur with half-vast experience. Any resemblance to the author or the reader is purely coincidental.
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Managing Change in an Organization: An Incomplete Resource List
Some models I like for change management in organizations. Startup entrepreneurs frequently have to navigate the challenges managing change as a part of the sales process. Intrapreneurs should find this list useful as well. I welcome any suggestions for additions, refinements, or improvements.
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Key Questions to Answer Before Adding A Feature to Niche Software
A niche software supplier provides expertise and functionality that individual firms in an industry would find more expensive to develop on their own. Managing the feature content and evolution of the feature set requires that a reasonable fraction (for example at least 30-40%) of the customer base needs the feature so that they feel they
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Choosing the Right Targets and Metrics
The targets that founders set for a startup, and the metrics they choose to measure their progress toward these targets, are key decisions in the definition of the business. The wrong targets–in particular selecting only targets that are easily achievable–will not only postpone difficult choices that will bring clarity but may doom a team from
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Interview With Ben Yoskovitz on Highline BETA
An interview with Ben Yoskovitz on his recently launched Highline BETA, a new Toronto “startup co-creation company” that works with large companies to identify areas of opportunity, recruit founders, provide pre-seed capital, and co-create new startups.
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Five Tips For Activating Your Network of Relationships
A startups social capital, the network of relationships that the founders have with friends, former co-workers and associates, and friends of friends represent a key resource for the team. It’s possible to activate this network to help you solve a variety of problems–e.g. finding a cofounder, finding early employees, finding contractors, finding early customers, finding investors,
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The Sandbar in the River of Time
In “Pale Grey for Guilt,” John D. MacDonald suggests that we are born onto a sandbar in the river of time and die when we lose our footing and float with the current downstream.
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Citizen Science: An Open Source Model For Collaboration
Some excerpts from insightful remarks by Dr. Jessica Richman in “Citizen Science and Mapping the Microbiome” that I use as points of departure for additional commentary on open source models for collaboration.
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Extracting Insights From A Competitor’s Software Demo
Edited remarks from a presentation at the Silicon Valley Society for Competitive Analysis on Tue-May-24-2016 on “Extracting Insights From A Competitor’s Software Demo.”
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Hard Drive: Seven Practices I Used to Launch a Successful Startup
This article explores the specific experiences of an entrepreneur (who uses the pseudonym “Hard Drive,” a nickname he earned early in his career for his tenacity and decisiveness) and lessons learned bootstrapping a high-tech software as a service business in the social media space. His sustained efforts enabled him to raise $40,000 in angel funding,
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Q: Making Effective Use Of Your Advisory Board
To make effective use of your advisory board you have to provide them written material in advance that offers context on your situation and the questions you want to explore with them.
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