skmurphy Archives - Page 56 of 83

Isaac Garcia on “Bootstrapping Central Desktop” at Feb-11 BB in Milpitas

Events, Founder Story, Funding, skmurphy / By Sean Murphy / January 19, 2011

Isaac Garcia, co-founder and CEO of Central Desktop, will share “Lessons Learned Bootstrapping Central Desktop” at the Milpitas Bootstrappers Breakfast® on February 11, 2011 at 7:30am. Central Desktop delivers a SaaS collaboration platform that helps businesses manage projects and documents in the cloud with colleagues, customers and partners. Isaac Garcia (@isaacgarcia) oversees business strategy and […]

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Zero Sum vs. Quid Pro Quo

1 Idea Stage, Rules of Thumb, skmurphy, Startups / By Sean Murphy / January 18, 2011

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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Ogden Lilly at Sunnyvale Bootstrappers Breakfast Tue-Jan-18

Events, skmurphy / By Sean Murphy / January 17, 2011

Join other entrepreneurs who eat problems for breakfast® 7:30am to 9am at Coco’s in Sunnyvale tomorrow. Ogden Lilly from Boitano, Sargent and Lilly, LLP is attending tomorrow’s Bootstrapper Breakfast® to answer questions on accounting and tax issues for startups. Boitano, Sargent, and Lilly has been serving Silicon Valley businesses for six decades, Ogden is a

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Drifting 2

Rules of Thumb, skmurphy / By Sean Murphy / January 11, 2011

Jeroen Bakker sent in a great list of suggestions as a follow up to last week’s “Drifting” post.

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New Capabilities We Plan To Develop in 2011

5 Scaling Up Stage, skmurphy, Tools for Startups / By Sean Murphy / January 9, 2011

To ensure that conversations and requests for help were productive, Anthony Scampavia kept a question at the top of his whiteboard in his various offices at Cisco for more than a dozen years: What is the problem you are trying to solve? Here are three problems we have identified and capabilities we plan to develop

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Early Adopters Have Already Let Go of the Past

Customer Development, skmurphy / By Sean Murphy / January 7, 2011

“We didn’t know what “the new” was. It’s kind of a hard concept because when most people talk about “the new,” they’re actually talking about it after the fact. They look back and say how brilliant you were at seeing all this, and so forth. Well, it’s all nonsense. When it is new, you don’t

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Always

Rules of Thumb, skmurphy / By Sean Murphy / January 6, 2011

“Always trust your client—and cut the cards.” Weinberg’s Sixth Rule of Trust Always be collecting data. Always be collecting multiple perspectives. “Always Be Collecting Data” The rule of ABCD “In God We Trust, All Others Bring Data” attributed to W. Edwards Deming Possibly a riff on “In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash” In

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So…What’s Your Story?

Blogging, skmurphy / By Sean Murphy / January 4, 2011

What’s your story? Entrepreneurs get asked variations of this question a lot: the most important answer is the one they tell themselves.

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Drifting

Rules of Thumb, skmurphy / By Sean Murphy / January 3, 2011

It’s useful to think very deeply about a situation but beyond a certain level of effort or length of time you need to do some drifting and recharge. I think you need a mental circuit breaker for detecting an impasse and triggering activities that can lead to a change in perspective.

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Take Time to Walk Around The Problem

Customer Development, skmurphy / By Sean Murphy / January 2, 2011

It’s rare for a new initiative to work the first time, at least when I try. I have to “walk around the problem” to look at it from different perspectives.

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Quotes For Entrepreneurs–December 2010

Quotes, skmurphy / By Sean Murphy / December 31, 2010

You can follow @skmurphy to get these quotes for entrepreneurs hot off the mojo wire or wait until the end of the month when they are collected on the blog. Enter your E-mail if you would like new blog posts to your inbox.

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The Snow Lay Round About, Deep and Crisp and Even

Events, skmurphy / By Sean Murphy / December 26, 2010

One of the things it took me a long time for me to get used to living in Silicon Valley was the lack of snow. Not snow that you could visit in places like Tahoe but snow that visited you. A few years have seen snow in the foothills but nothing like winter mornings in

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Let Men Their Songs Employ

2 Open for Business Stage, skmurphy / By Sean Murphy / December 25, 2010

I have been thinking about different kinds of teams and team work. For example a choir has sheet music (“Let Men Their Songs Employ”) that predefines the content and timing of each person’s contribution. In a different way the script for a play outlines the content and sequence of each actor’s part.

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Best Wishes For a Happy and Prosperous 2011

skmurphy, Video / By Sean Murphy / December 24, 2010

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If Money Doesn’t Change Hands, You Can’t Call a User a Customer

2 Open for Business Stage, 3 Early Customer Stage, Favorites, Sales, skmurphy / By Sean Murphy / December 23, 2010

Here is another excerpt from my September interview with Gabriel Weinberg. This one focuses on why payment and testimonials are so important to differentiate users from actual customers.

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Quotes On The Limitations of Cleverness

Quotes, skmurphy / By Sean Murphy / December 21, 2010

A couple of quotes for entrepreneurs on the limitations of cleverness. Don’t just be clever, be kind and make things of beauty with care.

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Keeping the Ball Rolling With Prospects

2 Open for Business Stage, 3 Early Customer Stage, 4 Finding your Niche, Consulting Business, Customer Development, Sales, skmurphy / By Sean Murphy / December 13, 2010

Keeping the ball rolling with prospects requires a mix of empathy for their situation and a project management mindset.

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Quick Thoughts on Selling For Software Engineers

3 Early Customer Stage, Rules of Thumb, Sales, skmurphy / By Sean Murphy / December 9, 2010

Some quick thoughts on selling for software engineers. Sell results, not method. Land and Expand. Get clarity on the customer’s view of the problem. Listen.

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Fun Getting More Customers Workshop Today

skmurphy / By Theresa Shafer / December 8, 2010

We have a very fun group of entrepreneurs today in the workshop. Every time we give our workshops, I learn so much from our attendees. Today, I learned about a couple of new tools I am planning to check out: Small business CRM http://batchblue.com/ Demandbase http://www.demandbase.com/ I also was given the idea to use twitter

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Orienting, Observing, Doing Homework, and Paying Dues

Rules of Thumb, skmurphy / By Sean Murphy / December 7, 2010

Paying dues–putting the time in not only to understand but master a problem or situation–is a critical element of success in many circumstances.

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