Q: Should I Tap My 401K To Bootstrap?
Q: Should I tap my 401K to bootstrap my startup? A: No, and read Barry Moltz’s “You Have to Be a Little Crazy” on the risks of money from friends and family.
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Startup Advice Column
Q: How To Evaluate Acquiring a Small Software Firm
We recently helped a client frame the exploration of an opportunity for acquiring a small software firm. Here are some questions to consider if you are contemplating the sale or acquisition of small software company.
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Q: How To Find Help Selling Professional Services
Q: My software consultancy has reached the point of needing to hire someone to help manage the sales pipeline. I’ve hired all kinds of technical related folks, but never for sales.
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Q: Is Veterinary Marketing A Viable Approach To Market Exploration?
Entrepreneurs who limit themselves to what they could learn if their prospects lacked the power of speech adopt what I call a veterinary marketing model. It’s not a viable approach to market exploration.
Q: Is Veterinary Marketing A Viable Approach To Market Exploration? Read More »
Q: How Do I Interest People In My Product?
Q: We have a product for bloggers but I am having a lot of trouble getting leads. I have met bloggers from popular media companies at events, I have cold called them, e-mailed them, and e-mailed to on-line groups that I am a member of. None of this has worked. How do I interest people
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Crafting a Value Proposition
Q: I struggle with the value proposition for our product. Either I am too abstract “we offer a positive return on time invested” or too vague “help increase your ability to manage critical challenges.” Do you have any suggestions for how to frame or formulate a value proposition? Here a few questions that a value
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Q: Is It Waste To Build A B2B MVP That Inspires Trust?
A minimum viable product (MVP) for business must inspire trust. If prospects understand your promise they don’t believe you, they won’t buy.
Q: Is It Waste To Build A B2B MVP That Inspires Trust? Read More »
Q: What Are Critical Tasks In A Startup?
Critical tasks in a startup include conversations with prospects and customers, planning, retrospectives, recruiting, and focused execution.
Q: What Are Critical Tasks In A Startup? Read More »
Q: How Do I Calculate Business Model Parameters For A Novel Product?
While truly new markets have no history, their business model parameters can be estimated by what they replace or substitute for.
Q: How Do I Calculate Business Model Parameters For A Novel Product? Read More »
Q: Side Payment Requested In Negotiation
It’s best to act as if everything that you do in a negotiation will become fully know to all of the parties involved or affected by your actions.
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Q: How to Apply Lean Innovation Methods To Regulated Industries?
Q: My research focused on the assessment of atherosclerosis in coronary arteries using Computed Tomography examinations as the imaging modality. I have looked at various aspects of atherosclerosis such as volume scores, automatic extraction of anatomical structures, plaque detection, dual energy CT and plaque distribution patterns. I am new to the lean innovation methods and am
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Q: Is the Prisoners Dilemma A Good Model for Doing Business?
The prisoners dilemma thought experiment that posits a single isolated transaction as the entire relationship does not offer a good model for business and dealing with prospects, customers, partners, suppliers, employees, or really anyone. Q: Is the Prisoners Dilemma A Good Model for Doing Business? Q: I am currently working on a degree in Computer
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Q: We Already Have a Prototype, Can We Still Do Customer Development?
Product-market fit is not a ratchet: competitive response, new entrants, changes in technology and customer preference require ongoing customer development. You will need to continue to do customer development–and customer discovery for that matter–even after you have a first prototype, an MVP, early customers, and an established niche. Markets and competitors don’t stand still, no
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Q: Pricing Professional Services
Q: I am starting a service business that will help clients with advertising and search engine marketing but I am not sure how to price my services. Do you have any suggestions for how to look at pricing professional services?
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Q: How To Speed Up Early Trials, Adoption, and Sales
Early trials allow you to tune your message, adjust your view and selection criteria for a target customer, and refine your feature set.
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Q: How Much Effort Should I Invest in Automated Testing For An MVP?
Q: I have worked on large enterprise software systems but am now struggling working at a startup creating a Minimum Viable Product (MVP). I am a big believer in BDD and TDD, so I’ve developed an automated testing suite for the MVP that has high coverage and great specifications describing and asserting its behaviors in
Q: How Much Effort Should I Invest in Automated Testing For An MVP? Read More »
Q: How Much Attention Should I Pay To Potential Competition?
Instead of looking left and right for potential competition, I would walk around the table and look at the situation from your prospect’s perspective.
Q: How Much Attention Should I Pay To Potential Competition? Read More »
Q: Can We Launch First and Ask Customer Discovery Questions Later?
Don’t do a big launch before you have get answers to your customer discovery questions or you are running a very expensive test of your key customer and market hypotheses.
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Q: Should I Persevere With My Product Or Get A Job?
One question entrepreneurs ask themselves is whether to persevere or get a job. What follows is an email exchange that has been edited into a Q&A.
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Q: Resources For A Lean Approach to Sales, In Particular New Product Introduction
Q: We have started selling and are looking for resources for a lean approach to sales, in particular for new product introduction. Lean Approach To Sales at Lean Startup Conference 2012 Scott Sambucci and I presented a workshop at Lean Startup 2012 on “Engineering Your Sales Process.” The deck is posted at http://www.slideshare.net/SalesQualia/engineering-your-sales-process About 70%
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