Six Activities for Learning New Skills and Tools
Real life often presents entrepreneurs with a new problem or opportunity, so they find themselves learning new skills and tools on the fly.
4 Finding your Niche
“The Ship that Never Was” from “Skunk Works” by Ben R. Rich
“Skunk Works” by Ben R. Rich is a worthy sequel to Kelly Johnson’s “Kelly: More Than My Share of It All.” It brings the story of the Lockheed Skunkworks, founded by Johnson, up to 1995. There are a number of lessons for technology entrepreneurs.
What to Do When You Are Asking Yourself, “Is My Product Meh?”
Entrepreneurs often ask themselves “Is my product meh?” out of a fear of making a fool of themselves. Here are some objectives questions to ask yourself to get a more balanced perspective on your situation.
Be Open Kimono With Partners
Work with trusted partners open kimono: disclose relevant financials, plans, and internal processes to increase synergy. Play a long game.
A Practical Introduction to Social Capital for Entrepreneurs
This is a practical overview of social capital, an essential concept for ent despite being hard to measure. I offer suggestions for growing your business network, and enhancing your reputation, explaining why increasing social capital creates value for your startup.
Interview with Patricia Watkins on Managing Sales In a Downturn
This is a ten minute interview (audio and edited transcript) I did with with Patricia Watkins on July 24-2020. Patrica is an experienced salesperson and sales executive who’s been helping companies drive sales for more than two decades. We discuss some of the challenges you need to manage during a major economic disruption. We look …
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40 Tips for B2B Customer Development Interviews
This post on B2B customer development interviews builds on one of my most popular. If you would like help preparing for customer development interviews or reviewing results from recent interviews, contact us. Here are my lessons learned from taking part in interviews where the startup planned to offer a product or service to a business. …
Benefits of SKMurphy Mastermind for Entrepreneurs
An SKMurphy Mastermind Group is an ongoing series of facilitated conversations among serious entrepreneurs. It enables collaboration on problems and opportunities and fosters joint accountability around effective ongoing action.
Serge Toarca Offers Three Reasons To Bootstrap In a Small Market
Serge Toarca offers three good reasons to consider starting in a smaller market in “Why the hell am I building a product with a tiny market?” I offer another ten.
Innovation is the first reduction to practice of an idea in a culture
Entrepreneurs need to focus on innovation or the first reduction to practice of an idea in a culture because this is the critical precursor to customer value.
Hiten Shah: Four Lessons I Learned Squandering My Opportunity at KISSMetrics
In “My Billion Dollar Mistake” Hiten Shah shares four lessons he learned from the early successes and ultimate eclipse of KISSMetrics.
Do You Ever Get the Feeling That Everything You Know is Wrong?
My longer answer to “Do you ever get the feeling that everything you know is wrong?” The short answer is “yes, every few years.”
Professional Services Innovation: Customer Insight, Expertise, and Technology
Professional services innovation requires deepening your understanding of customer needs and emerging problem areas, deepening expertise, and incorporating technology and specialized tools into service delivery.
Qualitative Research: Problem Exploration for Lean Startups
Key points from Mary Sorber’s presentation on “Qualitative Research: Problem Exploration for Lean Startups” at Lean Culture July-31-2018.
Hotels near October 2018 Great Demo! Workshop
The October 2018 Great Demo! Workshop at Embassy Suites by Hilton in Milpitas that past attendees have stayed at and enjoyed. A list of other nearby hotels.
What to Expect at a Bootstrappers Breakfast
A Bootstrappers Breakfast is “counter-cultural” to the VC ecosystem focus at many events for entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley. Here are seven ways that we take a very different approach to facilitating events for entrepreneurs compared to most others in Silicon Valley.
Suhail Doshi: Avoid These Seven Temptations as a First Time Founder
Suhail Doshi, founder of Mixpanel, shared a candid assessment of mistakes he made in the first 18 months of the six startups he has founded in “The first 18 months of starting a company: it’s life or death.” Here are 7 key pieces of advice that highlight mistakes first founders typically make.
Scouting a Promising Market: Sending Spies Into Canaan
The difference between scouting a new market and scouting a promising market is that the former may not exist–or come into existence–while the latter clearly exists because it’s already occupied.
Q: How Do I Make Sure I Understand The Customer’s Problem and Present a Vision of a Solution?
Customer development–discovery driven sales–requires that you first understand the customer’s problem then present a vision of a solution. If that is acceptable you can proceed to a demonstration that provides technical proof of value.
Combine Clear Goals with Delegation Based on Expertise for High Impact
I re-read “Up the Organization” by Robert Townsend and was struck by how many of his insights were still applicable. The first chapter offers a recipe for breakthrough impact: combine clear goals with delegation based on expertise.