You can fail to live up to your espoused beliefs due to hypocrisy or because the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. The difference is an important distinction and one with implications for the example you set in establishing the culture in a startup. Is there one set of rules that everyone strives […]
Neal Stephenson on Distinguishing Different Motives for Hypocrisy Read More »
Two excerpts from Neal Stephenson‘s “The Diamond Age” that have implications for the culture of a startup or an economic region. These are from pages 24 and 25 and outlines two real life events as a part of the back story of one of the characters in the novel, hyperlinks have been added to provide
Neal Stephenson on the Importance of Culture Read More »
Tim Draper, founder of the VC firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson, is taking a holistic approach to entrepreneurial education with his “Draper University for Heroes” in San Mateo. Here is a promo video from the school’s website. [vimeo clip_id=”45872530″ width=”400″ height=”300″ frameborder=”0″] In a planning document submitted to the City of San Mateo on March 16,
Draper University of Heroes Takes Holistic Approach to Teaching Entrepreneurship Read More »
The last question in”The First Seven Questions Any Product Plan Should Answer” is What Are You Replacing? Every Product Has Competition But after careful experimentation we learned that most entrepreneurs would instinctively cast themselves in the role of the early bird who gets the worm and say “Nothing. We are brand new!” So we re-phrased
The Early Bird Already Has The Worm Read More »
The fact that your new application was a weekend project is not a feature! I see announcements like We just coded this up last weekend take a look… I wrote this on a Saturday afternoon check it out… We built the tool (over the last few weekends)… I don’t know if it’s Startup Weekend’s original
The Fact That Your App Was a Weekend Project Is Not a Feature Read More »
Building the “wrong product” is not a waste of time you learn about the market and technical feasibility. Right and wrong are both gray, not black or white. Customer development and technical development typically require a sequence of prototypes that are “less wrong” over time under they become good enough.
Q: Is Building The Wrong Product A Waste Of Time? Read More »
Entrepreneurs need a community of practice to improve their skills, not a movement they can join as a fad. I don’t consider myself a disciple or part of a movement. I consider myself a practitioner. I am a huge fan of Saras Sarasvathy, Clayton Christensen, Peter Drucker, Gary Klein, and Gerald Weinberg.
Entrepreneurs Need a Community of Practice Not a Movement Read More »
Marcelo Rinesi writes on the implications of the “expertise light speed barrier” of ten years of focused practice to become an expert. He observes that if “we manage to defeat the ‘expertise light speed barrier’ and find ways to teach and learn much more effective than anything before, it would have an astounding impact on
Marcelo Rinesi: The Expertise Light Speed Barrier Read More »
Today many change initiatives (and new software sales almost always involve the key elements of a change initiative) rely on interviews and replicating the results from an existing “manual system.” Processes mining tools and techniques will play an important role here.
Enterprise Change Agents Need to Add Process Mining to Their Bag of Tricks Read More »
Entrepreneurs must learn that managing rejection is a requirement from the moment they commit to getting started. I could argue that you have not started until you have been rejected.
Getting Started and Managing Rejection Read More »
This is Sean Murphy for SKMurphy, Inc. I want to talk to you about our startup stages model and understanding that risk reducing milestones that separate each stage. We break the startup journey into five stages. In each stage you will explore different options and converge on a key risk reducing milestone. Starting from idea
Startup Stages Overview Video Read More »
The first observation of a new insight is often published in a lab notebook or personal journal or as notes from a meeting that captured an anecdote. Self-publishing often marks the first generation of new knowledge because “new” is often hard to comprehend and not accepted by the status quo or established publication channels. If
Self-Publishing Often Marks The First Generation of New Knowledge Read More »
“Unhappy users in our industry don’t continue to file bug reports; they start writing business plans.” Michael “Mac” McNamara talking about the EDA Industry I was reminded of this remark that Mac made at an SDForum event several years ago as I was reading the “Who Are User Entrepreneurs?” study which summarizes findings on innovation,
Bug Reports vs. Business Plans Read More »
Last week was a thought provoking one for me with Big Data Camp on Mon February 27, a “Great Demo” workshop on February 29, and a tour of the Strata 2012 exhibit hall on March 1. I encountered either examples or stories of visualizations that required hundreds to thousands of CPU hours to create at
A Picture Is Worth a Thousand CPU Hours Read More »
Alberto Savoia defines pretotyping as determining that you are “building the right product before you invest in building your product right.” His book “Pretotype It” (Second Edition available as a Free PDF or on Kindle for $0.99) lists a set of seven techniques for pretotyping on pages 39-40. This post analyzes and elaborates on the techniques
Pretotyping – Techniques for Building the Right Product Read More »
Startups originate in the mind of an entrepreneur, often as the result of observing something that seems odd, or is the result of juxtaposing two or three seeming unrelated or even incongruous ideas. The first challenge the entrepreneur faces turn his insight into something others can critique and improve upon: to show them sketches of
Sketching The Likeness Of An Imaginary Business Read More »
Here are three common questions technical entrepreneurs have for potential co-founders.
3 Questions Technical Entrepreneurs Have For Potential Co-Founders Read More »
On Wed-Feb-22 at Noon PST the Book Club For Business Impact covered lessons learned applying a number of techniques for associating from chapter 2 of the “Innovator’s DNA” by Jeff Dyer, Hal Gregersen, and Clayton Christensen.
Associating, Pattern Matching, and Sensemaking Read More »
Innovative user interfaces have helped a number of products get adopted. These are three examples–interview, treemap, and tornado chart–may help to stimulate your thinking.
Better Interfaces: Interview, Treemap, Tornado Chart Read More »
Perfectionism vs. Mastery Mastery’s great accomplishments require time and a willingness to release a sequence of prototypes. Perfectionism means you don’t ship until it’s perfect. Which means you never ship or what you ship has not learned from problems or needs that only visible post deployment. Randall Munroe’s “The General Problem” embeds this observation: “I
Perfectionism vs. Mastery Read More »
