A Primer on Business Assets for High Technology Startups
Are you looking to build a business? No matter the stage you’re at, there are three kinds of business assets you will need to be successful in the long run. […]
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 [...]
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. […]
Octavia Butler: Cultivate Habits That Enable Persistence and Learning
Octavia Butler rejects inspiration, talent, and imagination as essential to creative pursuits and suggests that habits that enable persistence and learning are the essential element. […]
Learning from John Perry Barlow’s Principles of Adult Behavior
When John Perry Barlow turned 30 in 1977 he wrote a set of 25 “Principles of Adult Behavior” that he asked his friends to hold him accountable to. Here are a few I want to incorporate into my life. […]
Design Your MVP In Two Weeks
Design your MVP in two weeks to avoid adding unnecessary features and complexity to your offering. A two-week time box forces you to focus on essentials. […]
Concierge MVP or Service-First Forces You To Be Your Own Test Pilot
A concierge MVP or service -first approach delivers the benefits that your product offers as a service or consulting first, charging for the result not your time. […]
College Graduation: From Traveling Station to Station to Navigating a Borderless Sea
David Brooks offers a metaphor for college graduation as a transition from traveling station to station to navigating a borderless sea. The same can be said for making the transition from employee to entrepreneur. […]
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 [...]
Q: How to Explore an MVP For Knowledge Worker Productivity
Applications that improve knowledge worker productivity have to satisfy “prepared users” not “casual users” and are especially challenge to do customer discovery and development for. With his permission, I have included William Pietri (LinkedIn williampietri) answer to a real question from an early stage entrepreneur because I found it incredibly [...]
Don’t Explore Thoughtland In Interviews
Whether you are interviewing potential employees or potential customers, don’t explore Thoughtland with a focus on predictions and beliefs. Instead, explore actual behavior and prior experience. […]
In the Beginning was the Doodle: Protecting Startup Secrets
Pete Tormey’s ebook “Startup Guide to Intellectual Property: Early Stage Protection of IP” is a great resource for founders on startup intellectual property. This blog post includes excerpts from the “Protecting IP Early” chapter that focus on protecting startup secrets early in its existence. […]
In the Beginning Was the Doodle: Defining Startup Intellectual Property
Pete Tormey’s ebook “Startup Guide to Intellectual Property: Early Stage Protection of IP” is a great resource for founders on startup intellectual property. This blog post includes excerpts from the “Protecting IP Early” Chapter of Pete’s book. They cover some of the basic concepts of intellectual property and how to [...]
A Common MVP Evolution: Service to System Integration to Product
It’s not uncommon for a startup’s offering to evolve from service to system integration to product. Here is an explanation for the reasons and benefits. […]
No Safety in Numbers
This post applies the moral of James Thurber’s “The Fairly Intelligent Fly”–that there is “no safety in numbers, or in anything else”–to entrepreneurship. […]
Q: Forming a Scientific Advisory Board
Q: I am in the process of forming a scientific advisory board for my startup in the healthcare / facility management space and I would welcome any insights or suggestions. […]
Q: When to Incorporate and Options for IP protection
Some quick answers to common questions about how to protect your intellectual property (IP) and when to incorporate. […]
Questions to Answer Before You Start Negotiating
Here are some questions to ask yourself before you start negotiating a complex business relationship: for example a software license, SaaS subscription, or a reseller or OEM relationship. Entire books are written on negotiation, I am trying to highlight some questions that can get overlooked. […]
Elena Krasnoperova on “Learning Hacks for Bootstrappers” Fri-Dec-2
Elena Krasnoperova has been a regular attendee at the Silicon Valley Bootstrappers Breakfasts® for more than three years and I was delighted when she accepted my invitation to be a featured attendee and talk about her entrepreneurial journey. She plans to share some heuristics for learning faster than your competition and [...]