Technology markets look like a game of rock paper scissors. Startups have to find an effective counter to a competitor’s offering not just a slightly better version. Their pebble cannot beat the incumbent’s rock, they have to use paper (and scissors is a really bad idea).
Rock Paper Scissors Read More »
In your early customer discovery conversations to assess demand for a new offering a wide range of customer needs and symptoms can trigger a leap to a solution, which just happens to be yours. Guard against this by probing to understand the root problem–have at least three questions that allow you to dig out the
How To Test Your Leap To A Solution Read More »
SKMurphy December 2015 Newsletter This blog post summarizes our December newsletter, you can subscribe to the monthly SKMurphy newsletter using the form at the right Retrospectives, Post Mortems, and After Action Reviews The end of year is always a good time to look back and assess what you have accomplished and what you have learned doing
Newsletter: Retrospectives, Post Mortems, and After Action Reviews Read More »
Scott Robertson had a great post up last month on how to make content marketing work: be relevant, be different, be real, be useful, and be consistent. Here are some excerpts along with additional thoughts and commentary.
Scott Robertson Offers Five Tips on Content Marketing Read More »
LinkedIn allows you to post a professional profile and accept professional recommendations, and perform searches of the professional profiles of others you are considering doing business with. But with groups and posts it aspires to host content and be your first stop every morning. The risk is that it can become a time sink.
Don’t Let LinkedIn Become a Time Sink Read More »
SKMurphy Newsletter for October 2015 This blog post summarizes our October newsletter, you can subscribe to the monthly SKMurphy newsletter using the form at the right Customer Interviews Customer Discovery interviews are key to discovering whether or not a market exists for your product or service and the skills and questions you hone in the early
Newsletter: Customer Discovery Interviews Read More »
Michael J. Riordan is a certified public accountant who has been in business in San Jose for more than 35 years. He gave a crisp briefing on “Bootstrapping a Service Business” at the Thursday Oct 8 PATCA meeting. He gave a great set of tips, here are my notes:
8 Tips For Bootstrapping A Service Business Read More »
Roderick Huiskamp (@RoderickH) is a Strategic Marketing Analyst with Fedex in Belgium. In this guest post he offers five ways to explore pricing, with three additional suggestions for the special case of professional services.
Roderick Huiskamp: Five Ways to Explore Pricing Read More »
Randy Cadieux, founder of V-Speed LLC, started to post some interesting articles in the Lean Startup Circle Group on LinkedIn in June of this year, in particular his “Working on the Edge of Failure.” The high reliability organization as a lot to teach startups so I decided to reach out to him to compare notes. This led
Scaling Up To a High Reliability Organization Read More »
I recently did an in depth interview with Jen Berkley Jackson of The Insight Advantage on primary research tools. Jen works with companies to help them make sure that they understand their customers better than any competitor or potential competitor. Her firm performs primary research for clients, using a variety of tools to gather information
Primary Research Tools: Q&A With Jen Berkley Jackson Read More »
In Chapter 9 of “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance,” Robert Pirsig goes into an extended explanation of the Scientific Method using the metaphor of motorcycle repair. He stresses the value of an experiment log, explaining how to organize it so that you don’t become lost in exploring for solutions to a problem. I have
Organizing Your Experiment Log Read More »
It’s easy to mis-assess who your real competition is. We worry the most about competition that cares deeply. “You’re competing against people in a state of flow, people who are truly committed, people who care deeply about the outcome.” Seth Godin in “Texting While Working“
Be Wary of Competition That Cares Deeply Read More »
It’s masturbation to calculate the exit value of idea that has not been reduced to practice and achieved some level of traction. The real question is how much time and effort to invest to achieve a level of traction that would allow place a value on the business that leverages the ideas. Often it’s not a
Q: How Can I Calculate The Exit Value Of My Idea? Read More »
It’s OK to solve your own problem first, to be the first customer. This at a minimum gets the idea out of your head and reduced to practice where it can be tested. The trick is to use this basic product to spark further discussions about the problem you solved, no your solution.
Q: Can I Be My First Customer? Read More »
Two extracts from “The Poet at the Breakfast Table” by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. on intellect and character, with additional commentary for entrepreneurs.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. on Intellect and Character Read More »
Ash Maurya rebooted his blog as “The Space Between“–experimental format where he is exploring the space between ideas–and has offered a number of short reflective posts. Here are excerpts from three where he explores the value of planning and reflection, and the need to prioritize learning over the illusion of progress.
Planning and Reflection Read More »
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.
Q: Should I Tap My 401K To Bootstrap? Read More »
Much has been written about a startup making a pivot in direction after Eric Ries first coined the term in a 2009 blog post “Pivot don’t Jump to a New Vision.” The word pivot has attracted almost as much wordplay as the word lean. What follows is a short list of good and bad reasons to
Good and Bad Reasons to Pivot Read More »
Larry Smith is an Economics Professor of Economics at the University of Waterloo who writes and lectures on Entrepreneurship, innovation, and Technology markets. What follows is part of a conversation he had with Alan Quarry in the AQ’s Blog & Grill series of interviews with entrepreneurs. His key point, that he makes in a somewhat cranky fashion, is that technology
Larry Smith: Fail Fast, Fail Often, and Die Read More »
With the 2016 school year getting ready to start in the next six to eight weeks at most colleges and universities I have had several conversations with student entrepreneur organizations about how I might be able to help them. I have developed content and given talks and webinars over the last five years that may provide
Resources for Student Entrepreneur Organizations Read More »
