Startup Stages

Flower Sidewalk

Entrepreneurs Exploit Errors in Conventional Wisdom

Four excerpts on how entrepreneurs exploit errors in conventional wisdom. The first two are from a Feb-8-2001 public forum that was part of BusinessWeek’s “Captains of Industry” series, where Oracle Corp. CEO Lawrence J. Ellison sat down with Editor-in-Chief Stephen B. Shepard. The last two are from Peter Thiel’s CS183 class lecture on secrets.

Entrepreneurs Exploit Errors in Conventional Wisdom Read More »

5 Ways To Start Customer Discovery Interviews

Customer discovery interviews are essential to testing key B2B product hypotheses and understanding your target customers’ needs. Broadly there are five ways that you can reach out to potential customers for a discovery conversation. All of them assume that you have a clear picture of who your target is and a few key questions that

5 Ways To Start Customer Discovery Interviews Read More »

OCT Offers Insights That Used To Require an Autopsy

Christoph Guetter suggests in “The eye is a window to the brain; but who’s looking?” that the micron scale resolution of optical coherence tomography (OCT) for in vivo cross-sectional imaging of the human retina may allow earlier and more accurate diagnoses of several common neurodegenerative disorders: Multiple Sclerosis (MS), Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, and amyotrophic

OCT Offers Insights That Used To Require an Autopsy Read More »

Webinar Replay: Innovator’s DNA Associating Skill

Panel sessions Feb 22, 2012 on Innovator’s DNA Skill #1 Associating. Terry Frazier of Cognovis, Steve Hogan of Tech-Rx, and Sean Murphy of SKMurphy. Part of 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

Webinar Replay: Innovator’s DNA Associating Skill Read More »

Innovator's DNA

Webinar Replay: Innovator’s DNA Series Overview

Steve Hogan and Sean Murphy walk through a five part webinar series on “The Innovator’s DNA” by Jeff Dyer, Hal Gregersen,and Clayton Christensen. Sean thinks it’s the best book on innovation and entrepreneurship for 2011 and useful for any team that is trying to innovate. Each webinar will be in a roundtable format and include

Webinar Replay: Innovator’s DNA Series Overview Read More »

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

Crafting a Value Proposition Read More »

Entrepreneurial Passion: Good Servant, Poor Master

Entrepreneurial passion has to be based on a desire to create value, to be of service to a set of target customers. There may be many things you are interested in learning and room enough in your life for several hobbies, but pursuing a passion without regard to your ability to provide value in a

Entrepreneurial Passion: Good Servant, Poor Master Read More »

Tristan Kromer on Testing Customer and Value Hypotheses

These are excerpts from  Episode 9 of Outlier on Air: Tristan Kromer, A Lean Approach to Business.  They are in the same sequence the took place in the interview but a number of stories and asides have been omitted to focus on what I felt were some extremely valuable insights from Tristan Kromer on clarifying and testing

Tristan Kromer on Testing Customer and Value Hypotheses Read More »

Map Customer Buying Process Before Sending a Proposal

Map the customer buying process, needs, and situation before you invest time sending a detailed proposal. A quick request can mean you are column fodder. Q: We are still trying to close our first paying customer. We have a website up and have talked to a number of people. More or less out of the blue

Map Customer Buying Process Before Sending a Proposal Read More »

Scroll to Top