It’s the Picture on the Box that Sells the LEGO Set
It’s the Picture on the Box that Sells the LEGO Set: provide specific examples of how your product can be used to solve problems.
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Startup Stages
Selling to a Business Requires Conversations that Build Trust
Selling to a businesses requires conversations that build trust. Trust is built over time from predictability and meeting commitments.
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Cutting Your Teeth in Sales
If you are an entrepreneur then sales is always a part of your responsibility. Here are some tips for cutting your teeth in sales.
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Gauging Customer Commitment
There are many useful ways to measure customer commitment to your product. Here is a rubric to help you assess each of your customers.
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Successful Entrepreneurship Is Ongoing Self-Improvement
Three variations on the idea that “successful entrepreneurship is an ongoing self-improvement” project, program, or process.
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Refine and Curate Your Thoughts as FAQs, Articles, and Talks
Refine and curate your thoughts by reworking the first draft of your answers in an email or in response to a question from a customer or an audience member at a talk.
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The Risk of General Purpose Toolkits as a First Product
Successful general purpose toolkits evolve from successful simple point tools. Focus, start small, and evolve into a broad platform.
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Startup Fantasy Camp
Startup Fantasy Camp: throw a group of strangers together for 48-72 hours and have them pretend to be a startup.
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Len Sklar: Be Clear About Payment Terms And Consequences
Len Sklar, author “The Check is NOT in the Mail” has spoken several times at Bootstrapper Breakfasts. Here is a recent talk he gave where he stresses the importance of putting payment terms and the consequences on non-payment in writing, communicating them in advance, and ensuring that they are understood. It all seems so obvious
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Erecting Barriers to Competition That Are Difficult to Duplicate
Here are some barriers to competition that you can erect that are often difficult to duplicate, or at least duplicate rapidly.
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Tangible Costs, Time, and Pricing to Value
Amazon’s S3 and AWS platforms, and similar on demand storage and computing services, are becoming increasing popular as core infrastructure for software startups. There is a tendency, because the costs are well defined, to base your price on adding a margin to these services. There are three problems with that.
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Why We Like Trade Shows
We like trade shows. Prospects who walk up to your booth expect a sales pitch and you can walk the floor and get an industry snapshot.
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Narrative Rationality: Be Mindful Of Your Self-Description
Pay attention to self-description: the story you tell yourself and about yourself. Cultivate productive habits that don’t require conscious decisions. “It is a profoundly erroneous truism, repeated by all copy books and by eminent people when they are making speeches, that we should cultivate the habit of thinking of what we are doing. The precise
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It’s Not Bootstrapped vs. VC
It’s Not Bootstrapped vs. VC From Hillel Cooperman‘s “Bootstrapped vs. VC Funded–Who is Likely to Make the Most Money?” I bet that founders of bootstraps end up earning more money over the long haul out of their businesses than founders of venture-backed firms. The rare IPO may spike the numbers in the other direction, but
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A Nicely Furnished Room In A House That’s Burning Down
Silicon Valley is a nicely furnished room in a house that’s burning down, the state of California.
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How Long is a Piece of String
When I started out at Cisco in 1990 it was a part of the culture that a request for help or question that was too vague or poorly specified would be answered with “How long is a piece of string?”
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When Do I Need a Model? I am Bootstrapping
When Do I Need a Model? I am Bootstrapping I have condensed this from a recent series of conversation with bootstrapping entrepreneur. I thought it captured many of the key questions that you need to be consider once you are “open for business.” Bootstrapping Entrepreneur: I am just getting started on a new project. I
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How Not To Manage Early Adopters
How Not To Manage Early Adopters Sometimes a bad example can be useful. I got the following E-Mail from a startup whose tool I had tried to use about a year ago but gave up because it embodied too idiosyncratic view of a particular productivity problem. I had probably spent an hour trying to work
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Buying a Map vs. Learning to Explore
Learning to explore is a key skill for entrepreneurs. Ask questions you don’t know the answer to–where the answer would have an impact on your ability to assess the risk in your venture or would help you to define a key aspect of your business.
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Start Where You Are
People ask me where to get started. Lately I have been telling them: start where you are and sell what you have. Meet people, help them connect, and explore possibilities. Knit your network now before you need it.
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