Zero Sum vs. Quid Pro Quo
The essence of entrepreneurship is a free exchange of value–what the Romans called “quid pro quo”–that leaves all parties better off: no one loses.
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Startup Stages
Federated Entrepreneurship 3: Play Your Own Game
Federated entrepreneurship groups in different cities should following their own paths that leverage unique local strengths and advantages.
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New Capabilities We Plan To Develop in 2011
To ensure that conversations and requests for help were productive, Anthony Scampavia kept a question at the top of his whiteboard in his various offices at Cisco for more than a dozen years: What is the problem you are trying to solve? Here are three problems we have identified and capabilities we plan to develop
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Traveling Hopefully
For my first post of 2011 I commit to traveling hopefully. I was inspired by Robert Louis Stevenson’s observation “to travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive, and the true success is to labor.”
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Let Men Their Songs Employ
I have been thinking about different kinds of teams and team work. For example a choir has sheet music (“Let Men Their Songs Employ”) that predefines the content and timing of each person’s contribution. In a different way the script for a play outlines the content and sequence of each actor’s part.
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If Money Doesn’t Change Hands, You Can’t Call a User a Customer
Here is another excerpt from my September interview with Gabriel Weinberg. This one focuses on why payment and testimonials are so important to differentiate users from actual customers.
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The Venture Lifestyle Business
“Some buildings need air conditioning because they have air conditioning. Because they were designed to be air conditioned, they have no natural ventilation and would be miserable to inhabit without air conditioning.” John Cook in “Maybe You Only Need It Because You Have It“ I wonder if the same thing happens to some fraction of
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Keeping the Ball Rolling With Prospects
Keeping the ball rolling with prospects requires a mix of empathy for their situation and a project management mindset.
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Narrowcast Early Product Announcements
My bias is to “narrowcast” in the beginning. Choose websites, forums, newsgroups that are tightly focused on your target market. You attract less competition, your message cost is normally cheaper per prospect, and you often learn faster by taking part in the conversations in a focused community. It’s not so much about being stealthy as
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Quick Thoughts on Selling For Software Engineers
Some quick thoughts on selling for software engineers. Sell results, not method. Land and Expand. Get clarity on the customer’s view of the problem. Listen.
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Three Tips for Small Talk and Casual Conversation
“A good listener is not only popular everywhere, but after a while he knows something.” Wilson Mizner One of the more challenging aspects of entrepreneurship for engineers is the need to be able to engage in “small talk” and casual conversation with strangers. I have three suggestions that go to state of mind more than
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Nomadic Entrepreneurs In Indigenous Markets
David Mamet in a 1997 interview with Richard Covington suggests a paradigm for entrepreneurs based on behavior of nomadic people in a new location: make a new solution that hasn’t occurred to the indigenous people because the indigenous people have been there too long.
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Build On Your Passion With A Basic Model And Numbers
What follows is a chat transcript from an hour long conversation I had with a entrepreneur recently. I have cleaned up all of our typos and removed or modified some identifying information. The basic business was for a website to arrange services for travelers. I wanted the entrepreneur to move beyond his passion for the
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Good Decision, Bad Outcome
You never have complete information, if you do it’s a choice not a decision. You have to evaluate a decision in the context of the information that was available at the time. “Good Decision, Bad Outcome” When I first heard someone use this phrase it took a few weeks to sink in. Too often we
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What To Do When An Early Prospect is Excited
Here is another excerpt from my September interview with Gabriel Weinberg. This one is focused on what to do when you encounter a B2B prospect who is excited about your product and this is only the first or second time this has happened with someone who wasn’t a friend or prior associate. The short answer
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Scope and Scale of Plans and Activities
Inspired by Eames’ “Powers of Ten” I explore the scope and scale of plans and activities based on duration. I take a one hour duration as the starting point and look at a factor or 10,000 in each direction: from 1/300 of a second to 10,000 hours.
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Entrepreneurs Still Welcome: 700 Blog Posts In Four Years
A recap of the inaugural blog post for SKMurphy blog 4 years ago and a roundup of lessons learned writing 700 posts since.
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Ash Maurya on “Running Lean”
Ash Maurya (@AshMaurya) has released the first two chapters of his new book “Running Lean” and here are my first impressions.
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Cold Calling Won’t Find Your First Business Customer
I meet teams trying to cold call for their first business customer and I just haven’t seen it work; the trust issues cripple them. Here is a relevant excerpt from Gabriel Weinberg’s interview with me for his traction book.
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The Limits of Legal Self-Help
If you have limited experience with business contracts or software licensing issues, legal self-help approaches can be very dangerous.
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