Hadoop Summit 2009 – Quick Impressions
A quick overview of the Hadoop Summit 2009: we are looking at project CPU budgets measured not in CPU years but CPU millennia.
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Startup Stages
Andrew Chen: Most Web 2.0 Media Startups Have a B2B Enterprise Model
I don’t know how I overlooked Andrew Chen’s “Your Ad-Supported Web 2.0 Site is Actually a B2B Enterprise in Disguise” He succinctly outlines some hard facts that many founders of media startups spend a year of their life to learn:
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Website Peer Review at PATCA June 11
We are facilitating another website peer review Thursday June 11 at PATCA. At our April 17 website peer review, we were asked by Jerry Rice to produce a similar event for PATCA and were happy to oblige. Theresa is a member of PATCA and regularly attends their events. She blogged about “Three Reasons to Attend
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Athol Foden at Friday May 8 Bootstrapper Breakfast in Milpitas
Athol Foden of Brighter Naming is our guest speaker Friday May 8 for the Bootstrapper Breakfast™ at 7:30am at the Omega Restaurant in Milpitas. Athol has over 16 years of experience helping clients name companies, products, services, and taglines. Athol’s opening remarks will be followed by a question and answer session on developing the right
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Conway’s Law: the Co-Evolution of Business Organization and Product Design
One formulation of Conway’s Law is that communication problems in an organization will manifest in their finished products: communication channels matter.
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If Revenue is Drying Up
You are not alone. We talk to firms every day that are challenged by the current economic environment. Let me suggest a couple of things you can do: Come to a Bootstrappers Breakfast™ and compare notes with other bootstrapping entrepreneurs for the price of your breakfast. We host four a month, the next one is
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Startups Need Sisu and Creative Improvisation To Survive Recession
We are clearly in a recession that will test many startups in Silicon Valley and the rest of the United States. Those with determination and a willingness to embrace creative improvisation are more likely to survive.
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Cecily Drucker’s Startup Secrets
Cecily Drucker, CEO and Founder of Bottom Line Time–and daughter of the late Peter Drucker–has a good post up on the “What Would Dad Say” blog entitled “Secrets of a 64 year old Startup Virgin” that lists fourteen startup secrets she has learned with her first startup. She has a few more insights in her introduction
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Sales 2.01
Sales 2.01 addresses some additional thoughts on the Sales 2.0 conference, the focus is on enabling customer self-service
Other Customer Development Models
In “The Challenges of Measuring Non-Existent Markets” Scott D. Anthony outlines four principal challenges in measuring non-existent markets: Data does not yet exist. When a market doesn’t exist, there are no baseline market research reports or time-series data sets to analyze. Lack of comparable products. Without existing data, there is a natural tendency to look
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Fewer of You Will Be Listening To Someone Else
I worked at Monolithic Memories from 1984 until 1988, in 1985 Irwin Federman, who was CEO at the time announced that the company was informally banning meetings on Fridays. It seemed reasonable to me and I thought it would probably make us more productive. A few weeks later he announced that the company was going
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William Feather on “Dead Business”
William Feather’s “Dead Business” details the stark differences between a going concern and all the agreements and understandings that have been reached to make it viable, and a bankrupt one.
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Drucker on Profit and Business Purpose
After thinking some more about yesterday’s post on entrepreneurial motivation I thought I would re-read some Peter Drucker, his clarity and prescience continue to impress me.
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Entrepreneurial Motivation
Tim O’Reilly offers three ways to sustain entrepreneurial motivation: work on what matters to you, create more value than you capture, and take the long view.
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5 Tips For Writing a Startup’s First Backgrounder
Focus on establishing your team as trustworthy and dependable. The biggest question in a prospect’s mind is how your team will you perform when things go wrong. Stress earlier engagements with the problem you help your customers solve. Make this “phase two” of efforts to solve these problems, building on earlier relevant experience and accomplishments.
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Cisco Presents Collaboration Technology as Sufficiently Advanced
I worked at Cisco for more than a decade in two stints between 1990 and 2003–taking time off from 1995-98 to work with a number of web startups–so I was intrigued to see John Chamber’s picture on the cover of the December issue of Fast Company. In the feature article by Ellen McGrit titled “Revolution
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We Don’t Encourage Individuals to Form a Startup
Real entrepreneurs don’t need encouragement to form a startup–although they may benefit from outside perspectives on their plans. Encouraging non-entrepreneurs to form a startup does them a disservice.
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Sobering Workshop By Corum on Software Mergers
I attended a “Merge Briefing” workshop today offered by the Corum Group Ltd. on the status of software acquisitions. I had learned a lot from a workshop that Ward Carter, Corum’s CEO, gave at the Software Business 2007 conference and felt that this would be informative. It turned out to be much more. It was
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Bob Lewis on Progress and Economizing vs. Cost Cutting
“Contentment comes from wanting what you have, Ambition from wanting what the other person has, Progress from wanting what nobody has.” Bob Lewis “Random Thoughts“ Bob Lewis writes the “Keeping the Joint Running” E-mail newsletter, devoted to practical advice for leading IT organizations effectively. From his column “In General, a Time for Generalists” Bob offer
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Cultivating Communities to Get More Customers
Attracting new customers is at the heart of every business. Active participation in a community can make you more visible and allows you to demonstrate expertise.
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