Ryan Waggoner wonders if the popularized approach to startups is wrong. Instead of putting health and relationships at risk, try patience and humility.
Ryan Waggoner: Maybe Startups Are So Hard Because We’re Doing Them Wrong Read More »
After my first son was born a friend recommended that I read “The Measure of a Man: Becoming the Father You Wish Your Father Had Been” by Jerrold Lee Shapiro. It was very good advice that I now pass on for Father’s Day.
Tomorrow, we complete our coverage of “The Innovator’s DNA”. We have a great panel who will share their tips and lessons learned running experiments that improved their products and business models. Michael Fern, CEO of Intigi, Inc. Edith Harbaugh, Product Manager at Tripit, Inc. Steve Hogan, Managing Partner at Tech-Rx, Inc. Sean Murphy, CEO at
How To Run Experiments That Improve Your Business – On-Line Book Club June 20 Read More »
OVERALL OBJECTIVES Establish a framework, including skills and processes, to create and deliver improved software demonstrations to increase success in the sales and deployment of your organization’s offerings. Sub-objectives: Improve demonstration quality and effectiveness, by implementing a standard process and tools for demonstrations. Establish and communicate clear objectives for each demo. Increase probability of success
Great Demo! Demonstration Effectiveness Workshop Read More »
Marcelo Rinesi writes on the implications of the “expertise light speed barrier” of ten years of focused practice to become an expert. He observes that if “we manage to defeat the ‘expertise light speed barrier’ and find ways to teach and learn much more effective than anything before, it would have an astounding impact on
Marcelo Rinesi: The Expertise Light Speed Barrier Read More »
Answering Questions About Your Product In An On-Line Forum requires you to focus on helping the members of the forum.
Answering Questions About Your Product In An On-Line Forum Read More »
While we stress the value of serious conversations with prospects and customers there are other sources of market insights on emerging opportunities for your current product or next offering. I have placed them on a spectrum that runs from a macroscopic view based on objective measurements and numbers to a microscopic view that is more
Verify Your Market Insights Against A Variety of Information Sources Read More »
Shelly Gordon, from G2 Communications Inc., has come to a couple of Bootstrapper Breakfasts® in the last year and offered very practical suggestions on how to tell the story of your startup and where to look for coverage. We have asked her to share her insights on the “How to turn my problem solving idea into
Shelly Gordon of G2 Communications at Sunnyvale BB Tue-June-19 Read More »
It’s important to remember that VCs are rewarded for creating a return for their investors, not building enduring companies.
Exits vs. Enduring Companies Read More »
Today many change initiatives (and new software sales almost always involve the key elements of a change initiative) rely on interviews and replicating the results from an existing “manual system.” Processes mining tools and techniques will play an important role here.
Enterprise Change Agents Need to Add Process Mining to Their Bag of Tricks Read More »
Entrepreneurship is sustained by what’s in your heart and a childlike curiosity toward how the world works and new undiscovered possibilities.
The Heart That Holds On Read More »
One key technique for determining whether you have a workable plan of action is to conduct a premortem, a review of possible sources of failure in advance with a goal to avoid them, or at least reduce their impact and likelihood of occurring.
How to Tell When Your Team Has a Workable Plan of Action Read More »
Entrepreneurs must learn that managing rejection is a requirement from the moment they commit to getting started. I could argue that you have not started until you have been rejected.
Getting Started and Managing Rejection Read More »
You can follow @skmurphy to get these hot off the mojo wire or wait until the end of the month when these quotes for entrepreneurs are collected on the blog. Enter your E-mail if you would like new blog posts to your inbox.
Quotes For Entrepreneurs–May 2012 Read More »
Review of key elements of Cognitive Task Analysis–Knowledge Elicitation, Analysis, and Knowledge Representation–with applications to market exploration. Are You Using Cognitive Task Analysis for New Market Exploration? I am interested in talking with anyone who is using Cognitive Task Analysis (CTA) or Naturalistic Decision Making (NDM) methods and paradigms to inform their customer interviews. I
Are You Using Cognitive Task Analysis for New Market Exploration? Read More »
Your Prospects and Your Customers are Real People I’m hardly the first person to complain about the word “user” to describe people who do stuff with software…People don’t think of themselves as “users” and in all other contexts the word “user” is not generally positive and certainly not evocative of the kind of intimate, day-to-day
Your Prospects and Your Customers are Real People Read More »
On Memorial Day 2012 in we commemorate those who died in the service of our country. I offer some excerpts from Lt. Col. Michael Strobl’s account of escorting the remains of a Marine killed in combat in 2004 for you to meditate on.
What follows are excerpts from a commencement speech given by David Foster Wallace to the 2005 graduating class at Kenyon College. I thought they were an appropriate antidote to a model for entrepreneurial motivation that aspires to make enough money to do whatever you want. Wallace outlines some of the risks in failing to align
David Foster Wallace: The Only Choice We Get is What to Worship Read More »
Conversations with prospects unfold in real time: you must listen for what’s said and not said, manage your emotions, and understand the implications.
Conversations With Prospects: Practice, Review, Share Notes, Ask for Feedback Read More »
Jim Manzi, founder of Lotus and Applied Predictive Technologies, advises entrepreneurs to “Focus on delivering value to customers at a foreseeable profit” in “How to Succeed in Business by Really, Really Trying.” How to Succeed in Business by Really, Really Trying. It’s a great article and also on the limits of advice to entrepreneurs, in particular autobiographies
Jim Manzi: Focus on Delivering Value to Customers at a Foreseeable Profit. Read More »
