Trevor Owens, the young dynamo in the NY startup scene who organized NYC’s lean startup machine weekend, asked my help in discussing “Idea Validation and Opportunity Assessment” at an all-day NYU event. We have been emailing back and forth about an audience participation exercise and I would love your thoughts on what could make it better. New entrepreneurs hit three …
Don’t believe in magic
Two observations: 1. Very little happens in a startup if you don’t make it happen. 2. Very little is done right if you don’t examine best practices and iterate your own efforts. Common sense, right? And yet here are some further observations: Right after I posted about demo tips and the importance of practice, I ran into someone who was …
Getting Comfortable with Networking and Demos
Last night I attended the NYC Fashion 2.0 meetup where four startups showcased their products and goals. It got me thinking about networking and demos, so here are some thoughts / tips: NETWORKING For many people, networking with strangers is like jumping off a high diving board for the first time. Your animal brain says “noooo we won’t” and your …
On Parenthood and Entrepreneurship
A startup is filled with countless roadblocks and challenges, many business, some personal. I feel lucky that I don’t struggle with a sick parent, Asperger’s, or something truly serious. My biggest personal challenge is simply being a parent of young children. When I was younger, startup life was simpler. I could completely obsess about a startup, my hours were truly …
Yes, You Need a Co-Founder
UPDATE: people have made very valid points that I have oversimplified the issues here, and I have decided that I agree. I neither want to be wishy-washy nor stupidly dogmatic. While I will leave the original post as-is below, consider it my *case* for why you need a co-founder but know that I acknowledge the complexities of this topic. The …
Lean Startup Machine Presentation
Lean Startup Machine As promised, here is my 20-min presentation to the Lean Startup Machine event on July 23, 2010. Regarding the event, I was pretty impressed with how much the teams accomplished over the weekend, and their willingness to get out of comfort zones. This deck is neither as pretty nor as good as David Cancel’s recent talk, but …
Entrepreneur’s Block
On Friday, a reader sent me an email. They were suffering from “entrepreneur’s block”, where they kill off every idea as quickly as it arises. It is the opposite disease to those who fall in love with an idea, are afraid to talk to anyone about it and thus build something no one wants. In this case, the person never …
12 Tips for Early Customer Development Interviews
UPDATE: Click here for a revised list of tips or read my book on custdev Talking to Humans Last night kicked off an interesting experiment in New York. The Lean Startup Machine is a weekend-long customer development bootcamp where participants pitch their ideas, and all 50 people break into teams around the most popular ideas. Instead of a hackathon, …
Competitive Advantages (riffing off of ASmartBear post)
I’m a big fan of Jason Cohen’s blog A Smart Bear, but I gave him a hard time after his last post “Real Unfair Advantages” (read that first). I did not think it was concrete enough for the young entrepreneur. Let’s face it, you either have “authority” or you do not. The entrepreneur with the $100M exit under his belt, …
My Winding Road to Lean Startup
Last fall, I was recovering from a startup that almost touched the sun, but like Icarus, took a nasty fall. I still had a burning desire to create a great company, but I knew that it was time that *I* chose what was right and wrong, rather than work for someone else. If I was going to chart my own …