On Friday, I gave a 20-minute talk at a product design conference organized by Ty Ahmad-Taylor (CEO of FanFeedr) and Hard Candy Shell (the talk shared the same title as this post). I discussed mistakes and lessons from Aprizi’s journey. I don’t think it was videotaped, so I am going to take advantage of this flight to California to write …
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 …
When it comes to startups, products and services don’t mix
[Note: 8 years later, I’ve written an update to this post] This post is about dancing with the devil (i.e. consulting) as you pursue your dreams and try to pay the bills. I believe that it is near impossible to build a successful software product while maintaining a services business. (UPDATE: I should clarify that I am talking about the period …
Validating your startup idea and initial customer development
A reader named Eric asked a question about customer validation / development on my “Bull doesn’t build” post, and I thought I would answer with a post. Eric’s question was: “You talk about your ‘focus right now is on building a solid foundation of product-market fit.’ At what point do you spend more time focusing on product-market fit then on …
Don’t confuse crossing the chasm with product-market fit
Andrew Chen tweeted a link this morning to a post called “Twitter used to be a crappy idea – 3 lessons learned“. I agree with many of Henrik’s core messages, such as staying lean and building products you love, but I got stuck on two sentences. They both tie back to the title of this post: don’t confuse crossing the …
Bull doesn’t build (and that annoying cocktail party guy)
My wife dragged me to a cocktail party last night tied to my daughter’s school and I met “that guy.” That guy (or gal) is someone who hears you have a new startup and wants to play venture capitalist. Not an interested, supportive pretend-VC, but a judgmental, “I’m smarter than you and let me show you how” pretend-VC. Over the …
Learning is about the translation, not the source
I was reading Fred Destin’s post on why entrepreneurs hate VCs, when a quote caught my eye: “Learning from mistakes is far less useful than emulating success.” It’s a message that 37Signals likes to harp on as well. I’d argue that you have an equal shot at learning from mistakes or successes, as long as you take the time to …
What is your customer acquisition strategy? (startup marketing tactics)
“What is your growth strategy?” It is a classic question from VCs to early-stage consumer Internet companies, and one often difficult to answer at such an early point in a company’s life cycle because you have not yet seen which specific tactics work best. There is usually no silver bullet answer, just a lot of hard work ahead. This post, …
Freemium Business Model Template
Mark Suster of GRP just wrote a post on the importance of financial models, and in an effort to be helpful to new entrepreneurs finding their way around Excel, I thought I would post a business model Excel template for anyone to download and customize (bottom of post). I completely agree with Suster. The one time I told myself “I …
Startups: hiring, careers, sales people
This week saw two interesting and related posts on startups and hiring/careers. Mark Suster wrote about who you should hire into your startup, and Chris Dixon wrote about the ideal startup career path. Mark’s message is to hire hungry, smart people who want to get to the next level in their career, not the ones who have already arrived. Chris …
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