peHub just wrote an article titled “VCs love Blippy, but do users?” Some of you correctly guessed that Blippy was the company I was referring to when I wrote, “Don’t let another startup throw you off your game”. And it’s true, there are a lot of VCs really excited about that company. Aprizi, Blippy, Bynamite, Swipely and a number of …
He should have fired my ass
Bijan Sabet of Spark Capital today posed the question of how a startup maintains speed once it hits adolescence. His conclusion is that “speed is really the result of a having the company aligned.” Howard Lindzon, the colorful CEO of Stocktwits, responded with the following comment: “we deal with this today. managing feature creep is key. obviously being aligned is …
Keeping It Simple: Unit Economics
Back in November, I wrote about financial modeling and wanted to pick up the topic again. I think this is very important for lean startups. A financial model focuses your brain on key goals and assumptions. It’s great to obsess over product-market fit, but you also need to take the time to make sure your economics are reasonable as well. …
You’ve got to really want it
For as much as we like innovation, most people aren’t cut out to start a tech company or even join one in a super-early stage. That’s my point of disagreement with Chris Dixon on his latest post, “Every time an engineer joins Google, a startup dies“. Smart entrepreneurs try to mitigate risk every way they can, but let’s not sugarcoat …
Targeting Matters!
The other day, Cindy Alvarez (product manager at KISSmetrics and author of a great blog), wrote a post called “Anybody, As Long As It’s Not You” , saying: “Who should give you feedback on your early-stage product mockups/demo? Anybody, as long as it’s not you. OK, sure, there’s probably an “ideal” audience to show your product to. But it probably …
Can business schools teach entrepreneurship?
I can’t help but weigh in on the “MBA – startup” meme going around. First, context on my background: I chose not get an MBA. Before my current startup, I worked for 4 VC-backed companies (founded by others) in various sales/marketing/bizdev roles, and bootstrapped and sold 1 company of my own. I did feel a need to learn finance, but …
Thoughts on Product-Market Fit
Here are a few thoughts on product-market fit that came up when I was chatting this evening with Brant Cooper of Market by Numbers. Revenue & Testing To me, “lean startup” and “product-market fit” boil down to rigorously and continuously testing your assumptions as early as possible, and holding off heavy investments in scalability and growth until you feel confident …
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 …
Customer Development Update (and why I’m sticking with 1-on-1 talks)
Conversations with prospective customers is an unending process. Here is a quick update (first post) on some of those efforts with Aprizi: First, conversations have gotten a lot more concrete as we’ve honed our thoughts. We started out talking about people’s challenges and a wide array of features. The first wave of discussions helped us narrow down and prioritize what …
Great startup lawyers
My reaction to the recent Venture Hacks post on lawyers was that we need to help entrepreneurs find good attorneys! They are out there — I am certainly happy with my current attorney, Brian Hutchings at Gunderson, and when I was selling the first company I founded, my attorney at Fenwick was indispensable. So today I reached out to a …