Everywhere you turn there’s a new startup accelerator launching. Time will tell if that’s a good thing or not, but as I said in my last post, if you’re not doing it [an accelerator] to make money, you’re doing it wrong. The feedback was mixed, which doesn’t surprise me, since there are many accelerators operating […]
The Sole Purpose of a Startup Accelerator Should Be Making Money
If you’re running a startup accelerator or thinking about it, and your primary goal isn’t to make money, be very careful. Money drives everything. It makes the world go ’round. Entrepreneurs might not start companies with the sole purpose of making money, but ultimately that’s the yardstick of success. Other things are nice, and important […]
Startup Founders Need to Constantly and Instantly Jump from Vision to Detail (and back again)
Some people spend all of their time in the clouds, thinking big thoughts, dreaming big dreams. They’ve got a vision for something and they can (often eloquently) speak to that vision and why it should be a reality. They’re “big thinkers.” Some people are completely the opposite – so detailed-oriented that they have to inspect […]
Coming to San Francisco from July 31st to August 3rd
It’s been awhile, but I’m heading to San Francisco on July 31st (Sunday) and leaving August 3rd (Wednesday) on a red eye. I’ll be in town for a few things including a Localmind board meeting. Monday is going to be a busy day, and I’m booked Tuesday morning, but Tuesday afternoon and all day Wednesday […]
Localmind Raises Funding
Localmind was the second company we funded at Year One Labs. Localmind leverages check-in services like Foursquare, Gowalla and Facebook Places to make powerful, real-time location-based Q&A the best way of discovering a city. When you have a question you want answered about a specific place (often in real-time), Localmind is the right service to […]
Finding Your Startup’s One Thing
With five startups in Year One Labs (all at various stages of our process), you start to see some fairly clear patterns. One of the biggest hurdles at Year One Labs is moving from the Probe Phase to the MVP Phase. I’ve talked about this process in more detail a few times. The gist of […]
Defining Success
The Lean Startup model is all about running experiments, learning and making informed decisions on what to do next. I’m clearly a believer in the model, but there are some parts of it that are quite nuanced and challenging to figure out. One of those is with respect to experimental design. A good experiment needs […]
Startups Need to Make Leaps of Faith, But Not Blindly
In startup land, we all make leaps of faith. I think it’s part of being an entrepreneur – you need to have just enough confidence, startup swagger and insanity to jump … and figure it out before you crash. And I don’t think leaps of faith ever completely go away, even if you follow a […]
Customer Validation Really Starts with In-Person Interviews
When you have a startup idea, the first instinct is to pitch it to friends and colleagues. This can be somewhat helpful, because they may provide insight that you hadn’t thought of yet, or quickly validate some of your concerns based on their questions. They may be familiar with a competitor worth looking at, or […]
How To Run a Business Model Hackathon
A tech hackathon is typically a half-day to two-day event where teams get together and build a product in a very short period of time. They’re always fun and interesting, often organized around specific platforms (like Foursquare), and a great way to meet new people, get into a community and test your chops. At Year […]
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