Year One Labs is a Lean Startup accelerator. I believe it’s one of the first of its kind, with a very heavy focus on customer development and a rigorous Lean Startup process. I co-founded Year One Labs with three partners (Raymond Luk, Alistair Croll and Ian Rae) in April 2010 and launched officially in September […]
Digging Deeper into Lean Business Model Canvases
I’m a big fan of Ash Maurya’s Lean Canvas. I was also very impressed with Steve Blank’s new initiative Lean Launch Lab, which combines a canvas business model tool and a blogging tool for startups to use and share information regularly with investors. If you haven’t seen it, check out his recent presentation: When the […]
Kill the Goddamn Buzzwords and Give Me a Use Case
Recently I’ve been reviewing a bunch of startup pitches (over 150) for a couple of different things, and it’s frustrating to see potentially good ideas and quality entrepreneurs get ignored too quickly because their pitches suck. It’s like resumes with typos – there have to be some basic filtering mechanisms for written pitches, otherwise reviewers […]
You Have to Love the Startup Process
The process of starting a company is messy. It has massive ups and downs, tons of uncertainty and a significant portion of time is spent doing things you don’t know how to do, or don’t like doing. But that’s the Startup Process. Either you embrace it and love it or you get out. Don’t expect […]
Don’t Code What You Can Mechanical Turk
Mechanical Turk is a great system for outsourcing repetitive, tedious tasks. People use it (and other similar services) for all sorts of things: filling out surveys, getting research done, data analysis & acquisition, etc. You submit your task, indicate how many times you want it done and how much you’ll pay, and people do the […]
How to Structure Good Hypotheses for Your Lean Startup
Crafting good hypotheses for your startup is hard. Most people focus on solutions rather than problems. That leads to a ton of products getting launched with zero traction.; the all-too-common “solutions looking for problems.” A good hypothesis is important because it leads to good experimental design. Good experimental design is important because you need it […]
Don’t Miss the International Startup Festival in Montreal
The International Startup Festival is happening in Montreal from July 13-15th. Mid-summer is a great time to visit Montreal, and now entrepreneurs, investors, and anyone interested in tech startups has the perfect to visit. The Startup Festival is a multi-day event focused on the business of startups. The schedule is still being fleshed out but […]
A Day in the Life of Your Customer
To sell something effectively you really need to understand your customer. You need to understand who they are, what makes them tick, their motivations, fears, influencers, etc. You can look into customer profiling and personas as mechanisms for understanding your customers better. Another tactic is to create a “day in the life” storyboard. Assuming you […]
How to Have Startup Swagger Without Being a Complete Asshole
You need a sizeable ego to succeed in the world of startups and venture capital. Without that ego propelling you forward it’s going to be hard to wake up every morning, take the risks you need to take, and aggressively go after what you want. You won’t be able to negotiate from a position of […]
Have You Really Identified Your Biggest Competitor?
Every startup has competition. In fact, I can virtually guarantee you that someone is already working on your idea. And you know that you can’t go into an investor pitch and say, “We don’t have any competition.” That’s completely untrue and sends horrible signals to investors. But who is your biggest competitor? Most startups have […]
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