I’ve slept under my desk before. A few times in fact. It wasn’t comfortable, but it was more comfortable than sleeping on my chair or on top of my desk (I’ve tried both.) Somehow the existence of the desk made it feel a bit safer… At one point (at one of my startups many years […]
The $250,000 Funding Trap
$250,000 is a lot of money. Venture investors might not think so, but for most of us it’s a lot of moolah. And for early stage startups it’s often the amount they ask for coming out of the gate (or $500,000 – which seems to be pretty standard as a first, seed ask). The problem […]
Visualize Your Website to Crystallize the Value Proposition and Target Market
It’s quite common for early startups to lack clarity around their core value proposition and target market(s). There’s a temptation to go wide on both – offer lots of different value to lots of different people. But generally that doesn’t work. A focus on a specific, differentiated and compelling value proposition targeting a specific, well-defined […]
Promises and Platitudes – The Dangers of Low Quality Advisors
Having great mentors can make a huge difference for you, individually, as an entrepreneur. I’ve never had a mentor, but looking back I’m certain it would have been very helpful. Even today. Mentors are there to help you, and by extension (potentially) your startup. But even if your startup fails, or you’re not going where […]
Competitive Research 101 for Startups
Whenever I get pitched by a startup, I always look to see if they’ve properly identified the competition. For starters, I can guarantee you that someone is already working on the same idea. It’s a universal truth. But more importantly than that, competitive research and analysis is one of those areas that is often horribly […]
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 […]
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 […]
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