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Feelings count before the numbers ever do in the Startup world. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) Startups need the participation of many different people in order to be successful; technical folks, creative folks, marketers, customers, manufacturers, partners, advisors, investors and many others. Beyond the technical and creative aspects of the startup journey,
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Engineers make the world go 'round, for technical product companies. In technical businesses, the management of technology can be complex. Creation of business models, mapping data and software systems to those models and then integrating them across platforms takes a team of dedicated and talented people to do successfully.
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Creating business value is a multifacted process that requires a number of areas of problem solving--of dealing with complexity in various forms. I assert that all companies are dealing with two main areas of such problem solving: Delivery of product, and discovery of what I call 'Market Truth'
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Startups without financing are like small boats in a big ocean. The short answer is “No. Startups these days can usually get going without investors.” The longer, more nuanced answer is “But if you can get funding, it is probably a good idea.” Now, more than ever, startups can start-up
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Steve Blank, entrepreneur, author, and educator. Steve Blank is one of Silicon Valley’s most well known entrepreneurial educators, and one of its most active opinion leaders. He teaches entrepreneurship at both Berkeley and Stanford, spending much of his time these days showing entrepreneurs how to avoid the mistakes that
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Cooperation comes naturally in the West. (Photo credit: Show Us Your Togwotee) Silicon Valley is noted for its remarkable innovation, and is often copied by other global cities and regions in attempts to follow in its success. The fact that most other places have failed to ignite significant growth or
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Ready, Fire, Aim. Now we aim after we fire. It works better. It has long been a truism that to hit a target, you first get “Ready,” then you “Aim,” then you “Fire.” What I have found in the world of startups is that if you shoot first, and aim
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Heed the warning sign. (Photo credit: zigazou76) Speaking with an entrepreneur friend recently, she related a story of working with an inventor who had a promising new technology and was trying to take it to market. She had secured partners who were willing to commit $100m in investment, which was
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Back to Basics. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) The most successful businesses are those that master the basic transactions of their market and execute them with reliability and excellence. Identify what the core operations are for your market, and what the constituent parts of those operations are. Then ask yourself if you
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Beyond momentary oscillations in motivational direction (which are largely unpredictable), team members in most cases will demonstrate a built-in bias towards certain categories of “big picture” personal goals. This is a great benefit to everyone when those goals are tightly aligned with your business needs. This can be a problem
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As someone who has grown tech businesses outside of Silicon Valley, I can directly appreciate the ‘planting a tulip in the desert’ scenario that can occur when a viable idea is incubated in the wrong place. My first tech business, started in Austin way back in 1997 was a real
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Even these big guys were seeds at one point in time. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) A good friend of mine has long argued that startups can succeed through vision and hard work. Because I only partially agree with his position, we have had more than one heated argument on the subject.