When your prospects first hear of your product, your message will make or break your whole business. That moment is crucial. You will repeat it many times. You will continue repeating it as long as you have prospects. The more successful you are at nailing that first impression, the easier it will be to ramp…
By definition, if you want to start a business, you need to sell something: the product, the customers, or the company. The sooner you start selling, the faster you’ll get useful feedback. Delaying the decision to sell takes away one of the most powerful feedback loops required to build a new business. Ideally, you want…
Most startups fail. About 1 in 2 survive 5 years. In IT, that’s probably more extreme. How many companies do you deal with today, which are over 10 years old? Remember how many search engines there were in the late nineties, most of which don’t exist, or at minimum, don’t exist any more as a…
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In case you didn’t know, SNAFU is a military slang acronym meaning “Situation Normal: All Fouled Up.” More and more, I hear founders saying that they’re working on a product, who’re concerned whether or not there will be any demand when they launch. I’ve seen it come up in surveys, in youtube videos, even during…
Here’s a wonderfully geeky question from a forum I’m on, related to lean startup: I have a product that I want to test. I’ve built the one-pager website and set up some Facebook advertising to figure out the messaging / features that makes people sign up to determine the direction I will eventually build towards….
While ideally you have some sort of proof direct in your headline and ad, your persuasiveness argument relies on how well you prove your point. You see, it’s ultimately about belief and feeling. As heavy hitter Gary Bencivenga says: Almost everyone in the world, in every field of human endeavor, is desperately searching for someone…
One of the TV shows I’ve been catching up on lately is Newsroom. It’s a deep drive into modern media capitalism, with a lovable grump for a news anchor named Will McAvoy. It’s also a fascinating watch for anyone who has or wants to have an audience. There’s lots of issues raised which are poignant…
Concerned you might be not lean if you raise funding? That’s actually a pretty common myth related to the Lean Startup approach. Let me ask you this. Have you ever received a “recycled” present? While it’s clearly new, it doesn’t actually match your interests. In fact, you know that the giver received that present from…
A lot of founders I speak to struggle with finding a co-founder, particularly on the technology side. While they have an idea, they want to find someone who will help create that technology. Often development cost is a consideration, so equity seems like the easiest way to get address that. I find there’s three big…