What makes startups succeed or fail? More than 90% of startups fail, due primarily to self-destruction rather than competition. For the less than 10% of startups that do succeed, most encounter several near death experiences along the way. Simply put, while we now have some good theory, we just are not very good at creating [...]
Filed under: Big Companies versus Startups: Durant versus Sloan, Business Model versus Business Plan, Customer Development, Market Types | 12 Comments »
Over the last few weeks I’ve gotten involved in hiring for two startups, a public agency and a non profit. Part of each conversation was getting asked to help them put together a “job spec.” I had them leave with a pie chart. ——– There must be something in the air. In the last week [...]
Filed under: Big Companies versus Startups: Durant versus Sloan, Customer Development, Family/Career/Culture, Technology | 31 Comments »
The Four Steps to the Epiphany (Четыре Шага к Озарению) is now available in Russian. Thanks to Denis Dovgopoliy for making the Russian version happen. It joins the French version: Les quatre étapes vers l’épiphanie and the Japanese version アントレプレナーの教科書 [単行本（ソフトカバー） Pay It Forward What’s pretty remarkable is these translations are not from a commercial publisher, but rather [...]
Filed under: Customer Development | 22 Comments »
Everyone has a plan ’till they get punched in the mouth. Mike Tyson One of the key distinctions between an entrepreneur and an operating executive is an entrepreneur’s almost seamless agility in the face of changing circumstances versus an operating executive’s intense execution focus on a plan. World-class entrepreneurs learn how to combine both. WTF? [...]
Filed under: California Coastal Commission, Customer Development | 21 Comments »
He was a man, take him for all in all, I shall not look upon his like again Shakespeare, Hamlet Act I, Scene 2 With 37 mllion people it’s remarkable that California has one of the most pristine and unspoiled coastline in the United States. One man and the organization he’s built is responsible for [...]
Filed under: California Coastal Commission | 30 Comments »
When I was in my 20’s, I was taught the relationship between marketing and sales over a bonfire. — Over thirty years ago, before the arrival of the personal computer, there were desktop computers called office workstations. Designed around the first generation of microprocessors, these computers ran business applications like word processing, spreadsheets, and accounting. [...]
Filed under: Convergent Technologies, Marketing | 18 Comments »
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