Update Mar-27-2013: Slides and audio for this event are now available at “Slides and Audio from How To Bootstrap at ASLCPA Mar 27” I have been asked by the Emerging Business Group at Abbott, Stringham and Lynch to give a talk on “How to Bootstrap Your Start-Up.” If you are a technology entrepreneurs who doesn’t fit […]
How To Bootstrap Your Start-Up at ASL Mar-27-2013 Read More »
Resist the temptation to hype your new product, treat it as an hypothesis not just in your own mind but also in how you describe it to prospects. If strangers tell you what they like about your product or particular ways that they found it useful then you can use that in your messaging for
Hypothesis Not Hype For A New Product Read More »
You can follow @skmurphy to get these hot off the mojo wire or wait until these quotes for entrepreneurs are collected in a blog post at the end of each month. Enter your E-mail if you would like new blog posts in your inbox.
Quotes For Entrepreneurs–February 2013 Read More »
Here are three sales pitches that never really work with some suggestions for how to improve them.
Three Sales Pitches That Never Really Work Read More »
Before you introduce a new product into an existing market you need to analyze the market structure and competitive landscape. This is a laundry list–not a prioritized list—of the set of challenges we currently wrestle with in helping clients monitor their external environment and craft strategies for new market creation and new product introduction into
Challenges in Analyzing Market Structure and Competitive Landscape Read More »
An exploration of some of the implications of Arie P. de Geus insight that “The ability to learn faster than competitors may be the only sustainable competitive advantage.”
Startups Where “We Are All In This Together” Learn Faster Read More »
We reach out to past attendees of the Great Demo workshop and ask them how they have applied the principles and techniques covered and what the impact has been on their business. Ilya Semin, the founder of software startup Datanyze, attended a Great Demo workshop in 2012 and sent us this detailed response. It is reproduced
Ilya Semin of Datanyze on Value of Great Demo Workshop Read More »
We reach out to past attendees of the Great Demo workshop and ask them how they have applied the principles and techniques covered and what the impact has been on their business. Chris Kane of VendorRisk attended a workshop in 2012 and sent us this detailed response. It is reproduced here with his permission. Great
Chris Kane: Great Demo’s Impact On The VendorRisk Sales Presentation Read More »
It’s especially important to price based on your value to a particular customer’s situation when you bring unique expertise and insight to a problem. This post is based on a real engagement that started with the conversation in “Living In Anticipation With Schrodinger’s Leads.”
Price Based On Your Value To The Customer’s Situation Read More »
It can take a while to determine what to ask in an opening conversation and which leads constitute opportunities. You have to follow up.
Living in Anticipation With Schrodinger’s Leads Read More »
Here are six tips or writing an E-Mail to a prospect or potential partner: the Hollywood approach, the schoolboy approach, add a middleman, quit typing, begin at the end, and sketch a picture.
Six Tips For Writing An E-Mail To A Prospect or Potential Partner Read More »
These quotes for entrepreneurs were curated in January 2013 to explore the map is not the territory, finding ground truth, and seeing what’s in front of your eyes.
Quotes For Entrepreneurs–January 2013 Read More »
A long term viable business model embraces ebb and flow: it organizes the abandonment of failed and obsolete products to enable an investment strategy for new growth that emphasizes experimentation in anticipation of a high rate of early small failures.
Just a heads up that the early bird rates for our next “Engineering Your Sales Process®” Workshop close Sun-Jan-28. This is the same workshop that Scott Sambucci and Sean Murphy offered at the Lean Startup Conference in December 2012 but we are limiting the attendance to 12 entrepreneurs to allow it to be even more
Engineering Your Sales Process Workshop Feb-8 Early Bird Closes This Weekend Read More »
Advice from a lucky entrepreneur tends to be very specific and suggest a “copy exactly” model. Better advice will offer principles and several perspectives.
The Lucky And The Wise Read More »
Come join other Tampa Bay area entrepreneurs who eat problems for breakfast. At a Bootstrappers Breakfast® we have serious conversations about growing a business based on internal cash flow and organic profit: this is for founders who are actively bootstrapping a startup. When: Thu-Jan-24-2013 8:30 AM to 10:00 AM Where: Oxford Exchange, 420 West Kennedy
Bootstrapper Breakfast Comes to Tampa Thu-Jan-24 Read More »
Question: I’m reading Seth Godin’s Tribes book, what role do you think tribes play for startups? For context, we are in crunch time at my startup. We have a few part-time engineers and have soft-circled first half of angel round. Morale is still very high but have lots on our mind. I’m contemplating whether our
Tribes and Traction Read More »
Where Do Lean Startup Methods Help Most? The Lean Startup 2012 conference clarified where Lean Startup principles are especially applicable: Emerging markets, Industries that are being disrupted, Companies that have fallen behind the innovation curve. All of these situations are characterized by the need for exploration and discovery instead of continued execution of the current
Where Do Lean Startup Methods Help Most? Read More »
“If something cannot go on forever, it will stop.” Stein’s Law (Herbert Stein) Some excerpts from Choices for Deficit Reduction [Full Report PDF] released by Congressional Budget Office on November 8, 2012. The United States is facing fundamental budgetary challenges. Federal debt held by the public exceeds 70 percent of the nation’s annual output (gross domestic product, or
