Steve Blank had a great post today “Building a Company with Customer Data, Why Metrics Are Not Enough” that highlights the need–even for Web Startups–to get out of the BatCave and talk to strangers who may be potential prospects. Engineers in particular can feel that this is not as productive a use of their time […]
Customer Development Proceeds in Parallel with Product Development Read More »
Appreciative Inquiry offers a solid approach for early customer interviews.Ask, “What’s working and what problems do you have?”
Early Customer Conversations: Use Appreciative Inquiry, Amplify Positive Deviance Read More »
We have added two Holiday Bootstrapper Breakfasts in the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day. This year Christmas and New Year’s Day fell on the fourth Friday and first Friday of the month which collided with two regularly scheduled breakfasts (which have been canceled). Which means that we will have a total of four
Two Holiday Bootstrapper Breakfasts Added Mon-Dec-28 & Wed-Dec-30 Read More »
John Carter CEO of TCGen is speaking on “Doing the Math: How to Estimate and Manage Results” at IEEE-CNSV on Tuesday December 15 at 7pm at KeyPoint Credit Union, 2805 Bowers Ave., Santa Clara, CA 95051. The event is free and open to the public.
John Carter to Speak at IEEE-CNSV on “Doing the Math” Tue-Dec-15-2009 Read More »
We have a few seats left for our Jan 12, 2010 Idea to Revenue workshop in Redwood Shores, CA. If you are in formation or the early days of your startup this is a good opportunity to spend four hours on your business with your team members. We help you ask each other the hard
Few Seats Left for Jan-12-2010 Idea to Revenue Workshop Read More »
We use eReleases which distributes over PR newswire for about half the price ($400). See http://www.ereleases.com/submit.html for details, we have been working with them for more than two years and been very pleased. Press releases are not appropriate for every startup’s marketing communication: you need to make sure that you have the right message before
Tips For A Startup’s Early Press Releases Read More »
Baked fresh on @skmurphy these quotes for entrepreneurs and collected into a blog post at the end of the month. Enter your E-mail if you would like new blog posts to your inbox.
Quotes for Entrepreneurs – November 2009 Read More »
Thanksgiving 2009: to be self-employed in a downturn is a wonderful opportunity–I don’t have to worry about getting laid off.
We are meeting in Mountain View at 9am at Red Rock Coffee for a Bootstrapper Breakfast: it’s the fourth Friday of the month. Take a break from the four day Thanksgiving weekend and join us Friday for a Bootstrapper Breakfast in Mountain View at Red Rock Coffee. It may be a more intimate session for
There is a Bootstrapper Breakfast This Friday at Red Rock Coffee Read More »
We’ve streamlined our home page and highlighted our advisory services, our sales and marketing support, audio and video for some recent presentations, and our Bootstrapper Breakfast events. We welcome your feedback and suggestions. The workshop page now highlights a September 2009 talk at SF BAY ACM “The Limits of I’ll Know It When I See
Updated Home Page, Let Us Know What You Think Read More »
Just a quick reminder, the early bird rate ends next week for our Jan 12, 2010 Idea to Revenue workshop in Redwood Shores, CA. If you are in formation or the early days of your startup this is a good opportunity to spend four hours on your business with your team members. We help you
Early Bird for Jan-2010 “Idea to Revenue” Ends Next Week Read More »
A thank you on Veterans Day 2009 to all of the men and women in our armed forces who make this Silicon Valley oasis of rationality and innovation possible. Veterans Day 2009 “We sleep soundly in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us
Ben Foden has been working with us part time; the following is a blog post he developed on creating genuine connections with social media.
Ben Foden on “Creating Genuine Connections with Social Media” Read More »
There has been a lot written about various aspects of social media: what tools to use, how disruptive it is, how to develop and/or demonstrate expertise. Here are four rules of thumb we follow. To establish a reputation you have to be visible or reasonably well known, but it’s more important to be known for
Social Media for Startups: “Less is More” Read More »
Marc Andreessen started a new VC firm, Andreesen Horowitz, in July but has yet to explain why he deleted his excellent series of articles on entrepreneurship from his site. I am glad that Jed Christiansen has rescued them from bit rot. Two posts that are definitely worth reading: The Pmarca Guide to Startups, part 4:
Marc Andreessen’s Entrepreneurial Insights Rescued from Bit Rot by Jed Christiansen Read More »
I use LinkedIn very differently than many of the folks I meet when I am out and about in Silicon Valley. I normally only link to people I have had shared success with. I do not link with folks who I have just casually met. I believe it’s important to keep track of folks I
Six Simple Suggestions for Using LinkedIn Read More »
These quotes for entrepreneurs are added as I find them on http://www.twitter.com/skmurphy and then collected into a post at the end of the month. Enter your E-mail if you would like new blog posts to your inbox.
Quotes for Entrepreneurs – October 2009 Read More »
Sometimes paradigms do shift. Amazon announced today that its Elastic Cloud Computing now supports high memory instances: High-Memory Instances Instances of this family offer large memory sizes for high throughput applications, including database and memory caching applications. High-Memory Double Extra Large Instance 34.2 GB of memory, 13 EC2 Compute Units (4 virtual cores with 3.25
Amazon High Memory Instances Will Enable More EDA Apps to Move to the Cloud Read More »
George Grellas offered some great advice on the difference between insightful and “window dressing” advisory boards on Hacker News I have reprinted here with his permission
George Grellas on Insightful vs. “Window Dressing” Advisory Boards Read More »
We had a good “Getting More Customers” workshop today, here is the feedback that we gathered and a heads-up on some plans for 2010. We added three numeric ratings to our feedback form this time (which shrank the space for comments). Numeric Ratings (1 Poor to 5 Excellent) Importance of Topic: 4.75 Content: 4.75 Quality
Feedback from Sat-Oct-24 “Getting More Customers” Read More »
