Thinking About Your Business Goals We went through a brief planning exercise with our clients, and some prospective clients, that several found useful. Since it’s not not too late to do some planning for 2007, here are a few questions that should answer on a single piece of paper (perhaps even a 3×5 card you can carry with you) […]
Thinking About Your Business Goals for 2007 Read More »
Here are three ways for building credibility. Referrals A referral is an introduction to a prospect with an endorsement. A referral allows you to borrow credibility from a trusted third party. They spring from shared success with your customers or former co-workers, someone who knows your potential and can vouch for you or your team’s
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Last night, I attended the January Silicon Valley New Tech Meetup. For those of you who do not know the format of these gatherings, it is very simple. Each group of presenters is allowed five minutes to pitch their offering and then the crowd is allocated five minutes to ask questions. The first presenters were the founders
January’s Silicon Valley NewTech Meetup Read More »
Theresa heard a radio interview with Barry Moltz in 2003 and suggested that I get his book. In December 2003 I purchased a copy of You Need to Be a Little Crazy and when it arrived from Amazon I put it on my to-be-read pile where it languished until early this morning when I read
You Need to Be a Little Crazy Read More »
“Plus Minus People” make a strong initial impression but once you start working with them (or you hire them) you realize that they have a negative impact on the team.
I had lunch today at El Cerrito with an old friend from college who has done a number of successful startups. We talked of old classmates, children, the energy we had in our twenties, his new son, and my new granddaughter. And we talked about what it was like to do a startup. He left
Two Images of Startups Read More »
Venk Shukla, CEO of Nusym, commented on Nusym De-cloaks 3 on Dec 4 We had met a long time ago but lost touch afterward. The points you make about website credibility are valid. We will measure the information we put out against this criteria once we decide to emerge from the shadows. Thanks for paying
Going pro means learning how to deliver the results required. Some key points to remember as you ask folks in larger firms to take a risk with your new offering or service. They are from a March 1993 column entitled “Going Pro” by Asa Baber.
I have been catching up on my reading and came across a profile of Larry Sonsini in Fortune’s Nov-27-06 print edition. The article in the print edition is titled “The Man To See In The Valley” but “Scandals rock Silicon Valley’s top legal ace” in the on-line version. It’s part of their “Portraits of Power” profiles,
Larry Sonsini Profiled in Fortune Nov-27-06 Read More »
John Nesheim, author of High Tech Startup, has been blogging for a little over a year. His most recent post, just before Thanksgiving, gives his perspective on bootstrapping BOTTOM LINE: Bootstraps are difficult to do. A few rare ones become giants (Dell). Most struggle and remain small, or go out of business. Buyers of such
Nesheim vs. Cowan on Bootstrap Economics Read More »
It’s been a month since my two posts on Nusym Technology. They upgraded their text treatment ( nu · sym ) to a nice logo. They still promise to deliver the “most significant breakthrough in functional verification in a decade. Nusym Technology is an EDA software company that provides an order of magnitude improvement in verification productivity while
Here are 3 things I learned from Jennifer Vessels in Next Step’s workshop “How to Sell the Real Value of Your Solution” on Thursday, November 7. I need to align my sales efforts with my prospect’s success factors. This means that I need to figure how they are getting measured and how to influence and serve
3 things I learned at Next Step’s “How to Sell the Real Value of Your Solution” Read More »
On Nov. 8, I attended the Guy Kawasaki Art of the Start Seminar. This was the second time I have listened to Guy’s presentation. Guy is an amazing speaker and has given this pitch a hundred times. Even after 100’s of presentations, Guy continues to illustrate passion and enthusiasm in his Art of the Start
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Art of the Start is one of the best workshops out there for startups. Here are 3 things I learned from it. Mary Hodder, founder and CEO of Dabble, reminded the audience of the saying “If you want money, ask for advice. If you want advice, ask for money!” One of the most important Guy
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As a Jotspot customer I am not at all excited by the portents around Jot’s announcement that they had been acquired by Google for an undisclosed sum and that, for the moment, no new accounts could be created. From Jot’s Home Page New users: We’ve closed off new account registrations while we focus on migrating
JotSpot Dissolves Into Google Business Model Read More »
I have had the pleasure of meeting Carole Edman at a number of networking events and been impressed with professionalism and expertise. She started consulting in 1986 as Carole Edman & Associates, and has been offering the following services to small and mid-size companies: High quality interim, on-call, or part-time Human Resources Management consulting services,
Carole Edman, HR Manager To Go Read More »
I had lunch with Sylvia Nessan, a veteran of Synopsys, CoWare, and several high tech startups and she made an observation that I thought was worth writing down: the founding team, and CEO in particular, don’t pay enough attention to how much time they waste on administrivia. Hiring an admin or other outside service providers
Administrivia in Startups Read More »
Some follow-ups to yesterday’s post on Nusym Why de-cloak? Don’t most stealth startups emerge? Yes, at least according to Google and EET. But a good Star Trek allusion (or is it Harry Potter?) always enriches a blog post and the Duke “invisibility cloak” demonstration announcement had recently gone out over the mojo wire, so it was fresh in my
Nusym has been on my radar screen ever since Venk Shukla came to a SIPA dinner on April 26, 2006 and joined their advisory board. Venk has been associated with a number of successful EDA companies (e.g. Cadence, Ambit, Magma Design, and Emulation and Verification Engineering (EVE)), a charter member of TiE, and definitely someone
Last night, I attended an SDForum Startup SIG featuring Bill Trenchard, CEO of LiveOps. Bill is a prime example of a serial entrepreneur. In 10 years he has been a founder and CEO of three successful start ups. One of which was Jump Networks, Inc., that was acquired by Microsoft in April 1999. Bill said
Bill Trenchard at SDForum Startup SIG Oct 16, 2006 Read More »
