Thoughts on what makes startups successful, what makes a great founder and how to navigate the world of startups.
Almost 25 years ago, I was part of a company that was very early in the birth of online backup and ultimately the beginnings of the Software-as-a-Service business model. Free trials came in the form of special software licenses, not recurring service plans. I remember that VCs didn’t want to fund a start-up with a […]
Stop Giving Stuff Away for Free Read More »
I’ve been very fortunate to meet and spend real time with the founders of many companies across a diverse spectrum of industries and have seen them struggle with startup storytelling. I’ve found a pattern — almost none of them can quickly articulate what they do. Instead of being the best at startup storytelling their own product
Why Founders Suck at Telling Their Own Stories Read More »
I’ve heard hundreds of pitches for businesses over the past few years — both as part of my role at Hult International Business School and in my time advising start-up founders. I’ve noticed a pattern. If your pitch starts with “an app/token/coin that…”, your business is almost definitely going to fail. The problem isn’t that
Great Products Come from Passionately Dissatisfied Startup Founders Read More »
I’m not an expert on hip hop, but I’m a fan. Its evolution is fascinating. The amount and pace of innovation is remarkable. I believe that some day in the not-too-distant future, people will look back on today as a golden era of music innovation. I believe the lessons of hip hop, itself an interesting
5 Startup Lessons from Hip Hop Read More »
For the past year, I’ve been working with a Baptist minister, Rev. Jeffrey Brown to help him fund and scale his violence reduction work. Rev. Brown has spent the past 25+ years helping Boston and 21 other communities reduce violence. His TED talk tells the story about the The Boston Miracle — a 29 consecutive month period
An Agile Approach to Peace? Read More »
As my graduate students @hultbiz near their graduation, I thought I’d share some practical ideas about finding a great job that I’ve be sharing piecemeal with them as they’ve asked: Build and actively manage your professional network. This is more than just going to job fairs. With apps like Meetup and incredible events and organizations, there
Better Job Hunting in 7 Steps Read More »
The opinions other people form and adjust about us can be critical personally and professionally. People’s opinions of us give us our practical authority, our ability to influence and our ability to draw satisfaction from our work. Though we may often feel powerless to shape the opinions that others have of us, the truth is that we have much more influence than
Can We Control What People Think About Us? Read More »
My MBA start-up competition @hultbiz just finished. My best teams were awesome. Every team demonstrated plenty of inspiration and perspiration, but the best teams were willing to do a few very uncomfortable things that the average teams weren’t.
In 2003, Seth Godin published an online article entitled “what should Google do?“. With something like 100 other people, I submitted my suggestions. It’s fun to go back in time. Most of my ideas seem obvious today, but none of these were available in 2003 when this was published. My suggestions are below (I fixed one
Flashback to Google Year 2003 Read More »
One of my Masters students @Hultbiz asked me what advice I would offer as he takes his next step into the corporate world. Here is my advice below: 1. Define and follow productive daily routines to improve health, learning and relationships. @tferriss is a great resource 2. Your next 5 years are 99% about learning. Make decisions
My simple advice to my graduating students Read More »
Is explicit skin-in-the-game the reason that lean and agile are so novel and impactful? Would you rather fly on a plane controlled by the world’s best pilot remotely from a control center or on a plane flown by an average pilot in the cockpit of your plane? I know my answer. In the old models of building
Agile, Lean and Skin-in-the-Game Read More »
I’m currently coaching 16 MBA teams in an entrepreneurship competition. I’ve been teaching them to use Lean Canvas and lean principals to build their business cases and ultimately their businesses. Here are 3 principal insights that I use to help my students move from “why do we have to fill-out this stupid chart…” to “wow, this is powerful…”
3 Insights about Lean Canvas Read More »
Many years ago, I created and delivered training for resellers of LiveVault, one of the first online backup services. At the time, what we were selling was very new and counterintuitive to most of our target customers. We were basically telling them that what they were doing and had been doing for many years (often
The perfectly wrong person to put in charge of building a new product Read More »
I was just speaking to the founder of Ratafire. Her vision is to help aspiring artists and researchers afford the time for creative freedom through ultra-low-fee crowdfunding and commerce. We were talking about how to recruit more artists into her community and platform. She is frustrated by the relatively high cost and low conversion rates of the “now-traditional”
Finding receptive customers Read More »
I’ve been struck by how many times I’ve heard people say – “I hate marketing” or “I hate being marketed to.” While I’ve probably said the same thing myself, I feel myself nonetheless getting defensive. It makes me uneasy. I would argue that what they’re really saying is that they hate BAD marketing. They dislike being
Nobody really hates marketing, but everyone hates BAD marketing (updated) Read More »
