Think About Startups

Customer Discovery (Concise)

mled — Sun, 01 May 2011 11:53:19 +0100

david-noel: gbattle: Onswipe’s presentation at TechStars Demo...

mled — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 14:39:56 +0100

gbattle:

Onswipe’s presentation at TechStars Demo Day. If this doesn’t make your inner entrepreneur smile, nothing will.

“We’re not raising a Series A, we’re raising a Series Awesome” - Jason Baptiste, CEO of Onswipe.

We just installed the plugin on our Wordpress blog and it’s awesome!

Decent presentation, product looks very slick!

thestartupstudent: Accelerated Learning: How to Find and Take...

mled — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 21:56:33 +0100

thestartupstudent:

Accelerated Learning: How to Find and Take Advantage of Smart People

In June I gave a talk at Ignite Boulder 11 on accelerated learning. I’d love your feedback on it. I’m really proud of the talk. I’d never spoken in front of so many people before (around 1,450).

I approached Ignite as a challenge. In Boulder, we have the largest Ignite talks anywhere in the world so this was a bit intimidating.

The short version of the video is this: learn from people who are better than you. It doesn’t really matter what the subject. Business, ping pong, chess…it all works.

Find someone smart who blows you away and learn all you can from them.

Spot on Zack! There’s some great advice here. Have you narrowed your network of smart people to a board and/or found yourself a business mentor?

How to Pitch a VC (aka “Startup Viagra”) by Dave...

mled — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 19:48:08 +0100

How to Pitch a VC (aka “Startup Viagra”) by Dave McClure

hiten: The UX-Driven Startup Follow Hiten’s blog, he...

mled — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 20:15:15 +0100

hiten:

The UX-Driven Startup

Follow Hiten’s blog, he frequently posts great finds like this

#Launch48 - 3 things to listen for during pitches at Launch48

mled — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 13:54:48 +0100

Visit → London Launch48.com

This evening you will hear pitches from fellow participants in the Launch48 weekend. Some will astound you with their charm and intelligence, some will be great ideas that are poorly presented, while others will just make you chuckle. Here are three questions that hopefully give you some guidance on what to listen for:

1) Does the idea interest you?

This is a gut feeling - does the concept appeal to you? Perhaps the pitch mentions something that particularly interests you because it’s an exciting new technology that could shake up an industry. Maybe it’s familiar territory and you know a handful of pitfalls that you could help to avoid.

2) Is there one problem that can be solved by the end of the weekend?

Remember that a key part of the Launch48 experience is learning. If you’re a developer, take a look at what is being suggested and think about how achievable building version 1 of this app actually is, but make sure you consider time you may wish to spend on any learning or experimentation of a new language or framework.

3) How viable is it as a business, perhaps after a few months of continued development?

Some of the web apps that take shape over the weekend could become more than just a learning experience, you might wish to continue to work on it and build a company. It does not matter if you are prepared to commit time and effort beyond the weekend, consider that others might and ask yourself how much potential the pitch has to become a successful business.

Remember that all pitches undergo the scrutiny of the audience and that a majority vote decides which ideas go forward - make your vote count!

attentionindustry: I think I could use one of these for my...

mled — Tue, 25 May 2010 17:31:52 +0100

attentionindustry:

I think I could use one of these for my cube.

[by Baltimore Print Studios]

Excellent!

hiten: The video of my presentation about Pivots at the Startup...

mled — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 21:06:17 +0100

hiten:

The video of my presentation about Pivots at the Startup Lessons Learned conference on April 23rd, 2010.

Really useful advice from Hiten Shah

Entrepreneurism: The age gap (via venturebeat) Particularly...

monsieurledan — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 17:33:21 +0000

Entrepreneurism: The age gap (via venturebeat)

Particularly cool for me to hear how successful entrepreneurs started during their CS studies.

Listen out for the example of a company idea that didn’t win at a school development competition but did succeed as a real world business - that to me highlighted some of the differences (and perhaps the divide) that exists between the academic world and the broader world of business. It’s great that he still pushed to make his idea work after studying.

Also it was really interesting to hear about the chemistry between the co-founders. It’s recognised as extremely important for co-founders to have a great relationship. “It’s like being a married couple” - the core values are trust and transparency.

karlfreeman: Great points...

monsieurledan — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 12:47:45 +0000

karlfreeman:

Great points about iterating your product constantly building market share before your product has even got big.

Could not agree more with this presentation. This exactly our philosophy at justFDI - “just start”.

The Essential Startup Reader: 10 Lessons In Entrepreneurship

monsieurledan — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 14:08:14 +0000

The Essential Startup Reader: 10 Lessons In Entrepreneurship:

1. What Startups Are Really Like by Paul Graham

2. Milestones to Startup Success by Sean Ellis

3. Myth: Entrepreneurship will make you rich by Eric Ries

4. What is the minimum viable product? By Venture Hacks

5. The power of continuous improvement by Mike Speiser

6. Getting comfortable with People who make you uncomfortable by Mike Speiser

7. The Funnel Principle: Software & Making Money by Tony Wright

8. Does every start-up need a Steve Jobs? by Andrew Chen

9. Designing for Social Traction by Josh Porter

10. Startup Killer: the cost of customer acquisition by David Skok

(via gigaom)

mikehudack: tedr: Growing a Business: Paul Hawken This a GREAT...

monsieurledan — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 22:48:45 +0000

mikehudack:

tedr:

Growing a Business: Paul Hawken

This a GREAT book every entrepreneur should read. It covers Hawkins business experiences from the ’70s to early ’90s and thus it’s free of Web anomalies like real-time data, eCommerce and exuberant VCs, but still full of modern start-up dilemas, sensibilities, optimism and financial challenges … plenty of financial challenges.

The best piece of advice I’ll share is when Hawkins (founder of Smith & Hawkins catalogs among many others) realizes after spending yet another weekend day resolving an unexpected and unforeseen problem that his job as CEO isn’t to solve problems so he can get back to work, his job is to solve unexpected and unforeseen problems.

Once he embraces that problems are his job not the obstacle to doing his job he was much happier. And I’ve been much since reading that a month ago..

AskDaveTaylor.com - What are Angel Investors and Venture Capital

monsieurledan — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 21:01:26 +0000

AskDaveTaylor.com - What are Angel Investors and Venture Capital:

shutupinternet:

I’ve contributed a few articles for Boulder local blogger Dave Taylor’s “ask and you shall receive” website AskDaveTaylor.com.

My most recent article which went up today is for those who hear a lot about Angel Investors, Venture Capital and startup funding and wonder, “What does it all mean?”

In my article I cover the three main types of funding in startups: Friends & Family, Angel Investors and Venture Capital and how they relate to the different stages of new businesses.

Give it a read and if I’ve missed anything, leave it in the comments.

Nice article. I’d like to see posts like this alongside commentary on valuation. I remember an episode of the GigaOm show on Revision3 which gave a concise guide to valuation and briefly mentioned options for raising capital.

rafer: fred-wilson: one of my favorite slides in david...

monsieurledan — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 18:39:57 +0000

rafer:

fred-wilson:

one of my favorite slides in david gillespie’s wonderful digital strangelove presentation

Rafer sez:
It’s specifically a great tactic for startups selling analytics. Those startups spend time belaboring which stats should be free and which premium, and it’s almost always a waste. Give away a full report once a day (or week), and charge the premium for continuous updating.

Freemium is not a one-size-fits-all business model for applications. Take our flagship Twitter application JournoTwit - there are several features in the pipeline which (if you’re a journalist) will rock your world. We will almost certainly not charge journalists (individually) any money for access to these premium features because we would sooner work with publications to create something bespoke.

The market for Twitter applications is huge but saturated with generic players like Tweetdeck, the focus of strategy is to grow an enormous herd of users in order to become a platform on which people can be targeted. I would like to see more development begin by targeting niche audiences and customising the experience for certain verticals. After all, what use is a real-time and social internet if business is unable to grasp the relevance.

"I met several people who had never even heard of Techcrunch. Personally I thought this was..."

monsieurledan — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 10:59:16 +0100

“I met several people who had never even heard of Techcrunch. Personally I thought this was brilliant. I feel the start-up community is a bit too into itself and getting people from more conventional businesses involved is great.”

- DirtyAndy’s summary of Day 1 at #Launch48

Welcome

monsieurledan — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 22:46:00 +0100

Think About Startups was launched for very similar reasons to thinkabouttech.com - we wanted a repository for thoughts and opinions. We aim to promote open discussion of business, strategy and marketing; with the occasional snippet of experience from startup life.

Whether you are here to read or to write, we’d love you to say “HI!” in the comments. Alternatively you can chat to us or follow @thinkstartups on Twitter.

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