As we prepare for this upcoming round of Startupify, we’re spending a lot of time discussing curriculum, teachable moments and learning in general. What’s refreshing to reflect on is the almost complete lack of evaluations. We have no tangible carrots or sticks. Ultimately our cohort are the ones taking a gamble on themselves. That’s a […]
In this series of posts we’re “grilling” the mentors of the Startupify program with the hope of discovering who is best able to answer a standardized set of questions. Points for accuracy and un-originality will be assigned. Actually we’re just trying to learn more about them .. the kind of stuff that doesn’t appear in […]
In this series of posts we’re “grilling” the mentors of the Startupify program with the hope of discovering who is best able to answer a standardized set of questions. Points for accuracy and un-originality will be assigned. Actually we’re just trying to learn more about them .. the kind of stuff that doesn’t appear in […]
I had a great meeting yesterday with a new local business who are doing very well. It was great hearing their story, in particular how they had an idea and they just went after it. There was no 40 page business plan, angel investor pitches, mentor meetings etc. They had a simple hypothesis based on […]
This is partly a continuation post of our Stop Measuring Everything post last week. Metrics and what we measure are powerful and dangerous. Data and metrics are noise, what happens when you overreact to noise? Poor metrics can kill an early stage company. We can’t mathematize startups and focus solely on the known while ignoring […]
There’s a cool thread in The Talent Code about how foot speed is determined by your birth order. Your chances of being fast increase if you have older siblings and the author backs this up with stats from current 100 meter dash champions and NFL running backs. The point is that commitment, motivations and primal cues […]
Metrics, metrics metrics. While there’s one metric I can’t get enough of, the rest have been pissing me off for a while now. This growing wave of overreacting to data analysis needs to crest, we may be in a metrics bubble folks. I’ll differentiate between data and metrics. Except for the associated development and storage costs, […]
This infographic titled “Everyone Will Have to Become an Entrepreneur” is awesome! I wish we’d created it as it could likely be our entire landing page for Startupify.Me. So that’s great, we should all be entrepreneurs, or at the very least be more entrepreneurial, but how? All the successful entrepreneurs are busy telling us to […]
You never forget your first time. It’s exciting but awkward. You hope it’s going to go really well but it doesn’t take as long as you thought it would. You’re left wondering if that’s what all the fuss was about and if it gets better. At least, that’s how my first idea extraction call went; […]
I gave a short talk last year at GWMM titled “How To Quit Your Crappy Job“. It was a tongue in cheek way of pitching Startupify.Me. In the talk I discussed Josh Kaufman’s definition of a successful business: Creates or provides something of value that…(Product Development) Other people want or need. (Marketing) At a price they’re […]
