In October 2011 I announced that I was joining GoInstant, which provides co-browsing technology to the enterprise. GoInstant is an awesome company. I’ve loved my experience there so far. WeR...
I’m not much of a prognosticator, but recently Sarah Needleman from the Wall Street Journal called me to ask my thoughts about startup accelerators. She had found a blog post I had written (How...
I’ve never found a great system for bubbling up older content on a blog. It’s so transient. Posts last a week at most and then they disappear into the archive. I’ve tried a few thin...
The questioning (negative) press about startup accelerators and incubators isn’t going to stop. It’s going to continue and likely increase. Some of it will be meaningless drivel mixed in ...
Fred Destin wrote a fantastic blog post recently on how to be a good startup mentor. It made me think a great deal about how I mentor startups, where I’m effective, and where I could improve. A...
Today, April 22nd, marks the 26th anniversary of my brother’s death. He died in 1986 at the age of 8 from Leukemia. I was 10 at the time. He was my only sibling. Strangely enough, he and I shar...
Lately, I’m getting more and more feedback from entrepreneurs that Lean Startup is holding them back. I’m seeing this in action as well; startups that are “stuck” in a permane...
A lot of people think meetings are a complete waste of time. Meeting with people in and of itself isn’t a waste of time, it’s just that most meetings are poorly run. For entrepreneurs thi...
Seems these days I start almost every blog post talking about Lean Canvas. I’ve seen the Lean Canvas work effectively – as a planning, strategy and communication tool – and encourag...
(Powered by LaunchBit) Most companies don’t have a serious, repeatable interviewing process for hiring. Instead they wing it, bringing people in for interviews, asking a few questions, turning ...
(Powered by LaunchBit) Reid Hoffman and Ben Casnocha — authors of the #1 New York Times bestseller The Start-up of You— are hosting a live, hour-long webcast in which they will discuss how you can ac...
(Powered by LaunchBit) Why isn’t there a box for Competition on the Lean Canvas? Someone asked me this question recently, and it’s a good one. Understanding your competition is important,...
(Powered by LaunchBit) I’ve tried willing my startups into success. Turns out, it doesn’t work. You can’t will things into reality (as far as I know at least.) And that sounds obvio...
(Powered by LaunchBit) Recently, I presented Lean Canvas and an extended Problem-Solution Canvas (that we created at Year One Labs) to FounderFuel’s second startup cohort. It was a lot of fun, ...
(Powered by LaunchBit) I’m a big believer in intellectual honesty. We emphasized it at Year One Labs by pushing teams through a lean startup methodology. And when I reflect back on my failures,...
(Powered by LaunchBit) Hiring is an ongoing endeavor. You know you’re doing it right (at least partially) when you’re always doing it, even if you’re not actively trying to fill rol...
(Powered by LaunchBit) Raising money is a dirty job, but someone has to do it right? Very true, but it’ll go a lot easier if everything behind the scenes is clean, well-organized and ready to g...
(Powered by LaunchBit) At Year One Labs we had 20 mentors and investors. It was (and remains) a great group. Many of them were quite active in helping our portfolio companies; many continue to help. ...
(Powered by LaunchBit) Micah Baldwin has a great post on the confusing roles and responsibilities between mentors, advisors and investors. It’s a must read for any entrepreneur (particularly th...
(Powered by LaunchBit) Localmind came out of Year One Labs (where I’m a Founding Partner.) They raised a seed round in July, 2011 after graduating from the accelerator. Since then they’ve...
(Powered by LaunchBit) I must say that I was very surprised when I was asked to speak at the Michigan Lean Startup Conference on May 17th. The lineup includes some awesome speakers and Lean Startup /...
(Powered by LaunchBit) Most startups are so busy racing around that they rarely take the time to evaluate and improve their own processes. It’s unfortunate, because as a startup matures it won&...
(Powered by LaunchBit) In 2007 I wrote a post about what it was like raising a family and starting a company at the same time. Back then my second son, Quinn, had just been born, and I was starting S...
(Powered by LaunchBit) Every so often I go into Apple’s App Store (primarily for the iPad) and look for new apps to try. I’m typically looking for new games – time killers – t...
(Powered by LaunchBit) Negative feedback hurts. It’s easy to take personally and get offended. It’s easy to dismiss too. But negative feedback is a lot better than no feedback at all. The...
(Powered by LaunchBit) HighScore House is one of our portfolio companies at Year One Labs. After leaving Year One Labs, they decided to join 500Startups and go through the 3-4 month acceleration prog...
(Powered by LaunchBit) My history with hiring university students and recent graduates for technical positions has not been a good one. In my first company (~15 years ago) we tried hiring recent univ...
(Powered by LaunchBit) How you differentiate from competitors only matters if it matters to customers. Pick any differentiation you want – pricing, features, target market, market gap, performa...
(Powered by LaunchBit) I got into computers fairly early because of my father. He went back to university in 1986 in his early 40s and did a BSc. in Computer Science. I was 11 years old. Our first co...
(Powered by LaunchBit) These days, most entrepreneurs I talk to understand the importance of speaking with customers before building a full-blown product. They’re getting out of the building. A...
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