Category: Startup Advice
-
“Do what you love and you won’t work a day?”
I’m re-posting this because I got a lot of feedback. The majority agreed but some people wanted to modify my premise. One said maybe you should lower your expectations and “do what you like”. Do a job that’s “sort of satisfying”? I don’t think so–not my style. I believe everybody is good at, and has a…
-
The Seven Steps of Customer Investigation
When aspiring entrepreneurs finally realize they have to spend more time developing the customer than developing the product in the early days, they are often faced with a dilemma: “You mean I have to actually TALK to people?” Steve Blank and Eric Ries would answer the same way: yes. You can’t build a product around…
-
URGENCY – Foundation of a saleable product
A lot of articles talk about ‘creating’ urgency in order to sell your product. However, I don’t think you can base your product’s salability on hoping marketing and sales manipulations will create a motivated customer. If your target customer does not already have some urgency in finding a solution to the problem he has, it…
-
First, Get A Product You Can Sell–Part 1
I have been consolidating and prioritizing my messages for early-stage entrepreneurs. I think that success starts with one simple task: coming up with a product that people will buy. I often talk about bringing ambition and commitment to the table, and that is critical as well, but no amount of ambition or commitment is going…
-
Idea dating. Shiny Objects Syndrome.
Few people succeed by bouncing around from cool idea to cool idea. If you’re an inventor like me, you have a couple “great” ideas a day. Cool ideas have a life span; some live longer than others. A successful business is based on a cool idea to which you dedicate your energies, committing your time…
-
7 Traits of Successful Entrepreneurs
I’ve been, and I’ve known a lot of, successful entrepreneurs. When thinking through why some made it and some didn’t, seven personal characteristics appeared to be consistent with success. Invest in Yourself. I’m not talking so much about money, but rather about time and energy and passion and commitment. If you invest in yourself, it…
-
Entrepreneur mistakes I made – Part Deux
I invented NOAH, an animated character technology for online applications. It was very effective and successful for online training projects, bridging the gap between instructor-led and pure online coursework. We adapted it to work on our website, a cute little avatar flying around and pointing at things and explaining benefits and action items, popping up…
-
Working out Your Competitive Advantage
There are very few unique ideas in the world; don’t think you are the first person in the billions of people in the world to think of it. The difference between success and failure relies on a lot of factors, like management and customer service, but every successful product has some distinguishing characteristic, some competitive…
-
Pitching is a Sales Process – Part 1
By popular demand (OK, a couple people asked) I’m writing a follow-up to my post a couple weeks ago about pitching your idea. I’ve been working with corporate clients for 15 years, developing interactive training programs built with my SoundLearningX© system. Because of the nature of the program, I got involved in a lot of sales-related…
-
Simple Recipe for an Entrepreneur’s Success
To achieve success as an entrepreneur, it takes Ambition, Commitment, a Plan, and a Product people will pay for. If you have the first two, you can work out the others. I was thinking about all the successful entrepreneurs I’ve known and had a couple of thoughts. They aren’t necessarily the smartest people, the most innovative…