Secrets of When and How to Talk to Customers at a Startup
Jason Lemkin says forget building wireframe UI’s and start out interviewing 20 customers, because you just won’t understand your customers until you do. Here’s the gist of why you need 20 interviews before you do anything else: And you have to do 20. I know it’s hard to get to 20. But it’s the right […]
Planning to Do a SaaS Startup? Don’t Forget the 20 Interview Rule.
Recently I spent some time with two seemingly similar SaaS start-ups. Both are at about $100k in MRR (congratulations!). Both have happy, enthusiastic customers. Both have really great products and are organically growing. Both have great founder CEOs. But even though both are now at $1m ARR … one is just so much better positioned […]
Where’s the Soul of These Tiny New Machines?
I can’t be sure if Apple jumped the shark or not. Introducing the long awaited iPhone 6 and Watch wearable device made me do a lot of thinking. First the iPhone. iPhone They obviously need some better naming conventions to describe the bigger and biggest iPhones and ideally the naming should come from the suitability […]
Much ado about Competitive nothings
Nmachi Jidenma writes about the undue focus we put on the competition. This is written with individuals in mind but I think it matters to emerging software categories as well. My favorite lines: “It only makes sense that competing with others distracts from the distinctiveness that makes our art special. By comparing ourselves with others, we […]
Apple, Peak and Cockroaches
You probably think I am out of my mind – well … hm… no comment. But yes I agree it’s close to madness to discuss Apple’s decline right on the heels of a record-breaking iPhone 5 launch and a stock price that despite some correction is still a rocketship. But bear with me for a […]
Tim Cook’s US Manufacturing Reality Distortion Field
Tim Cook visiting Foxconn People say Steve Jobs had a “reality distortion field“. His powerful charisma and messages were said to have the ability to make people believe in what he wanted them to regardless of the facts. Now Tim Cook is trying to deploy his own reality distortion field of sorts, and it’s working […]
Think Bigger
I spent the best part of last week cruising up and down Silicon Valley checking in with customers and would be clients. The consensus from this non-scientific survey is that business is better than OK and most people are expecting this year to be the best in a while. Of course there is a cloud—literal […]
For Startups, Joel Spolsky’s Management Model is Mostly Wrong
I read with interest Joel Spolsky’s guest post over on A VC. It’s all about how he sees the hardcore command and control model as the wrong model for startups and that it has been wrongly emphasized by highly autocratic leaders like Steve Jobs. As an alternative, he advocates inverting the hierarchical pyramid so that […]
Social Renaissance in Sight
Please don’t run for the door – you won’t hear Gregorian chants, ye olde english, or be forced to eat boar legs with your hands. Not that kind of Renaissance. Promise. Remember when we learned about the Renaissance period in school? Me neither — thank heavens for Wikipedia! The actual Renaissance was the moment the […]
2011 Say Bye-bye!
Every year around this time I write two columns one on the year that was and another on what I expect the new year to bring. There is no methodology for this process and I believe this lack of method is important. I take a blank screen and fill it up with what has been […]
