Articles
Lessons learned from a Startup Studio.
Startup studios are a relatively new type of business. You might have heard of them before as “venture builders” or “startup factories.” There are only a dozen or so of them in the world, including the original one, IdeaLab, and [...]
Struggling to hire the perfect VP of X at your Startup
Entrepreneurs dream of a better product, better world, or a better business than something that existed before. In this ideological view, when the CEO sets out to recruit a new VP of Marketing, a new CTO, or a new Head [...]
Converting a (meh) pitch into an (engaging) story
If there is one common thread I see on first-time (even second-time) entrepreneurs, they get too excited about their idea, know too much about it, and tell an incomplete or confusing story about what they are doing and why. They [...]
Some fantastic companies at TechStars Seattle and one Unicorn in the making.
Yesterday was TechStars Seattle Demo Day and over the last seven years of TechStars Seattle, I can say this is the best batch of all. In case, you don’t know what TechStars or Demo Day is, your time will be [...]
Exploration vs. Execution
Every once in a while, you hear a story that you connect with a previous story, and it brings a new level of clarity to a topic — A collision of ideas. Yesterday it happened to me when thinking about the early [...]
We need more startup marketing minds (a.k.a. Full-Stack Marketers)
Three years ago I was at a dinner and an entrepreneur was telling me and the VP of Marketing of a successful startup how there weren’t enough marketing folks in Seattle. This VP of Marketing disagreed and said there are [...]
The least amount of time, money, and resources to prove your business.
There are many entrepreneurial patterns, some good, some not. One pattern I see a lot is this belief that things will work and you jump one or two steps ahead of where you should be. (See my previous post on [...]
Flirting amp; Dating Startups Ideas
Working at a Startup Studio has given me a new appreciation on how to select an idea, build a startup and make it successful. Actually, not so much what makes a startup successful, but what makes good people pick bad [...]
The need for advisors amp; mentors
We live in a world of infinite options. From the type of beer at the supermarket to the career decisions you can make. It seems to be an even bigger problem for entrepreneurs and founders. For the past three years, [...]
Next Chapter: Pioneer Square Labs
Next Chapter: Pioneer Square Labs I’m happy to tell that I’ve joined a band of exceptional players to build what’s going to be one of the biggest bets from Seattle, creating a new way to build startups. Pioneer Square Labs (a.k.a. [...]
Anti-Customer Development
Let me go out on a limb and assume if the title of this post got you here you know what Customer Development is. So, I’m proposing that with your Customer Development you also do an Anti-Customer Development. My definition [...]
The Three Types of Startup Advisors You’ll Find: The Dad-type, the Mom-type, and the Grandpa-type.
If you are doing a startup, just starting as a side-project or profitable and on its way to unicorndom, as a founder you are bound to encounter many advisors on your journey. These interactions come in unstructured and structured ways: [...]
You can’t speed up time: On testing startup hypothesis
The amazing rise and prominence of Y Combinator, TechStars and 500 Startups has bestowed upon us the idea that startups have a very specific timeframe to figure out their product, raise money, launch, build a brand, etc. You combine that [...]
Is Gamification Dead?
Four years ago Gamification was all the rage. Books were being published, conferences were being held, VCs and angels would ask you if you shouldn’t add badges, leaderboard and points to your product. It was like the tech world (excluding [...]
Hiring the best tech talent: Purpose, Product, and Compensation
We live in a very peculiar time in history in which the demand for tech skills are so high that companies are going above and beyond to convince talent to join their mission. These are primarily software engineers, but also [...]
Seven Principles for a world of technology for all
Bill Gates letter to Microsoft employees in commemoration of Microsoft’s 40th anniversary is brief, but it hints at what’s to come. If you look at the progression of technology in ten year blocks (2015, 2005, 1995, 1985, 1975) you get [...]
Three Unusual Sources of Startup Ideas
I believe that any startup idea, even if it’s an obviously bad one, can be pivoted into a bigger and better idea, so getting started is probably the most important step in making an idea into a successful execution. Sometimes [...]
Grab people’s attention by the symptom, not by the cure.
We might think highly of what we’ve created. We might think we have a great, unique, and revolutionary solution for a problem. We want the world to know about it. We speak in witty form, touting our approach, and… No [...]
Playing in the right business zone
If you are a product manager, by title or role, you are probably familiar with the matrix describing where you should spend your resources. It states that features that are used by most users most of the time are worth [...]
A breakdown of EveryMove technology costs in 2014
It’s very hard to predict how much it will cost to run a startup or all the services we’ll need to use. When we get started, we make very basic assumptions of the R&D and operational services we’ll use, but [...]
