Showing posts with label startup. Show all posts
Showing posts with label startup. Show all posts
Sunday, September 28, 2014
Tuesday, November 12, 2013
Want to start a startup?
Compilations of fraka6 post on startup + important concepts reference
Serial entrepreneur rules: You will not stop to one
Training: Become a master of saling
FAB model (objections/clarification/deconstruction/closing)
Founding: Network than Money
IP: Don't get caught in the lawyer game of gray zone
Startup Vs Entreprise: The futur of innovation if startup inside the beast
+ importants concepts: Start with why, get organized and focus
Great book: Why Startups Fail: And How Yours Can Succeed
David S. Rose: How to pitch to a VC (You|Integrity|passion|experience|knowledge|skills|Leadership|Commitment|Vision|Realism|coachable)
importance of advisor agreement = biggest mistake you can makeFREE ENTREPRENEUR TOOL (Profit spotify is an interesting tool to mine amazon best seller to identify market)
Amazing selling machine
Friday, November 9, 2012
innovating: what's the difference between startups & enterprises
Before heading to NY, we have been invited by Mike Grandinetti to attend the Fall CXO forum on "Best Practices on Global Innovation How Companies Innovate across distributed centers & teams" in Boston. EMC, IBM, Intuit, P&G top executives were sharing their view on global innovation.
During this forum, I enjoyed a lot how critical is was to distinguish exploitation and exploration. Enterprise are great at exploiting innovations and startups great at exploring. Mike has been an amazing moderator for this event. I have rarely seen someone asking thought questions and not putting the interlocutor in defense mode, its simply an art.
Here are how those enterprises deal with this dilemma or been great at both:
- IBM do partnerships with startups throw programs such as smart planet and leverage VC to better select them before acquiring them.
- EMC try to stimulate internal innovation with contest and execution in distributed center collaboration.
- Intuit trains its employees with the lean startup approach, leverage the voice of customer paradigm and stimulate internal innovation with contest.
- P&G acknowledge that innovation doesn't work in enterprise due to the lack of internal trust which is a management issue. P&G has spin inno360 to create trust and motivating culture to make everyone work together.
Exploiting and exploring required totally different mindsets. What works for one is a disaster for the other one. Why trying to make one fit in the other if its incompatible? It is funny seeing big companies wasting so much energy trying to be innovative. It is like trying to train a women to act as a man, it will always be inefficient.
Many startups can't survive without enterprise client channels and enterprise can't survive without innovation so it is like a man and women dilemma: they don't understand each other but have to work together.
As presented by Brad Feld of Foundry group, startups innovate way faster because they can leverage way better their network as oppose to enterprise who are stuck with their hierarchy constraints (check his book "startup communities").
I seriously think that IBM has the optimal solution, they don't wast time trying to fit a square into a circle. Unfortunately, the acquisition kill most of the time the innovation culture and innovative people leave after making the knowledge transfer. As pointed out by Mike, some Cisco's acquisitions went well due to high transparency. Also, a flat hierarchy will help retain innovation spirit.
Innovation need air (freedom) but execution need hard rules which is incompatible most of the time.
For me, the best analogy to understand the difference between enterprise & startup is comparing a car and a bicycle. Even if cars can run fast, they are most of the time stuck in traffic but bicycle are free to ride.
So, are you sitting on bike or in a car to innovate?
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
Startupfest best presentations July 2011
Here are the 5 best presentations that I saw at startupfestival:
- Jeff Clavier - Founder and Managing Partner - SoftTech VC Starting by the numbers: (The 3 asses rules slides 14: Team/Product/Market)
- Your first startup: slide 5 & 21: most startups fail because the founders give up
- SUPER ANGELS, SUPER STARS, AND THE SUPER-SIZED STARTUP MYTH Chris Shipley Cofounder & CEO GuideWired Group
- Succeeding-with-freemium (how to succeed in converting free subscribers to paying customers) Sean Ellis - Founder & CEO - CatchFree
- Why not do a startup (basically, do you have the profile): Dave McClure - Investor - 500startups.com
Saturday, May 14, 2011
Governments programs are destructive for new entrepreneurs
I reached my limits of bureaucracy. Enough is enough. My conclusion is that governments programs are destructive to new entrepreneurs. Let's face it, it is simply incompatible, entrepreneurs are looking for efficiency and government can only produce bureaucracy and inefficient process that are killing wealth creation.
Many entrepreneurs are trapped by government programs where they expect help and finally end up losing precious time, getting ridiculous support for massive paperwork if not excluded by incoherent rules. Entrepreneurs are here to create wealth not justifying bureaucracy existence.
I am tire of hearing bullshit like:
- we are here to help entrepreneurs
Stop saying it and do it.
- but you have to be profitable, have clients, make more then 200K, been incorporated since, have a product, have N employees, have to been able to pay your new employee to get the support, not this, not that, this, but only in 3 months, sorry in 6 months, it needs to go through the committee of the committee of the board and can't tell you when they might decide but it will required another meeting to decide, you have to come to our office, we need this form and this proof and letter of this and details of this....like if entrepreneur time is free.
If we were respecting your criteria, we wouldn't need your support. Again we aren't looking for advices but only financial supports and efficient process, we know what we have to do. The current system seems to subsidising establish corporations, corporation without financial constraints and most important, for a second time, justifying bureaucracy existence.
Here is in a nutshell what entrepreneurs need:
- Real founding support, light and fast decision process...not advices nor endless decisions and paperwork process of months and please stop pretending you can help if you know you can't.
Worst thing is that it is sending a so bad signal to the new entrepreneurs, you should be an bureaucrat official, you will make more money, you will have a pension plan, less stress, no performance evaluation from people you are suppose to help...
Don't worry entrepreneurs can't go that way but can kill this system slowly. Without entrepreneurs, this system cannot sustain. I hope the new majority Conservative Party of Canada will make drastic cuts in this bureaucracy (their 10 billions cuts hasn't been unveiled). Officials aren't untouchable, don't shit in your plate rules applies to everyone. The effect might take longer but it will come and new entrepreneurs will help the momentum but what is bad is that founds might been cuts but no untouchable government jobs. Stop wasting time on their salaries and invest in entrepreneurs directly.
Government programs are making more damaged then good for new entrepreneurs by making them loose too much time and energy and encourage indirectly outsourcing which overall is extremely bad for the economy. Hopefully Canada has natural resources....but it isn't an excuse to tolerate destructive economy programs.
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