startup data
Decision Speed and Feedback Loops
Depending on your work and life, you will have different situations in which to make decisions and to learn from them. Some of this is related to the speed at which you make decisions (lots of small ones versus few large ones) and the quality and also speed of the feedback you receive. In my roles with […]
A college level class in growth hacking?
In a few days I’m teaching the first class in Growth Hacking at USC. I created this class because no matter what you feel about the “Growth Hacker” term, I find the role to be sought after by graduating students and the skill set to be appreciated by businesses. As far as I know, this is the […]
Startup Sacrilege for the Underdog Entrepreneur
The book is now available here. What do you think of the cover art? Chapter outline Context: Fools Rush In; Why Read This; A Glance At the Seedy Underbelly. Sacrilege: Your Invisible Tribe; The Irrational Goal; Is There Enough Diversity In Tech?; Little Heroes; Investor Change; What You Can Control and Never Control; The Never Ending Accelerator Glut; Pitch Event Controversies; Idea Thieves. Action: Test Prep; Next-Gen Accelerators; […]
What’s the best way for a startup to measure its progress?
Across public talks and internally in the accelerator I co-founded, I’ve taught and advised on metrics that matter for startups. I could add to the lengthy body of knowledge of startup metrics but there’s a qualitative metric that people don’t mention because it’s hard to measure and few see it in person. Startups in their […]
When Would You Give Up?
If you’re a startup founder and you feel good about yourself, you just might justified. But you’re much more likely to be delirious, experiencing that temporary elation that comes from something that makes no difference to your actual business. For example, you’ll meet a lot of startups feeling good about themselves on the way home […]
When Does a Startup Accelerator Succeed?
There’s a lot written about startup accelerators. At least, there’s a lot written by outside casual observers; very little is written about them from the inside. There are reasons for that. In my experience running an accelerator, I wouldn’t share much about the startups until after demo day (more about why in a later post). […]
The Recommended Daily Intake Approach to Startup Activities
You’ve probably seen the “Recommended Daily Intake” used as a way to gauge how much of a particular nutrient or substance we should ingest in a given period. I was thinking about how startup people spend their time and ended up writing this table of “Recommended Startup Activity Intakes” for early-stage startups. Reading popular tech […]
Why Startup Lists Don’t Matter But You Read Them Anyway
It just turned 2013 in Hong Kong and I feel like it’s 2008 in New York. Usually when I say that it’s because the startup growth I witnessed (and hope helped) in New York years ago reminds me of what I’ve seen in Hong Kong recently. This time, however, I’m talking about the latest in […]
Are the TechStars Results accurate?
I have total respect for TechStars and what I know about it tells me it’s a great program. So when I recently saw TechStars’ results page with a 80% success rate I had to learn more. I’m always very interested in “success/failure” at startups so I looked through their list of previous classes, going back […]
Steve Blank quote
Steve Blank quote from GigaOm video interview: “I did this at SXSW. I said ‘There are 500 people in this room. The good news is, in ten years, there’s two of you who are going to make $100 Million dollars. The rest of you, you might as well have been working at Wal-Mart for how […]