From the category archives:
We all forget too easily: the best startup funding is sales. Sure, angel investment, friends and family, SBA loans, all of those options are necessary for most startups. But sales is better.
If you can, find the early customers. Give them a deal, make them important, work with them to optimize their needs; but make a [...]
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The next big thing is never a repeat of last big thing. It’s always something new and different. It’s an original, not a copy.
What if the next Facebook already happened, and it was Twitter? What if the next Netflix already happened, and it was YouTube.
I see this a lot in business plans: businesses out to become “the next [...]
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It’s all paradoxical. Bill Cosby once said:
“I don’t know the secret to success, but I do know that the secret to failure is trying to please everybody.”
While driving to the office a few minutes ago, I saw an unusual Fedex truck, like a stunted-growth moving van, with the signage: “Fedex White Glove Service.” I don’t [...]
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(I posted this yesterday on Small Business Trends. I’m reposting here because this is my main blog, and it belongs here too. Tim )
Last week a group of students interviewed me, as part of a class project, looking for secrets and keys to success. They were asking me because after 22 years of bootstrapping, my [...]
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I was the planning consultant to Apple Computer’s Latin America group from 1982 until 1991 or 1992, the end of the relationship being a bit hard to define as I was called on steadily more by Apple Japan and less by Apple Latin America.
The challenge came in the spring of 1985. The annual business plan [...]
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This is the third of four answers to questions I got in email last week from an MBA student asking my opinion as part of his research. The question is the title: how does innovation fit into a business plan?…
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Billionaire Mark Cuban announced his own stimulus plan earlier this week. It’s sheer genius. Here’s how he describes it in his blog post, The Mark Cuban stimulus plan: Rather than trying to be a Venture Capitalist, I was looking for…
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It started as a comment at the bottom of my 10 signs you’re probably an entrepreneur post on this blog, a few days ago. What are the traits of successful entrepreneurs? I was quoting a Twitter friend, Andrew Patricio. I…
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What? No cell phones? No laptops? No tablet computer to take notes? That’s crazy! Last week we had a two-day off-site strategy meeting. Ten people, two days, lots of SWOTs, bullet points, and discussions. It was a good meeting. I…
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Note: this is a slight modification of a column I wrote for the Eugene Register-Guard. My mother used to say: “put yourself in the other person’s shoes.” She gave a lot of good advice. Nowadays we call this idea empathy,…
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