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Entrepreneurs keep you young – at heart and the mind
Day after batch 1 finished their demo day resulted in some serious withdrawal symptoms for us at the Accelerator. It is not hard to imagine that having 45+ enthusiastic, energized and talented people...
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Differentiate with a personal touch and taking time
Given the huge number of applications we had for the accelerator, one choice we had to make was how do we let people know they did not make the cut. Having been on the receiving end of many “rejection”...
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How much traction is “enough” to get seed funded? or to get into an accelerator?
I had an interesting conversation yesterday with an entrepreneur who had an initial product that was built over 3 months and they were looking to get “traction”. The product was aimed at prosumers...
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Affirmative action (Qualifying by Quota) for startups does not engender success
Ed: By now if you have been reading my blog for a while you will know that I tend to try and write controversial headings to generate some reaction from the greater community. My hope is that the...
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How to be ruthless as an entrepreneur and compassionate as a leader
Early in the morning yesterday I had a chance to catch up with a friend and entrepreneur who had started a company 2 years ago. I have known him and his cofounder for a year now and got an opportunity...
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The most admirable part of Amazon’s culture that #startups can benefit from
I am a big fan of Amazon. I read Jeff Bezos first “letter to investors” back in 1998 (a year after they went IPO) and was super impressed by his focus on customers above all else. I paraphrase, but he...
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The Market cap, revenue & profit correlations of top technology companies
Fortune has a post on the “market cap” problem for Steve Ballmer. During the period from Jan 7th 2000 to Aug 23rd 2013 here is the change in market capitalization of the top technology companies. 1....
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How to encourage more amazing people to join #startups – for #investors &...
In the last 2 weeks I have had to catch up on several shareholder’s agreements that startup founders have sent my way to review. It is very disappointing to see that most of the Indian founders keep...
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Tip on being a good manager – Saying the same thing differently #startup...
One of the things I have figured out that I am not good at is being a great manager. I am largely bad at managing people. People that work for me like “hanging out with me” as a friend or a colleague,...
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Surveys or open questions – What works better for initial product validation
Over the last few weeks, the new batch (fourth) of 16 companies at the Microsoft accelerator has been getting started with customer development. Some companies are fairly advanced, doing hundreds of...
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A comparison of business software review sites: Credii, ITCentral, G2Crowd,...
There are an estimated 5K to 10K SaaS and enterprise software companies that provide solutions for small, mid-sized and enterprise companies. The large IT analyst companies such as Gartner, Forrester,...
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A #contrarian view on how the customer validation phase should fine tune your...
The trend from users (businesses and consumers) wanting to buy services – software enabled services, instead of software is accelerating more than ever in my observation. Previously things that most...
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How to be a better manager – providing feedback to your direct reports and...
There are 3 types of behaviors when it comes to managers giving feedback to the people that work for them. 1. I’ll give you no feedback - little praise, no criticism until the year-end when I have to...
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The one piece of advice I’d give myself from 15 years ago
“Skills are overrated, Connections are invaluable”. Fresh out of school and eager to ‘conquer the world” I wish I focused a lot less on picking up “Analysis”, “Critical thinking”, “Strategy”, “Time...
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The analogies and words people use in your startup meetings define your culture
As a founder, it is important to define and constantly manage / prune your company culture. Why? It defines your growth, who you hire and how you respond to situations. Most founders don’t understand,...
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Why you need to do user development before customer development
When working on customer development, many B2B startups quickly realize that their user is different from their customer. This usually happens because the price of the product is more than what the...
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Communicating stretch goals internally versus milestones externally
I got an interesting question from Brian of Slope the other day on the process of communicating internal stretch goals (which should be much higher than the external milestones) to your board or...
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How to be a more innovative startup by changing just 2 words in your meetings...
Most every startup wants to be innovative. That’s the essence of being in a startup. To be innovative, most entrepreneurs realize they have to get their culture right. An innovative culture fosters and...
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The one question you need to ask VC’s in #India to understand how quickly...
I was in Bangalore for 3 days, meeting about 30 entrepreneurs on day 2 and about 50 earlier stage in-the-process-of-starting-a-company entrepreneurs. The first thing that strikes you is how amazingly...
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The one mistake most entrepreneurs make when they are at an accelerator
I have noticed that the biggest mistake most startups make when they are at an accelerator is that they focus on “Increasing their total surface area” instead of “accelerating their business”. This...
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