entrepreneur

Quoted: I have a picture in my head of what the average entrepreneur is like. I’d guess pretty young (think Facebook, Twitter, Google, etc.) living the red beans and rice lifestyle and working 80+ hours a week and sleeping under their desk. On some parts, I’m probably right — but on many, I’m flat-out wrong.

This is a great talk by Steve Blank (4 steps to the Epiphany) on how the "traditional" product development cycle favored by companies and startups is fatally flawed, and the right way to think about "customer development".

Quoted: The canonical product development model - concept, develop, alpha, beta, first customer, ship - is how Silicon Valley grew strong. But why does this process to build a business only succeed part of the time? And how can early stage ventures reduce their overall risk? Serial entrepreneur Steve Blank points out that most founding partners strongly focus on product and ship. But too often, startups confuse engineering's accomplishments with marketing and sales success, and they pop the champagne corks too soon.

Quoted: Thinking about starting a business? Make sure you're cut out for it first. We spoke with entrepreneurship researchers, academics and psychologists to come up with a list of questions you should ask yourself before making a big leap.

The Balsamiq Mockups guy has made $100K in 5 months. I Faved about Balsamiq a little while back: http://faves.com/users/mohit/dot/127498885101

Quoted: That was a cute story, but now it's been just 5 months and today Peldi reports that he's just cleared $100,000 in sales of the four variations of his product. Talk about a simple tool coming along at just the write time! It's cool software, too.

Some very interesting data and perspectives on the VC model.

Quoted: The slides from his presentation are embedded below, but really all you need to look at is the one above. It shows that the money going into VC funds is now more than the money coming out of VC funds. That line was crossed last June and there is no going back anytime soon.

Latest blog post.

Quoted: If you are a Product Manager and/or a startup founder, you undoubtedly have solid instincts about your target market. But, if you are like myself, you have probably experienced times where it is unclear exactly what to do next. To that end, I have found the following resources helpful over the years:

ReFaving @kennykamada. The articles look pretty good. Definitely adding this blog to my RSS reader.

Quoted: The site combines John Cook's reporting on venture capital, entrepreneurs and startups with Todd Bishop's coverage of Microsoft and other large technology companies, plus regular contributions from PSBJ senior technology writer Eric Engleman. But the most important part of the site will be you -- the community of people involved and interested in technology in the Seattle region.

A little verbose, but I generally agree. Effective product management involves a healthy dose of imagination.

Quoted: If your team is struggling with customer feedback, you may find this mantra helpful. Seek out a synthesis that incorporates both the feedback you are hearing plus your own vision. Any path that leaves out one aspect or the other is probably wrong.

Latest blog post.

Quoted: I am part of a group of technology entrepreneurs and managers where we periodically discuss case studies. Of all of them, the LinkedIn study especially stands out in my mind.