If I Only Capture a Few Percent of the Market, I’ll Be Rich!

February 16, 2014

A common exercise new startups undertake is to size their prospective market. It is an attempt to figure out the size of the pie being pursued. Knowing the pie size matters for 2 main reasons:  1) it provides information which either encourages the entrepreneurs through tough times, or helps them kill the startup earlier than […]

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Defining the Word Startup

February 14, 2014

Our current stance: “A startup is a temporary organization designed to search for a scalable and repeatable business model.” (ala @sgblank) –Keith McGreggor Some people like to debate the definition of the word “startup.” I find the debate interesting; it’s interesting to hear people pitch the lines that separate various aspects of new businesses. Personally, […]

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Cost of Living Calculator

February 13, 2014

The buying power of a dollar in Atlanta is stronger than pretty much any other large city with a top 10 engineering school in the US. That is something that we like to share with prospective employees. CNN has a great cost of living calculator online here: http://money.cnn.com/calculator/pf/cost-of-living/ In our technical computing market, firms in […]

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Negotiation’s Numbers

February 9, 2014

In negotiations, there is typically a back-and-forth process to discover if there is an agreeable number which works for both parties. If the initial offers from each side are non-overlapping, there is often a ratcheting on each side to try to come closer together. The numbers themselves, including how they are played, matter a lot. […]

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Email Formats for Marketers

February 7, 2014

Let me pose a question to get your opinion. I don’t really have A/B testing data on this, just a hunch. I also think it depends upon the market. Our market is definitely more apt to call an email spam than most. I believe that HTML content in emails has become more often harmful than […]

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Is Your Product 10X Better?

February 6, 2014

I just read David Cumming’s post from this evening talking about doing things to improve internal process by 10X. It caused me to reflect upon an influential statement we heard frequently when we were first starting our business. If your product is not 10X better than the alternative for your customers, your startup will really […]

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Authentic Leadership

February 5, 2014

Authenticity is increasingly valued by millennials, but point well taken on balancing it out with care on sensitive issues. — Barrett Brooks (@BarrettABrooks) February 5, 2014 Yesterday I wrote about the carefulness of well-seasoned leaders. Barrett, quoted above, responded on Twitter adding the topic of authenticity into the conversation. Authenticity is  talked about frequently lately. […]

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Handling Uncertainty

February 3, 2014

The inability to withstand extended uncertainty must be one of the most crippling character traits for anyone trying to succeed in the world. — Epicurean Dealmaker (@EpicureanDeal) January 31, 2014 To a large degree, entrepreneurship is about handling uncertainty. You have to be able to stomach unknowns, make decisions on a hunch, and sometimes even […]

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Tips to Making a Great Presentation

February 2, 2014

I gave a talk at Los Alamos National Labs this week. After the talk, I received really nice and specific compliments about the talk. I’m not the best speech giver, but I try really hard to make things interesting to the audience. Here are some of the things they said they liked: I opened with […]

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Educational Baggage and Life University

February 1, 2014

Yesterday I wrote about continual learning. Today I write about educational baggage. While everyone knows startups are risky, many do not consider schooling to be as risky as it really is. The costs of higher education for many outweigh the benefits. One particular example is Life University, one of the nation’s largest chiropractic schools located in […]

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