(no longer updated, I started using Evernote to build my knowledge base)
(CC) 2011-2013 by Kamil Rudnicki (http://rudnicki.info)
- Slicehost: he had a problem himself, didn’t know it is going to be huge
- The only 2 ways to build a $100 million business
- How to get startup ideas
- Business based on optimization of something, is a bad idea (or at least 10x better)
- Idea you must be passionate about. Will change the world fo a better by only this idea. Build business because they have to. They have so much passion, so much belief in what they are doing that they almost don’t have a choice but to build it. Insted of “ want to be an enterpreneur and let me find and analyze various market opportunities.”
- 10 business ideas in 2 months. Fail fast and cheap. Sell for real, don’t talk. You will feel it, when it have traction. (Chegg). You just put the product on the market. People are killing themselves for you.
- It will be one of the features that works very well. Go that way. Chegg - marketplace for students -> books was 80% of their transactions
- Be sensitive what doesn't work and pain points in this world or near you
- It is too late, if there are too many familiar names in the market
- Validate by talking with customers, quick answer, yes, I would use vs. no, I wouldn’t. Do you have this problem? Where is it on your pain-point spectrum?
- Market size matters
- Existing markets: Deep knowladge about players, Players unable to adopt to discruption
- You really need a market, not an idea
- Target big markets
- Make something a large group of people already want
- Elements of sustainable companies
- 10 Factors To Consider When Evaluating Digital Marketplaces
- Market reaserch data: 1, 2
- Only 150 companies with more than $100 mln per year
- The default state of a startup is failure - comment: world wants to stay in status quo, force it to change
- Bringing and achieving your vision to fruition - true goal. You shouldn’t care about anything else. It is not about beeing a CEO, rich, your ego. Having a vision, and going there to bring something new to this world should be your ultimate goal
- Be optimistic
- The goal of the entrepreneur is not to be “right.” - comment: don't be too smart thinking why this enterprise won't work, instead run experiments
- A billion dollar software tech companies - comment: only 4 billion dollar companies per year, very hard to do, lower aspirations
- You Aren’t Changing the World, So Let’s Make it Better
- Plans are nothing, but planning is indispensable
- Get a lot of data from market reaserch, but don’t make too much conclusions. Intelligent people will know what that means
- Do You Really Even Need VC?
- Google: s-1 ipo salesforce / workday
- Your Customer Success Team. Hire Early. And No Squishy Goals — It’s All About the Numbers.
- The only 2 ways to build a $100 million business
- Two types: big markets - with VC, niche markets - without VC
- Growth
- Founders and Heat Seeking Missiles
- The one imporant thing
- Value proposition
- How important is to compete
- Why Making Something Customers Want Isn’t Enough
- Stocks
- What to invest in
- The Amazing Power of Deflationary Economics for Startups
- 9 Ways to Decrease Your Chance of Bootstrapping a Successful Company
- What Now? Founder Re-org
- A KPI dashboard for early-stage SaaS startups
- The Equation for Customer Retention Predictability
- You must be growing at least 50% YoY
- You Can Measure Everything. Marketing, PR, Dev, Lead Efficiency. Do It.
- How To Know You’ve Hit First Traction In SaaS
- How To Scale a Development Team
- Deconstructing Startup Growth
- Growing your Startup (Sean Ellis)
- Milestones to Startup Success
- RightNow
- What does a validated hypothesis look like?
- How to Structure (and get the most out of) Customer Development Interviews
- Case-Study: InfoChimps and Transitioning to Lean
- Don’t Solve Every Problem
- Making something people want - The GoCardless story
- 10 mistakes startups make when talking to users
- Always have a vision (successful leader is one who is always thinking about the future, not just the present) - Larry Ellison
- Act confident, even when you are not - Larry Ellison
- Think of it as you want it, not as it is! - Larry Ellison
- Don't let others sway you from your point of view - Larry Ellison
- Don't give others your power. Ever. - Larry Ellison
- Create two opposing forces, to make it automatically manage by itself and find health consensuse
- The Dynamics of Change and Fear
- The “Work” Trap
- The CEO’s Weekly Checklist
- Never say “no,” but rarely say “yes.”
- Achieving Flow in a Lean Startup
- What fear can teach us
- Reasoning from First Principles v Analogy 2
- The Curse of the Technical CEO
- Companies must embrace bold marketing tactics from the beginning in order to break through all the industry noise
- Give somehting for free, than sell
- Content marketing, not PR
- Having real marketing plan, how to reach customers is essential.
- Have a story
- Psychology of marketing
- marketing to niekończońce się kombinowanie, eksperymentowanie z kanałami pozyskania ruchu na stronę - taki mikromarketing
- Talk nerdy to me
- Teeny bit of traction — what next?
- did not able to explain the product in simple terms.Hard value propositions (not like increase in productivity). More income is better then less costs
- Brand
- press should love it
- differentiate, differentiate, differentiate (like No Software sales force)
- Potential cofounders
- How to best sales PL
- The Management Team
- Good Interviewing Doesn’t “Just Happen”
- Staying Great
- Recruite for summer interships
- W Apple -> zatrudniali ludzi, którzy chcieli coś zrobić, ale w innych firmach nie mogli!
- Kayak CTO - godzina dziennie gdy nie masz co robić, zespół absolutnie najważniejszy!
- In early stage look for people with drive to improve things, get things done, proactive - you don't have time to manage them
- Smart Guy Productivity Pitfalls
- QA - looks at features and code, and propmt programmers for things, that he was too lazy to think about - he decides if feature is ready to be realeased. Also makes sure nothing is broken. Fundamentall difference between dev vs qa is that qa brakes things. Crashes are their fault.
- Helpdesk
- Product managers - communicate, thinks about features, talks with coders - only convincing them (peers), talks with customers, make specifications. He is thinking about magic functions, coders thinks about practical making - they must met in the middle.
- Don’t micromanage, don’t pretend to give decisions to employees
- Use your own products
- Don’t make a meetings about problem solving - only when you must communicate something
- Cutting down communication to minimum
- Fix things twice - the problem, and never happen it again
- As much as possible of natural light
- Two monitors, headphones
- Free lunch
- http://predictablerevenue.com/nearsoft/
- Very important - without them, you will do shitty stuff, that nobody care
- Constant learning what they use and don't
- Let users vote for features (like surveys)
- Ask why they did not go with us (they resign)
- Constant usability tests (in house, or other way)
- Create API and customization
- If you will have critical mass, create a marketplace
- Missing Features Are Better Than Partial Features
- Make people happy - Inability of control things - makes people not try, and lack of effort, which leads to unhappiness, so people are helplessness, people must feel that they can easily get what they want, software shouldn’t interrupt this process. Put the user in control. Give them feedback. Don’t hide things beyond their reach!
- Obsess over aestetics - you can decorate in some way
- Constant interation
- getflow.com, mint, wufoo, stripe, trello, Intercom.io
- Quick Course On Effective Website Copywriting
- Why Can’t They Just…?
- Design ui/ux
- 10 laws of cloud computing
- Subscription business models are getting their day in the sun
- Understanding the Customer Buying Cycle & Triggers
- Error did not try to sell the product, I've just build it
- http://www.forentrepreneurs.com/predictable-revenue/
- targowanie się
- Artykuł
- Rady
- http://www.forentrepreneurs.com/hubspot-saas-inside-sales/
- starać się omijać enterprise -> saas, to przyszłosc to mniej strosowej i stabilnego zysku
- Selling to bigger companies - two lessons
- Sales email followup
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- zadać pytanie - do czego Ci to potrzebne? ask about family? almost not selling? talking as a human beiing. stworzyć dzięki temu więź, nie iść jako salesperson, tylko przyjaciel -> help them their need, they think, i’m consulting
- czym więcej konkretnych pytań, odpowiedzi, konkretów, tym większa szansa sprzedaży dla tej osoby
- kluczowe jest z kim rozmawiac, a z kim nie
- nie: hi, im’ looking if you need xyz, tak, hello, kamil, value your time, don’t waste you time, just let you know what we do, who wer , can i sto pon thurdsay, and see as a consultant, what you are happy, unhappy with your current solution and see can we help you with that