(This week’s guest post comes courtesy of a well-known celebrity VC blogger.) When your startup’s magnificent plans inevitably crumble to Ozymandian dust in the face of some unforeseen market reality, VCs often say it’s simply your customers’ way of telling you to change direction fast, AKA ”pivoting”. So, if Muammar Gaddafi were a startup in my portfolio, what do you [...]
When a startup hits a market brick wall and has enough cash and investor confidence to change direction radically, it’s a Mike Maples (high level) ‘pivot’. Essentially: a market-driven strategic shift. When a startup uses early customer feedback to drive its next product/service iteration, it’s an Eric Ries (low level) ‘pivot’. Essentially: a test-customer-driven tactical [...]
Pivoting is an enormous comfort blanket, that warms you with the reassurance you that it’s better to do something – anything – than persist in some perceived wrongheadedness. But… who says that you’re wrong? Recently, I was lucky enough to have a conversation with an extremely experienced UK security camera principal, who generously let me see [...]
Following my post on the absence of a Lean Funding Movement, I thought I ought to at least try to come up with some lean funding concepts, put a bit of thought in. After all, high-concept business models are what MBAs are supposed to be good at devising, right? The primary constraint on the solution is obvious: [...]
Mike Maples hates them (he thinks they’re static, when startups are dynamic), and that the way business plan competitions are promoted by business schools sends out completely the wrong signals to entrepreneurs. Dave McClure hates them too (and for all his sweariness, he’s not actually much of a hater), while Fred Destin says: It’s been said 150 [...]
