StartupSD

When you hear concepts over and over, you often wonder is it because it's swarming or because your ear is newly attuned to it?  Did you know there's a lot of people who believe that the #11 has super powers and that's why when they look at the clock, ...

I am an engineer by training (BS & MS in Aerospace Engineering, how I came to be an entrepreneur is a story for another day). As an engineer, I love to build build build! Love new features, love shiny toys, love thinking about and making my ideas become reality. Because, well, I can. That passion for building, when unchecked, gets in the way of being a successful entrepreneur in a multitude of ways. If you think that by building a neat and shiny product, the heavens will part and customers will come beating down your door, well, good luck to you. I won't say anymore on that, I'll assume you know better.

As technologists working on new products and new markets, we tend to forget where we are on the technology adoption lifecycle curve. That's a mistake. Here's why: 1. Nobody cares See all that white space under the middle of the curve? Those are people using products that aren't yours. They are inundated with new offers every day. They exist in a world of information overload. It doesn't matter how great your technology is, nobody knows about you, nobody cares about your product....

Whether there's a tech bubble or not is an interesting discussion going on in the blogosphere. (Reading guide is below.) I fall into the "boom before bubble" pack. Having lived through the 90s' bubble, there's no way we're there yet.  That doesn't me...

Despite Dave McClure's imploring to "kill a feature" and Eric Ries' urging to "cut your product in half, then halve it again," most startup founders I encounter are trying to work their way toward Product-Market fit by planning and building new feature...