008. The First Signs of Spring
As winter descends on us in full force, I’m already seeing the first signs of spring: MBA students have started reaching out to talk about summer internships. (MBAers are not the only interns itching for work in startups — more on that later in the article.)
For MBAers and startups, the summer internship promises many glories. I’ve definitely caught myself daydreaming about the amazing work my new summer interns will get done at a fraction of the cost of actually
007. Do One Thing
This summer I walked into the Tech Stars office in Cambridge greeted by the smells of an older building and an awkwardly empty reception area.
I’m not sure why I expected a scrappy start-up incubator to have a well dressed receptionist chirping hello and offering me filtered water in a paper cup, but I did. So without a guide I wandered around looking for a start-up in need of guidance.
Most start-ups have a similar problem. There is no clear map or
006. Build a SaaStastic Business
Until 2005, my career had been in enterprise software. Selling software was simple. We put it in a pretty box and shipped it off with a perpetual license. Then in 2005 I joined Brightcove; we launched a SaaS application for video publishing, and realized marketing SaaS was a whole new game.
We tried a variety of different approaches and learned a bunch through trial and error. Below you’ll find a few insights we picked up.
(This post was inspired by Byron Deeter’s
005. The Big Break
Your hot startup was bought by MegaCorp and after 18 months of mind numbing meetings to integrate the companies your new, new, new boss drops by with the HR director to suggest you may want to move on. It’s time for a big break.
Doesn’t matter how it happens. The chances are very good that if you join a startup, you will eventually be out of a job. The company may have an exit (good, bad, weird, etc.), or you
004. Your Pitch Sucks
I’ve been hanging out at a venture firm this year as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence, and I’ve seen a lot of pitches to small groups and to the partners.
Mostly they suck.
I’m not really sure why people keep making bad pitches. Honestly this isn’t mystical. There are dozens of blog posts on this topic, but still entrepreneurs consistently miss the mark.
So here are a few tips. I’m trying to make the obvious explicit — first on style then on substance.
Style
1. Learn to Present
003. Going Commando
William H. Sullivan, the U.S. Ambassador to Laos in the 1960’s described commandos: “…you have first of all to be a volunteer; secondly, you have to be prepared to take extraordinary risks, to function outside of the normal chains of command and also to be able to make life and death decisions immediately. It takes a special breed.”
Sullivan should know, since he helped employ hundreds of commandos and special operations forces to organize the CIA’s nine year secrete war
002. The Passion Paradox
“He’s very passionate ”
That’s usually a euphemism for a mood disorder or at least someone who is mildly insane or incredibly emotional. It’s also a prerequisite to being an entrepreneur.
Great entrepreneurs breathe a kind of crazy passion that grabs you by the balls and doesn’t let go. The constant stream of new ideas, the unerring confidence in every utterance, the unfailing belief that they alone know the path to the promised land are what inspire people to follow a
001. This About That
I’m writing Startup Blender to share thoughts and ideas about creating companies, managing startups, dealing with marketing challenges, and a wide range of other crap that entrepreneurs run up against.
Unlike most blogs, you’ll find this one is more a series of essays. Most posts are wordy by blog standards, so I only publish about one a week. You can savor them all in the archives. My goal is to steer clear of the de jure writing that dominates blogs in
