Making the vision operational

You start out with a vision. You fight to develop your product. You ship. And you get so caught up by day-to-day operations and fixing things that you don't have time to think about the vision or - more importantly - put initiatives in place for the longer term that will ensure you continue driving… Continue reading Making the vision operational

Have you got a sales quota?

The thing that truly separates a corporate job from a job at the startup is the chance to have an outsized impact on solving a problem for customers. More often than not the distance between problem, potential solution and the ability to get that solution in front of customers to test out is way short… Continue reading Have you got a sales quota?

Helping university research count

It is always a pleasure when you have the opportunity to go out and share some of the experiences and learnings, you have had, to an audience who need the insights in order to improve their odds of turning ideas into successful startups. I had such an opportunity the other day, when I visited the… Continue reading Helping university research count

Kill your darlings

Imagine if you were as good at killing product features, as you are at coming up with new ones? It's an interesting concept, don't you think? I have often found that one of the major stumbling blocks towards innovation and increased success is parts of what you already have. The more legacy, you build up,… Continue reading Kill your darlings

Who are you selling to?

Let me admit it straight from the bat: I have an overwhelming fondness for business models that addresses the users wallet directly. Not in terms of forcing them to splash the cash but in terms of delivering products, services and experiences that solve meaningful problems and challenges to people, which they are both willing an… Continue reading Who are you selling to?

Always stay alert

Just because you have made it once, doesn’t mean that you have made it forever. Just as you replaced an incumbent by delivering a better, smarter, cheaper or whatever solution to your customers pains, somebody else could come in tomorrow and do to you what you did to them. Just as you worked tenaciously to… Continue reading Always stay alert

Find focus in a story

I have always found that one of the most efficient ways to establish a focus is to start with the desired outcome and then tell the story about what everything will be like, when that outcome is achieved. My experience is that by doing that you can build a narrative of a desired future state… Continue reading Find focus in a story

(In)efficiency rocks

Maybe the headline is a bit controversial, but let me try to explain what I mean. Oftentimes I see products that are super efficient in who they are targeted towards. You can see from the product and the words being used to tell about it that the team behind has been guided by a very… Continue reading (In)efficiency rocks