From the category archives:

Startups

3 Steps to Customer Centric Software

April 6, 2011

Today your software solution most likely delivers the same value to your customer whether it is the first, 101st or 1,000,001st transaction. But software made smarter with predictive analytics delivers greater value to your customer with each transaction because it learns and adapts. Predictive analytics make your software solution “sticky” because your solution grows in [...]

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The 3Ps: How it all comes together

June 13, 2010

I had high expectations when I received my free advance copy of Delivering Happiness, A Path to Profits, Passion and Purpose by Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos. I admire Tony Hseih and Zappos tremendously.  Zappos gets so much right because Tony Hseih understands the profound importance of motivation and alignment in building a company. I [...]

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How startups can out-execute the big guys, part two

May 13, 2010

In a previous post, I talked about how startups can out-execute the big guys by applying a lot of hard work moving in the same direction.  Doug Park of DYPAdvisors asked in his comment “That leads to the question of how are they going to get there. How is the company going to execute? “ [...]

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How startups can out-execute the big guys

April 7, 2010

I couldn’t miss an event billed “How I beat my competition by out-executing them with Gurbaksh Chahal and Lyle Fong “, a VLAB Emerging Business Event in their “Entrepreneurs Uncensored” series. Gurbaksh and Lyle are two very inspiring entrepreneurs. Just hearing their stories made for a great event.  But they were there with a message [...]

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Innovation in Entrepreneurship – A Case Study on Keen Mobility

March 10, 2010

This post first appeared on Blogging Innovation as Helping Others Go Vertical on 3/7/2010 Keen Mobility is a story of innovation, invention and entrepreneurship. Innovation is often focused on inventions and new products, but innovation is also a new way of thinking about conventional wisdom.  Jeffrey Phillips wrote an insightful post “Innovation, Invention and Entrepreneurs”, [...]

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How to Get Out of Fire Drill Mode

September 17, 2009

I work with many tech companies. When I talk to the leadership team, they worry about company strategy and how to make it happen. But when I talk to the troops, their biggest challenge is being told that the 10,000 things they need to do today are of equal priority. The company is stuck in [...]

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Why Scrappy Tech Companies Should Pay Themselves First

September 1, 2009

I love working with scrappy tech companies. You know the kind: full of fighting spirit, heads-down, close to the customer, focused on delivering excellence day-to-day. These aren’t the kind of people that put together a slide deck to shop around for funding or put their toe in the water and dabble with a company idea. [...]

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Keep on Rolling

June 2, 2009

You start your new company, full of energy and momentum. Your team is aligned under the banner of simple yet powerful values. You company is agile, takes risks, innovates and solves problems as they arrive. Then you grow the next notch, implement a budget and planning process, and wait, do I hear those entrepreneurial wheels [...]

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Let’s Not: Management by Piñata

April 27, 2009

It is ten minutes into the status meeting.  The pressure is on because deadlines and milestones are looming large. The Person In Charge is reading off a list – could be action items, project plans, Gantt charts, it doesn’t matter. The PIC then pours on what they perceive as their value-add. It consists of three [...]

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