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Is the Lean Startup Dead?

Steve Blank

He just hired Meg Whitman. Startups wrote business plans, generated expansive 5-year forecasts and executed (hired, spent and built) to the plan. It helped that in the nuclear winter that followed the crash, 2001 – 2004, startups and VCs were extremely risk averse and amenable to new ideas that reduced risk. The result?

Lean 335
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Be Careful not to be Penny Wise, Pound Foolish

Both Sides of the Table

.&# I took it to mean, “making decisions with small amounts of money (pennies) that end up making bad sense for affecting larger amounts of money (pounds, as in Great British Pounds).&# I thought of it as people who cut corners on small costs but paid dearly in terms of lost productivity on expensive staff.

Warrant 333
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Do Your Employees Think Like Owners? 10 Tips For Building An Entrepreneurial Culture.

YoungUpstarts

Hire for hustle. A great way to separate the entrepreneurial thinkers from those who aren’t is to place a special emphasis on hiring people with a sense of urgency; people who can and will move quickly; people who don’t always have to be told what their next step should be.

Employee 208
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Tips For Emerging Young Entrepreneurs

YoungUpstarts

Around when ebay launched I used to buy new PC components and auction the old one, frequently selling the old for more than the new (better) component cost me. Remember PCs cost a lot more 10-15 years ago than they do now. If you can’t, you either won’t sell, or will need to hire someone to write for you.

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Marketing and Growth Lessons for Uncertain Times

ConversionXL

Yet in expansionary periods, successful leaders spent significantly less on [selling, general, and administrative costs] than did their former peers. A focus on cost cutting—every decision is viewed through a loss-minimization lens. As the authors found, “Firms that cut costs faster and deeper than rivals don’t necessarily flourish.

Marketing 121
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On Bubbles … And Why We’ll Be Just Fine

Both Sides of the Table

Huge structural under-employment in much of the country and full employment in some niche tech markets where it’s impossible to hire developers, designers or sales professionals. An obvious example is Google who may have gotten less market attention if there would have been 8 well-financed competitors during the 2001-2005 timeframe.

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Seven Ways To Make Sure Accountability Sticks In 2014

YoungUpstarts

Hire accountable people. Of course, hiring an employee and then training him to be accountable is possible. But hiring people who are already accountable is a better, less costly option. Do not promote employees with problems with accountability, especially if they’ll be moving into a leadership position.