Mucker Lab

MAY 28, 2020

These lost startups land higher valuations, have larger teams, outsource more product development and spend more money on customer acquisition than their peers. Before you indulge in marketing, sales and blinged-out offices, find product-market fit. Hire the wrong people. Be trigger shy about hiring.

Startup 78

Startup Cofounder Burn Rate Technical Review 78

The Equity Kicker

JULY 16, 2015

Companies with lots of cash sometimes add people more quickly, but that drives the burn rate up, often without a compensating increase in the chance of success. In the first couple of months the focus should be on making sure the idea is valid, requiring the following activities: Development of the company vision and strategy.

eCommerce 60

eCommerce Burn Rate Early Stage Hiring 60

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 2, 2009

The key contributors to an out-of-control burn rate is 1) hiring a sales force too early, 2) turning on the demand creation activities too early, 3) developing something other than the minimum feature set for first customer ship. The Customer Development process (and the Lean Startup) is one way to do that.

Lean 260

Lean Silicon Valley Startup RSS 260

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 30, 2009

Hire the absolute best and the brightest, true experts in their fields, who in turn can hire the smartest people possible to staff their departments. By hiring experts, conducting lots of focus groups, and executing to a detailed plan, the company became deluded that it knew what customers wanted. We can skip the chasm.

San Francisco 150

San Francisco Lean Agile Continuous Deployment 150