A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks
FEBRUARY 14, 2012
This is part of an ongoing startup advice series where I answer (anonymized!) Freshman Salesman writes: I’ve read somewhere in your blog about how you had a very large organisation as the first customer for your software. make for not putting customer development before writing code. You’re just stalling.
A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks
DECEMBER 20, 2010
This story is one shared by (in my experience) the majority of successful startups — an initial idea inspired by travails from my own life, an idea which turns out to be unworkable, but which ultimately leads to truly good ideas through both incremental and discontinuous transformations. A process you can learn and get better at.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks
JUNE 12, 2012
Here are the details of both of those customer development experiences. At AppSumo , another Austin startup with startling growth, Noah Kagan ( this guy and that guy ) talked to 0 people initially, but maintains ruthless pressure on a tight and measurable product. But there’s no one “number.”
A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks
FEBRUARY 5, 2013
Modern PM tools are too simplistic because they follow the 37signals and Lean Startup mantra of building the simplest possible thing. Or if you’re still in the ideation stage, it gives you the basis for customer development, both in finding potential customers to call and in what you’re verifying when you get them on the phone.
A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks
JUNE 26, 2012
Pin It How do you know if your startup idea is a good one ? Even after twenty customer interviews? Truth in startups emerges or crumbles in the same way. Specifically, before I validated the ideas behind WP Engine, I validated another idea for a startup. How do you know when to hang up the towel and try another idea?
A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks
OCTOBER 23, 2012
Witness, for example, this terrific Fast Company article on Bill Nguyen , serial entrepreneur who’s seventh startup “Color” famously raised $41m for a new mobile app before it even launched. The launch, by the way, was a failure. And it’s now bankrupt.)
A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks
OCTOBER 24, 2011
It’s Episode 3 my little “ Loveline for startups. ” Introduced a few months ago as an Austin event, I’m now doing this live audio advice column to the web, taking phone calls from startups around the country. My co-hosts were Bob Walsh and Patrick Foley , hosts of the well-known Startup Success Podcast.
Expert insights. Personalized for you.
231 
Let's personalize your content