Why Tech WON'T Fix Your Business A while back, a friend asked me what I thought about him taking a job offer at MIX. “They’re the reboot of StumbledUpon,” he’d told me. “They want me to improve their recommendation engine, to keep the users they have with better recs, and to get new users by … Continue reading What Happened at MIX
The Competitive Analysis process, step-by-step… I want to find competitors for my fantastic AI SaaS application. Well, let me be clear. I don’t want to find competitors already producing my brilliant offering, but I know it’s smart to look for them before investing a lot of time (and time is money in business), in developing … Continue reading How to Find Startup Competitors
Need an IDEA [that will likely SELL] to Startup? Many want to be entrepreneurs, but most people lack product ideas, or can’t think of a service (or app) that isn’t already available. For over a decade, I taught entrepreneurship at Stanford and Cal Berkeley/Haas. I designed a course to teach the process of turning an IDEA (or … Continue reading How to Generate Product IDEAS
What motivates people to RESPOND (click, like, share, comment), and CONVERT (buy, try, sign-up, subscribe) from your marketing efforts? This is a very important question, because the point of marketing is to get people to [think or] do what our campaigns [suggest or] direct them to do. At the foundation of all marketing is Psychology. … Continue reading Marketing Data Science
Startup MVPs are a FAILED biz model, but I did one anyway... “Looks like cancer to me,” the PA said while I wiped off the ultrasound goop. She’d just taken samples of the 15mm ‘lesion’ in my neck with a fine needle. I stared at her trying to process what she’d just said while she … Continue reading My First, Last, and Only MVP
Marketing 101: How to motivate people to DO what you want them to do… An entrepreneur recently asked me: “What specific skills or knowledge do you believe will be most crucial for aspiring entrepreneurs in 2025 to navigate this complex and dynamic environment?” My response: “The greater understanding one has of what motivates people, individually … Continue reading Engage in Learning About People
Eventbright Webinar: https://lnkd.in/gETT2C_S Have a biz IDEA you think will SELL? PROVE IT...BEFORE YOU BUILD IT, with the Productization process. Over 500,000 startups launch in the U.S. annually. More than 90% fail from bad to no marketing. Marketing is NOT advertising! Marketing any product or service BEGINS (or should) in product development of the IDEA. Running ads through Google or … Continue reading IDEA to PRODUCT for PROFIT Webinar
https://open.spotify.com/episode/2mZnXeKz2I9AwrAugpTtQF?si=xbDknxyRRw2dxhlhT2am0w My second job out of college I was the Art Director for 1928 Jewelry Co. The company is still alive and vital today, quite a monument to startup lore. My boss, Fred Burglass, was the best boss I've ever had. Funny. Kind. Patient. Smart. I really loved that man. He was like a father … Continue reading On Networking
I hate running. It hurts my legs, my lungs, my back, my tits. I run between 3 and 4+ miles, five days a week. And I'll continue to run as long as the benefits outweigh the drawbacks. I hate feeling fat, and running is the quickest calorie burn I know of (my me-time is hugely … Continue reading Marketing 101
