One of the alleged rules that you have to follow is building your startup MVP. In fact, you’ll hear that you have to build an MVP. Full stop. Well, I’m here to tell you that for your startup to build a lean MVP just to build an MVP will get you killed. Instead, you need…
“It’s amazing what we’ve accomplished considering we started with $80,000,” “Jason,” the founding CEO of a company I’m working with, said. “Now, we’re preparing to sell the company for a lot of money.” “Most people don’t get to the level you’ve gotten to,” I said. “Most startups fail. And to think you bootstrapped yourself to…
I worked at two companies in the same industry that had very different views on how to treat their employees. The average time employees spent at the first company, Maxim Integrated Products, was over ten years. The average time employees spent at the second company, Micrel, was around four years. Two companies that were direct…
You’re flying blind if you don’t understand what your competitors are doing. And, rest assured, every startup has competition. In today’s video, I’ll share with you seven steps to stay ahead of your competition and dominate the market. You’ll want to see how Steve Jobs used a perceptual map to brilliantly position the iPhone. And,…
Successful companies usually have a way of doing things. We certainly did when I was at Maxim Integrated Products. Jack Gifford, our CEO, called it “The Maxim way.” And our way was successful. The company grew to $2 billion/year in revenue with close to 40% net margins. It was literally a cash machine. But, and…
“You look very tan,” I said to “Jason” during our Zoom update. “How was your vacation?” “The vacation was great,” he said. “The weather was a perfect 80 degrees every day with a slight breeze off the ocean. We had a really nice time.” “I’m guessing that may be part of the reason for item…
One of the biggest mistakes you can make as an entrepreneur is not validating your startup idea. The problem is that testing your startup idea supposedly takes too much time. However, that’s just not true. In this video, I’ll show you how, in seven simple steps, you can validate your business idea in less than…
“How long do you think it’s going to take to get funding?” My wife asked me. It was January, and we had just started raising money. “My guess is we’ll be funded by June.” It turned out I was right. We were funded by June…two years later! We started off our fundraising with a lot…
“Hostile armies may face each other for year, striving for the victory that is decided in a single day. This being so, to remain in ignorance of the enemy’s condition, simply because one grudges the outlay of a hundred ounces of silver in honors and emoluments, is the height of inhumanity.” Chapter XIII: The Use Of…
If you want to quickly lose your investors trust, then start missing the milestones on your engineering schedules. I found this one out the hard way. But, as quickly as we lost our investors trust, we gained it back. I’ll walk you through how we used the critical chain methodology to gain back our investors…