“By knowing things that exist, you can know that which does not exist.” — Book of Five Rings A startup is not just about the idea, it’s about testing and then implementing the idea. A founding team without these skills is likely dead on arrival. —- I was driving home from the BIO conference in San Diego last month and … Continue reading »
innovation
Pioneering Women in Venture Capital: Kathryn Gould
I met Kathryn Gould longer ago than either of us want to admit. Kathryn has been the founding VP of Marketing of Oracle, a successful recruiter, a world class Venture Capitalist, a co-founder of a Venture Capital firm, a great board member, one of my mentors and most importantly a wonderful friend. During her career she made … Continue reading »
The Path of Our Lives
“Some men see things as they are and say, why; I dream things that never were and say, why not?” Robert Kennedy/George Bernard Shaw I got a call that reminded me that most people live their life as if it’s predestined – but some live theirs fighting to change it. At 19 I joined the Air … Continue reading »
Innovating Municipal Government Culture
D.R. Widder is the Vice President of Innovation and holds the Steve Blank Innovation Chair at Philadelphia University. He’s helping city government in Philadelphia become more innovative by applying Lean startup methods and Philadelphia University’s innovation curriculum. I asked him to share an update on his work on teaching lean techniques to local governments. —- This February Philadelphia University and … Continue reading »
Corporate Acquisitions of Startups: Why Do They Fail?
For decades large companies have gone shopping in Silicon Valley for startups. Lately the pressure of continuous disruption has forced them to step up the pace. More often than not the results of these acquisitions are disappointing. What can companies learn from others’ failed efforts to integrate startups into large companies? The answer – there are two types of integration strategies, … Continue reading »
Seminal Entrepreneurship and Innovation Skills CAN IN FACT BE LEARNED
Posted by Ikhlaq Sidhu, April 22nd, 2014 You may already be aware that the Berkeley Method of Entrepreneurship (BMofE, see link on our CET website – https://cet.berkeley.edu/curriculum/) is a unique teaching model for developing the entrepreneurial mindset, in addition to teaching tactics and providing infrastructure for the new venture process. One of the big questions in the … Continue reading »
New Lessons Learned from Berkeley and Stanford Lean LaunchPad Classes
Our Stanford and Berkeley Lean LaunchPad classes are over for this year, and as usual we learned as much from teaching the teams as the teams did from us. Here are a few of the Lessons Learned from these two classes. — Have each team talk to 10 customers before the class starts Each year we learn … Continue reading »
Get the Heck Out of the Building in Founders School Part 2
With a ~$2 billion endowment the Kauffman Foundation is the largest non-profit focused on entrepreneurship in the world. Giving away $80 million to every year (~$25 million to entrepreneurial causes) makes Kauffman the dominant player in the entrepreneurship space. Kauffman launched Founders School – a new education series to help entrepreneurs develop their businesses during the startup stage by highlighting how startups … Continue reading »
Why Companies are not Startups
In the last few years we’ve recognized that a startup is not a smaller version of a large company. We’re now learning that companies are not larger versions of startups. There’s been lots written about how companies need to be more innovative, but very little on what stops them from doing so. Companies looking to … Continue reading »
In defense of picking winners
Virtually all economists working on climate change agree that we should price greenhouse-gas emissions. Doing so creates an incentive to reduce emissions without the government directing specific technology adoptions or activity changes, that is, without “picking winners.” Nearly as many economists agree that we should subsidize basic R&D. Doing so, accelerates the scientific breakthroughs that … Continue reading »
Is This Startup Ready for Investment?
Since 2005 startup accelerators have provided cohorts of startups with mentoring, pitch practice and product focus. However, accelerator Demo Days are a combination of graduation ceremony and pitch contest, with the uncomfortable feel of a swimsuit competition. Other than “I’ll know it when I see it”, there’s no formal way for an investor attending Demo … Continue reading »
How to be Smarter than Your Investors — Continuous Customer Discovery
Teams that build continuous customer discovery into their DNA will become smarter than their investors, and build more successful companies. — Awhile back I blogged about Ashwin, one of my ex-students wanted to raise a seed round to build Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (drones) with a Hyper-spectral camera and fly it over farm fields collecting hyper-spectral images. These images, when … Continue reading »
What I Learned by Flipping the MOOC
Two of the hot topics in education in the last few years have been Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC’s) and the flipped classroom. I’ve been experimenting with both of them. What I’ve learned (besides being able to use the word “pedagogy” in a sentence) is 1) assigning students lectures as homework doesn’t guarantee the students will … Continue reading »
Sometimes it Pays to Be a Jerk
That he which hath no stomach to this fight, Let him depart; his passport shall be made William Shakespeare Henry V | Act 4, Scene 3 The concepts in my Lean LaunchPad curriculum can be taught in a variety of classes–as an introduction to entrepreneurship all the way to a graduate level “capstone class.” I recently learned being tough … Continue reading »
Time for Founders School
Having a film crew in your living room for two days is something you want to put on your bucket list. With a ~$2 billion endowment the Kauffman Foundation is the largest non-profit focused on entrepreneurship in the world. Giving away $80 million to every year (~$25 million to entrepreneurial causes) makes Kauffman the dominant player in the entrepreneurship space. … Continue reading »
Engineering a Regional Tech Cluster — Part 3 of Bigger in Bend
Dino Vendetti a VC at Bay Partners, moved up to Bend, Oregon on a mission to engineer Bend into a regional technology cluster. Over the years Dino and I brainstormed about how Lean entrepreneurship would affect regional development. I visited Bend last year and caught up with his progress. Today with every city, state, country … Continue reading »
Early-stage Regional Venture Funds–Part 2 of 3 of Bigger in Bend
Dino Vendetti a VC at Bay Partners, moved up to Bend, Oregon on a mission to engineer Bend into a regional technology cluster. Over the years Dino and I brainstormed about how Lean entrepreneurship would affect regional development. I visited Bend last year and caught up with his progress. Today with every city, state and … Continue reading »
Bigger in Bend – Building a Regional Startup Cluster, Part 1 of 3
When Customer Development and the Lean Startup were just a sketch on the napkin, Dino Vendetti, a VC at Bay Partners, was one of the first venture capitalists I shared my ideas with. Dino and I kept in touch as he moved up to Bend, Oregon on a mission to engineer Bend into a regional technology cluster. … Continue reading »
Do Pivots Matter?
There’s a sign on the wall but she wants to be sure ’ Cause you know sometimes words have two meanings Led Zeppelin – Stairway to Heaven In late 2013 Cowboy Ventures did an analysis of U.S.-based tech companies started in the last 10 years, now valued at $1 billion. They found 39 of these companies. They called them the “Unicorn Club.” … Continue reading »
The path from executive education to corporate innovation
I’m on my way back from Shanghai after being invited to work with a group of Chinese executives on their product innovation and intrapreneurship strategies, using aspects of my newly developed model for professional/executive education. It’s really an exciting model, that I used with Coca-Cola on their beverage strategy in China, with Tencent, a leading … Continue reading »