Zero to Startup: There Is No Secret Formula

July 23rd, 2007 8 Comments Andre

Founders try and find the exact formula for a successful startup. A secret formula that would produce a successful company. Take a little bit of this; add a little bit of that. Salt it up and let it ferment for a month or two and you got yourself a successful company. But that’s not the [...]

Zero to Startup: Product Test in a Weekend

July 9th, 2007 8 Comments Andre

With the success of Startup Weekend, let’s discuss how to validate your product or service (henceforth product) in one weekend or less. (See disclaimer at bottom)
So you have an idea for a product that will make you rich. Now, what do you do?

a) You invest in developing the entire product. You buy servers in case [...]

Zero to Startup: Active Thinking

July 4th, 2007 2 Comments Andre

“There is no expedient to which a man will not go to avoid the labor of thinking.” -Thomas Edison
According to many scientific papers, what Edison was referring to was active thinking. Active thinking is when you deviate from automatic thinking. Automatic thinking is not necessarily bad. It makes out lives easier everyday because we don’t [...]

Zero to Startup: Prerequisites

July 2nd, 2007 8 Comments Andre

Welcome to the start of a new series. I’m going to call this series Zero to Startup. My goal is to cover all of the relevant subjects that a person starting a startup might deal with; everything from thinking about starting a company to the actual launch date and beyond. Issues that face companies will [...]

How to Name Your Product

June 27th, 2007 9 Comments Andre

“That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.�
-William Shakespeare’s (1595) Romeo and Juliet,
“Shakespeare was wrong. A rose by any other name would not smell as sweet . . . which is why the single most important decision in the marketing of perfume is the name.”
- Al [...]

Think Long Term: Act Now

June 25th, 2007 6 Comments Andre

Thinking long term and coming up with today’s actions based on that thinking is one of the critical keys to productivity. A drug addict thinks in hours until his next hit and only performs actions that will get him closer to that hit. In contrast, a private wealth advisor thinks in terms of centuries for [...]