About Us. About fifteen years into our consulting business we started to feel stuck.
Our industry appeared to be hyperfocusing on tools and putting different labels on the same tools, processes and methodologies. We were looking to mature beyond a tools focus so we started to talk to senior colleagues in and outside of our industry and take the time to reflect to have some down time away from work projects. During this time and on auditing and reviewing the projects we were involved in, we identified that although we had done our part on the projects and done good work, the real impact of the projects as a whole was not that significant or meaningful to ourselves, the team, the customers, the business and the planet as a whole. The “Make Meaningful Work” experience and supporting framework has been informed and inspired by books, articles, conversations, workshops, presentations, fields of knowledge, philosophy, cultures etc. 1000 True Fans by Kevin Kelly - Animated. What makes for a successful CEO and CTO relationship in a startup?
Sales Xceleration. Female Founder Office Hours. Use the FAST Agreement to Simplify your Advisory Relationship. The FAST Agreement is used by tens of thousands of entrepreneurs and advisors per year to establish productive working relationships, trading advice and support for a standardized amount of equity.
The Founder / Advisor Standard Template ("FAST") was developed by the Founder Institute to help aspiring entrepreneurs in the startup launch programs that we operate worldwide set-up advisory boards and engage with the mentors that they interact with throughout the program. In 2011, the Founder Institute released the FAST Agreement to the public, and we have been making incremental updates on the Version 1 of the Agreement ever since. On August 1st, 2017, the Founder Institute has released a preview copy of Version 2, which includes a number of enhancements:
Don’t Start With an MVP. Have a Great Idea For an App? Don’t Build It [Here’s Why] Love the Problem. Stadia Ventures – The Sports Innovation Hub. Feelings of Failure. As the founder of a high growth successful startup, you may feel like you are constantly failing.
You are not alone in this. Most startup founders I know feel like they are screwing up on a weekly or monthly basis, even if their business is growing well[1]. Feeling of failure tend to come from:1. You are constantly learning and doing new things. For many startup founders, your CEO job may be your first time managing people, hiring and firing across various functions, raising money, selling a customer, managing your board of directors, or signing a business partnership. When a startup grows from 10 to 100 to 1000 people, you have to relearn basic parts of the CEO job. This constant learning curve means that even if you are doing well, you may constantly feel lost. A Huge Collection of Startup Pitch Decks - Dconstrct By SK. Product Validation - 5 Strategies To Validate Your Product Ideas. Coming up with a product idea for your new online business can be difficult.
More difficult still is building the confidence to make the jump and go through with your idea once you do have one. Will anyone care? Will anyone buy it? These are common questions you’ll ask yourself at some point in your journey. Truth be told, you’ll never know with 100% certainty how well your product idea will do until you actually open up shop. A lesson from Instapaper: The freemium model is doomed – VentureBeat. News of Pinterest’s acquisition of Instapaper received a bittersweet reaction from users of the latter.
Many fear an imminent change in the level of the team’s dedication and a drop in customer service, leading to eventual shut down. Pinterest and other giants have a history of “killing” apps they acquire. This was, for instance, the fate of a former competitor of Instapaper — Iceber.gs — a visual bookmarking startup that shut down right after Pinterest bought it. The Pinterest - Instapaper deal does not come as a surprise, not only because the two are both in the field of organizing content, but also because of Instapaper’s freemium business model.
MOSourceLink. From Google Ventures: How To Hire The Best Designer For Your Team. Finding the perfect designer to join your team is tough—there’s no way around it.
I’ve struggled for months searching for the right designer. And if you’re an engineer or MBA without a background in design, hiring a designer can be daunting, frustrating, or even downright scary. We can talk about how to review portfolios, how to interview candidates, and how to persuade a designer that your team is worth joining. Peter Diamandis Grit… So Important! By Peter Diamandis: An overnight success… after 10 years of hard work… That’s the story for my founding XPRIZE and co-founding Zero-G.
It’s also the story of AirBnb, Instagram, Pinterest and a lot of other startups. People often forget how difficult it is to start a company. This blog is about “grit“… one of the most critical attributes of being a successful entrepreneur today. What is grit? Entrepreneurial success is almost always harder than you think and almost always takes longer than you expect. Raise Your Odds of Success — Lean Stack. OPO Startups. The BALSA Foundation.