As part of our ongoing series examining the ecosystem necessary to bring technology to market, we asked serial entrepreneur Jason Flick to share some of his insights on getting tech to market with lean thinking. This is the first of his commentaries and we welcome your feedback.
By Jason Flick
You would have to be living under a rock not to have heard about the billions in venture capital flooding into the Valley. Venture firms raised over $60 billion in Q1 2011 alone. Some companies are ramping from zero to billions in revenue in years rather than decades. Students fresh out of school are being offered six-figure salaries, four-month signing bonuses and iPads to come on board. (VentureBeat summed it up well in this recent story.)
Of course, these stories seldom report that for every company like this, there are 99 others that flounder and end up as large financial craters.
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This is the 12th article in a continuing series that examines the state of the ecosystem necessary to successfully bring technology to market. Based on dozens of interviews with entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, angel investors, business leaders, academics, tech-transfer experts and policy makers, this series looks at what is working and what can be improved in the go-to-market ecosystem in the United States, Canada and Britain. We invite your feedback.
By Francis Moran and Leo Valiquette
It’s fitting that we follow up last week’s post on the strategic value of marketing in its purest sense as a process for enabling customer validation and iterative product development with a definition of this thing called lean startup.
Strategic marketing is a fundamental aspect of the lean startup methodology, a methodology first defined by Eric Ries almost three years ago. And lean startup itself as a process for bringing technology to market warrants careful consideration by any entrepreneur in the socially enabled age of Web 2.0.
It’s fitting because just this month, Ries updated his definition of lean startup based on how the concept has evolved since it was first coined.
Ries defines lean “in the sense of low burn. Of course, many startups are capital efficient and generally frugal. But by taking advantage of open source, agile software, and iterative development, lean startups can operate with much less waste.”
He also defines lean startup as an application of lean thinking, which at its most basic is about maximizing the value you provide to your customers while minimizing waste in your organization. If it ain’t focused on delivering value to the customer, get rid of it.
Ries further defines a lean startup as one that is powered by these drivers:
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As part of our ongoing series examining the ecosystem necessary to bring technology to market, we asked Nick Quain co-founder and CEO of CellWand, to share some of his insights as an entrepreneur who has successfully brought technology to market. This is the first of his commentaries and we welcome your feedback.
By Nick Quain
They are becoming the adages of management gurus and startup experts everywhere. So many popular catch phrases, they make your head spin.
Build a great team.
Know the right people.
Learn from the experts.
Manage your people.
All young business leaders need to learn how to do these things, right?
I say wrong.
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This is the 11th article in a continuing series that examines the state of the ecosystem necessary to successfully bring technology to market. Based on dozens of interviews with entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, angel investors, business leaders, academics, tech-transfer experts and policy makers, this series looks at what is working and what can be improved in the go-to-market ecosystem in the United States, Canada and Britain. We invite your feedback.
By Francis Moran and Leo Valiquette
“Companies that can’t clearly articulate their customer and market are not real serious companies, they are research projects … Engineering and marketing need to work together from the get go.”
We began this series a couple of months ago with this timeless quote from Band of Angels’ Ronald Weissman. It strikes to the heart of what all of us here take as gospel.
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This is post is by Associate Phil Newman, a London-based marketing and commercialization strategist for technology companies. We welcome your comments.
By Phil Newman
“OK. Tuesday at 2:30. Great, see you then. We’ll get our NDA over to you guys … yeah, it’s mutual … we can talk more freely about how things could shape up between us. OK, Tuesday it is.”
Sounds fine, doesn’t it? Countersigned NDA filed in the company’s records, check. Possible collaboration with the guys at XYZ Corp., check. Mutual NDA that states what’s ours is ours, check.
But is the NDA, or Non-Disclosure Agreement, a simple business-process document that’s as everyday as a purchase order, or a legally binding document that opens up the potential of intellectual property (IP) issues later? And what about those IP clauses in your standard employment contract? French car-maker Renault recently suspended three senior execs in what was described as a sophisticated case of industrial espionage. The case revolved around electric vehicle programs and power train and battery technology. Chinese companies have been named, but involvement has been denied.
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By Jason Flick
