background preloader

Entrepreneur

Facebook Twitter

Smarter Planet - Smarter Marketing Strategies - United States. How Serial Innovators Find The Best Problems To Solve. Serial innovators are not looking for opportunities.

How Serial Innovators Find The Best Problems To Solve

They look for concrete problems that cause potential customers significant pain--problems with solutions for which customers would be willing to pay. Serial innovators know they have an interesting problem when it meets three criteria: Solving the problem has the potential for significant financial impact.A solution likely can be found.The problem and its solution are acceptable to both customers and management (it solves problems and fits strategy). Serial Innovators follow Thomas Edison’s advice regarding innovating: “I don’t want to invent something that no one will buy.”

They understand that technology is just a means to an end, the firm is in business to make money, and the only way they will be allowed to continue innovating is to develop a product that profitably solves customer problems. 4 methods for finding the right problem How to understand the problem deeply. What Colors Say About Your BrandMarketing Technology Blog. The 14 Most Powerful and Effective Words in Marketing.

In Go Mobile, the book I’ve written with Jeanne Hopkins from HubSpot, we review a list of the 14 most powerful words in marketing so that readers can use them in their mobile marketing campaigns.

The 14 Most Powerful and Effective Words in Marketing

This post gives you a sneak peak at the list that’s included in the book. Fundraising. Money to build the business is the number one challenge for most startups.

Fundraising

Don’t believe the urban myth that you can sketch your idea on a napkin, and professional investors will throw money at you. In reality, only 3 out of 100 companies who apply are successful with Angels, and the success rate with VCs is even lower. A large percentage of startups never apply to either. You need to explore more common and more productive approaches for getting your startup moving forward. Of course, every approach has pros and cons. How to Find Startup Co-Founders Online and in the Real World. “You have to sit by the side of a river for a *very* long time before a roast duck will fly into your mouth“, said Guy Kawasaki.

How to Find Startup Co-Founders Online and in the Real World

First-time entrepreneurs shouldn’t wait for their “roast duck” either. Whether you have an idea for a tech startup, or you want to join someone who does, life is too short to work on something you are not passionate about. Most investors will say that the most important thing they invest in, is the team. So how do you go about finding co-founders and early members of your startup? Choosing a Business Name that Captures the Right Kind of Attention. By Adam Toren Amazon: Once only a river in South America or one of a legendary ancient race of women warriors.

Choosing a Business Name that Captures the Right Kind of Attention

Those images pale in comparison with the strong name recognition of one of the largest commercial websites on the Internet. Interestingly enough, the website’s name was almost “Cadabra,” a short form of abracadabra. Jeff Bezos changed his mind when his lawyer mistakenly thought Jeff was saying cadaver. How to name your startup. Choosing a name is one of the parts of a startup I find the most difficult.

How to name your startup

It’s also something you can easily get hung up on. We all know that the key thing is to move on to actually building something we can put in front of users. A Head Start is Not a Head Start. Most people agree that Mosaic was the first browser for the World Wide Web, but it was actually preceded by ‘WorldWideWeb’ and the lesser-known Erwise and ViolaWWW.

A Head Start is Not a Head Start

Netscape didn’t invent the browser, but it did see a commercial opportunity, and room for improvement while it was working on Mosaic. Google wasn’t the first search engine, that surprises nobody. It also wasn’t the first to base its search results on the relationships between websites and also wasn’t the first service to charge advertisers per click. This is news to some people. YouTube wasn’t the first online video platform (I’ve heard estimates about there being 1700 competitors to Youtube when it was started), Twitter wasn’t the first microblogging platform and Facebook wasn’t the first social network. Controversial: Benetton. Get your exclusive@fashionist.ca address. Benefits of your own @fashionist.ca email address Limited, exclusive availability. Great names are still available! Follows you where you go. Change email providers at any time Works with your Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo mail, or any private mail account Let others find your office or home address with your email address if you would like them to.

Ethic: A Message for the Future Generation of Entrepreneurs. I 3 Votes As we have recently been in what I would consider a “lull” of innovation in the internet startup industry.

Ethic: A Message for the Future Generation of Entrepreneurs

I feel recent changes in technology (hardware and open-source software) and the world economy are going to trigger a couple of specific key trends for startups to come. I feel these trends are going to be some of the most important things any entrepreneur can be working on at this point in time. #1 Connecting people locally. Foursquare, Meetup, Banjo, Highlight, Gauss, Circle, Glancee, Mingle, and many others…