Home « Keeping Pace How to Start a Startup March 2005 (This essay is derived from a talk at the Harvard Computer Society.) You need three things to create a successful startup: to start with good people, to make something customers actually want, and to spend as little money as possible. Most startups that fail do it because they fail at one of these. And that's kind of exciting, when you think about it, because all three are doable. If there is one message I'd like to get across about startups, that's it. The Idea In particular, you don't need a brilliant idea to start a startup around. Google's plan, for example, was simply to create a search site that didn't suck. There are plenty of other areas that are just as backward as search was before Google. For example, dating sites currently suck far worse than search did before Google. An idea for a startup, however, is only a beginning. Another sign of how little the initial idea is worth is the number of startups that change their plan en route. People What Customers Want Should You?
Knowledge worker What differentiates knowledge work from other forms of work is its primary task of "non-routine" problem solving that requires a combination of convergent, divergent, and creative thinking.[2] Also, despite the amount of research and literature on knowledge work there is yet to be a succinct definition of the term.[3] The issue of who knowledge workers are, and what knowledge work entails, however, is still debated. Mosco and McKercher (2007) outline various viewpoints on the matter. They first point to the most narrow and defined definition of knowledge work, such as Florida’s view of it as specifically, "the direct manipulation of symbols to create an original knowledge product, or to add obvious value to an existing one", which limits the definition of knowledge work to mainly creative work. Knowledge workers spend 38% of their time searching for information. History[edit] Savage (1995) describes a knowledge-focus as the third wave of human socio-economic development. See also[edit]
The Idea Village » Early stage companies don’t need money, they need customers Note: This is cross posted from WhoYouCallingAJesse.com by Jesse Rodgers, who is a cofounder of TribeHR. He has been a key member of the Waterloo startup community hosting StartupCampWaterloo and other events to bring together and engage local entrepreneurs. Follow him on Twitter @jrodgers or WhoYouCallingAJesse.com. Some rights reserved by wallyg The popular belief in Canada is that the tech startup world has been fairly light on investment dollars relative to other industries in Canada. Because there is such a disparity in seed or angel round investment size in Canada vs the US people tend to point to that as a reason people go south. Five years ago Paul Graham observed that the total cost to get a tech startup started had dropped dramatically and will continue to do so. So my first prediction about the future of web startups is pretty straightforward: there will be a lot of them. There is a lot of attention around getting young people money but does that help them? Know thy stage
Time Management Tips # 10 - Set Limits - J.D. Meier's Blog I hate quotas. For me, I'm about quality, not quantity. And yet quotas have consistently helped me get the ball rolling, or find out what I'm capable of. Time management tips # 10 – set limits. When we set a quota, we have a target. In my early days of Microsoft, my manager set a limit that I needed to write two Knowledge Base articles per month. A few years back, I set a limit that my posts would be no longer than six inches (yeah, that sounds like a weird size limit, but I wanted to fill no more than where the gray box on my blog faded to white.) Setting limits in time, size, or quantity can help you in so many ways. Here are some example of some limits you can try: Write one blog post each day. Once you set a limit, you suddenly get resourceful in findings new ways to optimize, or new ways to make it happen. While I'm a fan of quality, the trick is to first "flow some water through the pipe" so you can tune, prune, and improve it. You Might Also Like
The Daily Handbook for Extreme Leaders The Dirty Little Secret Of Overnight Successes As Chris Dixon pointed out in a recent blog post, Angry Birds, the incredibly popular game, was software maker Rovio’s 52nd attempt. They spent eight years and nearly went bankrupt before finally creating their massive hit. James Dyson failed in 5,126 prototypes before perfecting his revolutionary vacuum cleaner. Groupon was put on life support and nearly shut down at one point in its meteoric rise. When looking at the most successful people and organizations, we often imagine geniuses with a smooth journey straight to the promised land. We often celebrate companies and individuals once they've achieved undeniable success, but shun their disruptive thinking before reaching such a pinnacle. In your life, you've probably had a setback or two. The ubiquitous WD-40 lubricant got its name because the first 39 experiments failed. You have a mission to accomplish and an enormous impact to make. Don't cave to your mistakes, embrace them. And who knows? [Image: Flickr user Dillon Hinson]