, , ,

Startup Strategies – Best of 2012

Here is a fantastic compilation of posts and articles from 2012 about managing startups from  Professor at Harvard Business School who studies lean startups, entrepreneurship, platforms, and network effects (Twitter: @teisenmann).  This is so much information and wisdom here for anyone starting a new venture or trying to make their startup successful.

As Tom says “The generosity of the startup community is amazing, and these insights are invaluable to those of us who teach and coach aspiring entrepreneurs.”  Dig in, there is a lot to digest:

Lean Startup

Business Models
Customer Discovery and Validation

Marketing: Demand Generation and Optimization

Sales and Sales Management
Viral Marketing
PR Strategy

Branding/Naming a Startup

Product Management/Product Design

Business Development

  • John O’Farrell of a16z describes how quality trumps quantity and clarity regarding mutual objectives is crucial in doing business development deals, using Opsware’s transformative distribution agreement with Cisco as a case study.
Scaling

Funding Strategy

Founding Process
  • My colleague Noam Wasserman published his book, The Founder’s Dilemmas, that describes tradeoffs that founders confront when deciding when/with whom to found, how to split equity, how to divide roles, etc.
  • Blake Masters’ summary of Peter Thiel’s Stanford CS183 lecture on the importance on early founding decisions.
  • Charlie O’Donnell of Brooklyn Bridge Ventures on questions that co-founders must address ASAP and the concept of the “minimum viable team,” i.e., the smallest set of skills needed to get traction in an early-stage startup.
Company Culture, Organizational Structure, Recruiting and Other HR Issues
Board Management

Startup Failure

Exiting By Selling Your Company

The Startup Mindset and Coping with Startup Pressures

Management Advice, Not Elsewhere Classified
Career Advice (Especially for MBAs)

Startup Hubs

  • Brad Feld of Foundry Group and TechStars has published the book Startup Communities, a guide to building an entrepreneurial ecosystem.

Tools for Entrepreneurs

  • Beyond Steve Blank’s Startup Owner’s Manual, a book he co-authored with Bob Dorf, here is a list of the fantastic resources Steve has made available to the startup community — mostly for free.
 Original post is here.  Thank’s for compiling and sharing this Tom.

We Welcome Your Comments

Comments

1 reply

Leave a Reply

Want to join the discussion?
Feel free to contribute!

Leave a Reply