Innovation at the Intersection: Startup-Corporate Partnerships

Innovation is essential for any business that wants to stay competitive and relevant in today's rapidly changing market. However, innovation is challenging, especially for large corporations facing bureaucracy, risk aversion, silos, and inertia. That's why many corporates are looking for ways to collaborate with startups, which are often more agile, creative, and disruptive. A startup … Continue reading Innovation at the Intersection: Startup-Corporate Partnerships

The Power of Customer Feedback: How Startups Benefit

Customer feedback is crucial for startups as it provides valuable insights into how the target market positions the company's products or services. By actively seeking out and listening to customer feedback, startups can identify areas for improvement, address any problems or concerns, and ultimately enhance the overall customer experience. Critically, customer feedback is essential for … Continue reading The Power of Customer Feedback: How Startups Benefit

Managing Redundant Knowledge in Venture Development

As my students will confirm, I am a process nerd. I live and breathe anything that supports the development of new ventures and innovation. You can refer to an earlier post on the new venture realization process I use with founders and startups. For this article, I want to focus on "connecting the dots" during your venture … Continue reading Managing Redundant Knowledge in Venture Development

Maximizing the Value of Startup Mentors & Advisors

Startup founders often seek advice for a variety of reasons. By tapping into the expertise of various individuals, they gain valuable insight and advice on navigating the challenges and uncertainty of starting and growing a business. In addition, founders gain support and encouragement as they work to bring their ideas to life and overcome obstacles. … Continue reading Maximizing the Value of Startup Mentors & Advisors

Unlocking Customer Outcomes: The Key to Startup Success

One of the most challenging aspects of navigating startup development is identifying and validating customer-desired outcomes. Understanding the customer's needs can be difficult to determine as customers are not always able to articulate their desired results. Founders make several assumptions about these outcomes that need to be evaluated, prioritized, and validated through customer engagement, market … Continue reading Unlocking Customer Outcomes: The Key to Startup Success

Startup Failure: Five Avoidable Challenges

Many articles describe the challenges that entrepreneurs face as they launch new enterprises. The statistics certainly validate how difficult starting a new business can be for even experienced entrepreneurs. However, it is challenging to provide current statistics on startup failure rates, as these rates can vary depending on various factors, such as the industry, location, … Continue reading Startup Failure: Five Avoidable Challenges

The Power of Crowdsourcing for Startups

People frequently ask entrepreneurs how they come up with new ideas. This answer is not as straightforward as one might think. There are many ways that entrepreneurs and innovators come up with new ideas, products, and processes. Even once you have a list of idea-generating sources, it is only half the story. As it turns … Continue reading The Power of Crowdsourcing for Startups

CRM’s Essential Role in Early Venture Development

Summary Via ChatGPT. This article discusses the importance of implementing a customer relationship management (CRM) strategy in the early stages of a startup. The author argues that CRM is not just about capturing customer data during the sales process, but also about establishing a customer-centric mindset and managing all relevant stakeholder relationships. The article suggests … Continue reading CRM’s Essential Role in Early Venture Development

Pricing Strategies for Startups

In a recent class, we discussed how startups should approach pricing. When you think about how important pricing is to customer acquisition, market perception of value, and venture profitability, it is surprising that founders commonly consider pricing strategies quite late in business model development. Yet, pricing is an integral part of the overall marketing strategy. … Continue reading Pricing Strategies for Startups

Product Positioning for Startups

One of the significant decisions startups face is how to best position their product offering for market entry. The final decision is challenging even when you conduct extensive customer discovery and competitive analysis and speak with fellow entrepreneurs and industry experts. In this post, I will talk about the pieces of information that you gather … Continue reading Product Positioning for Startups