Don’t take business advice from Robert Scoble. At least not this advice.
He means well. But some of the advice he gives could cost you money, or even sink your startup.
Since Robert’s post has been circulating around my entrepreneur circles, I’m writing this post to provide an alternative set of advice burgeoning entrepreneurs might follow.
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Two weeks ago I attended Business of Software 2011 and saw a talk by Alex Osterwalder on the business model canvas, a tool for documenting and exploring business models. Then last weekend I attended Charlotte Startup Weekend 3 and explored the business model canvas in more depth.
If you’re not familiar with Startup Weekend, it is an event where programmers, designers and business people team up to create a startup business within 54 hours. It starts on Friday night and ends Sunday night when each team presents their business to a panel of judges. You can read more about my experience at Startup Weekend Boston here.
I participated on the WiFi Crowd team with eleven other people. During the weekend, as we discussed the business model, I downloaded the Business Model Toolbox app onto my iPad so we could use it in exploring our business model. Business Model Toolbox allows you to quickly create business model canvases and document the key parts of your model.
We used the tool to help us think through our business model. But I was on the tech team and didn’t get a chance to use it as much as I had wanted. So, during the presentations, I decided to attempt to document each team’s business model based on their presentation. In this post, I present the results of that experiment. Click any business model below to see a larger version.
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Last Friday I hosted a session on the pros, cons and best practices for building and managing virtual teams at the MassTLC Innovation unConference. In that session, I presented the research I had done over the past two weeks and people shared the techniques they were using for their virtual teams. In this post, I summarize the lessons learned and add a few new links to resources for managing virtual teams.
If you haven’t read my original article introducing the session, you can read it at Virtual Teams: Pros, Cons & Best Practices.
Business of Software 2011 will be streaming the sessions live this year. To register, visit the web site.
Unfortunately, the Business of Software web site is scant on details of the sessions. To help friends to schedule their days, I’ve copied the schedule here and filled in details from the conference brochure. Times not listed are for breaks, meals and networking. See the full schedule here.
If you want to follow the live discussion from the conference on Twitter, the hash tag is #BoS2011.
Enjoy.
Tech companies in Boston and Silicon Valley have a talent crunch. They can’t find enough programmers. Yet in small towns and cities across the country, and in countries around the world, programmers struggle to find good jobs.
Why the disconnect?
Large tech companies have been giving workers telecommute options for years. Teams comprise of members all around the world. Research has shown virtual teams can even outperform on-site teams when the right processes are in place. Yet most startups in Boston and Silicon Valley require you to work on-site. The assumption is that startups require teams to be co-located to be effective.
With the current discussions surrounding the talent crunch in Boston, I want to challenge that assumption.
At the MassTLC Innovation 2011 unConference this upcoming Friday, I plan to host a roundtable discussion on the pros, cons and best practices of virtual teams, and challenge the assumption that Boston startups should be building teams locally. This post explores some of the issues I’ll be bringing up. Continue reading >
I attended Startup Weekend Boston this past weekend, had enormous fun and helped launch a new business.
If you’re not familiar with Startup Weekend, it’s a weekend-long event where teams compete to bring businesses from concept to launch in 54 hours. Today’s post provides a play-by-play of what one of these weekends looks like–or at least my experience of the weekend.
[Disclaimer: I wrote this over the past three days and my memory has failed me on many of the details. If anyone who attended sees anything I missed or that I got wrong, please let me know and I’ll update this post. I’d also love to know who won each category at the end and who the judges were. I remembered a few, but forgot to write the rest down.]
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Flying on the way to Boston for a two and a half week networking sprint has me thinking about networking strategies.
I don’t live in Boston. I live a thousand miles south in a small artsy town called Asheville. But I focus my networking on Boston because, on the East Coast, it dominates the software industry. Silicon Valley takes longer to get to, requires a lot more driving once there and involves jet lag. Plus, I just love Boston as a city.
Networking in a city far from where you live has it’s own set of challenges. So I’m constantly experimenting, trying out different techniques to see what works. Meanwhile, my networking goals and styles change as my needs change and I learn more about what’s important to me.
Today I want to explore my goals, the types of networking I do and experiments I’m trying or considering. Continue reading >
Challenging assumptions can unlock the creativity needed for innovative solutions. That was a key theme that emerged at the Leadership Asheville overnight retreat I attended this weekend.
During the weekend, we were given leadership and team building exercises that involved solving problems collaboratively. Upon solving a problem, we were challenged to solve it faster with fewer resources. In essence, to make a radical leap forward in our thinking of potential solutions and do what initially seemed impossible.
To solve the problems presented to us, we often had to ignore the “phantom rules” we approached problems with and challenge our underlying assumptions. When we did so, problems that seemed impossible suddenly seemed solvable.
But how do you challenge assumptions? Are there specific techniques that can help you unlock your creativity and come up with a radical new solution that dramatically improves upon the old one? Continue reading >
In October, Boston becomes a networking and learning mecca for entrepreneurs and innovators.
As I prepare for a two and a half week whirlwind trip to Boston next month, I thought it would be useful for others to know why they should travel to Boston, if they don’t already live there, and what events to attend. Continue reading >
If you could teach people to learn better in school, be more effective at work, have a stronger marriage and live a happier life, would you?
In 2004, Chris Peterson and Martin Seligman published Character Strengths and Virtues: A Handbook and Classification, a compendium of 24 character strengths that ancient thinkers, spiritual leaders and modern psychologists all agree lead to a good life.
Since then, research has shown being strong in one or more of these character strengths can help:
Based on my own experience, strengths like perseverance, optimism and creativity also help entrepreneurs grow businesses, employees perform better and marriages flourish.
Moreover, these character strengths can be taught and improved upon.
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