There’s a great quote from the brilliant management consultant, Peter Drucker, which really summarizes what I’d like to teach you today: “The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself.” ~ Peter Drucker If you have 100 customers, there are probably only 10 who are actually amazing
About 10 years ago I started organizing Founder Dinners after reading a book called, Never Eat Alone written by an amazing individual, Keith Ferrazzi. This book set my life on a different path. Since then, I’ve organized over 300 meals, bringing together close to 1000 entrepreneurs and CEO’s, both at home and everywhere that I’ve traveled. The power of bringing
If you’ve started a company (or are growing a business) and every time you share your business idea with other people, they start asking “oh, so you’re like [X] company?”, then you have competition. You don’t decide who your competition is, your customers do by their actions and choices.
I originally wrote this in 2010 but wanted to revisit, fix and re-publish for others to read. — If I wasn’t doing my startup in San Francisco, here’s some random thoughts on how I would do it in another city – most likely in my home town of Moncton, NB. (which I ended up doing with Clarity!) 1. Start. Build
“Life’s not about how hard of a hit you can give… it’s about how many you can take, and still keep moving forward.” ― Sylvester Stallone, Rocky Balboa Most people don’t realize how hard it’s going to be when they start a business. What matters most is if you are willing to continue during the struggle, when there’s nothing clear
Building a two-sided market is probably the hardest thing you can build as an entrepreneur. It’s so hard that a few weeks ago, I organized a Marketplace Founders Dinner because I felt like there needed to be an “AA type meeting” for providing support to those founders :). I don’t know if you know what a marketplace is, but it’s
Updated Jan 23rd: Please don’t email me your pitch. I’m not looking for new investments outside my personal network. If you’d like you can follow me on Angel List to get notified of my new investments. Thank you. —- I’ve always found “angel investing” to be such a funny term. It almost comes across as being some kind of religious
Launching your startup is probably one of the most important things to get right so you get as much momentum going in the beginning and have as many people as possible show up to use your product or service. I have been starting companies now for 15 years, and one of the things that I’ve really tried to figure out
The other day I had an entrepreneur come to my house with $2000 in cash to give me, and here’s why… Every time I go to an event I like to collect 4 or 5 entrepreneurs that I don’t know, and if I feel like they have good energy and are good people in general, I invite them to lunch.
I’ve been in and around business now for 15 years, both starting and investing in businesses – 33 companies and counting – and what I’ve noticed is that there are recurring characteristics that all great entrepreneurs have.
