A couple quotes from Paul Graham about startups that get him excited:
“…Introduce market pricing in worlds that don’t have it…”
“…startups destroying things that everyone thinks works but are artifacts…”
Right. Just like Microsoft stopped AOL from winning the early online wars. And AOL stopped Yahoo! from winning the Internet portal wars. And Yahoo! in turn killed Google when it came to search. While Google stopped Facebook in their tracks when they built a social networking company. And Facebook stomped out Twitter from building an open social network. And we know how Facebook stomped out FourSquare.
And on and on. eBay / StubHub. Amazon / Zappos. Twitter / Instagram.
Focus wins.
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| — | Mark Suster |
Sometimes just learning a new word can completely change the way you operate your business. Just one little word can have that much power. In this article that word is “Market Launch.”
The next time my investors ask me when we’re going to launch I will have two answers for them. One will be our “product launch” and the next will be our “market launch.”
This clarity is going to make my life so much easier.
How Could Someone “Thoroughly Unqualified” Raise $2+ Mil And Launch A Startup? – with Laura Fitton »
“Startup Metrics for Pirates: AARRR!” by Dave McClure
What is it: A very THOROUGH framework for marketing a consumer internet product
Who needs it: Founders of consumer internet products
When you’re going to need this: Writing your business plan and executing your marketing strategy (that means, you need this to plan, and you’re going to need to revisit it to execute)
Provides a great outline in short order. Also see Part I of this series: Elevator Pitch
This is a thorough, yet brief post on how to raise money from Angels and other seed investors. It gives very tangible advice. If you’re in this stage of your startup (which we are at Pocket Tales), you can start using this information immediately.
My Thoughts on Bloomington-based SproutBox
SproutBox is a new type of investment firm. It’s in the same vein as Y Combinator, TechStars, DreamIt Ventures, etc. but it has its own twist. Like the others, SproutBox asks you to relocate to their headquarters (in this instance in Bloomington, IN) and then gives you just enough money to live for 3 - 6 months. The difference is, SproutBox uses its team of 10 coders, designers, and marketers to build or extend your product. For this, they take a bigger percentage of the company than the other new wave investment firms, but if you’re an idea stage company without a technical lead (like Pocket Tales was) it’s worth it. The alternative is putting together your own team of great coders and that’s just hard, risky, and costly in terms of equity (if you don’t have cash, what else are you going to pay them with?)
Pocket Tales was invited to finalist day to present to roughly 15 people on SproutBox’s advisory board which included investors and community leaders. We weren’t selected but we came away with a ton of confidence, a great new network, and some great memories, so I thought I’d share my thoughts on the whole process.
