Key Factors for Startup Success
- Essayist and programming language designer Paul Graham explains three things you need in a successful startup; summarizes startups in 13 sentences and in this longer post; describes 18 mistakes that kill startups; and discusses the hardest lessons for entrepreneurs to learn
- SpinBrush inventor John Osher cites 17 mistakes that hurt startups
- Meebo founder Seth Sternberg offers tips on how to get started
- Mint CEO Aaron Patzer on building a startup
- Serial entrepreneur and startup guru Steve Blank discusses the implications of different types of business models and market attributes for startup management
- Startup 101, a book available online from ReadWriteWeb COO Bernard Lunn, addresses many topics listed below related to team dynamics, fundraising, etc.
- Sequoia on elements of a great business plan
- Netscape and Ning co-founder Marc Andreessen on team vs product vs market as key factors for startup success and what to do when VCs say "no" (NEW 11/29 - thanks to Steve Blank)
- Entrepreneurial marketing guru Sean Ellis on milestones for startup success. Follow links in this post for current thinking on best practices in startup management. Note especially link to Ellis's survey on product/market fit (NEW 12/1)
- YouNoodle.com's Startup Predictor yields a prediction of a startup's value in three years based on data about team, advisors, financial factors, etc. (NEW 12/1 - thanks to Bhaskar Chakravorti)
- Highland Capital on writing a business plan (NEW 12/1 - thanks to Bob Higgins)
- Union Square Ventures' Fred Wilson on benefits and costs of entrepreneurial bias for action (NEW - 12/10)
- Jason Cohen offers six questions that startup CEOs should ask themselves regularly (NEW 1/4)
- Steve Blank on attributes of a scalable startup (NEW 1/4), the definition of a business model (NEW 1/26), and why startups should track progress with hypothesis validation, not traditional accounting metrics (NEW 2/22)
- Alistair Croll on lean startup analytics (NEW 1/11)
- David Skok on metrics for evaluating SaaS business models (NEW - 2/17)
- "I wish I'd known…" advice from entrepreneurs from Under30CEO.com (NEW - 2/27)
- Rules for naming a web startup by SEOmoz.org (NEW - 3/4)
- Ben Horowitz on the elusive nature of product-market fit (NEW - 4/21)
- Paul Graham on when it makes sense for a student to pursue a startup upon graduation and on the importance of determination for entrepreneurs
- IMVU co-founder and Kleiner Perkins Venture Advisor Eric Ries on money as a motivator for entrepreneurs
- Serial entrepreneur Furqan Nazeeri on ten things to consider before joining a startup
- Netscape founder Marc Andreessen on why not to do a startup
- Serial entrepreneur and 4-hour workweek guru Tim Ferriss on managing entrepreneurial manic-depression
- Eric Reis on handling fear as an entrepreneur
- Steve Blank on work-life balance for an entrepreneur
- More on work-life balance tradeoffs: “Confessions of an Entrepreneur’s Wife” from Inc. Magazine
- Jerry Colonna on the payoff from/personal cost of entrepreneurial passion (New 2/1)
- Jordan Cooper: 35 attributes that entrepreneurs require (NEW 2/3)
- 20 questions about motivations for would-be entrepreneurs from Seth Kravitz in response to Dan Isenberg's 20-question list (NEW - 2/27)
- Serial entrepreneur and investor Chris Dixon on the tradeoffs with keeping your new business idea confidential
- Paul Graham on the concept of "ramen profitability," i.e., earning just enough to live on noodles and on the different rhythms and mindsets of makers (product builders) vs. managers (business types)
- Eric Ries on when to release your first product; how to manage a business model transition; and what startup CEOs can learn from Steve Jobs
- Furqan Nazeeri on how to run an all-hands team meeting and startup ethics
- Tips on pitching your firm from entrepreneurs Jason Calacanis, Andrew Fife, Simeon Simeonov, and Eric Ries.
- Tips on networking from startup CEO Andrew Hoag
- Entrepreneur Sean Power on how to exploit momentum and entrepreneur Mark Suster on the danger of a hot startup's team "drinking its own Kool-Aid"
- Jason Calacanis on managing layoffs
- Steve Blank on why startups should avoid deliberations over "corner cases," i.e., potential problems with a very low probability (NEW 11/29)
- A 3-part post from Ooga Labs on startup management practices for "going fast." Be sure to follow links (NEW 12/3)
- 3-part post from Steve Blank on intellectual property defense for startups (NEW - 12/10)
- Serial entrepreneur and VC Mark Suster on the importance of tenacity and street smarts in entrepreneurship (NEW - 12/16)
- Alistair Croll and Sean Power of Watching Websites on metrics to track (NEW - 12/16)
- Three-part series by Steve Blank on intellectual property defense strategies for startups (NEW - 12/10)
- The case against releasing early/often from Jason Cohen at OnStartups.com (NEW -12/21)
- Steve Blank on how the transition to professional management can have unintended consequences as a startup matures (NEW -12/21); more from Steve on the same theme (NEW - 1/2)
- Blog devoted to IP law for startups by Jill Bowman (NEW - 2/8)
- Lessons for first-time entrepreneurs from Matt Mireless (NEW - 2/14)
- Tips on managing lawyers for 1st-time entrepreneurs from James Reinhardt of ThredUP (NEW - 2/16)
- Eric Ries on the right amount of process for a startup (NEW - 2/24)
- Mark Suster on the wisdom (and ethics) of failing fast (NEW - 3/14) and on how to manage relationships with journalists (NEW 3/24)
- Naval Ravikant of VentureHacks on pitching (NEW 4/14)
- Eric Ries on problem solving via "five whys" (NEW 4/30)
- My colleague Noam Wasserman's blog offers a treasure trove of advice on building a startup team, splitting founders' equity, managing CEO succession issues, startup manager compensation, building a board, managing investors, etc.
- Meebo CEO Seth Sternberg on finding co-founders
- Furqan Nazeeri on startup CEO succession, managing a startup board, what to include in a monthly board presentation, and hiring your first salesperson
- Chris Dixon on splitting founders' equity
- Polaris's Mike Hirshland on when founders should remain CEO
- Eric Ries on building and managing a startup advisory board
- Highland Capital on building and managing a board (NEW 12/1)
- Venture Hacks on how to pick a co-founder (NEW 12/3) and when to fire a co-founder (NEW 1/28)
- Four-part post on startup hiring practices by Xobni founder/CTO Adam Smith (NEW 1/11)
- Jason Cohen on hiring startup marketing talent (NEW 1/26)
- Mark Suster: coaching new hires on how to exit their old job; Fred Wilson expands on the topic (NEW - 3/14)
- Mark Suster on CTO vs VP Engineering roles (NEW 4/20)
- Ben Horowitz on why big company execs struggle in startups and why he prefers to invest in founder-CEOs (NEW 4/21)
- Paul Graham on fundraising and angel investors' motivations
- Term sheet tune-up tips from VentureHacks
- Furqan Nazeeri's blog offers a wealth of insightful posts on fundraising
- LearnVC focuses on entrepreneurial finance basics
- Flybridge VC (and HBS Rock Center Entrepreneur-in-Residence) Jeff Bussgang describes the VC due diligence process
- Union Square Venture's Fred Wilson on how option pools impact startup valuation, ideal first round terms, negotiations with VCs over valuation, and typical dilution levels
- How to pitch VCs by Venrock’s David Pakman
- LinkedIn CEO Reid Hoffman’s criteria for making angel investments
- August Capital’s David Hornik on investing criteria
- Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman on best questions he was asked during fundraising
- Chris Dixon on shopping your term sheet, taking seed money from VCs, ideal first round terms, and the use of convertible notes in seed rounds
- Wilson Sonsini term sheet generator
- Links to fundraising resources and other items of interest at Harvard Engineering School's Technology & Entrepreneurship Center (TECH)
- Entrepreneur and startup mentor David Rose explains how to pitch a VC in this TED Talk. Rose is CEO of AngelSoft, a platform that provides web-based planning tools for angel investors and entrepreneurs (NEW 11/29)
- Marc Andreessen on how much money to raise -- and how much is too much (NEW 11/29)
- Atlas VC Fred Destin on what not to disclose to a VC when raising money (NEW 11/30)
- Equity simulator from OwnYourVenture that calculates impact on % ownership by round of $ raised, size of option pool, etc. (NEW 12/1 - Thanks to Paul Bottino)
- Highland Capital on fundraising and presenting to VCs (NEW 12/1)
- Roger Ehrenberg of IA Capital Partners on tradeoffs between VC and angel funding (NEW - 12/5)
- Bessemer's Dave Cowan on slides to include in a VC pitch deck (NEW - 12/13)
- Mayfield's Raj Kapoor on elements of a great pitch (NEW -12/13)
- Mark Suster on the pros and cons of raising money from strategic investors (NEW - 12/16) and why entrepreneurs should try to close deals fast (NEW - 2/25)
- Fundraising tips from Dharmesh Shah (NEW - 2/8)
- Mark Suster on what to watch out for when raising VC (NEW - 3/1)
- Brad Feld on standardized seed financing documents (NEW - 3/4)
- Chris Dixon on signaling impact of seed round VC choices (NEW - 3/14)
- The Old Testament: Geoffrey Moore’s Crossing the Chasm and Inside the Tornado
- The New Testament: Steve Blank's Four Steps to the Epiphany
- Podcast of Steve Blank at Stanford
- Blank on firing customers
- The sales learning curve by Veritas founder Mark Leslie and Stanford Professor Charles Holloway
- Eric Ries on the minimum viable product concept and using letters of intent to get feedback on a minimal viable product
- Startup metrics from serial entrepreneur and angel investor Dave McClure
- Tips on going viral from Irata Labs CEO Chris Abad
- Jason Calacanis on running a trade show booth and why you should fire your public relations firm
- TechCrunch's Michael Arrington on public relations in Silicon Valley
- HubSpot co-founder and CTO Dharmesh Shah on the dangers of partnering with big firms, on tactical tips for startup marketing, and on building a sales team
- Marc Andreessen on how dealing with big firms is like pursuing elusive, unpredictable and dangerous Moby Dick (NEW 11/29)
- HubSpot resources for improving digital marketing effectiveness (NEW 11/30 - thanks to Joe Lassiter)
- Presentation on startup marketing by Highland Capital's Michael Gaiss. See links to SEO/SEM online resources on slide 33 (NEW 12/1)
- Xobni founder Matt Brezina on how to drive early traffic through PR strategies. Be sure to follow link in post to slideshow (NEW 12/4)
- Viral marketing analytics explained by David Skok of Matrix Partners (NEW 12/7)
- Author Tim Ferriss on how he used social media and A/B testing to build "Four Hour Workweek" into a best-seller (NEW - 12/15)
- Steve Blank: for web startups, A/B test metrics are necessary but not sufficient. You also need to get out of the building and interview users (NEW - 12/16)
- David Skok on the need to balance average customer acquisition cost with lifetime value of a customer (NEW - 12/22) and on metric-driven business model analysis (NEW 2/3)
- Tony Wright on managing the customer acquisition/retention funnel and Josh Porter on designing for social traction (NEW 1/3, via GigaOm)
- Mark Suster on tech sales and hiring salespeople (NEW 2/8)
- Ash Maurya on pricing strategies for startup SaaS ventures (NEW 2/17) and how Steve Blank's customer discovery and customer validation processes should be adapted for consumer internet startups (NEW - 2/25)
- MarK Suster on dangers that startups face when they rely on channel partners for sales (NEW 2/23)
- Six Revisions provides a description of web analytics and an overview of Google Analytics (NEW 3/24)
- Dharmesh Shah on choosing a name for a startup (NEW 3/24)
- David Skok on how sales complexity impacts customer acquisition cost -- and how to mitigate its impact (NEW 4/29)
- Ash Maurya on troubleshooting trial offers (NEW 5/25)
- Mashable post on naming your startup (NEW 5/29)
Product Development
- Eric Ries's blog is full of ideas about product development processes at lean startups, including the use of Toyota-style "five whys," sources of engineering-marketing friction, the value of split test experiments, and the merits of continuous deployment
- Podcast of Ries at Stanford
- "Getting Real" is a book by 37signals (available free online or for purchase in print or PDF format) about lean web application development processes (NEW 11/29 -- Thanks to Phil Michaelson)
- Design firm slicedbread on when to use A/B testing vs. qualitative user research and when continuous feature/fix releases are good and bad for users (NEW 12/3)
- Case study of continuous deployment from Ries (NEW 1/18)
- Mark Suster on designing products for mass adoption (NEW 1/26) and how to blog (NEW 3/14)
- Tools for web design from Six Revisions (NEW 2/14)
- Fred Wilson on principles for web app design (NEW 4/5)
- Eric Ries on macro vs. micro testing in lean startups (NEW 4/12)
- Vivek Wadhwa on the pros and cons of outsourcing product development (NEW 4/17)
- Aardvark co-founder Max Ventilla on user-driven design (NEW 4/20)
- Creating Passionate Users blog on managing expectations and securing useful feedback with a product demo (NEW 4/29)
- Fred Wilson on challenges in product and engineering as startups scale (NEW 5/23)
Other Resources
- The HBS Rock Center has compiled a list of resources for entrepreneurs on a range of topics, including developing a business plan, fundraising, legal issues, finding a team, etc.
- The Stanford Technology Ventures Program has a terrific library of audio and video podcasts of presentations by entrepreneurs and venture capitalists
- Jason Calacanis hosts the weekly podcast, This Week in Startups, which features interviews with entrepreneurs and VCs
- List of monthly "Starting Up" columns from Boston Business Journal covering many of topics above by Joseph Hadzima of MIT Sloan School and Main Street Partners (NEW 11/30)
- Podcasts with entrepreneurs and VCs from Highland Capital (NEW 12/1)
