Archive for the ‘Tips & Advice’ Category
Loic Le Meur’s Ten Rules For Startup Success
Mohamed Marwen Meddah | April 22, 2008 – 9:01 pm |
1 Comment
Loic Le Meur, for those who don’t already know him, is an accomplished French serial entrepreneur, most famous for the work he did with weblog hosting company uBlog which was later merged with Six Apart; he organizes the annual Le Web conference in France, and has now moved to Silicon Valley where he founded Seesmic.
A recent article in the Financial Times profiles him and publishes his set of ten rules for startup success, that come from his hands on experience and are very straight to the point and useful. The rules are reprinted below:
- Don’t wait for a revolutionary idea. It will never happen. Just focus on a simple, exciting, empty space and execute as fast as possible
- Share your idea. The more you share, the more you get advice and the more you learn. Meet and talk to your competitors.
- Build a community. Use blogging and social software to make sure people hear about you.
- Listen to your community. Answer questions and build your product with their feedback.
- Gather a great team. Select those with very different skills from you. Look for people who are better than you.
- Be the first to recognise a problem. Everyone makes mistakes. Address the issue in public, learn about and correct it.
- Don’t spend time on market research. Launch test versions as early as possible. Keep improving the product in the open.
- Don’t obsess over spreadsheet business plans. They are not going to turn out as you predict, in any case.
- Don’t plan a big marketing effort. It’s much more important and powerful that your community loves the product.
- Don’t focus on getting rich. Focus on your users. Money is a consequence of success, not a goal.
# Source: Financial Times
How To Evaluate A New Product Idea
Mohamed Marwen Meddah | April 12, 2008 – 7:01 pm | No Comments
Evan Williams, the founder of Blogger, Odeo and Twitter, wrote some time ago about trying to find a more structured way to evaluate product ideas and determine whether they will be successful or not.
It’s a very interesting post, that is really worth reading. Here I’ll be listing the main points, and the main questions you have to ask yourself when evaluating your product, and will leave you to read the details on his blog.
The main points and questions you have to consider in your product / service evaluation are:
Tractability: How difficult will it be to launch a worthwhile version 1.0?
Obviousness: Is it clear why people should use it?
Deepness: How much value can you ultimately deliver?
Wideness: How many people may ultimately use it?
Discoverability: How will people learn about your product?
Monetizability: How hard will it be to extract the money?
Personally Compelling: Do you really want it to exist in the world?
Read the full post in detail here: Will it fly? How to Evaluate a New Product Idea
Tips for Naming Your Startup
Mohamed Marwen Meddah | April 7, 2008 – 8:15 pm | 1 Comment
One of the first important things to consider when launching a startup is its name, after all it is the name you’ll be using for all your professional activities, and as an umbrella for your company’s services and products, so it just has to be right.
Here are a number of tips for choosing the right name for yours:
Keep It Short: Sometimes you can get carried away, wanting to choose a name that expresses what your company does so clearly, that you end up with a sentence that feels more like a slogan than a company name. The idea here is to try and keep it as short as possible, so that it’s easier for people to remember, and even faster for them to type into their browsers.
Be Generic or Be Creative: Either go for a generic name that accurately describes what you’re about, or try to be creative and come up with a cool, yet effective and unique name. It’s a bit easier for Arab startups to come up with generic or creative names because many Arabic words are still available as domain names.
Keep it simple: Company names should not be difficult to pronounce or spell, it has to be easy for people to pass on to their friends and acquaintances, thereby aiding you with word-of-mouth marketing. There also shouldn’t be any confusion as to how its spelled when typed into a browser, which is something Arabic startups should pay extra attention to, as translating Arabic words into English letters can be very tricky.
Go for the .com: It’s a reflex a lot of people have developed, to just type in the company name .com; losing all that traffic just because you had to go for the .net or .org or whatever other extension is just a shame, especially when you’re at the startup phase and need every single potential user you can get. As many Arabic words are still available as .com domain names, this could be a relatively easy task.
Avoid Using Hyphens or Numbers: Again to avoid people misstyping your domain name and ending up on some other website other than yours, you should avoid using hyphens or numbers in your name. They rarely ever benefit a website. Many Arabic websites choose names with numbers in them, to stand in for Arabic letters, that should be avoided, not everybody knows what those numbers stand for and they sometimes stand in for different letters depending on where you are in the Arab world.
Keep it Meaningful: As hard as it is to come up with a generic name that says it all about your company, you should still try to come up with a quality name that combines a number of words, a mixture of descriptive with meaningful and generic.
Think Ahead: Yeah sure, you’re starting this as a little project from your bedroom or basement, but if you’re onto something interesting, that little project could turn into a successful company. Take that into consideration when choosing a name, sure you want to sound cool and all, but still professional enough for business and deals.
# Inspired by: Folksonomy
Sequoia Capital’s Elements of Sustainable Companies
Mohamed Marwen Meddah | April 3, 2008 – 11:02 pm | No Comments
Sequoia Capital, one of the most important venture firms that funded startups like Apple, Google, Yahoo, Cisco Systems, Oracle, PayPal and YouTube, recently released a list of principles and key drivers of success for any startup aiming to make their business successful and build a sustainable, enduring company out of it.
Their list goes as follows:
Clarity of Purpose: Summarize the company’s business on the back of a business card.
Large Markets: Address existing markets poised for rapid growth or change. A market on the path to a $1B potential allows for error and time for real margins to develop.
Rich Customers: Target customers who will move fast and pay a premium for a unique offering.
Focus: Customers will only buy a simple product with a singular value proposition.
Pain Killers: Pick the one thing that is of burning importance to the customer then delight them with a compelling solution.
Think Differently: Constantly challenge conventional wisdom. Take the contrarian route. Create novel solutions. Outwit the competition.
Team DNA: A company’s DNA is set in the first 90 days. All team members are the smartest or most clever in their domain. “A” level founders attract an “A” level team.
Agility: Stealth and speed will usually help beat-out large companies.
Frugality: Focus spending on what’s critical. Spend only on the priorities and maximize profitability.
Inferno: Start with only a little money. It forces discipline and focus. A huge market with customers yearning for a product developed by great engineers requires very little firepower.
