Business

Lean Canvas Basics

The lean canvas is a tool that helps entrepreneur with forming their idea into a macro plan and later (hopefully) a full function service or product.

You can use something like a good pitch deck to do the same. The core in these tools is to help you articulate what are you going to do and how you are going to win with it.

Let’s have a look at the page below. You can click on it to see it on a full page. If you wish to work with such a template – scroll down and print the clean one that we got in the bottom of this post.

lean canvas

The idea here is to think on our idea and to break it down to the different aspects.

We will fill in short bullet points each section. If you have a co-founder or advisor/mentor to consult with, please do so. It will improve the final result. Also, show the result to many people that you respect. Each might give you a point of view you didn’t think about. Continue reading →

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Chrome

Startups Use AMP and PWA

Startups must be agile and move fast. This is the main reason why I think they should use more both AMP and PWA as technologies that give them a lot of power.

As an entrepreneur, you wish to build this magic wheel of
users -> feedback -> product improvements.screen-shot-2016-12-12-at-7-46-57-pm

The web is giving you the ability to reach users quickly and without any barriers. Moreover, you have today a lot of tools that let you listen to what your users are telling you (by their actions, not just words). This is very powerful when you wish to find a product market fit and later when you working hard to fine tune it. Continue reading →

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Business

Grit And Startups

look carefully

“Our greatest weakness lies in giving up.
The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.”
– Thomas A. Edison Continue reading →

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Business

The Idea Factory Review

idea-lab

I’ve just finished “The Idea Factory” and although it was long, I really enjoyed it.

It deals with a question that kept me (and many others) busy in the past few years: What causes innovation? and it’s doing it by telling the history of the most productive scientific laboratory on the planet (between 1920 to 1980): Bell Labs.

How did this organization become such a success story?

Bell labs produced seven Nobel Prizes and contributed important innovations: the transistor, transatlantic cable, the laser, UNIX, C++, photovoltaic cells, error-corrected communication, charged-coupled devices, digital communications and the mobile phones. Continue reading →

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Business

Google Launchpad Accelerator – The 3rd Class

AsiaIn the past ten months, I’ve been busy working with startups in Google’s new program for startups, which we call: “Launchpad Accelerator“.

What?

In this unique program we doing our best to help tech startups build successful business.

How?

We are running this program by working closely with these startups and helping them with the most critical challenges. The analysis and guidance are being done by mentoring sessions. In these sessions we leverage the vast experience of Google’s engineers and other external mentors from top companies and venture capitals in silicon valley. Their value is huge and I’ll update here with specific examples.

When your startup is selected to the program, you get a two weeks at Google Headquarters full of learning and networking opportunities. After that, you have another six months of work with Googlers on your objective and key results. In other words, you get access to Google engineers, resources, and mentors. Which are all aimed to help you do your things better/faster/cheaper and make your startup a success. Continue reading →

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Business

Want Great Startups Ideas? Think On Problems!

screen-shot-2016-10-18-at-10-01-53-pmA question I get from time to time is going around “How can you come up with a good idea for a startup?”

It’s the wrong question. In order to get to an answer you do not want to think on a great idea for a startup. Because this won’t lead you in the right path. It might be a cool idea that you and your friends think is wonderful but if it’s not a real problem in the real world, most chances are that people won’t find it useful.

If it’s not useful, you won’t be able to monetize it and build a sustainable business. After all, a startup is a temporary organization in a hunt of scalable, repeatable and profitable business model. So you want to improve your odds in this hunt by identify a common problem.

It’s not only that the better way is to look for problems. It should be a problem that you have.

The very best startup ideas usually contain three aspects:

  1. You (the founder) want to have it. It’s your personal pain point.
  2. You can solve it.
  3. Few others realize that these ideas worth the time and energy to pursue.

Continue reading →

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Business, Chrome

Go North Innovation Event

The founder of Research In Motion talking about quantum computing research

The founder of Research In Motion talking about quantum computing

I’ve just finish to give me talk at the Go North event. The goal of this talk was to expose young entrepreneurs to the power of the web platform and how they could leverage progressive web apps in order to improve their businesses. It was very cool to meet with a lot of developers and entrepreneurs that are passion about the mobile web. One of the interesting questions I got was around AMP and PWA and how to bridge between them. Here is the detailed answer. The shorter version is that you want to start with AMP as a great first impression that you give your users (it’s all about speed!) and later stay engage/productive with PWA.
The two scenarios below tell this story in a nutshell. Continue reading →

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Business

Progressive Web Apps For Startups

Today I gave a talk at our Startup Space in San Francisco to a group of startups from Mexico.

The goal of this talk was to expose young entrepreneurs to the power of the web platform and how they could leverage progressive web apps in order to improve their businesses. The first section is talking about ‘startups best practices’. Since most of them are in their first steps, I figure it would be valuable to them to hear what they can do better.

The second section is telling the story of progressive web app revolution and how it can help them.
The TL;DR is in the picture below. Continue reading →

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Business

Startup Pitch Deck

In the past 5 years, I meet with hundreds of entrepreneurs and developers that were starting a new company.
In many cases, it was during a pitch or mentoring session.
I learn a lot from these meetings.

One surprising learning was a common intimidation from pitching your startup. If there is one thing that entrepreneurs are really afraid from is this moment of true, when they need to sell.

Let’s not get into the why here but focus on what can reduce this stress.

If you think about it, it’s a way for you to gain trust and show that you can deliver.
No one (with experience) want to see that you got all the answers but investors do want to see that you are thinking on the right issues and you have a plan. It’s true, that “everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face” but it’s still valuable to see such a plan.

Here is the template for a good pitch deck.

The one I will use myself and tell my kid to use.
You can feel free to add slides but please keep in mind that your presentation should not be longer than 15 slides as you want to finish it under 20min and leave room for open conversation. Continue reading →

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Business

A New Space For Startups In San Francisco

Today we are opening our new Space for startups in San Francisco.
I can see that you are asking, what?

Well, it is a place to explore the latest technologies and learn how to build successful startups. It a great feeling to build new things and especially when you have the chance to dream about something and than move it forward so it become a reality. I am excited about this place, as it will give us a good option to help more and learn more.

Look below who open it 😉 Continue reading →

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