Siobhan O'Flynn's 1001 Tales http://1001tales.posterous.com tracing the roots & tendrils of storytelling today posterous.com Sun, 07 Nov 2010 02:48:00 -0800 Love this too - if there's time to read one thing this am: MIT Startup Bootcamp Take Aways http://1001tales.posterous.com/love-this-too-if-theres-time-to-read-one-thin http://1001tales.posterous.com/love-this-too-if-theres-time-to-read-one-thin
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Great notes from the MIT Startup Bootcamp posted by Ali Powell. I've excerpted the first set from David Cancel of Performable.

'Creating a data driven startup.

Timing is everything.

Marketing, big data, analytics.

"98 percent of the people that come to your website leave and they never come back."

3 lessons learned the hard way:

1. The middle sucks. Don't be in the middle. That is the valley of death.

2. Your "demo" is useless. No one cares about your demo. Why would you spend energy on a demo when you could be creating the real product?

3. So is your business plan. Your business plan is wrong and worthless. It will not be the same at day 1 as it is along the way and at the end.

You do not want to hear, "that is interesting." That means that the investor does not care about your product.

Your biggest challenge is making people care. Don't focus on competitors. Stop reading Techcrunch.

Sell a dream or sell traction. Don't try to sell in the middle, don't sell the demo.

Your idea doesn't matter. It is about finding a pain point, solving a critical problem.

As soon as you hear "IF"- warning sign for your product.

If it is cheaper, if it was easier, etc...

Make sure that people will care about your product and want to start using it.

The Secret= #JFDI- Just Fu*king Do It!

Stop reading- Do something.

DOES ANYBODY CARE ABOUT YOUR PRODUCT?

"You are solving to make somebody care. There are NO repeatable patterns for startup success. Stop looking for one."'

Also speaking were:

Ric Fulop of A123Systems

Kevin Hale of Wufoo

Stephen Wolfram of Wolfram Research

Alexis Ohanian of reddit

James Lindenbaum of Heroku

Bob MetCalfe of Polaris Ventures

George Bell of General Catalyst Partners

Ayr Muir of Clover Food Lab

Mick Mountz of Kiva Systems

Chris Wanstrath of github

Read the full post:

http://www.bostonwomenpreneurs.com/boston-womenpreneurs-blog/bid/44597/Startu...

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Sun, 07 Nov 2010 02:45:00 -0800 my Fave from 'Lessons Learned From Startup Bootcamp 2010 MIT' - grazie! RT @christydena http://1001tales.posterous.com/my-fave-from-lessons-learned-from-startup-boo http://1001tales.posterous.com/my-fave-from-lessons-learned-from-startup-boo

James Lindenbaum (Heroku) - Be a Machete

Heroku is a beast of a company with a ton of users and a large number of paying customers as well. When looking at the live stat counter I think it caught James off guard as it increases so much everyday he didn't know what the exact number was. Very candid and very inspiring moment.

What is a machete?

A machete is a simple straight forward tool that allows you to accomplish and be many things while staying simple. The same could be achieved with a swiss army knife, but that's bloated and really 50 things crammed into one. A machete is really one thing that can serve AS 50 things. What can you discover from your product and through customer development?

Throwing Things Away

In order to be a machete, you have to be ultra lean and able to stay simple. In order to do this, you need to be able to throw things away that aren't necessary to your customers. Don't have too much emotional attachment to a product or feature.

Excerpt rom post:

On Saturday, MIT hosted Startup Bootcamp to provide a diverse group of lessons to hopeful founders and those teetering on the edge of jumping into a startup. The tagline for the event was actually "Starting a company is easier than you think." The videos will be online soon as well if you want to relive the experience. I thought it would be useful to sum up the important lessons from each talk instead of doing a direct play by play.

You can also check out more coverage at:

1) Startup Bootcamp Take Aways

2) Why I'm Going To Get A Dog, Lose My Ego, And Just F'Ing Do It"

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http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/2024188/Screen_Shot_2012-06-07_at_5.01.45_PM.png http://posterous.com/users/3sOfsD8qBu5X Siobhan O'Flynn narrativenow Siobhan O'Flynn