“…what I found was that I was getting advice when I was asking for money, and getting money when I was looking for advice.”
- Laura Fitton, oneforty.com. Check out the interview here.
This is a great interview. Laura Fitton founded oneforty, an iTunes of sorts for Twitter apps. She was “highly unqualified” to start a company, but was able to raise $2+ million from investors and landed Guy Kawasaki as an advisor. The story is long, but it’s definitely a must hear for those who think they don’t have the right background …
AngelBlog.net has a great checklist of items you should consider when starting a company. I included the first 20 steps and you can find the full list here (it’s long, 50+ steps), but its worth the read. I can say that with Pocket Tales, we covered many of these when we started, not because we planned to but because there was no way of getting around it. Some things are probably overkill (like the offsite planning retreat) but everything is still worth consideration.
Build a startup team (if it’s still just you, repeat …
Great discussion by Eric Ries on Minimum Viable Products. What people often don’t realize is that the best minimum viable product is often not building a product at all. Venture Hacks mentions “sometimes all you need is an ad on Google. Or a PowerPoint slide. Or a dialog box. Or a landing page. You can often build it in a day or a week.”
What Is The Minimum Viable Product?
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Part II of the presentation.
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In my short existence working on a startup, I’ve come to realize that one of the biggest impediments to building a company is finding motivation to get things done. It’s tough working for myself. Somedays, I’m up until 2 am anticipating the challenge of tomorrow’s problems and a world of critics. Other days, I’d rather watch Entrourage all day and vicariously live the dream. It’s a struggle, one that requires a seemingly endless supply of self-motivation. I will say, I’d like to think I’m a pretty motivated individual (you almost have …