Andris Berzins on Get feedback on your future startupVC investor, former startup founder, startup activist, weekend warrior3 months ago
Building a startup is hard. But there are great lessons to learn from other successful teams. On their tenth anniversiary the Supercell team just listed ten +1 great pieces of advice for building a great company. Almost all applicable to any business: https://supercell.com/en/news/10-learnings-10-years/7436/
10 Learnings from 10 Years × Supercell
9
No comments yet
Be the first to comment Andris Berzins on Get feedback on your future startupVC investor, former startup founder, startup activist, weekend warrior3 months ago
How can I focus on a very specific market segment when I have to pitch VCs with a story about a massive market opportunity? Surely this means I have to start off selling to a broad range of customers?
I hear founders struggling with this conundrum a lot. The answer is that at the very early stage you have to focus super-sharp on a small niche, but have a compelling argument and data for why that represents the tip of a very big iceberg. Without extreme focus, it is extremely hard to make good progress delighting your first set of customers. Which is why I keep drilling many young startups on focus....
The last TechChill conference in Riga had a great talk by Patrick Lee of Rotten Tomatoes who explained this very well: https://youtu.be/iIPYtvUr9MA
6
Andris Berzins on Get feedback on your future startupVC investor, former startup founder, startup activist, weekend warriorabout 1 month ago
Great podcast with James Currier of NFX interviewing Keith Rabois, legendary startup co-founder and investor, now with Founders Fund. Keith talks about what a contrarian really is, how important teams are in determining startup success, all with fantastic stories from Square, PayPal and his other startups and investments.
https://www.nfx.com/post/how-contrarians-think-with-keith-rabois/
How Contrarians Think: The Early Days of Square, Yelp & PayPal with Keith Rabois
Andris Berzins on Get feedback on your future startupVC investor, former startup founder, startup activist, weekend warrior2 months ago
This is a fantastic detailed post on what it takes to be Series A ready.
By Louis Coppey of Point Nine Capital.
https://medium.com/point-nine-news/9-tricks-to-be-series-a-ready-f93b2a050c85
9 tricks to be “Series-A ready” - Point Nine Land - Medium
9
Hi qooritos! How to train your creativity muscle?
A vital part of today’s startup is content marketing. Not only you show that you an industry expert with interesting insights, but over time can share long term vision and it becomes easier to lead others. Unfortunately, you cannot get lots of help from copywriters, since they will be telling their version of future, not yours. So how to keep those content ideas coming? Sharing what works for me.
First, always be for lookout for some interesting ideas: whether its a chat with friend, colleague, or news article. The world is full of ideas and as an expert you will naturally react to it. As CEO, you will get privillege of exposure of even more ideas: feedback from customers, employees, industry experts. Some ideas resonate with you, some are b*#&! - either reaction is great. Mark all of them down on the paper so you don’t forget. You will likely discard 90% of the ideas as not newsworthy, but thats ok!
Train you creativity muscle. My friend shared the story of Onion writer, who had to produce 25 content sketches per week. No excuses. Initially it sounds hard or almost impossible, but after few weeks it becomes as normal as brushing your teeth. The awesome side-effect is that this creativity spills into product as well. As long as you can filter out crappy ideas in objective way - you are good!
Finally, some ideas expire. My product and industry (CityNow - real estate interactive map and news outlet) is changing rapidly. Sometimes I look into sketches of content which I started a month ago, and don’t get excited anymore to write about it or the news are no longer relevant to the audience. It feels like fishing - the fun and productive part is 1% of the time spent. But maybe tomorrow you will get inspiration for your best PR idea?
Ready to train your muscle? Write us ([email protected]) your 5 ideas, how you would improve CityNow product and help us. Also let me know what you would like to hear about and lets make it interactive :) Cheers
4
Yannick Oswald on Let’s set up your fundraising strategy!Venture Capital, Opportunities are Everywhere3 months ago
⏳ Deconfinement. What’s next for tech entrepreneurs?
🙌 Make sure your customers are ready
💸 Adapt your pitch to the new reality
https://www.yannickoswald.com/post/deconfinement-what-s-next-for-tech-entrepreneurs
Enjoy!
12
Yannick Oswald on Let’s set up your fundraising strategy!Venture Capital, Opportunities are Everywhere3 months ago
⏲️ Timing is everything. A framework for your fundraising.
💸 Don't go out fundraising before you've read this.
https://www.yannickoswald.com/post/timing-is-everything-don-t-go-out-fundraising-before-you-ve-read-this
Timing is everything. Don't go out fundraising before you've read this.
11
Yannick Oswald on Let’s set up your fundraising strategy!Venture Capital, Opportunities are Everywhere25 days ago
Delivering a great pitch is INCREDIBLY hard. It is even harder these days when you have to do it (mostly) over video conferencing. Here some tips:
1) Tell a story. Write a script that captivates your audience.
2) Think at the investor's level. Explain the 'Why Now'.
3) Don’t be too rational.
4) Do not try to be credible.
5) Cut the shit.
5 Pitch Mistakes. How To Fix Them.
Yannick Oswald on Let’s set up your fundraising strategy!Venture Capital, Opportunities are Everywhere2 months ago
🤪 Why are investors obsessed w churn?
🚱 Leaking bucket analogy
🤳 How to measure it in early-stage consumer
https://www.yannickoswald.com/post/why-are-investors-obsessed-with-churn
Why are investors obsessed with churn?
Thomas DesimpelAngel Investor, Polyglot, Real Estate Investor
Hi Yannick. Liked and learnt a lot of new insights. Very well written. The cohort analysis and especially the power/broken/casual users was a new concept for me. Thx for sharing.
Mindaugas Jankauskas on Product DevelopmentProduct professional, Technology enthusiast, Product management consultant3 months ago
Have you ever been in a situation where you tell a person what you need, he confirms that he understood and when he delivers it is not exactly what you needed❓
It is a common problem in product development when user needs and perceived needs are actually different. However, there are ways to avoid situations like this:
1️⃣ Identify user needs not only by asking what he needs but by observing and understanding what he needs to achieve.
2️⃣ Visualize the result before starting working on it and discuss (wireframes, user flow diagrams, simple drawings, prototypes) to confirm that this is actually what he wants, text might not be enough.
3️⃣ Iterate, get feedback, and observe your user with the new feature.
One of the methodologies to find a solution to bigger user problems is Design Sprints. There are more, and even these three points might improve the situation a lot.
Mindaugas JankauskasProduct professional, Technology enthusiast, Product management consultant
You are right Design sprints work well for bigger problems where you either not sure of all problem aspects or there are multiple possible ways to approach it. And by definition it is meant for bigger changes as it takes time and effort to organize well. However in this post I mentioned it only as an illustration that people think of different ways to make sure they understand their users before building something. Even small double-checks and feedback loops might go a long way to save time ...
A great opportunity to start learning UX on your own. University of Michigan is giving away 14 hour online course full of quality insights.
Here’s what you can learn:
- The skills needed for UX research and design
- How UX researchers discover and assess user needs and assess possible designs
- How to conduct a micro-usability test
- How UX designers use sketching and prototyping to develop design concepts
- How to incorporate a user-centered focus into the design process
- Key features of human behavior and describe their impact on the design of interactive systems
- Techniques for critiquing and designing interactive systems based on human capabilities and behavior
So if you ever wondered where to start learning UX design, here’s an opportunity like no other.
Introduction to User Experience Principles and Processes | Coursera
Egle Dapkeviciutecreator of geriprojektai.lt l seeker of creativity and deeper understanding
Thank you for sharing! You just gave me a direction where to continue learning 😉
Staying at home shouldn’t keep you away from attending conferences and learning from the best in the industry!
Here is a list of your favourite design and development conferences gone online and happening remotely this year (and some of them for free).
Stay curious!
Design & code remote online conferences in 2020
8
Design is a part of our everyday life. Whether it’s the way that door knob works, the way that fork holds in your hand, or the way you share your daily adventures on social media, it’s all designed. However even though as a craft design is very much a user-centered discipline it has also become an integral part of businesses thus shifting towards more profit-centered ways.
So the big challenge arises in the intersection between what the user needs and what the business needs. And this is where most of todays designers are balancing between. This clash of needs and sometimes a clash of what the designer and the business are advocating for can result in products that impact our lives in negative ways.
This is why now more than ever it’s important for designers to take a more ethical stance and take responsibility for the impact we create.
Ethics for Design
10
Keep learning, keep discovering new ideas and keep getting better at design. Lots of smart & wonderful people are doing online courses/speaking events and a lot of them are for free.
Design Calendar — The best online design events
10
Justas from Qoorio asks:
“How does the life of a founder differ from an engineer’s life?”
Me:
Given that my role was highly specialized at Facebook, I would say the biggest change is the range of responsibilities: as a founder you need to to wear multiple hats - coder, sales rep, content writer, recruiter. It is sometimes tricky to prioritize on what things will actually move a needle. My first focus is helping clients, improving product and collecting customer feedback.
One other practical aspect is motivation. At Facebook, It was healthy mix of internal and external motivation, such as salary. As a startup founder, you are mostly accountable to yourself for your decisions and results, while the rocket growth phase usually does not come in first few years of startup. Thus you need to find your way to feel motivated: whether its celebrating milestones, appreciating positive feedback from customers, inspirational podcasts or smth else - whatever works for you.
Finally, after getting used to cozy comfortable life at Facebook with all benefits, now I am back to making down to earth decisions - what do I eat today (no Facebook cafeteria)? Where is the closest gym? Where do I pay my phone utility bill? Can I drop off my laundry and pick up tomorrow? These small things add up and take my time, and I didn’t appreciate enough when I had this taken care of.
9
Yannick Oswald on Let me share my insights on B2C SaaSVenture Capital, Opportunities are Everywhere3 months ago
🧡 Time to get sober. Let’s build a healthy internet
📲 Our digital limit and the less is more approach
👋 The need for new digital interfaces
https://www.yannickoswald.com/post/time-to-get-sober-let-s-build-a-healthy-internet
Lina Kvizikevičiūtė on Working at the startupDigital Marketing | PPC | Google & Facebook ads spec2 months ago
What is a startup?
Sometimes people raise a question why new business is not a startup and what defines a startup.
The answer is easy.
"Startup is a company designed to grow fast. Being newly founded does not in itself make a company a startup. The only essential thing is growth. For a company to grow really big, it must a) make something lots of people want, and b) reach and serve all those people."
Paul Graham
Read more on paulgraham.com/growth.html
Gabija GrušaitėAuthor of Stasys Šaltoka, Co-Founder of Qoorio & Vieta
Vaidas Urba I want to hear your story as well!
Computer programs are all around us. We interact with them every day. It looks as if software is becoming more and more important to our society. But why do we find programs so necessary to us? Why and when did we start programming? What is the essence of programming? I find these questions fascinating and have written an article to share my insights.
We have been programming for thousands of years - freeCodeCamp.org - Medium
Passion, commitment and stamina.
I am always open to meet new talents who I may ultimately want to see working with me. But often i fail to see these traits: desire to succeed and willingness to do whatever it takes to solve particular problem. For me, this is very important aspect to be in startup and may be dealbreaker to become a team member.
For example, few people i met talk about doing multiple “projects” at the same time. I just dont think how it works in startup world - to begin with, how can you communicate to others that the problem you are trying to solve is most important for you at this time, if tomorrow you will talk about another problem?
Others talk about attracted investment deals, startups they sold as an ultimate goal and success metric. I care more about this: did you create value with your last venture abd solved some problem nobody solved well before?
Vilius VisockasVilnius real estate geek
2 people + in hunt for product/ui designer (immediate urgent need)
Small market: curse or opportunity?
In my opinion, frequent mistake for founders is aim for very big market immediately. While prominent tech figures champion approach "go big or fail", I argue that each startup has some growth stages which it needs to complete before it can proceed to the another step.
Your goal should be to become monopoly, as otherwise it is a very tough space to be as startup and become 10x better than other existing solutions. Therefore, initially you should define your market as narrow as possible - the strategy which may sound counterintuitive.
For example, our product CityNow.org - real estate map - quickly became a leading platform to find new construction home in Vilnius. The market is restrained, since 30% of transactions are in new primary market (new construction) and 80% in Lithuanian sales in its capital, Vilnius. Such strategy allowed us to win and we can now expand to other markets.
So many startups tried to compete with major listing real estate portal and failed, since they were doing exactly the same thing for same large market.
When you are a monopoly, good things start to happen - word of mouth, referals, negotiating and pricing power. My advice to all other founders would be to redefine and narrow your market until you become a monopoly and stay here as long as possible. Good luck :)
9
Social distancinig according to your profession may vary. Interesting fact that lawyers are on the safe side.
Under 25 and Working? Social Distancing Might Not Be Possible
5