Fights Between Founders – founder conflict is very common. Founders, being ambitious people, are almost bound to disagree Paul Graham – Y Combinator Building the founding team, survival and growth are undoubtedly the major challenges faced by entrepreneurs. On one hand it seems quite clear that going solo is not the solution (see my blog […]
What Mistakes Are Killing Your Startup? #5 and #6: Launching too Early… or too Late
If there is one trend that did change the shape of the entrepreneurial ecosystem these last few years it has been the lean start-up movement. The concept is straightforward: It’s the philosophy that you should validate your initial ideas (assumptions) with real-life data before you invest more time and money in your project. The premise […]
What Mistakes Are Killing Your Startup? #4 Confusing an Accessible Market with a Potential One
When meeting with entrepreneurs and evaluating the market size for the opportunity they are pursuing, I often see the same mistake: a confusion of the accessible market with the potential market. How many times have I come across this lie (as well as others….): “our market will give us $50,000 million in 2017 – look […]
What Mistakes Are Killing Your Startup? #3 Marginal Niche
What is a niche product? It is a good or service with features that appeal to a particular market subgroup. A typical niche product can be easily distinguished from other products, and it will also be produced and sold for specialized uses within its corresponding niche market. It sounds great…so why is that an issue […]
What Mistakes Are Killing Your Startup? #2 Bad Location
Starting a company in Abdijan (a yearly destination of mine) is a far cry from doing so in Barcelona (my home city) or San Francisco. It sounds obvious…and it is! I’ve identified four major reasons for this: Talent Talent is unevenly distributed geographically. There are clusters of entrepreneurship and innovation that are more attractive than […]
