Startup Lesson: Talk to Customers Before Building Anything

In our One Million by One Million (1M/1M) global virtual incubator, we always advise entrepreneurs to talk to customers before building anything. We ask them to do as much research as possible. Some listen, some don’t.

Gülin Yilmaz has listened. She is a classic example of the tenets that it pays to talk to customers, and that it pays to do your research. >>>

TrendSpotting: Love and Startups

The Other 99% (Entrepreneurs)

In my recent piece Reengineering Capitalism I highlighted a phenomenon that the global entrepreneurship ecosystem is paying very little attention to: Over 99% of entrepreneurs who seek funding get rejected. Yet, the entire world is focused on the 1% that is “fundable.”

The media, when pitched a startup story, is interested in who funded the venture. They seldom ask how much revenue the company has or if it is profitable.

Incubators take pride in how exclusive they are and how many “deals” they “reject.”

Angels and VCs, of course, discard most of their “deal flow.”

And entrepreneurs? They seem to have confused the definition of entrepreneurship altogether. Entrepreneurship, they mistakenly believe, equals financing!

This is wrong.
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The Next European Renaissance (Part 5)

Developing ideas and insights that create major shifts and trends, solve humanity’s important problems, improve the quality of life for people around the world, lead to prosperity, and result in lasting achievements – this is our quest.

The question we are exploring is whether Europe’s recognized enthusiasm for culture in its various forms – food, music, architecture, literature, and many more – and greater commitment to the preservation and promotion of such expressions of culture would offer a good platform for generating new and important ideas given that the enabling technology may not need to be quite that complex.

My sense is yes, they would.

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The Next European Renaissance (Part 4)

Remember, we started this discussion with the premise that the next renaissance will be at the confluence of technology and the arts. By “technology,” I am referring primarily to information technology and computing.

As for other technologies, there are significant expertise and major industries such as automotive and aeronautics in Europe. German brands like Porsche, BMW, Mercedes, Volkswagen, and Audi are market leaders. Airbus is a massive aircraft maker that leads the market alongside Boeing in America. The industrial machinery industry is also strong in both Germany and Italy.

But I am thinking primarily about the potential of IT and computing to set in motion a new renaissance, and even more specifically, the Internet and mobile computing technologies. >>>

The Next European Renaissance (Part 3)

Today, Europe is in trouble economically. Chronic debt crises, stagnating GDPs, staggering unemployment – all point to a bleak future. The future belongs to the Chinese, the Indians, and the Latin Americans.

But does it, really? Isn’t there an innate intelligence and resilience in the European way of life? >>>

The Next European Renaissance (Part 2)

In Avignon, as we visited the magnificent Palais des Papes where Pope Clement V moved the seat of the papacy from Rome in 1309, we saw posters for the annual arts festival everywhere. What a celebration of the performing arts it is! >>>

The Next European Renaissance (Part 1)

Some of you may have read my recent piece Silicon Valley: The Next Decade in which I discuss the evolution of Silicon Valley toward a place that has a spirit that is more in tune with the liberal, performing, and visual arts, a sharper focus on human-centric computing, and a vision for a new renaissance that fuses ideas from information technology with those from the arts. The piece has triggered many interesting discussions, both online and offline, the latest of which happened in France over a lovely lunch at a small village called La Garde-Adhémar in Drôme during our recent trip to Provence.

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