Entrepreneurship & Innovation

In this short video, Clayton Christensen describes why some people are more innovative than others. Have you taken anything apart lately?

Kate Imbach & Tom Conrad have created this short video honoring the Sh*t Silicon Valley says. It is most amusing, but that might because I don't live there.

Wired has an interview with Jeff Bezos the CEO of Amazon.com. The interview is most illuminating with regard to Amazon's business philosophy and strategy. It is vastly different than that of Apple. It is nearly the exact opposite of Apple's strategy if fact. Several thing caught my attention:

• Amazon is the only tech company with low margins.
• Amazon is obsessed with correcting even the smallest defect because defects drive up costs.
• Amazon invests and plans on a 7-year time horizon which means they have very few competitors at this time scale.

Amazon web services are also interesting and way more impressive than I realized. The article is worth the time and it will be interesting to see what how amazon does over time. I was impressed with the long list of long term in vestments Amazon made to its business not to long ago (like 10 different initiative). The investments seemed petty savvy to me, but Wall Street clock them for not delivering those investments as profits in that quarter. This makes me wonder about Wall Street's common cents.

Research is showing that introverted leaders are better at delivering results than extroverted leaders because they listen better, think longer, investigate more diverse sources of information, and let talented workers do their work without interference. Susan Cain outlines some of the traits of introverted leaders in the interview The Power of Introverts: A Manifesto for Quiet Brilliance with Gareth Cook at Scientific American and in her new book QUIET: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking.

Alexander Osterwalder gave a very instructive talk on the Tools for Business Model Generation for the Entrepreneurial Thought Lecture course this week at Stanford. The key element of business model generation is the canvas. The canvas is semi-graphical way of mapping out key segments of the model to show the relation between them. The segments include:

• Value proposition
• Customer segment
• Revenue streams
• Customer relationships
• Channels
• Key activities
• Key resources
• Cost structure
• Key partners

This canvas and model are a powerful way to conceptualize a new business or old one, and can be used to develop strategies so that all segments contribute to the value proposition. Steve Blank shows up in the middle which was a nice surprise. Alexander then explains how to work out the relation between the customer and the value proposition to make sure that they fit together in a quantitative way.

Startup America has some advices for picking team members. These tips include:

• determining shared values
• spend time together and meet their friends
• consider worst case scenarios
• identify if egos will impair the nimbleness of the company

I would add that some hard conversation are needed to determine if a possible new member or potential co-founder is appropriate for the task. Things that I would be interested in know include:

• does the person actual have the experience and credentials that they claim to have?
• does the person have a family member that has serious medical condition that they are financial responsible for?
• does the person work hard (like pull 2 or 3 times their weight)?
• is the person able to work toward goals even when the sky is falling and there seems to be no hope.

In some cases, the answer may be yes to the these question but that does not mean that you should not bring them on board. It would just just change the timing when the company is more stable (if you can say this about a startup), or change the job that they would do.

Entrepreneur magazine hosted their annual Entrepreneur Growth Conference on Jan 11. You can watch the opening talk by Chris Brogan which turned out to be interesting and informative. I did not expect this as it seemed to be a bit disjoint at the beginning. His point is that as a entrepreneur and a business you are in the media content business with your website. You are developing an audience and trying to turn it into a community. He recommends be clear about free content and when you are selling. It's can feel awkward but still it's important to be clear when you are selling. He recommends posting videos of about 2 minutes in length and invest in tracking tools so you can follow what people are saying about your company.

TechStars is a startup accelerator the helps founders get their internet startup going and funded. The program for selected Founders is held every year and documentaries have been made for at least the last two programs. The Founders 2010 documentary was made by Megan Leigh Sweeney and is now available online. I've seen the first two episodes and the are very well done. There are some homages to Errol Morris and some new sequences that work quite well. If you watch the two trailers then the first two episodes will seem repetitive. The interviews with the founders are interesting. I'm looking forward to seeing the remaining episodes.

The US Department of Commerce has posed a report on US competitiveness and strategy to remain innovative in our competitive global climate. The report outlines the following steps to keep ahead of the competition.

1. Continue to increase and sustain government funding for basic research
2. Enhance and extend the R&D tax credit
3. Speed the movement of ideas from basic science labs to commercial application
4. Address STEM shortcomings
5. Increase spectrum for wireless communications
6. Increase access to data to help spur innovation
7. Coordinate federal support for manufacturing
8. Continue and strengthen efforts to foster regional clusters and entrepreneurship
9. Promote America's exports and improve access to foreign markets
10. Ensure that the conditions exist in which private enterprise can thrive

Bil Gross, CEO of Ideal labs, gives this informative and interesting talk: Learning From Failure 20 Years of Entrepreneurial Lessons in 20 Minutes at LeWeb 2011. Bill started doing business selling candy at age 12 to buy machine tools and has not stopped since. I list the 12 lessons below (spoiler alert), but this should not stop you from viewing his presentation to hear the basis for these lessons.

1. Market power rules
2. Master the demo
3. Pursue your passion
4. Focus, focus, focus
5. Recognize your strengths
6. Don't over build
7. Survive until the market is ready
8. Test, test, test
9. Stick with it
10. Find essential partners
11. Harness your users passion
12. All true passes through 3 phases
    1. it's ridiculed
    2. it's violently opposed
    3. it's accepted as self-evident