Est. read time: 1 minute | Last updated: December 01, 2024 by John Gentile


Contents

Start-Up Tenets

  1. It’s OK to fail, and failure is temporary. You can try again, try something else, or even go back to a previous job; you’re never stuck.
  2. Be first, be better, or be cheaper.
  3. Aim to be a monopoly, not a competitor
  4. Instead of discounting ideas early, simply answer “what would it take?”. Never say “that’s always how its been done”
  5. Innovators are not smarter, no more courageous than the rest of us - they are simply better connected. They find ways to exploit the networked landscape. So they are able to innovate continuously by seeing and making connections between people, ideas, and objects from across the broader landscape.

Business Types

Software as a Service (SaaS)

Things that work well:

  • Usage based licensing that scales easily from single users to small businesses to very large enterprise accounts. Partly the freemium model can fit here; free with basic features to drive adoption and then differentiated features at a price.
    • Pricing/Licensing that can vary with timelines as well is helpful (i.e. not everything should be bought or decided on a yearly basis)

Startup Tools

Customer Communication

  • Mail Chimp: email and marketing automation platform.
  • Intercom: Live chat platform for also catching, and tracking, leads.

References