Central Casting Called: They’d like you to be more self aware!
The startup ecosystem is filled with interesting characters. Maybe you’ve seen a few of them around? There’s the Narcissistic Founder. You know the one, like Narcissus who fell in love with his own image, this Founder fell in love with their own idea. Oh you who give founder’s a bad name! They are so focused
Read MoreTwo Phrases to Kill Any Pitch
Argh!!!! I’m listening to pitches at Founder Institute Seattle and there are some pet peeves that just kill presentations. “To Be Honest With You” as defined by the Urban Dictionary to the right – I’ve left off where you could stick the pineapple or for that matter, the cucumber – but you can find it
Read MoreWhat Your Customers Want – and Don’t Want
I’ve been trying to improve the speed of my WordPress Blog on DKParker.com (hosted on a vendor). So I took some time to compare my old site hosted on Wordpress.com (www.foresttreesbark.com) to my current site (www.dkparker.com). I ran a site speed tool to contrast the speed of the two vendors…it wasn’t good. The WP.com hosted
Read MoreStartup Founder 101 – Oct 3, 2013 Slides
Thanks to Perkins Coie for hosting the Startup Founder 101 Session last night in Seattle. Great questions from the Founders. The deck below covers the four early stages of a startup – pre-accelerator specifically as well as an introduction to the Founder Institute.
Read MoreNWEN Startup Ideas and Business Models
Thanks to Northwest Entrepreneur Networks (NWEN.org) for the invite to come talk about Startup Ideas and Business Models last night at the HUB Seattle. Here’s the Slideshare NWEN Startup Ideas and Business Models from Dave Parker
Read MoreLive Blog – Lean Launchpad NY @sgblank
Tuesday Part 2 – From Columbia University Evidence Based Entrepreneurship Notes What’s the ideal team size for LLP? Three for Techstars, three for National Science Foundation. From @EricKoester, solo founders don’t work for sure. Two is the minimum, four is ideal, bust up teams that are five or more. You want to be a founder
Read MoreLive Blog – Lean Launchpad NY
I”m at Steve Blank’s Lean Launchpad course for Incubators and Accelerators at Columbia University. Data Informs Vision Creating Insight – Getting out of the building provides the data that informs the vision of the founders assumption. That process will create insight that influences the strategy and direction of the company. Guiding without telling – Not being prescriptive
Read MoreWhat’s the Biggest Tech Change in Your Lifetime?
It was an easy question…the answer is the Internet. But that quick answer negates the recognition of all of the other technological changes – so this example actually spans a timeframe more like my parents’ lifetime rather than just mine – as I was reminded while watching a PBS documentary on the Dust Bowl. The
Read MoreWhew… back to blogging
A friend of mine asked recently why my blogging activity went down – and no, I wasn’t on an extended vacation – even though July and August are great here in Seattle. In June I started a new position as VP Product at UP Global (Startup Weekend + Startup America). I’ve had a lot to
Read MoreComparing Two Startup Meetings – Don’t be “that” guy
Last week I had the opportunity to have two different meetings with Startuppers. Both meetings were referrals; one referral was a startup attorney, and the other was from a business/personal friend who knows that I work with Startups. The first meeting was a founder with a mobile shopping comparison app. I stopped him after the
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