Eese.de - Riding the startup rollercoaster

German based startup. Our mission is to simplify media expiriences to gain space for diversification and discovery of content. This blog is all about Developement and startup life. Follow us on our rollecoaster ride along the way!

[marksbirch]

As a startup CEO, you wear many, many hats.

The deck that Mark Suster created ”Entrepreneurshit: The Truth About Building Startups” has some solid thoughts.  While the focus of the deck is on fund raising, this was the one image that stood out for something other than fund raising.

When you are the CEO of a startup, you take on every role to some degree.  You are not just the hotshot hacker or the sales rockstar or the product strategist.  You are involved in every single task, no matter big or small and no matter whether it is your core competency or something totally foreign.  Even when the startup grows and you take on more to handle things like accounting and sales and HR, you are still responsible for knowing what is going on.

[journo-geekery]

What I Learned Building A Startup like Dogster, Inc. — Medium

This just won’t work in paragraph form as nothing in a startup happens in a linear manner. It’s all happening at once, always and the realization of any learnings come to you in no particular time frame after that.

Via

Great & honest startup postmortem (dogster)medium.com/what-i-learned…by @tedr via @cdixon

— Scott Berkun (@berkun) November 6, 2012

[eeseblog]

Startup landscape in Germany

This map shows us the hotspots of the German it-startup culture:

The top cities in Germany are Munich and Berlin with 3.25 and 2.67 Startups per 10.000 people (Years 2008 - 2011). The average startup needs about 70.000 euros in its first year and 700.000 in its first four years. Finnancial wise 6 percent are funded by banks and about 5 percent from VC, the rest funds itself via own revenues.

[eeseblog]

It's easy to get lots of technical information about stock options, restricted stock, stock appreciation rights, phantom stock, performance shares, and other equity sharing tools. It's also easy to find guidelines for executive ownership of equity in public companies. It's a different matter, however, to learn how to tailor an equity-sharing program in a closely held startup or established entrepreneurial company. 

[eeseblog]

Great article combined with surveymonkeys.com can really push you forward!

[eeseblog]

[eeseblog]

Running a startup is like nothing else I’ve ever done. It’s an exhilarating 24×7, always-on series of experiences, interactions and product evolution. If you’re running or working at a startup, you’ll probably understand the need to have your brain (and body) functioning at 110% at all times.

A Factor not to underestimate, this not only improves productivity but also quality of life!

[a-pr]

The minimum viable product is that version of a new product which allows a team to collect the maximum amount of validated learning about customers with the least effort.

Eric Ries (via a-pr)

[eeseblog]

A Technique evrey startup should be getting used to

http://www.businessmodelalchemist.com/2012/08/achieve-product-market-fit-with-our-brand-new-value-proposition-designer.html

[thebuildblog]

life in the startup market

[bijan]

One way I know I’ve really connected with a founder in our portfolio is when they let me in on their true fears. Not fears about the competition, or fear of not being able to hire the star developer they have been targeting, or fear of missing the revenue target for the quarter. But...

[marksbirch]

Remember that new ideas usually seem crazy at first. But if you have a good idea and you execute well, eventually everyone will see it. Don't let yourself get immobilized by sadness when things go wrong. Just keep putting one foot in front of the other and know it will get better. But don't get complacent when things are going well. In reality things are never as bad or as good as they seem.

“What Goes Wrong” by Jessica Livingston

The mad ones with the mad ideas.  Jessica’s post has been tweeted, reblogged, parsed, rehashed, remixed, and gone bat crazy viral.  There is not much else to say really.  But I keep seeing the same thread over and over again, and that predicting the next big thing is a fool’s game.

(via marksbirch)

[eeseblog]

Helpfull guide on the four most common mistakes during the early stage startup life.

[marksbirch]

“How to Get a VC Meeting – the flowchart” by Steve Blank

This tongue-in-cheek flowchart was too good not to post.  If all was right in the world, customer development would be at the top of the chart…always.

[betashop-deactivated20140509]

I love this.

[Bezos] said that people who were right a lot of the time were people who often changed their minds. He doesn’t think consistency of thought is a particularly positive trait. It’s perfectly healthy — encouraged, even — to have an idea tomorrow that contradicted your idea today.

He’s observed that the smartest people are constantly revising their understanding, reconsidering a problem they thought they’d already solved. They’re open to new points of view, new information, new ideas, contradictions, and challenges to their own way of thinking.

This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have a well formed point of view, but it means you should consider your point of view as temporary.

[startupquote-blog]

Don’t find fault, find a remedy. Anybody can complain.

- Henry Ford

[marksbirch]

Everything in software is so new and so frequently being reinvented that almost nobody really knows what they are doing. It is amateurs who make all the progress.

“Strong Opinions, Weakly Held” by Jeff Atwood

An old (2008), but classic post that I went back to the other day.  Also reminds me of one of my posts How To Become an Expert in Anything.  Point is, none of us really has any answers, we are all still feeling our way around this technology innovation arena.

(via marksbirch)