What I learned from David Kidder, author of The Startup Playbook
8/8/14
I had a chance to hear entrepreneur and author David Kidder speak yesterday at the Learning Village in downtown Las Vegas.
While Kidder shared many great insights learned from his experience founding and selling Clickable (A managed search and social advertising platform), I really enjoyed his explanation of the 5 lenses successful entrepreneurs see through most. (Listed below)
1. Proprietary Gifts - Kidder emphasized the importance of unbiased self-awareness, know thyself. He explained that of the 47 successful entrepreneurs he interviewed while writing "The Startup Playbook," all built businesses around ideas & products in which they had an unfair advantage. I guess, in the simplest terms, his first lense is to self-reflect and use the strengths & skills you have.
2. Extreme Focus - Startups don't die, they run out of money. By focusing on the truths of your business, you can fail fast and avoid a long, slow and expensive collapse. While explaining the 2nd lense, Kidder encouraged founders to select fewer features and have the courage to say no; startup survival is only possible by focusing on the objective truths.
3. Painkillers not Vitamins - Kidder encouraged founders to create addictive drugs for lifelong chronic pain. Making something that improves customers' lives incrementally is not sufficient, he reiterated the importance of making products that not only solve a problem today, but also tomorrow, next week, and next year. In doing so, startups create the proprietary customer insight & understanding necessary to build products people truly love.
4. Be 10X Better - Don't try to make products that mimic today's market offering with 1 or 2 additional features. Incrementalism is a path to nowhere. Build solutions to customers' pains that are 10 times better than what is available today.
5. Stay Monopolistic - Kidder emphasized the importance of aggressively designing in customer capture. In his own words, "Seek to embed and entangle customers with hooks, with barbs." To do so, it's necessary to avoid wishful thinking, embrace Darwinian Learning and focus on the truths of your business.
Purchase The Startup Playbook on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/The-Startup-Playbook-Fastest-Growing-Entrepreneurs/dp/1452105049
