Jan Bosch
One company I worked with analyzed the businesses they had tried to build over the years. Their analysis showed that the most successful business inside the walls of an already highly successful company took, on average, 7 years to reach 50 million in revenue. And this was with the entire weight, network and customer base … Read more
Many of the founders I work with are interested in finding a way to become a platform company. Having customers and complementors engage with each other and taking a cut of each transaction is an incredibly attractive concept that anyone in their right mind would love to realize. It feels like a money-printing machine that … Read more
Many entrepreneurs are looking to maintain as much ownership of the company as possible over time. To pay the bills and have some revenue come in, one strategy is to engage in consulting assignments. Of course, some founders are able to go without salary for an extended period of time, but in practice, they often … Read more
The founders I work or have worked with do not only have a problem they’re looking to solve; they also have a set of skills, often built up while working for another company, that they’re looking to bring to bear on that problem. As I learned while working for Intuit, the three key rules are … Read more
Everyone dreams of a situation where, rather than pound the pavement and press the flesh, customers just show up at your doorstep and demand to give you money in return for whatever you’re offering. These situations do happen in companies that have hit the tornado and are experiencing rapid growth. Unfortunately, many startup founders I … Read more
Having worked with platforms for the better part of three decades, I have seen the notion of platforms evolve over time and today we can distinguish at least three main goals that companies have for platforms, i.e. platforms for reuse, platforms for DevOps and platforms for an ecosystem. The platform for reuse was the original … Read more
Few topics lead to such heated debates in startups as the pricing of the offering. There are at least four dimensions that play a role in the discussions: money first or customer first, based on value or cost, premium first or low-end first and direct versus indirect monetization. The first dimension is concerned with the … Read more
Most of the companies I’ve worked with tended to plateau at different sizes. At that point, their growth tapered off and typically there was a general concern in the company that we had hit the peak of the business. Although there are many reasons why a company may plateau, there are three patterns I’ve seen … Read more
One of the largest frustrations of startups trying to work with big enterprises is the enormous amount of false positives. Many startup founders have fallen into the trap of getting promising feedback from individuals from large companies and believe that they’re close to getting a deal in place. This positive feedback may continue for a … Read more
Entrepreneurs are, by definition, irrational optimists who have strong confidence in what they’re pursuing. Even if all of us can have bouts of doubt, entrepreneurs are managing these doubts and focus on executing on their convictions. The risk, however, is that you start to believe in your own convictions so hard that you fail to … Read more
