Kendall's "Internet startup checklist":

1. Idea:

  1. Would YOU write a check for your idea?
  2. Don't spill your candy in the lobby.
  3. Is your idea refining or revolutionizing?

2. Funding:

  1. Are your financials realistic if nothing goes right?
  2. Could you see your investors with a 10X, 20X return in 3 years?
  3. Do you have back-up plans b,c,d before quitting your day job?
  4. Do you have a great answer for the most cynical of investors?

3. team:

  1. Can you build your idea or will it take a team of pros?
  2. Is a specific person on your team essential or can he/she be replaced?
  3. Dont give up the farm to recruit talent.
  4. Hire brave & passionate smart people.

4. Product:

  1. Does your product SOLVE a problem?
  2. Beware of feature creep! Customers & prospects add features, not developers.
  3. Stay focused on money earning features, not cool ones.

5. Marketing:

  1. Is it costly (time/resources) to get branded in your target market?
  2. Make a goal of closing a core group of customers the first year. (traction)
  3. Adjust marketing resources to get traction (don't need much).
  4. Be sure to test your "seo / ad-words / ad-sense" properly before banking on them
  5. Nothing is better than "boots on the street." Start knocking on doors.

6. Customer:

  1. How many "loss leaders" do you have?
  2. Does your idea help your customer or is it just a "nice to have"?
  3. Make each customer feel like they are the only customer you have.
  4. Can your customers be up-sold? Do they have peers they could refer?


January 17, 2009 Leadership of principle?

Whatever your opinion of President G.W.Bush, our current situation is from his leadership decisions.  Now when you think of “current situation” you might think about the doom & gloom “Bad economy, Housing, Wars, etc.” or you might think “No terrorist attacks here since 9/11, tax cuts, no State famine, no utter chaos from the stock market drop (as President Hoover did.) ”

president

I always have liked his “principles first / politics second” style but wondered why he didn’t apply those principles to the greed of CDOs or some form of market regulation?  Did he hope to have principles first but then be overwhelmed by politics?  (I think he is happy as ever to be out of this job..who would want it is beyond me.) Giving the benefit of the doubt, I thought a good final “address the nation” message could have had some “I made my decisions based on principles, but sometimes these decisions made people’s lives more difficult and I recogize that, and I apologize.”  AS IF!  But, think about it.  If he admitted that some people’s lives are not as good as they were 8 years ago and admited it was under his watch, and apologized for that, wouldnt that have left a better taste in the mouths of the historians?

Want to comment? Comments: 1

Posted by Kendall in Leadership

1 comment so far

  1. I don’t think a President apologizing would leave a good taste in anyone’s mouth, especially the Republicans looking to regain some lost seats in 2010. The Democrats would clip POTUS apologizing and spin it to their advantage.

    Politics is nothing but a big chess match to win the hearts and minds of the American people. The Democrats have the advantage of an agreeable press covering them, and the college campuses across the US teaching socialist policies to their students.

    The reason Bush did not enact market regulation is that is against the fundamental policies of a free market, small government system. Allow the market to regulate itself outside of government controls and it will work itself out. That was Bush’s policy. Agree or disagree.

    January 17th, 2009

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