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 27, 2009 the art of finishing.

You ever start something really sweet only to let it fizzle because it isn’t convenient or fun anymore? Why is that?  Why be super excited one day about something only to regret the decision soon after?  For example, I moved to Washington to be with my uncle and lower the cost of living so I can fade back and need little to zero monthly costs but maintain a cozy lifestyle.  Bad Idea!

impala

Good times for about 1 year and then I realized I haven’t finished my entrepreneur spirit yet.  Which is like a double whammy. I cant finish creating ideas that don’t finish! :confused: Here is my point. I have 100s of ideas still yet to be built.  The problem is, once you have a couple victories with ideas, the assumption is your ideas are always perfect. Yeah right. These ideas usually hit the cynics (internal / external) and end up at about 40% either in the brain, paper, or hard drive. If there was some “kool-aid” out there that forces ideas to be finished, bottoms up!

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Posted by Kendall in Tangible Business Models

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