The Care and Feeding of Ideas
Aug 20, 2015
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About Us
CEO & Co-founder, Defend7. Enterprise security startup.
CTO & Co-founder, 3LM. Mobile device mgmt company, deeply focused on Android. Acquired by Motorola Mobility/Google.
Partner Technology Manager, Android/Google. (Joined Android when there were 20k devices…)
Co-founder and VP of Engineering, Defend7. Enterprise security startup.
SVP Engineering at Riverbed. Scaled team from 15 to 330 over 9 years.
VP at netVMG, Director at Inktomi, Fast Forward networks, Valicert.
The recipe for a good startup
Idea +
Product +
Team +
Execution
Finding an Idea, AKALiterally your million $ question
Survey Domains Pick a Domain Learn Generate Idea
Survey Domains
Where are investment dollars flowing?
What are new startups focusing on?
Where is the overall market going?
Eat Techcrunch for breakfast.
Flow of Early venture dollars
Thanks Crunchbase. Grab my derived dataset.
2010-Q1
2010-Q2
2010-Q3
2010-Q4
2011-Q1
2011-Q2
2011-Q3
2011-Q4
2012-Q1
2012-Q2
2012-Q3
2012-Q4
2013-Q1
2013-Q2
2013-Q3
2013-Q4
2014-Q1
2014-Q2
0
1000000000
2000000000
3000000000
4000000000
5000000000
6000000000
7000000000
8000000000
9000000000 Social MediaStorageEducationSecurityHardware + SoftwareAnalyticsAdvertisingGamesCurated WebFinanceHealth and WellnessEnterprise SoftwareMobileHealth Care
The 2010 slump
The 2013 peak
Zooming in on a few domains
2010-Q1
2010-Q2
2010-Q3
2010-Q4
2011-Q1
2011-Q2
2011-Q3
2011-Q4
2012-Q1
2012-Q2
2012-Q3
2012-Q4
2013-Q1
2013-Q2
2013-Q3
2013-Q4
2014-Q1
2014-Q2
0
1000000000
2000000000
3000000000
4000000000
5000000000
6000000000
7000000000
8000000000
9000000000
Post Zynga Games dry up
Spurt in Finance – wealth mgmt & bitcoins
Security spurt
Verticalization of Mobile? Dollars moving to Health
Steady advertising
Thanks Crunchbase. Grab my derived dataset.
Pick a Domain
Start with your area of expertise
… Or the closest area that piques your interest.
Don’t be afraid of new domains
… Fresh eyes foster innovation in existing domains!
Learn
Spend at least 2 weeks trying to become an expert.
(Resources: Analyst reports, Expert blogs, Techcrunch)
Where is the industry now? Where is the wave going?
Who are the players & what products are they selling?
What are customer pain points?
Learn
Align with where the market is going, not where it is now.
Domain switching is expensive – avoid doing it frequently.
Photo credit
Lifecycle of an Idea
Seed Germinate Evaluate Design Validate Build
Photo credit
Survey Domains Pick a Domain Learn Generate Idea
Seed
Find a potential problem and a probable solution.
Germinate
Why Now? Does this improve things by 10x?
Why are you the right team to solve this?
Why would this product be “hired” by your customer?
Don’t try to “find a billion $ idea”. Things rarely start there.
Photo credit
Evaluate
Don’t get emotionally attached to an idea. Be objective.
But remember, all ideas have problems. Balance.
Eliminate bad ideas quickly.
Design
What is you customer facing product? Think Top down.
Product mgmt is making decisions with incomplete data.
Stay focused on the problem you are solving.
Resist the urge to write code (yes, seriously!).
Validate
Test your hypotheses with circle of trust & experts.
Validate with your customers. The more data points, the stronger the validation.
Make sure the problem you are solving exists!
Build
Building is not a substitute for customer feedback!
What can you build in 1 week? Get to customers ASAP!
Cut corners. Optimize for time to market.
Focus. Do little, but do it well.
And finally... The Leap of Faith
You will have to decide with incomplete
information.
BUT
I highly recommend it…
A Few Tips
Some Tips
Always be learning. “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.” - Steve Jobs
Separate fact from hypothesis. Make data driven decisions.
Evolve fast based on customer feedback.
Build a great team – might be your only constant.
And Finally, a Good Mantra
Sell.
Design.
Build.
(Shamelessly taken from John Vrionis at Lightspeed)
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