All In Startup E-Book

Diana Kander

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 390

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Beschreibung

If Owen Chase can't find a way to turn his company around in the next nine days, he'll be forced to shut it down and lay off all of his employees. He has incurred substantial debt and his marriage is on shaky ground. Through pure happenstance, Owen finds himself pondering this problem while advancing steadily as a contestant at the World Series of Poker. His Las Vegas path quickly introduces him to Samantha, a beautiful and mysterious mentor with a revolutionary approach to entrepreneurship. Sam is a fountain of knowledge that may save his company, but her sexual advances might prove too much for Owen's struggling marriage. All In Startup is more than just a novel about eschewing temptation and fighting to save a company. It is a lifeline for entrepreneurs who are thinking about launching a new idea or for those who have already started but can't seem to generate the traction they were expecting. Entrepreneurs who achieve success in the new economy do so using a new "scientific method" of innovation. All In Startup demonstrates why four counterintuitive principles separate successful entrepreneurs from the wanna-preneurs who bounce from idea to idea, unable to generate real revenue. You will likely get only one opportunity in your life to go "all in" in on an idea: to quit your job, talk your spouse into letting you drain the savings account, and follow your dream. All In Startup will prepare you for that "all in" moment and make sure that you push your chips into the middle only when the odds are in your favor. This book holds the keys to significantly de-risking your idea so that your success appears almost lucky. Join Owen and Sam for this one-of-a-kind journey that will set you on the right path for when it's your turn to put everything on the line.

Leseprobe

Contents

Foreword

A Letter from Thom Ruhe

Introduction

Chapter 1: First Appearances Can Be Deceiving

Chapter 2: You’re Not Fooling Anyone

Chapter 3: You Can’t Sell Anything by Doing All of the Talking

Chapter 4: It’s How Well You Lose, Not How Well You Win, That Determines Whether You Get to Keep Playing

Chapter 5: The Real Pros Don’t Play Every Hand

Chapter 6: Vanity Metrics Can Hide the Real Numbers That Matter to Your Business

Chapter 7: You Won’t Find a Mentor if You Don’t Ask

Chapter 8: Put Your Customers and Their Needs before Your Vision for a Solution

Chapter 9: Don’t Gamble—Use Small Bets to Find Opportunities

Chapter 10: Even Experts Need to Prepare for New Terrain

Chapter 11: People Don’t Buy Visionary Products; They Buy Solutions to Their Problems

Chapter 12: Only Customers Can Tell You if You’ve Found a Problem Worth Solving

Chapter 13: Hoping and Praying for Luck Is Not a Strategy

Chapter 14: It’s Never Too Late to Test Your Assumptions

Chapter 15: The Secret to Customer Interviews Is Nonleading, Open-Ended Questions

Chapter 16: The Only Way to Get Good at Customer Interviews Is to Practice

Chapter 17: Finding Out Your Assumptions Were Wrong Is Just as Valuable as Proving Them Right

Chapter 18: Don’t Pivot to a New Idea without Testing Your New Assumptions

Chapter 19: Save Your Chips for When You’ll Need the Least Amount of Luck to Win

Chapter 20: Successful Entrepreneurs Recognize Failure, Fold, and Live to Fight Another Day

Chapter 21: Test Your Assumptions before Committing Any Resources to an Idea

Chapter 22: Luck Can Be Engineered if You Take Emotion Out of the Equation

Chapter 23: Every Successful Entrepreneur Has More Failures than Successes

Chapter 24: The Harder You Work, the Luckier You’ll Get

Chapter 25: Opportunities to Find Prospective Customers Are Everywhere—You Just Have to Look

Chapter 26: The Best Feedback from Potential Customers Comes from Meticulous Interviews

Chapter 27: Recognize the Vanity Metrics to Avoid Big Losses

Chapter 28: Keep Interviewing Customers until You Find a Migraine Problem Worth Solving

Chapter 29: People Can’t Help Themselves from Sharing When You Bring Up a Migraine Problem

Chapter 30: Stay Objective in Your Interviews Whether You Are Getting Good or Bad News

Chapter 31: Nothing Else Matters until You Can Prove That Customers Want Your Product

Chapter 32: Luck Makers Seek Out New Experiences and Find Opportunities Wherever They Go

Chapter 33: Luck Is Not a Good Strategy for Poker or Business—It’s the Outcome of a Good Strategy

Chapter 34: To Prove Demand, Find the Shortest Path to the Ultimate Customer Action

Chapter 35: Prepare for Bad Luck by Building Up Reserves

Chapter 36: Fear and Inaction Are the Two Greatest Threats to Your Business Idea

Chapter 37: Understand Your Tendencies On Tilt So That You Can Compensate for Them

Chapter 38: There Is No Mistaking It When You Uncover Migraine Problems Worth Solving

Chapter 39: Get Comfortable with Being Wrong

Chapter 40: Don’t Go All-In without Confirming Your Assumptions through Smaller Bets

Chapter 41: Second Chances Are Rare—Make Sure You Get It Right the First Time Around

Chapter 42: Even When You Find a Migraine Problem, Crafting a Solution Requires Vigilance and Readjustment

Chapter 43: Don’t Commit All-In until You Prove That Customers Want Your Product and There’s a Business Model to Support It

Chapter 44: The Strength of Your Initial Idea, or Starting Hand, Is Always Relative

Sam’s Journal

Acknowledgments

About the Author

End User License Agreement

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Guide

Cover

Table of Contents

Begin Reading

all in startup

LAUNCHING A NEW IDEA WHEN EVERYTHING IS ON THE LINE

DIANA KANDER

Cover Design: courtesy of the author

Copyright © 2014 by Diana Kander. All rights reserved.

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.

Published simultaneously in Canada.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, [phone], fax [phone], or on the Web at www.copyright.com. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, [phone], fax [phone], or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions.

Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional where appropriate. Neither the publisher nor author shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Kander, Diana.

All in startup : launching a new idea when everything is on the line / Diana Kander.

pages cm

ISBN 978-1-118-85766-3 (hardback)

1. Entrepreneurship. 2. New business enterprises. I. Title.

HB615.K355 2014

658.1'1—dc23

2013050101

ISBN 9781118857663 (Hardcover)

ISBN 9781118857762 (ePDF)

ISBN 9781118857670 (ePub)

To my best friend, Jason.

Thanks for picking me for this crazy adventure every day.

Foreword

A lot has happened in the field of evidence-based entrepreneurship since I first published the Four Steps to the Epiphany. In it, I first proposed that startups weren’t smaller versions of large companies, and that the traditional advice from investors—write a business plan and execute the plan—was wrong. The reality is that startups needed to search for a business model rather than execute a business plan.

Over the past decade, the concepts outlined in the book have grown into an international Lean Startup movement. The Lean Launchpad curriculum I teach at UC Berkeley, Stanford University, Columbia University, and UCSF is now being taught at hundreds of universities; over 250,000 students have taken the online version of the course, and the National Science Foundation is using the course to commercialize science as part of the NSF Innovation Corps program.

Even large companies facing continuous disruption have begun to understand the need for continuous innovation and the value of “getting out of the building” and testing their assumptions.

Despite all the progress we’ve made, there remain hundreds of thousands of would-be entrepreneurs who have yet to learn the concepts of evidence-based entrepreneurship. That’s why this book is so important.

All In Startup makes lean concepts more accessible through a simple but powerful allegory to which readers will easily relate. Diana Kander helps readers understand the value of the lean approach by tying it to a memorable story.

While the other books in the evidence-based entrepreneurship field, such as The Startup Owners Manual, The Lean Startup, and Business Model Generation, explain the “how to” of this methodology, All In Startup explains the “why.” Go behind the scenes of a startup and understand why the protagonist, Owen Chase, struggles to get his concept off the ground by following a traditional approach of starting a business. Then see the value that a lean methodology can bring to his enterprise as he learns a faster, more efficient way to launch companies.

This is a must read for anyone interested in launching a new product or business.

Steve Blank

A Letter from Thom RuheVice President of Entrepreneurship at the Kauffman Foundation

Stories are powerful teaching mechanisms because they engage more parts of our brain than traditional educational tools. When we read a textbook or attend a lecture, we use the language processing centers of our brain to translate words into meaning. But that’s only a small portion of our brain. When we read a novel, our brains are firing on all cylinders. Our brains react to the story as if we were in the middle of the action, experiencing it ourselves, and our brains connect the material to our personal experiences.

This linkage of new knowledge to our own memory bank makes new information relatable and easier to retain. That’s why I’m so excited about Diana Kander’s use of a novel to teach modern entrepreneurship principles. It’s just brilliant.

Entrepreneurial science has come a long way over the past 10 years. We’ve learned a lot about how to significantly reduce the number of startup failures and yet we haven’t been able to properly communicate these lessons to the entrepreneurs that need them most. Until now.

All In Startup is the best explanation I’ve seen of the entrepreneurial process behind turning ideas into profitable businesses. Diana masterfully uses fiction to illustrate important concepts aspiring entrepreneurs must master while providing her readers with a taste of the emotional roller coaster endured by those launching something completely new.

This compelling story lets the reader see entrepreneurship through the eyes of a first-time entrepreneur. How many of us wish that we had a do-over where we could utilize the valuable lessons learned from our first adventure? All In Startup gives readers a safe view into what happens when you launch your venture in the wrong way. It vividly demonstrates the challenges entrepreneurs must overcome both in their venture and in their personal lives to find success, and it gives us a common language to understand and communicate startup challenges.

This book offers anyone thinking about launching an idea a road map for significantly reducing the risks along the way. Don’t daydream about your idea any longer. Stop wasting valuable time and money planning for someday. Read this book and start acting on that great idea.