If you build a great product or service, but one that can potentially be copied, how do you protect it? That question came in through my channels last week with no context and no background information. Thankfully, with 20+ years experience building companies on sweat and intellectual property, I don’t need either.
16.03.2021
A legitimate business coach can be a windfall, a bad one can wreck your company. I’ve never been a fan of coaching in the business sense, but I understand it.
09.03.2021
Marketplace rules have changed dramatically, and they’ll continue to change quickly. Make no mistake, running a business that monetises someone else’s output will always be a slippery slope.
02.03.2021
As a startup scales, a complex organisation settles — one with too many meetings, where everything seems to be both urgent and important. Many people will tell you that joining a startup is like taking a bullet train in the face. Caroline Franczia, founder of Uppercut-First, looks to The Devil Wears Prada for answers.
25.02.2021
Don’t be fooled by catalysts masquerading as permanent economic shifts. I want to talk to you big-thinkers and you trend-chasers for this post. Because I’m one of you, and I want you to avoid the mistakes I’ve made and I keep seeing others make. Tread lightly around those market bubbles.
23.02.2021
Are you an entrepreneur? Maddyness has created a true kit of different steps to follow in creating, growing, and even selling your own startup. From hiring to protecting your brand and moving on to financing your innovation, you will find tips and good practices so that you can easily find your way in the entrepreneurship labyrinth. In this article: some recommendations for getting inspiration from a foreign model without risking looking like a copycat.
19.02.2021
The world was not ready for the iPhone in 1993 when Apple launched it’s ill-fated Newton.
I have a huge amount of empathy for the founder who is too early, too narrow, or too buggy. One of my startup war stories is about the company three of us founded that was YouTube a couple years before YouTube. We had the tech and a product and revenue, but we couldn’t get the funding. It was our own fault, because we were too green to position and pitch it properly.
16.02.2021
They lived on an island with an average temperature of 30°C. They had no training gear, no experience, and no coach. Yet, they set an impossible goal: join the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary. Whether you’re inspired by the actual story or the movie, Cool Runnings will help you set the tone for 2021.
11.02.2021
In 20+ years of founding and selling companies, advising entrepreneurs and executives, and even back when I used to invest in startups, I’ve seen way too many entrepreneurs — both young and old, both fresh and experienced — fall for some of the same sketchy shit over and over again.
09.02.2021
Caroline Franczia is a regular columnist at Maddyness, known for the witty and insightful parallels she draws between everyday startup life and the world of the silver screen. We interviewed her about her new book, Popcorn for the new CEO.
28.01.2021
While building a community of dedicated customers around a brand has long been considered an important marketing trajectory for a mature company, nowadays, more startups have started to incorporate it into their marketing strategy.
27.01.2021
It’s frustrating to me that a lot of potential entrepreneurs never get started because they think there’s too much science or too many secrets involved in starting a business.
26.01.2021
Don’t fall for the lure of the billion-dollar IPO. If you are, like me, watching all these jaw-dropping entrances into the public markets and looking for common denominators that you can apply to building your own company, there aren’t any.
19.01.2021
Business relationships are undeniably valuable: Whenever companies are venturing into fast-growth markets, the #1 request we receive is to make introductions to relevant people. We call this service, “business matchmaking.”
18.01.2021