Found+READ: Comments by Kevin Donaldson

Kevin Donaldson — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 20:22:21 GMT

Last year when I was working on a startup idea, I went to a IP/Patent presentation by a local law firm. They went through all the basic aspects, but the one comment that stuck out in my memory from the ‘panel of experts was’: Provisional Patent translates to ‘copy it quick’:)

Kevin Donaldson — Fri, 04 May 2007 21:35:57 GMT

Great points. I was given the advice once to think about ‘your product/service space’ as an ecosystem. People you think of as competitors could be possible partners and visa versa. Thinking about things in this way also helps you clarify what market you are really in or potentially should be in.

Kevin Donaldson — Fri, 04 May 2007 02:51:21 GMT

so true – I was working on a startup idea last year and we called this the ‘grandma test’. We knew we had to make it dirt simple to catch the reader or listener so they would want to hear more. One of our early failures with this was when we tried to explain a social software concept to a group of angels – many of whom I think had made their money selling farmland for real-estate. Even though we actually had a solid revenue strategy (not including advertising), it didn’t matter because they were still trying to understood what we did. If people can’t understand what you are offering quickly, the rest of your pitch doesn’t matter.

Kevin Donaldson — Fri, 11 May 2007 19:54:08 GMT

So I am not super seasoned in this regard, but if you don’t have revenues, patents, etc, the valuation of a team early on seems to be much more about who is on the team (background, experience with startups, experience in your chosen industry), the idea itself, and the barriers to entry from competitors. Another other option is to forget about valuation, and focus your energy on getting something to market by bootstrapping. Angels will be a lot more receptive if you have signed a customer (even if the revenues are low)
As for equity – best of luck in giving away only 10% unless the dollar amount you are looking for is really low, in which case – refer back to the bootstrapping comment.

Kevin Donaldson — Fri, 11 May 2007 20:01:54 GMT

Amit – just noticed that there was a whole series of separate posts on this topic, which I just read:). My suggestion would be to focus on finding a beta partner/customer to work with. If they see value in the idea, they will work with you.

Kevin Donaldson — Fri, 18 May 2007 15:02:08 GMT

We are having some discussions in our startup these days about our company values. Values are important even in a small startup because they equate to high level guidelines for making decisions, and I think that its important that this comment be somehow incorporated in the values for any startup. For us, it was encompassed under “Market Focus”. I do like the power of the first sentence “Don’t confuse activity for progress”. I feel that without thinking about this almost every day, it is easy to slip.

Kevin Donaldson — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 02:46:34 GMT

Typically in a startup you need to be creative with resourcing and different forms of outsourcing/offshoring has to be part of the equation. We have a small development team in-house that focus’s on core user facing functionality. We would like to hire more but they are hard to find. We have an offshore team we also work with. Not one of the big behemoth’s but a smaller shop whom we know the owner from previous direct work with him. Like most engagements we have had some hicups, but overall it has been a good experience. The owner was is a software architect and we have found that to be very valuable – make translation much easier. Plus – he also suggests things instead of just taking requirements. We do agile development so this required much more interaction than just handing off specs. We use skype extensively to stay in touch with this team. Yes – it usually means late evening calls but we rotate back and forth to make it better for both teams. Recently we have thought about using services such as rentacoder etc to increase of development even more, but we were trying to find a small test project that would be less risk. We were looking at a desktop widget as this project but as of now – we haven’t pursued that path.

Kevin Donaldson — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 21:40:21 GMT

Great Metaphor!

Kevin Donaldson — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 14:20:36 GMT

Every entrepreneur I know is on to 2 or 3 ‘original ideas’:) including myself. All of your ideas should makes peoples lives easier – if not – probably good criteria for elimination. Someone else thinking about the same idea?... if you don’t honestly believe that there is at least 3 others thinking about the same or something similar you are being naive. This is a good thing as it will help drive you to market.

I write all my ideas down in a notebook and let them digest for often long periods of time. Often letting the idea sit, will help evolve your thinking to a better product/business model etc.

Try and write a short executive summary, or pitch. The easier you can describe the situation that you are making ‘better, faster, cheaper’ the more likely others will get excited about it.

Share your ideas with people whom you trust their opinion and that they will give you constructive feedback on the idea. Preferably someone who might have some knowledge in the field you are looking at.

Whatever one you choose be prepared to fail the first time, and get ready to work through this. Its not that the idea is bad, it may just need some iterations. A startup idea I worked on for 9 months last year fizzled due to a number of reasons. I actually still think there is a business with it, but we definitely had the wrong spin the first time.