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Every new startup business creates new opportunities. It doesn't matter whether you have a new app for college students or a home medical device for senior citizens; there are other multibillion noncompetitive corporations that are spending millions of dollars trying to market their goods and services to your same audience.
Jay Samit -
Design is how you make your first impression with your consumers. Make sure it is a lasting one.
Jay Samit
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Building a great team is the lifeblood of any startup, and finding great talent is one of the hardest and costliest tasks any CEO will ever face.
Jay Samit -
From the very first inkling of a concept, founders need to gather a target group of five to ten potential users to begin the feedback loop. We all think we know how the market will react to new ideas, but actual users live with the pros and cons of the existing market conditions every day. They are the market experts.
Jay Samit -
In order to protect against being disrupted, startups also need to recruit employees that are committed to life-long learning. The skills that made your team members valuable may not be the skills needed to take your company to the next level or to compete in emerging markets.
Jay Samit -
Creating something that builds lasting value and changes the lives of millions of people requires forging a team that will work hard to overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles, stand up to the pressures of fame and fortune, and stay true to the original vision long after others stop believing.
Jay Samit -
Your innovation can create new winners and losers; or at the very least, make existing companies look fresh and innovative by partnering with you. Everyone wants to align with market makers.
Jay Samit -
Microsoft first entered the living room with Ultimate TV way back in 2000 - a year before Apple's first iPod was announced. Ultimate TV offered consumers a DVR and supporting online services, including 14 days of programming and the ability to record 35 hours of programming. Microsoft's reach was then thwarted when Echostar acquired DIRECTV.
Jay Samit
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Many first-time founders fail to understand the difference between the potential of the Total Addressable Market (TAM) and the very finite subsection they can hope to capture. No company ever captures the entire market they pioneer. Innovation doesn't happen in a vacuum, and others will jump in from the moment you've identified the potential.
Jay Samit -
The greatest challenge to most innovation centers around the world is many nations' punitive attitudes towards failure. In most of the world, if your first business fails, no one will work with you again. But, trial and error is the genesis of innovation.
Jay Samit -
Pick a co-founder that communicates in the same fashion that you do. If you are a screamer, then the only way you will ever listen to a conflicting point of view is to find someone who is passionate enough to yell back at you.
Jay Samit -
Social media and personalization are providing both brand advertisers and end-users with hyper-targeted choices and opportunities for double-digit growth.
Jay Samit -
Betting all your funds on the belief that you know what consumers want and are willing to pay for is like jumping into a river to test its depth - you'll need a lot of luck to stay afloat. To have a truly successful product launch, the conversations with your customers must start long before you write your first line of code.
Jay Samit -
As counterintuitive as it sounds, 'speed to fail' should be every entrepreneur's motto. Success isn't born wholly-formed like Venus from a clamshell; it's developed through relentless trial and error.
Jay Samit
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The Industrial Revolution was about making physical things. Many of the manufactured goods that were once tangible objects have now been reduced to bits and bytes of data.
Jay Samit -
In an era of endless innovation and constant disruption, what is any company really worth? How does a startup determine its valuation?
Jay Samit -
No first-time entrepreneur has the business network of contacts needed to succeed. An incubator should be well integrated into the local business community and have a steady source of contacts and introductions.
Jay Samit -
In my experience, there are only two valid reasons to take a company public: access to growth capital and investor fatigue.
Jay Samit -
As good and as smart as you may be, no one knows everything. I truly wish I was as smart as I thought I was when I started my first company.
Jay Samit -
You don't need to be an engineer or a tech person to benefit from technology. You can hire them.
Jay Samit
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As a serial investor who has raised hundreds of millions of dollars for startups, I know that the business plans coming out of incubators tend to be vetted and more thoroughly validated. The incubator's input into your business plan will make you look far more polished and experienced - even if you have never run a business before.
Jay Samit -
With less and less television being watched live, consumers are enjoying the freedom to record at home or in the cloud, watch locally or on the go, and binge watch entire series that they never had the time to enjoy.
Jay Samit -
State funds, private equity, venture capital, and institutional lending all have their role in the lifecycle of a high tech startup, but angel capital is crucial for first-time entrepreneurs. Angel investors provide more than just cash; they bring years of expertise as both founders of businesses and as seasoned investors.
Jay Samit -
Creating the right advisory board for your startup can be the single most important step you take in building a new business.
Jay Samit