We like to think we bridge Madison Avenue and Silicon Alley/Valley here at The Media Kitchen. We are attracted to innovative, inventive and entrepreneurial companies and have been working with hundreds, if not thousands over the years. There are some very important lessons we have learned and wanted to share them in this document. Much of the deck is a "talking" deck, meaning it was presented to the agency by Darren Herman in October 2013, so some slides have no words. Contact us for more context around the slides.
3. A 'startup' is a company that is confused about --
1.What its product is,
2.Who its customers are.
3.How to make money.
As soon as it figures out all 3 things, it ceases to be a
startup and then becomes a real business.
Except most times, that doesn't happen.
DAVE MCCLUREVIA QUIBB
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4. STEVE BLANKVIA QUIBB
A startup is a temporary organization used to search for a repeatable and
scalable business model.
"Temporary" is emphasized because a startup's goal is to cease being a
startup, to graduate up to being a large business or to fail and move on to
another opportunity. An early stage venture that isn't capable of this type
of rapid scale-up is a small business, not a startup.
I also emphasized the verb to "search" because it is a key distinction from
small and large businesses that operate in mature markets.These
businesses execute known business models while a startup searches for
an unknown business model - in order to disrupt existing markets or even
create knew ones.
You use very different techniques to search effectively and efficiently for
something unknown than you do to execute something that is already
known.
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14. 1
WORKING WITH INNOVATIVE
COMPANIES IS NOT EASY
YOUNG, IDEALISTIC, NON-
PROCESS ORIENTED, PERSONNEL
CONSTRAINED
UNDERSTAND THIS. DON’T TRY
PUTTING A SQUARE PEG IN A ROUND
HOLE. BE OPEN.
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16. 2YOUR PRODUCT IDEA IS NOT ON
THEIR ROADMAP
SELLINGYOUR IDEA TO A
STARTUP
CONSTRUCT A BRIEF DOCUMENT
THAT WILL OUTLINE EXACTLY WHAT
YOU WANT FROM THE STARTUP.
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20. 4RELATIONSHIPS MATTER
HAVEYOU TRIED CONTACTING A
“HOT” STARTUP?
START BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS
WITH VENTURE CAPITALISTS AS
THEY AREYOUR ACCESS POINT FOR
STARTUPS
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28. 8VISIONARY THINKERS
SOMETIMES IT’S HARD TOWRAP
YOUR HEAD AROUND A VISIONARY
IDEA
CHALLENGEYOUR STAFF
CONSISTENTLY WITH BIG IDEAS.
STRETCHING THE MIND HELPS GET
TO BIG IDEAS.
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