Emerging Tech Spotlight: AI Impact
Velocity. The greatest tangible impact of AI on an enterprise is the velocity boost on every element of the organization employing it.
I was invited to moderate a panel on AI at the Latinx MBA Association Summit with Roberto Medrano and Rob Muro. Roberto, CEO of Beachview Capital, is a cybersecurity pioneer, board director for dozens of tech companies, and former tech executive at HP, Polivec Inc, Finjan Holdings, Avnet Technology Solutions, and Sun Microsystems. Rob is the Senior Director of Technical Product Managment at ServiceNow with executive experience at Oracle, Sun Microsystems, and Siebel. ServiceNow is an AI first, cloud-based, workflow automation platform that enables enterprise organizations to improve operational efficiencies by streamlining and automating routine work tasks.
We shared our personal stories of hard work, resilience, and family values before engaging in the twin topics: 1) Innovation Trends and the Business of AI, and 2) Impact on and Opportunities for us as Individuals and Communities.
Measuring Traction for Tough Goals
How do you know that you are on track for large aggressive goals?
Founders, if you are asked to set 2-3 milestones for your startup within a 6-12 month timeframe, what would they be? Customer targets? Revenue levels? Geographic expansion? Capital raise? How would you know if you are on track on a monthly or weekly basis? Would you use the same targets allocated in smaller achievable chunks? If you do, would these mini-targets tell you if you are on track for the vision you have at 12, 24, or 36 months?
Meaningful milestones and performance metrics reflect what you are trying to understand about a specific aspect of your business model within a defined time frame. They are most useful when serving as actionable pieces of information.
Derisking Ventures through UX Research: A chat with GV’s Michael Margolis.
How can you find your TAM and validate your product-market fit if you don’t know who your bulls eye customers are? UX research is a way to accelerate the learning curve of startups and derisk the investment.
We had another great session of my H4H impact venture incubator course at Columbia Business School this term. Michael Margolis, UX Partner at Google Ventures (GV) joined us to chat about the key takeaways of an effective research sprint to improve the success of a venture.
Michael shared with us highlights of his approach developed over his vast experience working with Uber, Slack, Foundation Medicine, One Medical, Flatiron Health, GitLab, Lime, Kindbody, Gusto, Blue Bottle Coffee, StockX, Cockroach Labs, and Nest. These are all companies known for effectively scaling based on maximizing the value of their customer/user experience.
Should Startups Care About Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?
Does SEO matter for an early stage company focusing on building social media connections first?
It does. Founders, how do you think you get visibility in the sea of social media posts? The strategy that goes into social media optimization is at the core of search engine optimization (SEO). SEO is the online viral result of everything you do online and offline to match your customer’s pain point to your solution.
TAM/SAM/SOM The Meaning Behind the Metrics
Founders, you may be struggling with calculating and interpreting these familiar concentric circles. Let’s begin with the understanding investors would like to derive from them.
Is it Time to Pivot?
Founders, contemplating a pivot in your quest for product/market fit? Consider this.
Collaboration in Practice: The Broad Relevance of the Lean LaunchPad Movement
The Lean LaunchPad method is an agile approach to business development focused on producing minimum viable offerings to solve customer needs in an iterative mechanism. It is about constantly listening to what customers want, need, and will pay for in a dynamic environment.
30 Seconds of Fame: A Guide for Founders
Founders, you have thirty seconds to explain why the venture you work on day and night is worth someone’s attention. You are innovative, your technology sizzles, and you have a talented team. You even have traction. You get so excited that you dive right into the technology. Time's up.
Coming Together During Difficult Times: Partnering through COVID 19
Four crises have simultaneously converged in the greatest immediate global threat facing anyone alive today: health, food, economic, and financial insecurity for millions of human beings. Compounding this problem is the restriction on the natural redemptive response of physically coming together to comfort and help each other. But there is still so much that we can do as friends, neighbors, and community members. It is time for repurposing our skill sets, our offerings, and our supply chains to manage this crisis and to come up with a better infrastructure and sense of purpose.
Pricing the Customer Experience: Spotlight on Startups
New ventures have an advantage over large firms. They are typically closer to the customer. The entire organization lives or dies based on traction with the initial buyers. It is everyone’s job to know how to build a product or service that attracts customers and creates loyalty. Yet startups often struggle with how to price their product. They think about margins when they should be thinking about value.