Lean is Business Development. Most people are familiar with Lean because of Toyota Manufacturing; this concept of eliminating waste, increasing efficiency and improving profits was revolutionary in the business world. Move forward in time and Eric Ries made popular the principles of Lean by applying them to starting a business. This idea around the high failure […]
If you’ve seen the television show Shark Tank, you may have some idea of what an entrepreneur could look like. Successful entrepreneurs are like “swimming with sharks.” There’s something to learn from this idea of sharks – the investing entrepreneurs have been thought of as predatory, conquering, and large in their target markets and business practices. Successful. […]
As we’ve begun to add team members to the party here at Leantime, I find that we’re stopping to talk more and more about our startup culture. We’re deciding what Leantime looks like on the inside. New team members can make or break your current culture and change the way the team relates. We’re in the […]
trac·tion ˈtrakSH(ə)n/ – noun – the extent to which a product, idea, etc., gains popularity or acceptance. “analysts predicted that the technology would rapidly gain traction in the corporate market.” – Google So you’ve started the Lean canvas and you’re using Eric Ries’ Lean Startup as your bible. You’ve talked to customers, validated, proven your assumptions and hypothesis […]
“Women shouldn’t be afraid to put themselves forward.” – Sarah Wood, Cofounder and COO of Unruly Media. What is it about being a woman that changes your investability within the Startup, Venture Capital, and Angel investor communities? According to Mashable.com in their blog article, “The 10 Things You Didn’t Know about Women Owned Businesses,” “Despite […]
Every now and then, as I watch my online “news feeds” go by, I notice this trend of recycling “Entrepreneurship is hard” theme go by. Titles range from “the 10 worst things about owning your own business” to “How to Weather the Storms of a Startup.” We’ve read the statistics. We manage the late nights. […]
“Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.” – Einstein. Corporate America, Big Business Models and the like, would have us to believe that success is the most important element. The bottom line, the customer acquisitions, the features and functions of our products… those must all be amazing. There can be […]
I’ve learned to stop thinking of myself as a sales-woman — and I regularly work with clients that struggle with this idea of “closing”. I’ve even heard things like, “If you want me to close something, ask me to close the door, close the lid on a jar… but a sale?” For myself, my background […]
We love Seattle. We love Startups. So imagine our excitement when we found out about Seattle Start Up Week. We’ve been to Startup Weekend events and those are a blast… but a full week of events? Even more amazing. The hardest part of this week has been picking which events to go to. Day 1 was […]
LEAN has become a fancy buzz word among health care, manufacturing (thanks, Toyota!), Startups, Construction, Supply Chain Management, and even in technology. In technology, the close relative you may be familiar with is SCRUM or Agile development. TechTarget has a great definition for LEAN: “Lean management is an approach to running an organization that supports the concept […]
