Startups Venture Capital Decisionmaking [Entire Talk] Annie Kadavy, Redpoint Ventures with Tina Seelig, Stanford University Watch Now 47 minutes Video
Startups Building Billion Dollar Businesses [Entire Talk] Ravi Belani, Stanford University Watch Now 43 minutes Video
Frank Levinson, Finisar Corporation Real Sales and Customers in Business Number 2 in Frank Levinson's Top 10 Things You Must Have to Start a Business. Levinson talks about how a real business involves selling to customers and receiving money in return. He warns new businesses not to shy away from selling their products early on. He also gives advice on recognizing a real customer.
Frank Levinson, Finisar Corporation Naming Your Company: Put Up a Sign Number 9 in Frank Levinson's Top 10 Things You Must Have to Start a Business. Let people know you're in business, says Levinson. Name your company and put a sign up as soon as possible. Your main motivator should be the customers, he adds.
Frank Levinson, Finisar Corporation Managing The Leverage of Customer Input on Product Development Clearly, without producing something that meets a customer's needs, says Levinson, a business is not a good position to succeed. However, it's important that the business create its own goals and work to fulfill its own needs as well. He describes the best methods to reaching a compromise in this situation.
David Kelley, IDEO Product Development Process: Observation Kelley talks about how the observation phase is the most overlooked part of the development process. Kelley hires social scientists to watch people complete tasks instead of asking them usability questions. He prefers to see them as customers instead of users and strongly believes that customer satisfaction comes with understanding their values. He gives examples of how his team will observe a customer in their usual environment instead of inviting them into a sterile lab for product testing. The case studies he presents include a television remote control.