Published inLessons from History·Jun 6, 2021Member-onlyLessons on Corporate Growth and Culture from the American Civil WarIn the early years of the war (1861–1863), all soldiers were volunteers. They were paid a salary to serve, but they were there because they had chosen to join. By the later years (1864–1865), drafts and bounties had to be introduced. Bounties in the Union states went as high as…Civil War3 min readCivil War3 min read
Dec 23, 2020Member-only4 Attributes of the Most Successful Companies, According to McKinseyMcKinsey has analyzed 2,400 of the largest companies over the past fifteen years and calculated the relative impact of forty variables on outsized growth in economic profit. …Company3 min readCompany3 min read
Published inAgile Insider·Dec 22, 2020Member-onlyRevenue Growth and ROIC Are All That MatterAnd they both matter about equally In discussions I’ve had, there has been disagreement about the right goals to set for companies; therefore, there’s been disagreement about the role that strategy should play. Two of the most common mentalities I’ve come across are “let’s skip any real innovation investments —…Roic6 min readRoic6 min read
Published inProduct Coalition·Nov 11, 2020Member-onlyThere are 18 Sources of Competitive Advantage.Which Ones Do You Have? Are You Maximising Your Use of Them? — The money was there, all that latent power… something waiting to be born, something sleeping. He cradled the unformed dream in his hands and wondered who to give it to. — Ben Fountain, Brief Encounters with Che Guevara Sources of advantage are a major component of Step #3 of the…Competitive Advantage7 min readCompetitive Advantage7 min read
Sep 20, 2020Member-onlyShould You Sign Your First Customers for Free?It’s been my experience that you learn much more when serving your first couple of clients that any other point in your product’s or company’s trajectory. Before we signed our first customer in a recent company of mine, for example, we had a data request with clean columns in a…Startup4 min readStartup4 min read
Aug 23, 2020Member-onlyPayPal’s Strategy and How It Evolved Over TimeLessons for founders, startups, and entrepreneurs on what a strategy is and how it can evolve — This example is from Jessica Livingston’s interviews with startup founders, Founders at Work. What her interviews reveal overall is that buyers, value pools, and approaches can change in startups’ early days as founders validate market needs and better assess their abilities to serve those needs. It’s clear that most founders…PayPal4 min readPayPal4 min read
Aug 21, 2020Member-onlyCan You Scale Your Company Without Losing Your Identity?This is Part 17/18 in the series “How to Build an Innovative New Product or Company” on the topic of how to scale up a product and company that is working for its early customers Scaling has many challenges, but they are ones you might call “champagne challenges”. Not dissimilar…Scale3 min readScale3 min read
Published inAgile Insider·Jul 27, 2020How to Prove Your Product is Creating ImpactThis is Part 18/18 in the series “How to Build an Innovative New Product or Company,” on the topic of how to measure the value and ROI your product is having for your buyers and users. Consider a product that helps prevent patient falls in a hospital. It is a…Scale6 min readScale6 min read
Jul 2, 2020Do Your Marketing, Sales, and Product Materials Tell the Same Continuous Story?From a users’ perspective, the value in having the messages they experience from your website and other places in the marketing and sales process aligned to what they experience when they use your product is self-evidently valuable. It’s one of the most powerful ways to encourage usage and adoption. But…Strategy5 min readStrategy5 min read
Published inAgile Insider·May 11, 2020Take a Lesson From Google, Intel and Others: Use OKRs Instead of Product RoadmapsThis is Part 16/18 in the series, “How to Build an Innovative New Product or Company,” on the topic of using quarterly, bottoms-up, transparent objectives and key results (OKRs) as an organizing principle. OKRs are a simple data-driven organization platform created by Andy Grove of Intel and championed by Google…Okr9 min readOkr9 min read
