Digital Ventures
All about entrepreneurs
Category: CU Boulder (BUSM 4010)
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How to Evaluate Startup Ideas
These are great videos to get you started on the “ideation” process and how to best evaluate if you are on the right track.
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Ten questions that will help you answer if you want to become an entrepreneur?
Whether you are embarking on your first career, have come to a career crossroads much later down the line, or fall somewhere in between, you will benefit from these sessions. First, let me congratulate you for coming this far. You obviously care deeply about who you are and what you are going to do with…
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an Introduction to my Entrepreneurship series
Over this series on life as an entrepreneur, I will take you on a journey to discover what an entrepreneur is, what the research tells us, and what the prevailing myths are. I will give you an insight into what life is like for a working entrepreneur, providing stories and examples from talented entrepreneurs I…
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Now let’s consider some other entrepreneurial qualities….
Of course, it’s not as simple as checking the box in a list of entrepreneurial characteristics to understand if you are the ideal material! Life is way too complicated for that, and so are entrepreneurs. So exploring in more detail, ask yourself: Are you the type of person that likes to bend the rules? I…
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What is an entrepreneur?
The age of the entrepreneur has now well and truly arrived. Twenty years ago, they have used the word “buccaneer” in the same breath as an entrepreneur. Still, now the definition of an entrepreneur is someone willing to take risks to launch a product or service successfully. A popular misconception is that inventors and entrepreneurs are…
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What did you do in the holidays…any reading?
As an new lecturer at CU-Boulder I had to brush up on my re-reading of my library of entrepreneurship books! I think I have close to 50 of them as textbooks and Kindle books. Always interesting to get so many people’s viewpoints on such a wide topic. I can relate to so many of the…
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Choosing a Stanford quality startup idea–part 3
Congratulations, if your idea has made it through the first basic set of tests then it must be excellent. Now on to the next set of tests, remember we are trying to eliminate bad ideas fast and through a logical and non-emotional process. Just to be controversial…who cares about the idea? Having just gone through…
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Choosing a Stanford quality startup idea–part 2
After having thought long and hard the usual response I get back from the team in the first instance is a variation on the first few ideas with a slight improvement on the stated criteria, why? First, often the team is built around the first idea or two and is therefore “wed” to the original…
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Choosing a Stanford quality startup idea
On each of my Stanford courses (Engineering and GSB) we start the entrepreneurship element of the course by selecting ideas to base the mentoring around. The process of selecting a viable team and startup business idea are the backbone of these courses in my opinion. If you can get good at finding the right type…
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When to write your business plan (vs. customer development)
Well most people would start the painful process of writing a business plan right away as they have their first idea for their startup, often taking months, just getting ready because that’s what they are trained to do – polish up word and PowerPoint and hone the idea in their minds and those of their…
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How to write a winning elevator pitch
Writing a good and punchy “elevator pitch” is way harder than most people think. Plus I find that I really need to teach this skill a lot with my Stanford and UC Berkeley MBA’s to help them both with distilling their ideas, perfecting their business plans and finally pitching VCs – so this skill turns…
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Public speaking…the key things to know
If you are making any form of presentation you will benefit from these quick tips. Get the content and flow right: First, make the presentation flow correctly – as most presentations are trying to convince someone of something, I tend to use the old A-I-D-A (a 1950s acronym for Attention/Interest/Desire/Action) system to build to a…
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Set your life goals now to make sure you know what your business needs to deliver to you!
Jim Rohn is considered one of the wisest philosophers of our time and rightly so. His advice is a little old style for my liking but his basic ideas reveal many of the universal truths we should all learn and use daily. In particular, he has been quoted to say many times that “he never…
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The Six Minute -No Slides- Angel Presentation
YES! That’s six minutes and no slides. You will have to learn the skills of a stand-up comedian to do this one and make it work i.e. you need to sell simple ideas that make the audience’s imagination jump into action. This is a great exercise – if challenging at first – the reason is…
Digital Ventures 