America’s Most Successful Startups: Lessons for Entrepreneurs by Max Finger, Oliver Samwer
Key Takeaways
Types of opportunities – paradigm shift, new product / business model / me-too product
Opportunity recognition – markets that change and are receptive to change, badly understood (big and misunderstood), fast growing, incumbent players cannot move, little competition
Process of Opportunity Recognition – intuitive, analytical
Seek a mission-critical pain killer, not a vitamin
Be extremely specific in defining your customer
Great entrepreneurs tend to be generalists – breadth > depth
Founders need to understand the market, product, and execution. Need to be focused on value creation, not control
Risk Identification and Elimination – raise money to reduce key risks – market, technical, people, financial
Decision making – the implementor should be the decision maker
Flexibility – In the planning process, understanding the variables is more important than the plan. It is as important to understand the other players’ plans as it is to figure out your own plans
