At USC, where I am a graduate student, the entrepreneurship professors repeatedly stress the importance of “customer in-hand” before starting a new venture. In fact, one of the core courses requires the student to talk to 50 or more potential customers to force you to find out if the perceived demand is real. [...]
French entrepreneur, Loic Le Meur, lists his 10 rules for start-up success on this TechCrunch posting. I think that Loic is right on the money with all of these. To expand on the list, often times, people looking for an idea try to come up with world-changing concepts, when in reality, the ideas that provide [...]
For a start-up company, being able to partner with an established brand is the ultimate in validating your product, and building credibility. But its not necessarily always a no lose situation. This blog article on the WSJ site describes one particular case of a child-friendly gym partnering with Disney as part of the [...]