business development Archives » New Frontiers Entrepreneur Development Programme

Featured startup: Dublin Design Studio (Scriba)

2nd November 2017

scriba - dublin design studio/david craig new frontiers alumnus

David Craig is the founder of Dublin Design Studio and inventor of Scriba, a new generation of stylus for mobile devices. David wrote an article for New Frontiers over two years ago, recalling his journey through the early-stage development of Scriba, up to its highly successful Kickstarter campaign in August 2015.

We thought it would be a good idea to catch up with David, as he prepares to send out the first batch of Scribas to his Kickstarter backers. It’s been a longer production period than expected, but the product has undergone a few significant improvements, which David hopes will make it worth the wait.

Let’s get back to summer 2015. The team had already experienced the trials and tribulations of hardware development and had fully working prototypes. The discussion moved on to materials, manufacturing, logistics, and the other elements involved in delivering a quality, shop-ready product. David was clear he wanted to manufacture in Ireland, instead of going the somewhat obvious route of finding a plant in China.

David was introduced to the business development manager from Hasbro – the famous toy manufacturer – who was able to offer a partnership with Cartamundi, their Waterford-based manufacturing arm. With a strong manufacturing support, this meant the team could move into the design for manufacturability (DFM) phase. A whole new language had to be learnt at this point, as David worked with engineers and the Hasbro/Cartamundi team to perfect the design, assembly and materials. There were plenty of challenges and even the bespoke packaging that suspended the product to show off its unusual form was a complex design challenge that needed to be solved.

(click to enlarge the images)

Through an Enterprise Ireland Innovation Voucher, Dublin Design Studio worked closely with Athlone Institute of Technology’s CISD to develop the design of the 3D model that would be used to create the very expensive tool required by injection moulding. Getting the geometry correct from both a manufacturability perspective, in addition to the look and feel of the product, required many iterations; even though the electronics of the product were well-established, the form and feel of the product would have a huge impact on the user experience.

By Christmas that year, David assumed they were ready to go into production. However, a suggestion of an alternative tool design that would yield noticeably better quality results and an associated quote from the tool makers that was double the anticipated cost meant David had to make a difficult commercial decision.

“I felt strongly that anything that might let down the perceived quality of the overall product must be sorted out, and with competition from the likes of Wacom, Adonit and even Apple, it was important that Scriba was as perfect as humanly possible.”

With support from volunteers and numerous interns – David thinks his team may have involved a total of 50 people – all contributing their own expertise and insights to the product, Scriba has evolved into more than just a stylus. David has grown a network of mentors, advisors and friends who have also been instrumental to the realisation of this product. With such a complex project, it’s easy to get bogged down in the details or be consumed by the technical difficulties, so his strategy has been to celebrate the small wins whenever they happen.

“What I probably didn’t appreciate as much at the outset is that as a startup, developing hardware encompassed so many other fields. For instance, we’ve not only developed a hardware product, we’ve also created an ecommerce site, developed an SDK for software developers and produced six apps to go with it!”

The manufacture process itself threw up a number of technical hurdles, each one seemingly insurmountable. David credits the openness of the wider network he had at that point with his ability to overcome each one… companies went above and beyond what would have been commercially expected, and generously gave any insights and expertise they had. In addition to Cartamundi, of particular note were IPC Polymers in Kilbeggan who opened their doors to David to develop and test composite plastics to meet the product’s particular technical requirements. Scriba really is a testament to the Irish business ecosystem.

In parallel with the hardware and materials, the team moved onto software – developing apps and adding functionality (for instance, Scriba can trigger your iPhone camera and you can use it to control presentation slides or annotate PDFs).

“I wanted to change people’s perception of what a stylus could be. Every day I would ask myself: what value can we add for our end users? Sure, people will use the stylus for sketching and drawing; but that’s not all they do during the day so how can we fit into their lifestyle even more?”

A selection of artwork created with Scriba

(click to enlarge the images)

David, an architect by training, says he doesn’t get to spend long days ideating and being immersed in design. As a startup founder, his time is mostly taken up with other, more pressing issues: marketing, logistics, HR, management, finance and business development.

To keep the lights on during the development of Scriba, Dublin Design Studio has taken on a variety of architectural projects, and collected a few awards for these over the past couple of years, including Best Housing in last year’s RIAI Awards. Scriba itself has won a shelfful of accolades – the Irish Times Innovation Awards, UK Design Week Awards, Bank of Ireland Startup Awards and the IDI Awards to name just a few.

Fast forward to October 2017, and the very first batch of Scriba styluses has been manufactured, packaged, and is currently heading out to those first Kickstarter investors, who pledged over two years ago. David has been careful to keep these backers up to date along the way and has sent them regular updates and progress reports.

“I’m pretty hands on and to understand the process, I spent the day at the plant in Waterford working with the operators on the assembly line. That incredible moment of having the very first one, boxed, in my hands, was just amazing. It’s been such a long road and thanks to everyone’s perseverance and hard work it’s now a reality.”

General sales of Scriba are about to go live, initially via their own website – getscriba.com – and also on Amazon. Scriba has been accepted onto the Amazon Launchpad programme, which showcases innovative new products from startups. This will be crucial to the firm’s success, as they have identified Amazon as the key channel for their target market.

David is keen to point out that Scriba is only the first product the studio plans on creating. The collective knowledge the team has acquired since David’s very first prototype will be no doubt be channelled into other exciting projects. It certainly sounds like David is itching to get back to design, so I don’t think we’ll have a long wait!

About the author

scarlet-merrill

Scarlet Merrill

Scarlet Merrill is Editor of the New Frontiers website and founder of her own startup, Engage Content Marketing. She is an expert in designing and executing content strategies and passionate about helping businesses to develop a quality online presence… [Read Scarlet’s profile]

WKI Commercialisation methodology

Step 1

We begin by reviewing the participant’s proposed target segments. We also look at the customer profile for each segment (who will use it, who will buy it, how they will use it, what the buy decision is, what motivates the user and what motivates the buyer, etc.). These have been identified by market research conducted to date and have been ranked into an ordered list of segments to target.

Step 2

We then discuss lead customers; these are early adopters who should be willing and eager to try a new idea even if it is in development. You are looking for someone who will collaborate with you to test, suggest, and mould your early stage idea into a customer-ready product for later stage customers.

A question to ask: are the lead customers from our identified target segments? If not, why not? If we can’t get someone from our target segment who will try our solution then has our market research been correct to date? Have we really identified the correct market? It may seem obvious but it does happen that the promoter has profiled a market opportunity in great detail yet introduces clients from different segments without clear reasoning. This can lead to a loss of credibility in the proposal, i.e. does the promoter really know who the customer is?

Step 3

So, having identified the lead customer we next set out what initiatives will be undertaken to advance the idea down the path to market. Each initiative should reflect the stage of development of the solution as well as the commercial roll out. That is why I usually have one or two lead-in steps such as demonstrator stage, prototype stage, before introducing the second and third target segments and beyond moving towards category leadership. Especially when working with start-ups. I also find that the first session specs out the first couple of development steps only. The promoters tend to need a break at this point as for further stages it becomes too vague or harder to define concrete initiatives and measures of success.

Step 4

Profile the risks. All plans have an element of risk associated with them, it is both natural and expected. Stakeholders will want to know that you are aware of potential risks and have prepared a plan to mitigate them should they occur. For early-stage businesses risks associated with technical, market, financial and people should be considered with each stage of the company’s proposed development. These should also be summarised on the market attack plan.

So what? Who cares? Why you?

Let’s work through an example of what a market attack plan may look like:

Stage – Demonstrator Timing: Month 1 & 2

Major initiative:

Update promoter’s LinkedIn profile and purchase premium package for 2 months
Build mock-up demonstrator using MarvelApp, CAD, Animation, etc.
Get 4 – 5 meetings with potential lead customers to review

Measure of success:

2 customers agree to pilot a prototype

Risks:

Unable to secure demonstration meetings

Resources:

In-house resources, travel costs and LinkedIn Premium only

Funded bBy:

Promoter’s funds

Stage – Prototype Timing: Months 3 to 6

Major initiative:

Agree framework for prototype stage with lead customers
Develop working prototype – to agreed limited features/command set
Company formation

Measure of success:

1 – 2 customers agree to purchase
2 – 3 new customers agree to pilot

Risks:

Unable to secure sufficient funding

Resources:

In-house resources and travel costs
Outsourced tech development – €20- 30K

Funded by:

LEO Feasibility Funding / New Frontiers stipend
Innovation voucher – for algorithm generation
Promoter’s funds & friends/angels

Stage – Market Entry Timing: Months 6 to 18

Major initiative:

Secure incubation tenancy
Hire CTO and first in-house developer
Sales and Marketing hires x 2
On-board the first 2 customers
Invest in CRM package
Complete technical development
Attend 1 – 3 national exhibitions and secure speaking slots
Start Next Round funding process

Measure of success:

Customer income secured – €200k
2 – 3 new customers signed each quarter
First segment 2 customers acquired
CE Marking, Safety and Compliance certifications secured

Risks:

Delays on-boarding key hires
Development overruns
Delays securing sufficient funding
New entrants

Resources:

€400K funding requirement (18 months runway)

Funded by:

EI Competitive Start Funding
EI HPSU Funding
Irish VC Funding Delta/Kernel, etc.

Why is this approach important?

There are a number of reasons to use this approach:

For the promoter, it helps break down into manageable steps the road to market entry. It also helps non-financial founders align the sales and marketing, operations and financial requirements of the business for stage of development – which is great when producing three year cash flow projections.
For team members, it provides them with clarity as to what the outcome from each stage of development is. It can also help them see where the business is headed.
For the business plan reader, it summarises what resources are required at each stage and what the output will be in terms of headcount (support agency focus) or monetary gains (investor focus).

So give it a go. You’ll be surprised how easy it can be and what a difference this simple tool can make to developing your company’s market entry strategy.

About the author

Garrett Duffy

Garrett is the New Frontiers Programme Manager at Dundalk Institute of Technology, and a WKI Certified Coach. He has a background in engineering and has lectured in information systems, computer applications and new venture creation. He has been the Enterprise Development Manager at DkIT’s Regional Development Centre since 2007… [Read Garrett’s profile]

My local coffee shop doesn’t just sell coffee

My local coffee shop doesn’t just sell coffee. They sell a space to grow relationships, a space to escape the stresses of the office or home, a place to reflect or get some work done. Too many businesses don’t fully understand the need they are really satisfying for their customers, and so they often concentrate on the wrong parts of their offer. Customers are rarely motivated to go into a coffee shop because they are thirsty.

Understanding your customer’s story will help you better construct your business offer and make decisions that keep your customers coming back. Whether you are a small corner cafe or a global brand leader, one of your key priorities should be telling the stories of your business but more importantly, your customers.

Why does your business exist?

Ask yourself, why does your business exist? What motivated you to start the business? For me, it was a passion for stories about people. I had been working in media for almost 15 years, every day coming across stories of love, loss, endurance, sadness and triumph. I knew there was a value in those stories and I knew I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life working for someone else.

I set out to build a platform that would harness and develop a global community of people who could tell stories – journalists, bloggers, community activists and videographers. StoryStock would become a platform where we could connect that community of storytellers with media but also with brands who needed to tell stories about themselves and their customers. We were creating one of the world’s first global storytelling platforms that would connect people who could tell stories with people who needed to tell stories!

StoryStock helps some of the largest brands in the world to bring those stories out. Here are two examples of how stories were used by our clients:

Dairymaster

One of our first customers was Agri tech global Irish company, Dairymaster. They build some of the most advanced farming technology in the world and have operations that stretch from Ireland to the US and into the Middle East. We helped them to start telling the stories of the farmers who use their technology. Soon enough it became clear that Dairymaster don’t just offer new technology that makes life on the farm easier; they offer farmers the opportunity to spend more time with their children, because new technology is doing the work they once did.

We told those real life stories of their farming customers – at home on the farm. That shows other farmers who may be considering investing in new technology that they can have more family time, a more profitable farm and an easier life by using the tech that Dairymaster are selling. By telling the stories of their customers, we helped Dairymaster realise why they existed and how to communicate this to potential customers!

Global Airlines

Global Airlines don’t just fly people from A to B. They bring people who love each other together. Young couples in long-term relationships, workers who want to get home to see their families. They allow people with ideas to share those ideas at conferences on the other side of the world. Those are the stories they must tell. Telling the stories of why people use your product or service is how you will show others just how valuable it really is and why they should be using it too!

Stories help you stand out

Advertising has changed, with adverts fighting for space in a crowded and noisy online market. Stories help you stand out. Storytelling isn’t just for global brands. If you are a small pharmacy, why not tell the stories of how the drugs you prescribe make a difference in people’s lives? Fish shop? – tell the stories of the fishermen who spend weeks at sea so that customers can sit down with a takeaway on a Sunday evening. Every business has a story, and every customer wants to tell a story. The best brands are built on great stories! Start building today. Tell some stories or find someone who can tell them for you!

About the author

Francis Fitzgibbon

Francis Fitzgibbon is a New Frontiers participant and the CEO and founder of StoryStock. His startup has developed a platform that connects content creators – journalists, videographers, bloggers, etc. – with brands, media organisations, PR companies and agencies… [Read Francis’s profile]

The entrepreneurial rollercoaster

The chance to create something from nothing, to see an idea in your head develop and work, either in the form of a new service or new product, is incredibly motivating and, when successful, enormously satisfying. “I did it my way” as the song goes. This is the entrepreneurial rollercoaster of business startups. Managing these emotions is important if we want to banish doubt and remain upbeat, confident and committed to our project.

Managing the bad days

While in the set-up stage of my first venture, a tourism business, a very well respected and established player in the market from Sligo declared that he would ‘eat his hat’ if my business worked in Co Laois! This was at my first trade fair in Germany and, for a 23 year old, this was massively undermining and stuck with me.

We need a coat of armor to protect us on bad days like this or to silence natural self-doubt and banish the demons. Luckily, this coat of armor can be built by using solid ‘good business practice’ at the earliest stage in the venture.

The well-known business writer, Joan Margeratta, ventured that you can distil any business down to two key foundational elements – value proposition and channel to market. This rings true in my experience. Yes, there are many other elements that we need and will need in time, but, to start with, these two elements are critical. Properly validated, they constitute solid business practice that will give you confidence and ensure you are more likely to succeed. It is also something that investors will demand if you are seeking finance pre- revenue.

Value proposition and channel to market

The best way for me to explain what I think is required in terms of validating a value proposition and a channel to market is through explaining the process I went through in developing and bringing to market a new domestic kitchen vacuum – Sweepovac.

By way of context, it took a subsequent four years of product development and market entry to get initial traction. That’s four years of uncertainty, challenges and obstacles. I definitely needed a thick coat of armor to get me through this, to give me the conviction to persevere!

Validation

This validation process was simple common sense really. First, we created the cheapest simplest prototype version possible of something that looked and acted like the finished product. We then tested it on end users – homeowners. We set up with this prototype for 3 days in 3 different retail settings – a hardware shop, a kitchen showroom and an electrical retailer spread across rural and urban centers. Over the three days we surveyed 100 people with a 15 question form using a Likert scale. This showed that 87% of people were positive and liked the product. A critical takeaway was, however, that within this group of 17% who absolutely ‘got it’ and were very enthusiastic, 13% had no interest.

Channel to market

Next, I needed to test the channel to market to see if we could deliver the product in the right retail environment, at the right price and at the right time.

I interviewed 20 kitchen retailers, some with retail chains, and the three largest distributors to these retailers. For each group, I had a different questionnaire that set out to establish their interest, their willingness to take on the proposed product and their views on pricing and margin structure.

The results showed that 70% would display, but with varying levels of enthusiasm and that the expected price should be between €90 and €220.

The result

I drew two key conclusions. The first was that 17%, and possibly more, of kitchen buyers would potentially purchase the product if it was presented in the right retail environment, at the right price and at the right time. The second was that there was enough interest among retailers and distributors to ensure that we could present it in the right environment at the right time. I also had strong guidance that I needed to get the manufacturing price down based on the feedback on the retail prices.

Key takeaway

Attempting to launch a new startup is usually, if not always, high risk with dramatic ups and downs. My key message is this: early and solid validation of your value proposition and your channel to market gives you a far greater chance of success and a coat of armour to help weather the process. It will allow you to focus on delivering, on problem solving and help stop you doubting the road you have chosen or second guessing yourself.

It takes bravery to launch a new start up or transform an existing business, it is usually if not always high risk with dramatic ups and downs. Mentoring has given me a wonderful opportunity to meet great people, to learn, to share and to to be part of their journey.

With regards to the gentleman from Sligo, I never had the opportunity to present him with his hat and some salt. The tourism business ran successfully for 13 years, was sold as a going concern in 2005 and still operates today.

About the author

Henry Fingleton

Henry Fingleton is an Enterprise Ireland mentor and the founder of Sweepovac. In total, he is responsible for six startup companies, which has given him a thorough understanding of the entrepreneurial process. This insight helps him develop and apply appropriate business strategies… [Read Henry’s profile]

The unsuccessful success

Like most startups, money was limited when I began planning my business venture. Therefore, working from home was the perfect and only solution. I was well aware that running a business was going to be tough. I’d heard all the cautionary advice – getting my business off the ground would take longer than I planned, all the while costing me more money; and I would be working longer hours than ever before, with no holidays and little or no pay initially!

I went ahead anyway, taking over the children’s playroom and had a fantastic afternoon in Ikea buying all the must-haves for my home office. It was what I had always dreamt of doing when I used to commute to Dublin every day for my previous job – what could be better than working from home! With the home office looking like something off Pinterest, I was good to go and got stuck into putting together my business plan and getting ready to launch my business.

Soon launch day arrived and my business – Count Her In – was officially up and running. I worked tirelessly from the minute the children left for school until they came home in the afternoon. I rarely left the office, trying to fit as much as possible into my working days, and then starting again once the children were asleep. It worked and soon we got great traction, with membership steadily rising and fantastic feedback from members and the local media.

But something wasn’t right, I just wasn’t feeling the buzz I thought I would. I didn’t see anything as being a success and habitually focused on all the things I hadn’t managed to get done that day. With no one to run anything past, I mulled ideas and decisions over constantly in my head, even after making them – what if I had just made a big mistake, what if, what if…

The Mill Enterprise Hub

The weeks rolled into months. The business was thriving and yet, I was struggling to the point that I really didn’t know if I could continue. I couldn’t understand why. Christmas was fast approaching, so I decided to take a week off and think about things. I closed the door to the office and I didn’t set foot in it again! Over the Christmas period I had family and friends over, the house was bustling, and I suddenly realised why I was feeling so down about my business – I was alone and I had been for 12 months.

Every day, all day I was at home in my office, working hard, talking to people on the phone and via email, but not face to face. I had gone from working in a building with over 1,000 employees and managing a large team to being on my own. I now realised if something didn’t change then I would give up. I could not face going back to the office, and I didn’t. A friend had previously told me about The Mill Enterprise Hub in Drogheda, a great facility for startup companies where you could rent affordable office space or even just a hot desk, which was more suitable for me being on my own.

As soon as Christmas was over, I went and paid them a visit and knew, straight after walking in, that I needed to be there. There was such a buzz and energy about the place, exactly what had been missing in my home office. I managed to persuade The Mill to let me move in the very next morning, and I have been there ever since. Starting off with a hot desk in a shared office, and – now that we have grown and there are 3 of us – moving into our own office space a few weeks ago. Moving out of my home office gave both my business and me a HUGE boost.

Making simple changes

Moving into a facility like The Mill is not possible for all, but I believe the most important thing for anyone in the early stages of a business, or for someone who runs a business single-handedly, is to not allow themselves to become so engrossed in working hard that they become isolated to the point at which it begins impacting them and the performance of their business.

In January, I also made some other changes which again have really helped:

Networking events

I have made the most of all local events and some further afield, most recently making my way to Clare and Waterford. But even simply popping into something for half an hour during the day that gives you a break from the desk can be invaluable. You never know who you will meet and what impact they could have on your business or you on theirs.

Business inspiration

I have become great friends with a fantastic local businesswoman, and we try to meet on a regular basis to chat about our respective businesses. This has really proved invaluable. It is important to be able to share the more detailed aspects of your business with someone you trust. It is fantastic when you are struggling with something and need to talk it through, especially when it is with someone who understands what it is like to run a business. We happen to be at very different stages – my business is still very new whereas her business is much more established – but we have learnt that we still have the same types of issues, the same doubts and insecurities.

Coffee shops!

I love coffee. It’s my treat to myself when I get a nice coffee and now they are popping up everywhere. There is so much choice and most have free Wi-Fi, so even though I am now based in an office with a couple of others, sometimes I still head out the door with my laptop and go to a local coffee shop to work for an hour. Again, the buzz about the place just gives me an extra boost. I also realise how lucky I am to have a job that allows me that freedom, so that in itself gives me a reason to work that bit harder to ensure I can continue doing it.

The biggest piece of advice I can give anyone from what I have learnt is to listen to your own advice. What do you tell those around you? Probably something like look after yourself, ask for help, you need a little break. Next time you give out some advice just actually think about the last time you took your own advice.

About the author

Georgina McKenna

Georgina McKenna is a New Frontiers participant and the founder of startup Count Her In, a free online and offline social community for women. With an interest in mental health, Count Her In is a response to the difficulties of true communication in modern society… [Read Georgina’s profile]

Surfing the waves of uncertainty

The only thing that is certain in the early stages of a start-up is that nothing is certain. The reality is that there is an endless range of unknowns for any founder launching their own venture. As Dave McClure, Founder of 500 Start-Ups, says:

A start-up is a company that is confused about (1) what its product is, (2) who its customers are, and (3) how to make money.

In my experience, it’s a minimum requirement for any founder to be able to live with the high degree of flux that marks the early days, months and years (yes, years!) of any start-up; otherwise, there’s likely to be a few too many sleepless nights. In fact, the best entrepreneurs seem to surf the waves of uncertainty.

Deliberate learners

Those who have ‘been there, done that’ (be it successfully or not so successfully) will often say that launching a start-up was the greatest learning experience of their lives. Some of the best founders I have worked with aren’t just happy to embrace the uncertainty referred to earlier, they either have or very quickly develop a very sharp sense of what they know and what they don’t know (but need to know). They then proactively set out to figure out some of the unknowns, reflect on the outcome and adapt their next steps accordingly. Deliberately learning every step of the way.

Glass half-full

All sorts of academic studies over the years have identified optimism as a key trait of successful entrepreneurs and there’s no doubt that it helps hugely to have a ‘glass half-full’ outlook on things. Indeed, the expression fits perfectly here, as it suggests an outlook which is on the positive side of neutral, without veering towards unbridled optimism or delusional confidence. I’m often struck by how a lot of founders will find silver linings in circumstances which might see others running for the hills. I’ve admired founders ‘positivise’ their way out of messes like lawsuits for patent infringement, the loss of a key customer or bust-ups with co-founders or investors.

Lone rangers?

Are they bold pioneers, happy to strut off into the unknown and tackle whatever obstacles arise? I’ll happily fudge the answer to this one. Yes, a lot of the successful entrepreneurs I’ve encountered are very capable people who believe in their own capacity to figure things out and often achieve remarkable amounts in the early stages. That said, anyone with their eye on genuine scale knows that they need good people around them – both as co-founders/key hires and within a wider network of ‘brains they can pick’. Finding the right people as co-founders/key hires or simply as ‘good people to know’ demands some degree of networking skill and effort. That’s quite different from rocking up at every start-up gig in town; it’s more about proactively and discerningly building a web of people who might be able to help you. Needless to say (I hope), that involves returning the favour!

Charmers?

Closely linked to the previous point, are all the guys and girls bursting with charisma? No, most certainly not. I have often observed how some participants on start-up programmes will determinedly slog away on their own for years, while others manage to develop whole teams of people who seem happy to come on board and work for free. Similarly, strong founders can keep customers and investors on their side, even when products aren’t working and timescales are slipping. It’s not unbridled charisma that makes the difference; in fact, being too ‘salesy’ is often unhelpful. Instead, having a passion for the project, communicating that effectively and being great to work with are all much more important.

Clever clogs?

Most definitely – but not at all in the sense of academic achievement or brilliance. While being a ‘genius’ is undoubtedly helpful when working on projects based on hi-tech or deep science, being ‘savvy’, ‘sharp’ and ‘on the ball’ will carry you much further along the start-up road than being highly intelligent in the conventional sense of the term.

When talking recently to a bunch of founders who have successfully scaled their start-ups, they all agreed that its people (staff, investors, customers) rather than technology or markets that consume the bulk of their effort and time. In that context, emotional intelligence is possibly the most valuable form of intelligence!

Marathon runners?

Yes, a start-up will take 150% of your energy and commitment, most likely over a distance more akin to a marathon than a sprint. I’ve often been struck by how some of the strongest founders have ‘something else’ which helps keep things in balance, be it sporting endeavours, a passion or past-time entirely unrelated to their business activity, and/or a good helping of time with their family. These will all help you find some clarity amid the sometimes ‘foggy’ and extraordinarily busy journey that is being a start-up entrepreneur. Bear in mind that nothing merits more investment than your well-being and that of your nearest and dearest!

About the author

Dominic Mullan

Dominic is the Innovation, Commercialisation & Development Manager at IADT – Institute of Art, Design & Technology in Dún Laoghaire – and the New Frontiers Programme Manager at the Media Cube. Dominic has worked closely with startups since 2000, and his expertise spans both the public and private sectors… [Read Dominic’s profile]

1. “Personal connection equals commitment”

My daughter Sienna is the inspiration behind setting up the business. She has suffered badly from eczema since she was a baby. I came up with the idea when searching for solutions that could help her and through the frustration of not being able to find products that worked for us. With 1 in 5 kids having eczema, I knew there must be many parents out there that were going through what we went through with our daughter; i.e. the sleepless nights due to unrelenting itching, not knowing what condition her skin was going to be in the following morning, and the ongoing risk of infection from the scratching. Eczema can be very distressing for both parent and child and there is no cure for it – it can only be managed and it’s all about maintenance.

Having a deep personal knowledge of the problem keeps you focused on finding a solution, and means you have the passion to persevere through the tough times.

2. “Building a business is like riding a roller coaster”

There are inevitable ups and downs when starting a business. Experience of the industry from the customer’s perspective will give you an edge.

We currently offer 2 products, with plans underway to extend the product range.

Our Shruggi is a form of scratch mitten that protects the child’s skin from the damage of scratching. It goes on like a cardigan/shrug over the child’s shoulders, making it easy for parents to put on but difficult for the child to remove. We found that traditional scratch mittens just wouldn’t stay on our daughter, so our Shruggi does just that. It is made from organic cotton and silk and comes in bright, colourful, child-friendly designs.

Our fun storybooks feature the characters of the Itchy Little Monkeys (Max and Mimi). These are characters that children relate to. The stories are fun for kids while also providing top tips and advice for parents to help them manage their child’s eczema, which complement standard clinical treatments their child may be receiving.

3. “You’ll have a competitive advantage”

Having experienced what other parents with kids that have eczema have, we know what our customers are looking for so that gives us a competitive advantage.

I AM the customer I’m targeting, so I know what other parents are going through and what it is they are searching for. I have parents regularly contacting me looking for advice on how they can best manage their little one’s eczema.

4. “You know your customer base”

With 1 in 5 kids globally suffering from eczema (more in some countries), we know there is a market for what we are selling. And since we’re able to relate to our customers, we should be positioned to make better decisions that meet their specific needs and wants.

There is no cure for eczema, it can only be managed.

The Shruggi breaks the itch-scratch cycle of eczema. When kids are itchy, they scratch. The more they scratch, the itchier their skin becomes. Scratching damages skin, with the increased risk of causing infection. Our product prevents the damage caused by scratching, therefore reducing the risk of infection and allowing skin to heal quicker, meaning less stress for child and parent.

I know from experience that looking after a child with eczema can be very stressful. When developing our brand, we aimed to remove the stress or eczema by making it as fun as possible for the child.

5. “You will keep refining your ideas”

Because our daughter lives with eczema daily, we are constantly aware of it and are always looking for better ways to help her and therefore our customers too.

As well as our Shruggi and storybooks, plans are underway to extend the product range. We are constantly thinking of the next way we can help make life easier for kids suffering from eczema.

Because our stories are based on personal experiences of dealing with a child with eczema, I haven’t run out of ideas for writing yet – there is so much we have learnt along the way that we can share with other children and parents.

So, although I have a business background and have previous experience of running a business day-to-day, it is the deep personal knowledge I have of this subject matter that makes me passionate about this business in my quest to help other kids (and their parents!) manage their eczema.

About the author

Nicola McDonnell

Nicola is a New Frontiers alumna and the founder of Itchy Little Monkeys. The startup provides solutions for young children with eczema; its product range currently consists of the Shruggi – an innovative form of scratch mitten – and a range of fun storybooks… [Read Nicola’s profile]

Why strategy?

The starting point for a lot of organisations is that people are too busy working away at an operational level making day-to-day things happen. Sometimes, people think they have a common understanding of where the organisation is going, but often – with some probing – it becomes clear that they don’t. Often, ideas about what the organisation might do to support growth are floating around and are either not acted upon at all, or are acted on in an ad hoc way, depending on the forcefulness of the originator of the idea. The development of a proper strategy has the effect of facilitating a common understanding of where the organisation is going, how it’s going to get there and what goals and action are required to make that happen. A lovely analogy I’ve seen is that of a magnet lining all the iron filings up to point in the same direction.

There are various schools of thought on how important goal-setting is in achieving results. Some argue that if you have a strong vision, everything else will fall into place; others, to varying degrees, argue for the necessity of setting goals and developing action plans to deliver those goals. While I’ve no doubt that people have achieved amazing things through vision alone, setting goals and developing action plans generally provides focus and yields better and faster results.

What do you want?

Consider how you would answer the following questions:

What’s your organisation’s VISION?
That is, what change do you want to see in the world?
What’s your MISSION?
In other words, what is your role in that change?
What’s your TOP LEVEL GOAL?
What is your more specific, measurable, time-bound goal?
What STRATEGY are you going to pursue to deliver on that mission?
What strategic objectives will you set to support that overall strategy? What actions are necessary and when? Who else needs to be involved? How will you measure success?

What’s important to you?

But before embarking on any of this, it’s important to ensure that what you’re setting out to do is in harmony with your values.

Values are principles, standards or qualities we hold to be important. Those cited frequently include integrity, innovation, and family… however, there are a whole host of possibilities, for example: money, success, freedom and loyalty. There is no point in pursuing a mission or goal that conflicts with your organisational values as, eventually, something will give, so it is very important to spend some time identifying values upfront. For example, if conservation or environmental protection is a priority for your organisation, then pursuing goals that conflict with these will not sit well and is unlikely to be successful.

How to build a strategy – the process

Once you’ve defined your values, you can work your way through the process shown, determining your vision and your mission, as defined above. For example, your vision may be that the expected standard of coffee in Ireland would be the same as that in New Zealand and your mission may be to be recognised as the best local cafe(s) in Ireland. Then, it helps to step back and do some analysis, both of the context and of your organisation. What’s the environment like? What forces are at play? What are the key success factors for the industry? How well do you perform versus your competitors? A gap analysis will highlight the knowledge, skills and resources that will help you get from A to B, but also the constraints within which you may have to operate.

There are some great tools to help analysis and understanding of your organisation, for example, a simple SWOT analysis, Osterwalder’s Business Model Canvas, and the ‘Prevailing Logic’ tool.

Next, step back again and take some time to generate some ideas for possible goals and actions that will help you achieve your mission. Again, there are lots of possible approaches, but good old-fashioned brainstorming with a pen and some post-its is still very effective.

It’s now time to define your top level goal – what’s a time-bound, measurable goal you can set yourself in pursuit of your mission? For example, you may decide that you will open your first cafe in Dublin in one year’s time, or that you will have X cafes with a specific profit in 3 years’ time. What’s your strategy to get there – i.e. how are you going to get there? Set yourself five or six smaller strategic objectives – they might be concerned with finance, sourcing of premises, hiring good staff, barista training, roasting training, sourcing of equipment, sourcing of beans – the key is that they, together, will deliver your top level goal and that they are measurable and time-bound.

This is also the time to agree on what you’re NOT going to do. There may well be fantastic ideas generated at the brainstorming phase that have to be parked – the team will have to prioritise and agree what is feasible within agreed resource constraints; what needs to be increased, reduced and eliminated in order to create. No organisation has infinite resources and in order to effectively pursue agreed strategic objectives, it is essential that resources do not get pulled six months down the line to work on someone’s latest hobby horse. Unless, of course, there is an agreed change in strategy.

Action plan

Referring back to the ideas generated during your brainstorming, define the actions necessary to deliver on each of your 5-6 Strategic Objectives. You can download a template to help you organise the action items under each strategic objective from my website. What’s important is that you have the resources to pursue the actions and that you set yourself targets and milestones. It’s also advisable to decide on a small number of KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) that measure how well you’re doing on a month-by-month basis. The downloadable template can be used as a live document to track progress and KPIs.

It’s worth spending a bit of time at this stage considering the risks to your plan and working out some contingency plans.

Review

As many have said before me, “…the only sure thing is change,” so there’s nothing surer than the fact that your plan will require adapting at some stage. In fact, being flexible and being able to respond to changing circumstances is a strength, so periodic review of your plan is important, not just to ensure that you are on track but to ensure that what you’re pursuing and what you’re doing are still relevant.

New Frontiers -Business strategy process - Mary Carroll

Maintaining action

The biggest challenge many organisations face is implementation. All too often, they get sucked back into spending all their time on day-to-day operational issues. Dedicating the required resources, accountability and periodic review of the strategic action plan is absolutely critical – otherwise the strategy document will just gather dust on a shelf.

One of the big advantages of determining your mission, setting strategic objectives and detailing an action plan is that all actions should lead back to your mission. Having an action plan allows you to question whether what you’re doing right now is going to bring you closer to your mission. If not, why are you doing it?

About the author

Mary Carroll New Frontiers

Mary Carroll

Mary Carroll is a business strategist and coach with over 25 years’ experience in design engineering, management consulting and business development. She is also an Enterprise Ireland mentor… [Read Mary’s profile]

Maintain a healthy balance

Some business owners (and I was of this frame of mind for a while) think that business expansion is not going to affect their family life, their health, or their personal finances; and that they can be separated from the ongoing pressures of growing the business. Well, I have found that this is definitely not the case! One major change I have made in recent times is to safeguard myself against poor health by getting regular exercise, eating well and spending quality time (vs. quantity time) with family members. This is as important as anything else.

Prepare the whole team for growth

Business growth and expansion brings pressures to your daily systems, and your current structure and team may not have had the time or experience to get geared up for increased production or services due to a sudden growth in demand for your product. Our team had to increase production rapidly to cope with the influx of new sales over a short period of time. Luckily, we were prepared for this potential growth from the beginning and had production capacity schedules to call on and put into action. The team were motivated to deal with this quick growth and it was all hands on deck!

Keep an eye on cash flow

Cash flow is critical to successful expansion, as new timings of payables and receivables can cause financial strain. When expanding and increasing production, it is really important that the daily cash flow is strictly monitored to insure that your company can maintain its daily out. Cash is king – we’ve all heard this saying and it is more true today than ever before, especially for a small business expanding. A healthy profit may look nice on your financial statements, but if capital expenditures or extending credit terms are draining your cash, you won’t be able to stay in business for long. Too often, small business owners fail to focus enough on cash flow generation. For small businesses, handling business accounting and taxes may be within the capabilities of the business owners, but professional help is usually a good idea. Getting assistance with managing cash and the bookkeeping can allow you to excel when others are calling it quits.

Think about customer service

When focusing on growth and rushing to meet a rise in demand, customer service can sometimes slip. As a company who prides itself on customer service levels it was crucial that we ensured the continuing level of service to our loyal customers whilst bringing new customers on board. Smartphones, social media, texting, email, Twitter and other communication channels are making it easy for businesses and individuals to get their messages out. Figuring out the right marketing channels is key for businesses to be successful in the future. These channels are equally valuable when it comes to customer service.

We quickly identified that our key customers were avid users of Twitter and Instagram. By running polls and asking for feedback from our followers, we were able to identify what new aspects of our existing products these customers wanted. Identifying what our customers want and doing a better job of giving it to them has made all the difference in our expansion and planning for the future.

Take employees with you

Employees can become uneasy about change. From the beginning of our business, we shared our vision of growth with our employees. We stirred in them the passion for growth and productivity that we needed to push forward and develop our products. We identified and made the need for change well-known throughout the business. We also facilitated ownership of this change by involving employees in the planning and implementation processes. We encouraged them to offer suggestions of solutions to problems that arose from our scaling activities. We gave genuine regard to the concerns of our employees, and we put procedures in place to monitor the effects of change.

There’s no one way to scale a business, but by ensuring you have the right vision and culture in place, backed by strong procedures, you’ll give yourself the best chance of success. Strong leadership is important, but so it taking your team and your customer base along with you. Our business is growing and, as a team, so are we!

About the author

Noreen Doyle

Noreen Doyle is a New Frontiers past participant, and the co-founder and CEO of Irish Biltong Co. The company produces an award-winning, 100% Irish, gourmet beef snack that is a favourite of sportspeople and nutrition experts around the country… [Read Noreen’s profile]

Where did I find these awesome resources?

Most of the resources I have come across were from experts I follow on Twitter – either blog posts they wrote themselves, or others that they recommend.

The articles here are applicable, in my view, for both very early stage startups in the search for Product Market Fit (PMF) from €0 to €1M annual recurring revenue, as well as post-PMF startups looking to scale from €1M annual recurring revenue upwards.

Why should you bother reading any of what I’m suggesting?

Firstly, all credit for the content must go to the various trail-blazing authors behind the linked articles, and I’d strongly recommend you to dig deeper into the areas where you feel you and your business can learn the most.

Secondly, a disclaimer. I don’t claim to have a complete handle on all of this – far from it, in fact. That’s the very reason I’ve invested time (and some money) endeavouring to give myself that better understanding.

Moving outside our comfort zones

I’ve always believed that it’s critical to push yourself (and others) beyond the comfort zones of our learning experiences to date. How else otherwise do we grow? How do we learn from the mistakes of others without reading about and learning from them?

From a business perspective – and especially a startup business perspective – a theme that runs through all of the resources is this: if you want to put yourself into the less than 1% of startups who’ve a decent chance of making a commercial success of your idea, then you need to think differently. And the best starting point is to learn from others who’ve been there before, who can tell you the things that they dearly wished someone had told them the first time round. To learn from the best.

The resources in this guide are principally focussed on the engine of your business. But it’s how the entrepreneurs (some now venture capitalists) featured here did it that is interesting. They roll up their proverbial sleeves and ‘get their hands dirty’. There’s no corner of your business that they don’t look into. And they do this for good reason. They want to show you that you need to have a complete understanding of every facet of your business; and it’s your metrics that tell you how the business is doing.

Read these resources, learn to love them, and think of them as a trusted old friend who meets you for a coffee every couple of months and asks you: “But seriously, {insert name here}, are you sure you know what you’re doing with this whole startup lark?”

If you learn from these resources, you’ll reduce your risk of failure, and I reckon you’ll be able to look that friend in the eye and reply, with honesty and conviction, and say: “Yes, my old friend, I do.”

Some SaaS definitions

You’re probably already familiar with these definitions, but just in case you’re not, let’s agree some terms that will appear frequently in the resources:

Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR)

This is the lifeblood of your business, and probably the bedrock metric against which all others are measured. There are four generally accepted definitions of Monthly Recurring Revenue:

New MRR: new customers coming on board, and the revenue that they bring with them
Expansion MRR: upgrades from existing customers, i.e. your existing customers buying more from you than they did the previous month. Remember, ‘expand’ means getting bigger
Contraction MRR: downgrades from existing customers, i.e. your existing customers buying less from you than they did the previous month. Remember, ‘contract’ means getting smaller
Cancelled MRR: cancellations by existing customers, i.e. the dreaded ‘churn’ where you lose a customer completely

Net expansion MRR: Coming back to that word I just used in the cancelled MRR definition. One variant on that would be the definition for ‘Net Churn’ or ‘Net Expansion MRR’. This is where Net Expansion MRR grows faster than gross CMRR (Cumulative Monthly Recurring Revenue from that prior period) i.e. more upgrades than downgrades per calendar month, taking into account any downgrades on a monthly basis. This is the sweet spot that as a startup you should be aiming for.

So we can say that “net expansion” is therefore the difference between Expansion MRR (upgrades from existing customers) and Contraction MRR (downgrades from existing customers).

Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)

One other important definition (and there are of course many more) would be understanding your CAC, your Customer Acquisition Cost. What does it ‘cost’ the business to acquire a new customer? Broadly speaking, this is calculated by taking your sales & marketing costs and dividing that by the number of new customers in (measured quarterly).

Why is CAC so important in a SaaS business? Because your CAC (the cost to acquire your new customer) is pretty much incurred up front. But the return – the revenue that your newly acquired customer pays to you on a monthly (or otherwise) basis – comes in to your business in delayed (probably monthly) stages. So, it can actually take you (depending on your CAC and MRR) sometimes a year or more before your customer has paid you more than the cost incurred to your business in the effort to acquire them as a customer in the first place! That’s expensive.

Economics 101! That sounds like you’re going to have work out how you acquire those customers, when the revenue to acquire them comes in so late. So, without further ado, here’s a list of some of my favourite experts in the area of SaaS, who I wish I’d known about a long time ago.

SaaS resource list

“Pirate” Metrics

Blog name: 500 Hats

Blog focus: Startups, tech, VC funding

Author’s background: Dave McClure is a venture capitalist and founding partner at 500 Startups, a venture capital firm and startup incubator headquartered in Silicon Valley, founded by PayPal and Google alumni with over $250M in assets under management.

Why it’s worth reading: The whole blog has masses to offer, but I’m specifically recommending an article from 2007 called ‘Pirate Metrics’. Pirate Metrics is just a short-hand way to remember McClure’s acronym, AARRR, for what he considers to be the fundamentals to the customer lifecycle. (Go on, say it aloud: AARRR, pretending to be a pirate! Now you get it!)

McClure talks about what he terms the five steps to success in the customer lifecycle. Understanding where your business is at – how it’s measuring up – in each of those 5 AARRR steps, will help you determine your path of the journey towards success. AARRR stands for:

Acquisition: users coming to your site from various channels

Activation: users enjoying their first visit – a ‘happy’ user experience

Retention: users come back to your site, visiting it multiple times

Referral: users like your product enough to refer it on to others

Revenue: users conduct some monetization behaviour

Recommended reading: Startup Metrics for Pirates: AARRR!

Andreessen Horowitz

Blog name: A16z.com

Blog focus: Andreessen Horowitz backs bold entrepreneurs who move fast, think big, and are committed to building the next major franchises in technology. Founded by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, the firm provides entrepreneurs with access to expertise and insights in innovation, executive and technical talent, market intelligence, policy and regulatory affairs, business development, and marketing and brand-building.

Author’s background: See above.

Why it’s worth reading: “The key difference between traditional software and software as a service: Growth hurts (but only at first).”

Recommended reading: Understanding SaaS: Why the Pundits Have It Wrong

David Skok – For Entrepreneurs

Blog name: For Entrepreneurs

Blog focus: This isn’t light reading. But it contains the keys to the kingdom in understanding this area.

Author’s background: Slok started his first company a few months after leaving university at the age of 21, and over the next 25 years founded a total of four companies (Skok Systems, Corporate Software Europe, Watermark Software, and SilverStream Software) and did one turnaround (Xionics). Three of the companies went public, one was acquired, and one initially succeeded, but then failed when he moved the company to the US. After 25 years as an entrepreneur, he became a venture capital partner at Matrix Partners, the firm that had backed his last two companies.

Why it’s worth reading: “This article is a comprehensive and detailed look at the key metrics that are needed to understand and optimize a SaaS business.”

Tomasz Tunguz – Venture capitalist blog

Blog name: TomTonguz.com

Blog focus: See author’s background below.

Author’s background: A partner at Redpoint (VC firm) who writes daily, data-driven blog posts about key questions facing startups, including how to fund raise, startup benchmarks, management best practices and team building. He co-authored the book, Winning with Data.

Why it’s worth reading: Great data-centric unpacking of questions that should be being asked by all startups.

Recommended reading: The Importance of Payback Period for SaaS Startups

Andrew Chen

Blog name: @andrewchen

Blog focus: “long-form essays on what’s going on here in Silicon Valley.”

Author’s background: Andrew Chen works at Uber, where he heads up driver acquisition programmes for the Growth team. He writes about mobile, metrics, and growth. He is an advisor/investor for tech startups including AngelList, Barkbox, Dropbox, Grovo, Kiva, Product Hunt, Qualaroo, Wanelo, and ZenPayroll. Previously, he was an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Mohr Davidow Ventures, a Silicon Valley-based firm with $2B under management. Prior to MDV, Andrew was director of product marketing at Audience Science, where he started up the ad network business that today reaches over 380 million uniques. He holds a B.S. in Applied Mathematics from the University of Washington.

Why it’s worth reading: Don’t trust me, trust Eric Ries, author of The Lean Startup: “One of the best entrepreneurship blogs of all time.”

Recommended reading: Minimum Desirable Product

Price Intelligently – Price Sensitivity Analysis and your SaaS Metrics

Blog name: Price Intelligently

Blog focus: Helping SaaS leaders align the right product to the right customer for the right price in order to boost revenue and learn more about their customer.

Author’s background: See below.

Why it’s worth reading: The authors drill into you that pricing is a process, and probably the single most valuable and overlooked lever in your SaaS business – many SaaS companies will happily spend thousands of hours building and refining their product, but may only dedicate 6 hours to pricing it – and yet wonder why their business with an awesome product went swirling down the drain.

Jason Lemkin – SaaStr Blog – getting from $0M to $100M faster

Blog name: SaaStr

Blog focus: SaaStr began in 2012 as a simple attempt via a WordPress blog, together with a few answers on Quora, to help share back Jason M. Lemkin’s learnings of going from $0 to $100M ARR with the next generation of great SaaS and B2B entrepreneurs. It has since gone on to become the largest community of SaaS founders and entrepreneurs, with over 3 million views per month and 20 million+ views on Quora, and events hosted throughout the year.

Author’s background: Two time tech entrepreneur (with two successful exits to his name), Lemkin moved into the world of venture capital. Previously CEP of EchoSign, online digital signature tech company acquired by Adobe. What differentiated him was his ability to spot the gap in the resources available to someone interested in the entire journey of a start-up, from idea through to acquisition.

Why it’s worth reading: What distinguishes his blog is his unflinching, searing honesty, his consistent supply of real life examples for the the theories he espouses, and his unrelenting encouragement and infusion of belief in the underlying revolutionary aspect of the SaaS model business model. If you haven’t yet started learning from him, he’d be one of the first I’d encourage you to look at. He’s also co-authored a book called From Impossible to Inevitable with Aaron Ross, who lead the outbound sales and prospecting team at Salesforce which added an extra $100M of revenue. Lemkin’s the founder of arguably the world’s largest pure SaaS conference.

This is the blog of the entrepreneur (exits @ $12M and then $50M) turned VC exclusively focusing on Saas. His writing is compelling and highly educational.

Recommended reading: How to Know When You’ve Hit Initial Traction in SaaS. The Moment When You’ve Got A Real Company. I also highly recommend that you sign up to their weekly articles. For example in his article, The Top 10 Mistakes First Time SaaS Founders Make, point no. 7 is bang on for scaling enterprise level software sales.

Mistake #7: Not going up-market fast enough. Dude. If you have one $100k customer, you can get 2, and then 10. And if you have one $100k customer, you really think the next one can’t pay $150k? Of course they can. Don’t be scared. Don’t be timid. Push up market as fast and as hard as you can. Make the ask. Do it.

Chaotic Flow by Joel York – 10-part guide on SaaS metrics

Blog name: SaaS Blog by Joel York of Chaotic Flow

Blog focus: SaaS, coming from a mathematical background.

Author’s background: CalTech and Cornell scientist and technologist who’s been making and marketing and writing about B2B software (desktop, enterprise, SaaS) for the last 20 years.

Why it’s worth reading: Joel York’s blog contains razor-sharp articulations of all SaaS metrics, and he’s been a pioneer in assisting other entrepreneurs to better understand the area. His illustrations of the maths underlying some of the concepts can help even people who struggle, like me, with basic algebra! He’s written an incredibly useful guide to SaaS metrics.

Recommended reading: In his series on SaaS Metrics and their inter-relating impact on each other, he’s written a great 10 part series of articles which are all in my view well worth reading. It discusses:

Inside Intercom – the blog for Intercom

Blog name: Inside Intercom

Blog focus: Design, customer experience, startups and the business of software.

Author’s background: Irish entrepreneurs build global customer software platform with a suite of products for live chat, marketing, feedback and support – and then write about the experience as they go.

Why it’s worth reading: Beautifully put together posts that are actionable and written from the entrepreneur’s perspective (which is rarer than you’d think).

Recommended reading: SaaS Metrics for Fundraising

See also:

This 2008 unrelated guest post on another blog that relates to the SaaS Magic Number

Why the Quick Ratio is a Crucial SaaS Metric

Paul Graham

Blog name: Paul Graham

Blog focus: All matters startup and technology rated.

Author’s background: Paul Graham is a programmer, writer, and investor. In 1995, he and Robert Morris started Viaweb, the first Software as a Service company. Viaweb was acquired by Yahoo in 1998 and became Yahoo Store. In 2001, he started publishing essays on paulgraham.com, which in 2015 got 34 million page views. In 2005, he and Jessica Livingston, Robert Morris, and Trevor Blackwell started Y Combinator, the first of a new type of startup incubator. Since 2005, Y Combinator has funded over 1,000 startups, including Dropbox, Airbnb, Stripe, and Reddit.

Why it’s worth reading: Absolute cutting-edge thinking. He’s one of the most influential thought-leaders in technology today.

Recommended reading: Startup=Growth

See also: his book, Hackers & Painters: Big Ideas from the Computer Age

About the author

David Miller

David is a New Frontiers alumnus and the CEO and co-founder of Complyfile. A successful litigation solicitor in a previous life, David is now on an entrepreneurial journey to develop a world-class online volunteer recruitment compliance software tool… [Read David’s profile]

Tag: business development

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