Daily Post #67 The 4D Model

When sorting through email (and handling time in general) I find the 4D model works well for me. The four…

Daily Post #7 Skunk Works

Does your company encourage skunk works?

Daily Post #5 First Obtainable Market

When doing your TAM, SAM, SOM calculations for early startups, don’t forget to add FOM! First Obtainable Market!

That’s the crying customer, the early adopter, the one that immediately gets what you are doing and will become your biggest…

Daily Post #36 Husqvarna CTO Explain the Challenges of Industry regarding AI

Listening to Husqvarna CTO explain the challenges of industry regarding AI and how it is disrupting their business.

Daily Post #68 Stop saying Basically

One of the most overused words in presentations today is “Basically” (together with “Essentially” and other common crutch words; “like”, “you know” etc. )

Using the words correctly, both the words basically and essentially are used to…

Daily Post #74 Empower Others Something Worthy

For those of you that have seen the first Star Wars movie you might recall the scene where Obi-Wan Kenobi gives Luke Skywalked the lightsaber.

Did you ever reflect on that he didn’t show off and say “look Luke how good I am…

Daily Post #62 Astrology Personas

When creating personas for customer segmentation, don’t fall into the demographics trap of using blunt data, like age, gender, location, occupation, ethnicity etc.

They can be keys to personal needs if they can describe social markers in a tribe…

Daily Post #6 MAYA Principle

One of the paradoxes you tend to get stuck in as an innovator, is being appreciated for being visionary and open minded yet not selling anything since no-one can buy what you are selling yet (or understand what your talking about…). Please then remember the MAYA Principle, Most…

Daily Post #16 Assumption

When playing around with your business idea and creating your first lean canvas (too early for a full bmc) you’ll get to the point where the whole thing is based on a lot of assumptions. You assume there is a need in the market that you think a certain group of people might have…

Daily Post #71 Feel Free To Ask

We can all get stuck with the task at hand. We might not have time, we might not know WHAT to do, HOW to do, or WHO to ask.

If you can’t DO, for any reason; time, what, how, who, whatever, then PLEASE put your hand up and say so.

Daily Post #8 Zmartfone Blocker

The greatest gift to give.

Today, with one of the biggest Swedish holiday weekends coming up, Midsummer, here’s a reminder to us all to spend time where we actually ARE. Let’s enjoy, or get frustrated by, the people around us, the ones that are…

Daily Post #75 Forgetting about the Paying Customer

Too many startups and scaleups seem to completely forget about the paying customer and what a profitable business actually is.

When you are planning your pilots and beta tests, at least TRY to run them together…

Daily Post #70 Difference Between Hearing Something and Understanding

They say that the longest two feet is the distance between your head and your gut, meaning that there’s a big difference between hearing something and rationally understanding what is said, to emotionally…

Daily Post #72 Skills To Bulid A Team

When building a team, after going over the basics (skills, wants, needs, adds) take a minute to do the shopping centre test.

Imagine strolling through a large shopping centre on a Sunday afternoon, and bumping into your new colleague. How…

Daily Post #58 The Magic of Gamification

The magic of gamification

What makes a game work really well, what gives it playability and stickyness, is the combination of quick and epic wins. You grind away, succeeding with small steps along the way, rewarded with small tokens…

Daily Post #37 Growth On User Base

Make small, become big.

Focus on growing you user base, number of paying customers and members instead of adding yet another functionality or feature.

Daily Post #49 Project Management CRM tools.

Project management (and CRM) systems are like diets. It doesn’t really matter which one you use, as long as you stick to one and actually use it without cheating, it will work.

Daily Post #66 Hire Good People

When looking for people to build an organisation, make sure to always hire UP. Look for people who will make you better and that will challenge you to achieve more. When you get to the point when you realize that you wouldn’t have gotten the job yourself if you applied…

Daily Post #39 Attention To Dedicated Employees

One of my biggest mistakes as a leader was when I thought I needed to spend most of my attention helping/fixing/negotiating with the disgruntled few, the ones that demanded all the attention and that never were satisfied. One day one of my most…

Daily Post #63 Setting Up a Habit

Most people fail when trying to start a new habit or routine; be it exercise, learning a new language, spending less time on email or whatever.

When they fail, it’s really easy to blame their will-power and say “they just didn’t want it enough”…

Daily Post #60 Understanding Others

A polarized debate climate is a lot about either-or, black-white, my way or the high way.

The core issue is, imho, that we have moved away from “having an opinion” to “standing up for something” which make all arguments against your case an…

Daily Post #69 Running a Sustainable Business

Of course a business needs to make money, anything else would be naive to think. We all need to pay rent, food, servers, phone bills and everything else that our transaction based society is built upon, BUT, it differs a lot on HOW and WHY you make…

Daily Post # 73 Scene Presence

When rehearsing your pitch, make sure to do it standing up. It will make your body more comfortable with standing in front of an audience whilst talking.

It might sound like a stupid detail, but you need to work on all the small details to improve…

Daily Post #23 Using analogies

We all try to understand the world around us by relating unknown things to things we know. That’s why we describe a new band as a mix of X and Y, or putting a feeling into words by saying “it’s like I’m….”.

Daily Post #44 Rehearsing Your Pitch, Talk or Speech

The most common mistake when planning for a talk, pitch or speech is not enough rehearsal. Most of us (yes, me too) take it to the point when we feel we know the words, when we can remember what to say.
Ok good. That puts you at the half…

Daily Post #26 Communication with Customers

When talking to customers, don’t start by showing them your product or service and asking if they would use it or pay for it, chance is you’ll get both false positives as well as false negatives.

Daily Post #19 Trying to Get it Right

It’s not about being right, it’s about trying to get it right. And to keep on trying to get it more right today and tomorrow than yesterday.

Ask humbly for advice, listen to people who have tried and succeeded as well as those that tried…

Daily Post # 18 Market

If you find yourself having to constantly push, convince, cajole or persuade to get people to use, pay, buy or sign-up, you’re doing something wrong.

You need to create market pull, not spend time, energy and money on marketing push.

Daily Post # 54Words Meaning

Expression of the day: “Going Greta” (Att “göra en Greta” eller att “Gå Greta på något” på Svenska)

Daily Post #52 Basic rule of Networking ask for what you need.

Basic rule of networking — ask for what you need.

When networking, make sure to know what you are in need of, what you want to ask for. You never know when someone will ask “So how can I help…

Daily Post #50 Understanding Different Users

Crossing the chasm between user groups.

When starting out, you (hopefully) quickly attract a first following, usually called innovators and early adopters, the first 10–15%. They are the almost-fanatics, your ambassadors, the…

Daily Post #65 Learning To Listen

We hear presentations all the time, most of them are accompanied by images, still or moving.

We make presentations all the time, most of the time with the support of images, still or moving. When was the last time you only listened to a…

Daily Post #25 Earn Your Share

Earn your share. Remember that you are competing for:

• Share of mind — They say we are exposed to 5000 brand impressions per day, of which we actually see 500 of which we actually interact with are 50 of which we can recall are 5.

Daily Post # 53 Assumptions and Estimates

Do the math, in reverse!

Most startup budgets start off with assumptions and estimates on how X customers will buy your product Y times over Z period, leading to a revenue potential.

Daily Post #45 Paying it Forward

So you might of heard of the Paying it Forward culture, (many of you that have been to Silicon Valley…

Daily Post #47 What is a Startup?

One very common mistake people make is to assume and consider a startup to be a company. It is not.

Daily Post #9 Open Innovation

Open Innovation is a mindset, not web page or a competition.

If you are serious about opening up for innovation, you need to rethink how you do things in general, and how much you actually invite to co-create.

Daily Post #17 Idea

So you have a great idea that no one seems to have thought about before, ever. Well, I can say with almost 100% accuracy that you are out bicycling (as we say in Swedish).

I will bet you a that large number of people have thought of solving the exact same problem you…

Daily Post #46 The Joy of Mondays

It’s Monday and we have another fantastic week ahead of us. You were just given yet one more opportunity to do a bit better than last week.

Most of us go through our weeks in a very reactive state, just waiting for things to happen and then…

Daily Post #56 Building Team

build a team

To be able to scale, accelerate and become more than you are today, you need to build a team of people that can do things you can’t, won’t or shouldn’t do. Business ideas run by a person that never lets anyone in will never become more than…

Daily Post #48 Doing the Right Thing.

Don’t confuse doing a lot of things with doing the right things. It’s easy to get stuck in…

Daily Post #33 Physical Exercise

Remember that physical exercise improves most of your mental abilities; creativity, endurance, ability to focus and more.

Don’t feel forced to start training because you need to lose weight or look better, start training because you want to…

Daily Post #21 Painkiller or Vitamin?

You can choose to relieve the symptoms or you can choose to cure the underlying disease, either way make sure you know which one you are working on.

Are you vitamins or morphine? Are you a painkiller or a penicillin?

Daily Post #20 Start a Dialogue

To understand unmet or unknown needs, start a dialogue with your users/customers/members, but don’t listen to what they say. Try instead to understand what they mean.

Very few of us can clearly articulate what exactly is missing to solve a problem…

Daily Post #28 Be Focused

If you try to sell everything to everyone, chance is you won’t sell anything to anyone.

Dare to be focused, dare to narrow down on your scope. Start out laser focused and widen as you go along.

Daily Post #12 Need

The obvious need has a defined customer with a conscious desire, as opposed to just “need” which is a much broader term and describes a someone that perceives a need they want met, but not necessarily the way you want to meet it so they might need a nudge, explanation or marketing to get them…

Daily Post #30 Communication Based on What Others Want or Need to Hear

One of my favorite stories regarding information comes from my friend Klas Hallberg — He was giving a talk to a company and as usual…

Daily Post #24 Context

Context. Every idea lives, thrives or dies in context.

Nothing is ever isolated.

When describing your idea, make sure to be able to describe its context, the world around it, what’s going on, fashions, trends; developments that you…

Daily Post #51 Paradoxes of Time.

Paradoxes of time

• Our feeling that future is always an eternity, but the past was only an instant.
• Being convinced that it has to be released tomorrow, but we all know it won’t matter if it takes (and probably will…

Daily Post #55 Electric Scooter

Expression of the day “Scooter Tourettes” (Elscooter-tourettes på Svenska)

When walking happily along, minding your own business with a smile on your face. You look up to see a grown person on an electric scooter headed straight at you at full…

Daily Post # 14 Never Lower the Price

When selling, never lower the price without changing the product.

I remember being sent an offer of 200 000 USD for a job, to which I answered “too much”, leading to them offering 100 000 USD for the same job.

Daily Post #13 Money

When asking for money from an investor, always try to explain what the money will help you achieve. Never ask for money just because you “need it”, that’s always the hardest, and sometimes impossible, sell.

Daily Post #61 People Hold Others in Difficult Situations

When building a professional board of directors or advisory board, try to find people who will be there for you when the storm is raging, you’ve lost sight of the horizon and all feels hopeless.

Daily Post #57 75 Days to Make a Change

We are now 4 months away from Christmas, New Year and the magic year of 2020. We have been calling it “The Future” for so long that we haven’t even seen it coming.

Daily Post #31 Nutmeg

You never know what the future holds, only that it will be different than what you know today.

Back in the early 1600-s, one of the most sought after spices was nutmeg, and that was mainly grown on a few islands in Indonesia.

Daily Post #27 Don’t blame competitors for your failure.

Never complain or trash talk competitors that are doing better than you are. Obviously they are doing something better than you are.

Daily Post #22 It’s never time’s fault

If you can’t finish your assigned task in your assigned time, there is either something wrong with the task, or there is something wrong with you.

There is never anything wrong with time.

Daily Post #15 Digital Detox

Here’s a simple yet effective summer “digital detox” tip:

Turn off all app notifications in your cellphone, both sound and visuals, especially the app icon badges and the sounds that mark that something “super important” has happened, like the number…