Eric von Hippel’s concept of early adopters versus lead users is well established. How does it work in practice, though? And why is it so hard to cross that famous chasm? Let’s have a look at how this process can unfold, looking at a real life example. It
Image courtesy of flushirts Everyone wants their application to “spread virally”. And why shouldn’t they? Viral growth resolves at least part of the expensive and complicated headache of actually marketing your application, by getting the application to grow all by itself. So, then, the question that forms on the
In large corporations, almost everything new is impossible. Try to do anything new, and typically you are met with dozens of reasons why it can’t be done. As a consultant (which I was throughout my time in the corporate world), however, you’ve been hired to get something specific
Update: This article was written in 2009. Back then, the advice below made sense, since getting a merchant account was necessary to be able to take payments online. Today, this is no longer the case. Skip the article below: just use GoCardless or Stripe. Back to the article... Getting a
[ Russian translation ] It seems like a fool-proof plan: start up with a close friend. You’ll get along (obviously), and you’ll get to share the exciting, fantastic, scary experience of starting up with someone you care about. It’s not a bad idea, but there are a few caveats
Let’s say you’re 17, a high school student, passionate about web start-ups, and you just know that you’ll be starting your own one day. Should you go to university first? Should you get a degree? What use will it be? Is it worth it? Should you study
