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Greg McAdoo

Elements of a sustainable company

• Clarity of purpose
  • How concise are you? Know your business. Define Problem and solution. Know the problem Get out early and interate. Don’t expect a perfect product with initial release. Get feedback. Know your competition. Exploit a hole in your competition. Do something they they’re afraid to do. Understand the market
• Spectacular market
• Alleviate customer pain
  
  • “Look for someone whose hair is on fire and sell them a firehose.”
    • They won’t care about the details
    • It’s ok to cut corners if necessary
• Incredible Product Focus
• Real Operating Margins
• Frugality
• Inferno with a single match
• Know demographics, statistics, etc.
• Know yourself – functional contributor, go the distance, be honest.

If you’re going into a gray area with your business idea, Show the current trajectory of law when presenting to a VC.

Mark Zuckerberg

Importance of being technical

• Instead of answer questions – build tools

Give power to the people on the organization who can do the things they need to do. Technical people for marketing roles, support, etc.

Joel Lehrer

Do’s and Don’ts of Patents for Micro-statups Patents encourage innovation

• Must not have been disclosed public for one year.
• You need to be the inventor
• Takes about a year and can cost a lot of money
• Does not guarantee you can practice the invention.
• Exclude others from using your idea/invention.

Why does anyone care?

• Wall out competitors
• Defense
• Potential income – licensing
• Value on exit
• Credibility to investors – makes you think about what you’re doing that’s different
• Articulated description of market differentiation.

Joel on Patents

• Work on your own time and equipment
• Understand your current obligations
• Document code provence
• Get assignments
• File something before you launch
• Do some (but not too much) searching.
  • Google Patents
• Focus on the product, not patents
• do not worry about the big boys (for patent infringement that is)

Patents on $500/year

• Monitor blogs and bulletin boards ($0)
• Monitor newly issued patents and publications ($0)
• Hire a search firm (NERAC, INREA) ($500 or less)
• Learn how to write a provisional ($0)
• Draft and file your own provisional ($100)

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