Startup & Innovation Library

I care a lot about innovation. Given today's industrial architecture, that means I care a lot about startups, since large corporations are now mostly process oriented, leaving actual innovation to smaller organizations.

Partially on request of Yes!Delft, the TU Delft startup incubator, I have created this 'Library' page with links to various articles relevant to innovation & startup life. I also include some of my own work among the links.

I know very little about the 'business to consumer' business, so if you are looking for how to create the new Twitter or the new AirBNB, this page is thin on advice. But there is a lot about innovation and business to business.

I also maintain a series of posts on (European) innovation & capabilities.

Articles and blogs:

• Camels and Rubber Duckies - on pricing. Joel Spolsky has a lot more relevant things to say too.
• Marc Andreessen's startup compendium. Of specific note, The Moby Dick theory of big companies and Why the initial business plan does not matter that much
• Mark Suster's blog. Today he is a VC, but he used to be an entrepreneur. Now he shares his own pearls of wisdom
• Looking bigger, on how to solve the problem of any startup: no serious enterprise wants to do business with a tiny company.
• Meet the new enterprise customer, he's a lot like the old customer, on how large organizations buy things, and why you will probably need serious (and expensive) sales guys
• The Schlep - your startup WILL involve some really hard work that is entirely unsexy. There's no avoiding it. Seen another way, it is why other people aren't where you want to be yet. They haven't done.. the schlep.

My own articles & presentations:

• Will your startup idea be successful? I don't know. But here's a checklist before you approach people who could help you.
• The Demo: rules of the road, some things I have learned about doing demos.
• The last pivot: to the status quo, for when you have arrived and encounter new customers not looking for the latest and greatest
• On startup sales: reaching the right people within your customer.. in time
• How about some actual innovation: Inventing the transistor and landing a nuclear robot on Mars
• Interview at Startup Grind Rotterdam, on business, startups and innovation (with video)
• Tin cans, can openers and solar power: explaining the snail’s pace of innovation
• Being a sophisticated & credible customer, and how to deal with one that isn't
• Interview from book 'De natuurkundige ondernemer' by Kees van den Bos and Witek Nawara (Dutch)
• 'Marketing, Market research, Market trends'. Slides, mostly good audio.

Books:

• The Innovator's Dilemma - When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail, relevant when you want to compete with established firms, explains why you have a very good chance. Contrast with the 'Moby Dick theory' above.
• Good Strategy, Bad Strategy, 37 years in the making, a very tight book on what strategy is and how to leverage your strenghts. Good review by John Kay
• The Founder's Dilemmas, very thorough investigation of (un)successful startups, discusses most relevant aspects