Business Related Keynotes
This page is to serve as a diary of interesting keynotes i’ve heard over the years. After an entire lecture i usually only take back one maybe two key points from it. A few months later those one or two things usually get replaced and then their gone for good. Therefore, from now on i’m going to try and write down those things here in order to prevent this loss of information of things related to entrepreneurship, product development, etc.
Importance of a Good Management Team
Having a good business idea is only 15% of what goes into a successful business. The other 85% is the execution.
Companies / Trains Analogy
Investors (mostly applicable to VC funding) are only interested in where you are going. They’re not interested in where you are today.
Training Expenses
Historically, the amount of money a company spends on training one year will dictate how their stock price will do the following year.
Technical Challenges of Product Design
Even at Microsoft where schedule pressure s intense, almost every post-mortem in every group gives rise to the complaint that major schedule problems arose when team members couldn’t resist adding new features.
The Importance of Failure
“Without fully appreciating how close to failing a new design is, its own designer may not fully understand how and why a design works.” - Henry Petroski, Design Paradigms
Cost of a Product - Impact of Time, Volume, and Commodification
“The underlying principle that drives costs down is the learning curve - manufacturing costs decrease over time.” “Volume is a second key factor in determining cost…” It decreases the time to get down the learning curve and it increases the purchasing and manufacturing efficency. - Hennessy & Patterson, Computer Architecture.
Investor Presentation - PSUCF
Formula: Problem, Solution, Unfair Advantage, Competition, Financials
