Damir Perge's Blog: Entrepreneur Insights from the Trenches, page 16

Espressopreneur: In Startups, Numbers Alone Confer No Advantage

“In war, numbers alone confer no advantage. Do not advance relying on sheer military power.” — Sun Tzu, The Art of War, Chapter IX, Marches, Verse 45

My Commentary: For any entrepreneur, this is a very inspiring message. If you are already in the startup trenches, or thinking about entering the startup battlefront, memorize these wise words of entrepreneur wisdom — because the greatest military strategist the world has ever known offers them.

Believe me — I have been there myself as an entrepre...

Espressopreneur: Make It Go Faster

"When you have something that works, it makes you go faster."— Bert Jukes, founder, Little Big Shot

Damir Perge Commentary: I was in a meeting with the founders of Little Big Shot, a healthful energy drink that is creating a major innovation disruption in the beverage marketplace.

While intensively listening to the passionate founders, Bert Jukes and his son Alan discuss how the company was started in Ireland; Bert triggered an interesting thought in my mind with what he told me.

By now, you kno...

The Gamification of a Business Model — What You Can Learn From Dropbox

In my continuance of analyzing different modular structures of a business model, another Lego-like model vector popped up on my radar screen to further analyze: gamification.

Gamification is nothing new — but some of the high tech companies have taken it to another level. We are still in its infancy of applying gamification to the entire business model of companies in any sector. Obviously, the airline industry has been conducting components of gamification in their frequent flyer loyalty prog...

Espressopreneur: The Worthless Value of Writing a Business Plan

"My biggest piece of advice is just do it and just don’t worry about the business plans. If it’s a good idea, the money will come. It’s as simple as that.”[1]— Ben Clymer, founder, Hodinkee

Damir Perge Commentary: Ben is a perfect example of doing, or in this case not doing, what I discuss in Entrepreneur Myths: The Startup Reality. Instead of spending months writing a business plan, he formed Hodinkee, the online destination for information about wristwatches. He just did it. Let me be crysta...

Inspired by Nature — The Art of Biomimicry Applied to Startups

Mother Nature has always inspired me. She can be revolutionary, innovative, disruptive and quite profitable for your business. Anyone can be inspired by nature — even teenagers. There has been an incredible amount of positive and negative publicity surrounding a teenager named Aidan Dwyer. He was inspired by the secrets provided by Mother Nature when he was 11 years old — and he may have just started a solar energy revolution.

The answer was simple from the perspective of his young eyes. Aidan...

Espressoprenuer: The Seed of Disruptive Ideas, Products and Startups

“The seed of any disruptive idea, product or startup is in connecting the random dots that exist all around you.” — Damir Perge

Damir Perge Commentary: I was talking to the founders of a startup we are funding under stealth mode. One of the founders triggered in my mind a completely random thought that turned the entire business model upside down. That’s the power of randomness. When you are able to connect random, non-connected thoughts and ideas into something new, you are able to create ent...

Startup Entrepreneur Intuition: Twilight and Tesla

It doesn’t matter how experienced you are as a startup entrepreneur or venture capitalist, you can still get a case of “startup blurry vision.” For one of the startups we are launching, to put it bluntly, I was the one with the case of blurry vision. We were trying to do too much in the sector in terms of addressing the needs of the customer.

I often use the famous quote by Sam Walton, “Capital isn’t scarce. Vision is.” It now has more meaning for me in my entrepreneur and investor life. The p...

Espressopreneur: The Advantages of Understanding Your Bell-Shaped Curve

“The truth, however, is that virtually all well-established strategy models work well in some situations and cause failure in others, so the real skill is less knowing the strategy than in sorting out the situations to which it actually applies.” — Geoffrey A. Moore, Inside the Tornado: Strategies for Developing, Leveraging, and Surviving Hypergrowth Markets

Damir Perge Commentary: When you think about business strategy, you have to think about where your company or product is along the bell-s...

Espressopreneur: The Art of Overcoming Disbelief

“Applied faith is the dynamo of science of personal achievement, the source of the energy to put your thoughts into actions.” —Napoleon Hill, Napoleon Hill's Keys to Success

Damir Perge Commentary: When you’re launching your startup, new product or growing your business, you have to have faith in what you’re doing. I know this sounds like a simple statement, and I’m sure the song “Gotta have faith” by George Michael is resonating in your entrepreneur mind by now.

This is not a sermon. The conce...

Know the True Value of Your Entrepreneur Time

I was at a house of a very successful entrepreneur. He made it big for two simple reasons: he’s smart guy and he’s persistent. We were waiting for another person to come for the meeting, when I saw him start washing dirty dishes in his large kitchen.

He looked at me, and said, “I can’t believe I’m washing dishes instead of doing some real work.”

I interrupted him, “I vacuum the house myself, but it’s not because I can’t hire someone else to do it. I do it because it is a good time for me to thi...