Damir Perge's Blog: Entrepreneur Insights from the Trenches, page 7

Businessnatomy: How NewsCred Uses the Art of the Nuance in Their Business Model to Disrupt the Content Syndication Industry

I knewNewsCred had to be a hot startup when they lured Jennifer Stenger from AP to become their Director of Business Development. But I had no idea of the disruptive business model they had created until I strolled into their offices on a recent trip to New York.

This fortunate visit came about quite by accident. I was chatting with Rob Stenger, my long-time friend and co-founder of two of our startups, and mentioned that I needed information on how syndication works for online content. Rob la...

The Abstraction of Innovation: How to Use Abstraction to Generate Disruptive Innovation

When I was in college studying mechanical engineering, I rarely bothered doing the “practical problems” we were assigned. In fact, I was quite lazy about it. So while other fellow classmates were busily toiling over their problems, I would buy them some beer and ask them to share the solutions to their problems. This was not a cool thing for me to do, but my time was constrained because I was so focused on being a college entrepreneur.

However, I wasn’t lazy about studying the abstract concept...

Efficionado: The Sexiness of Efficiency

Becoming more efficient in your business processes and functions might sound boring to some innovative entrepreneurs. “Damir, c’mon, efficiency doesn’t sound sexy,” you might say. When you focus on being efficient in your startup or growing business, you’re increasing the speed of your startup, increasing your customer response, and decreasing the use of your operating cash. The more efficient you are in your business, the less cash you need to grow your business. The less cash you need, the...

Innovation Surfing: Inspire Yourself with Innovation

It never ceases to amaze me how innovation has the psychological power to inspire. If you’re an innovator, the easiest way to be inspired is to study and analyze other innovators. It doesn’t have to be in your own sector. In fact, many times a completely random and non-related innovation can inspire you.

Getting inspired by others is easy because innovation is all around you. Looking at innovation in other sectors can trigger your innovator brain to start generating ideas at such a rapid pace,...

The Obsoleteness of Innovation: What’s After Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Amazon or Google

I see a market and innovation pattern that is obviously obvious to most innovators in any sector—the obsoleteness of innovation. I noticed the same pattern when I worked for a research company that analyzed marketplaces. A company becomes hot, smoking hot, because they came up with some incredibly awesome innovation, only to lose the startup mojo to a new innovation right around the corner.

Smart startups continue to innovate, keep their market momentum and eventually dominate the world. Micro...

Startup Haters: You Will Have Them. Period.

The long-awaited new season of the award-winning series Arrested Development is now on Netflix. If you have never seen the show, I highly recommend you watch it from the first episode of the first season. You can learn some great entrepreneur and investor lessons seeing this highly dysfunctional family go about their real estate business.

I must warn you. If you watch this show, you will get addicted. Start watching it over the weekend because I can just hear you saying to yourself, “Oh, I’ll...

Startup Jenga: Lessons About Startups and Innovation From Playing Jenga

My girlfriend’s sister came to town for a visit. On her last night in town, we visited a very good Mexican restaurant in Dallas namedHacienda. By the time we got there, the restaurant was packed. There were no tables available on the patio. I managed to transfer my mystical parking magicand find us something even better—an open space with plenty of benches, close to the bar. I couldn’t believe my luck. Well, actually I could believe it, and you will too, if you read about my parking magic.

The...

Startupmentals: Outsource What You Know

Image: The cowbird outsources an egg to a finch nest.

One startup saying goes, “Outsource what you don’t know.” I’ve done that plenty of times as a startup entrepreneur and investor. However, if you want to increase your startup speed, you should “outsource what you know.” When you outsource what you know, you can focus on the unknown variables of what you don’t know.

There are two approaches to outsourcing what you know. First, you can outsource what you know by bringing people inside your fou...

Businessnatomy: Any ___(Fill in the Blank)___

When it comes to business modeling, sometimes it’s not about how technical or knowledgeable you are, regarding various aspects of strategy, business modeling, tactics, and market analysis.

You should also look at business modeling from an intuitive, creative and innovative perspective. This helps you avoid being bogged down by the various revenue vector details, pricing mechanisms, relationship ownership or determination of money flows.

Sometimes it’s just about looking around you and seeing th...

Entreprenetics: A Simple Thought Experiment (The Meaning of Working and Thinking)

A friend of mine, Urvi Bhandari, interrupted my deep thoughts with her text. She was wondering what I was doing. I told her I was working. That’s no surprise to you, if you know me. But I wasn’t really working. I was doing something more important. I was thinking. I shifted my thinking to the topic of work. What is work anyway?

Workers might think returning emails, making phone calls, or having meetings is work. It is one type of work. Is this the most productive type of work? When people say,...