bjoernlasseh

:) - I guess we can still improve on simplicity.

The way we've defined premature scaling, "making something users don't want" is included. For example, on the customer interaction metrics, which is what is used for "actual stage" a startup would be in the discovery or validation stages (stage 1 or 2). On the behavioral stage if they're making something people don't want, they're probably focused on streamlining their product or making it more scalable, which is a stage 3, or efficiency stage action. This would cause the startup to show up as a Behavioral Stage 3 / Actual Stage 2 and be labeled as premature scaling, just not the drastic kind, that for example WebVan exhibited — "Behavioral Stage 4 / Actual Stage 1". They had a team that was completely scaled up without even having shipped their product.

You can scale prematurely in different trajectories: customer development, product development, hiring, etc.

An example could be hire a salesforce before having a paying customer or to hire middle management with less than 15 people. On the product side its for example spending lots of time on a scalable backend before even having the user and payer identified.

-- reg. Steve Jobs: whats your assumption?

-- there is quite a lot of data about existing markets that are differentiated into cheaper, better and niche and new markets. How do you think is market significant. I am happy run a few tests for you :)

-- We measure success based on the consistency of how someone moves through a certain set of predefined milestones and thresholds. Funding, user growth, employee growth, etc. are traditional indicators of success that we correlate with our milestone based assessment in this report. We hope to become more granular in how we can measure consistency.

-- not sure how what you say contradicts anything we say. Thoughts?

here is an entire post about the methodology http://www.systemmalfunction.com/2011/05/deciphering-genome-...

ha - thx for sharing :)

Thx Phil :) I hope so to :)

If there would be a software tool to help you in your customer development process - what would be the most important features for you?

How do you track the results of the meetings?

hehe thx lefti :)

great!

also check out cofoundernetwork.com

I have the feeling that Y-Combinator is a great fit young engineers who build a web consumer product/app that monetize quickly. If you or your idea doesn't fit into the brackets than another path is most likely much more promising :)

lol - believe me the startup-russia team is not doing any PR :)! I know them very well. They want to motivate the Russian innovation scene and create a valuable knowledge transfer.

lol ... Russians love to forget articles

Great - I completely agree! For everyone who wants to do a little more than building a social shopping site :) cofoundernetwork.com is a network of engineers, scientists and entrepreneurs.

Of course nobody wants to hear that you are working on a startup in your free time while you are working at their company ...

We have a bunch of companies in our portfolio that are hiring just check techventure.com :)

hm no - the goal is to match high impact founders ...

thx for the feedback :)

Following the yc mantra - this is a prototype focusing on high potential cofounders. We work with a referral system based on our partner network. The goal is not to be elitest but to match cofounders well.

I agree - but we are not targeting elementary schools :) So far more than 300 schools in fields like biotech, dating & a lot of niche topics have been created.

good point rmason - a couple months ago before the last Startup School event - our Startup School was ranked as the top search result ;) ...

It was via Email.

I am thinking of a virtual school - like eccouncil + community elements. What do you think?

I would agree if the brand would really be so strong. I created this Startup School before even knowing about the ycombinator startup school - as it is unknown in Germany. Plus there is many Startup Schools all over the world that existent before the ycombinator startup school ;)

This is an alumni program for ycombinator Startups.

We will select 10 Startups, 10 Expert and 10 experienced Entrepreneurs for the program.

The goal is create a workflow learning relationship where people learn from one another based on their current needs.

All the interactions will be recorded, remixed and reused in order to develop a high quality curriculum for entrepreneurs of any age.

What do you think?

like :)