A quick reminder we have our last breakfast of 2016 tomorrow at 9am at Red Rock. RSVP at https://www.meetup.com/Bootstrappers-Breakfast-SV/events/233721783/
If you have not been to a breakfast before here is a quick heads up on the format: everyone has a chance to introduce themselves and talk about what they are working on. If you are facing a challenge you can put it on the table for perspectives and suggestions from the group.
We then cover the issues that folks have put on the table and there is time for informal networking after the event. One question we often ask newcomers is, “How can we help you move your business forward in the next two months?”
At Hobees in Palo Alto you order breakfast off the menu and get a separate check, at Red Rock in Mountain View you order downstairs and then find us upstairs in the Nook area to the left of the stairs, and at Specialty’s in Sunnyvale you order at the counter and then find our table in the back.
Some events have a featured attendee who gives a ten to 15 minute briefing on a prepared topic. We have three special breakfasts coming in early 2017:
- Tue-Jan-17 at Specialty’s in Sunnyvale: Chuck Hattemer: Lessons Learned Pivoting and Scaling OneRent
https://www.meetup.com/Bootstrappers-Breakfast-SV/events/236364760/ - Tue-Feb-21 at Specialty’s in Sunnyvale: Liz Fraley on Building Single-Sourcing as an Expertise-Enabled Business
https://www.meetup.com/Bootstrappers-Breakfast-SV/events/236227709/ - Fri-Feb-24 at Red Rock in Mtn View: Josh Anderson: Bootstrapping FreeDNS Since 2001
https://www.meetup.com/Bootstrappers-Breakfast-SV/events/236146079/
I hope that your schedule will permit you to join us tomorrow or early in 2017. See http://www.meetup.com/Bootstrappers-Breakfast-SV for the full list.
Please feel free to e-mail or call me if you have any questions.
Warm Regards
Sean Murphy www.skmurphy.com 408-252-9676
“Time, like a snowflake, disappears while we’re trying to decide what to do with it.” Frank A Clarke
Update Wed-Dec-28, here are my notes from session:
It was a wide ranging discussion covering
- hardware development,
- medical device and life science equipment for point of care and research use only,
- when and how to recruit sales talent for your startup,
- new approaches for content rich radio channels / audio
among other interesting startup ideas.
Three other suggestions:
- Avoid “commission only” model for recruiting sales reps / SDRs it rarely works.
- If you are bootstrapping prioritize subscription models that force you to prove value even at small scale over freemium and advertising which often require significant up front investment before you can start to generate revenue–much less profit.
- Two Silicon Valley groups that are good resources for life science and medical device startups are http://bio2devicegroup.org/ and http://biocurious.org/ We covered BioCurious when it frist opened in August 2011 in “BioCurious Offers a Coworking Space for Bootstrapping Bio Entrepreneurs.“)