More than truthfulness of the numbers, investors evaluate the assumptions underneath a pitch. They are not asking “Are these numbers real?” but “Could they be real?”. The assumptions reveal the logic of thinking by the founders. When examining them in detail, one should get logical answers to questions like: How many sales people are needed […]
Category: english
Startup due diligence: Some considerations
We had an interesting week with the Qatar Science and Technology Park (QSTP) that had invited several high-profile entrepreneurs from the US to evaluate the technologies of Qatar Computing Research Institute (QCRI). Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to attend all the sessions, but from what I saw I picked up a few pointers for due diligence […]
Social media marketing for researchers: How to promote your publications and reach the right people
Today the Social Computing group at Qatar Computing Research Institute had the pleasure of listening to the presentation of Luis Fernandez Luque about social media marketing for researchers. Luis talked about how to promote your publications and personal brand, as well as how to reach the right people on social media with your research. Luis […]
The balanced view algorithm
I recently participated in a meeting of computer scientists where the topic was “fake news”. The implicit assumption was that “we will do this tool x that will show people what is false information, and they will become informed.” However, after the meeting I realized this might not be enough, and in fact be naïve […]
The strategy algorithm
Introduction The purpose of the strategy algorithm is to present a simple, parsimonius, and proven method for successful creation of a corporate strategy. In corporations, the problems usually do not relate to lack of resources or options, but to complexity of having in fact too many choices. This can lead to illusion of superiority which […]
Using flow principles to introduce addiction to mobile or Web app
Introduction Flow is a well-known concept in psychology, invented by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and published in 1975. It describes the state of losing yourself to a task; basically losing the sense of time and being just very immersed and focused on what you are doing. While many professionals (including myself!) would kill to have flow 100% […]
User feedback: A startup perspective
Introduction – the first-order problem The first-order problem for startups often is, they are not making something people want enough to pay for. As you can see from the CB Insights data, founders identify this as the most common reason for failure. Figure 1 Reasons for startups failure Notice the connection between 1 and 2: […]
Startups! Are you using a ‘mean’ or an ‘outlier’ as a reference point?
Introduction This post is about startup thinking. In my dissertation about startup dilemmas [1], I argued that startups can exhibit what I call as ‘reference point bias’. My evidence was emerging from the failure narratives of startup founders, where they reported having experienced this condition. The reference point bias is a false analogy where the […]
Miten startupit voisivat oikeasti ratkoa ongelmia? Näkymättömän alaluokan merkitys
Johdanto Luin mielenkiintoisen artikkelin: http://miter.mit.edu/the-unexotic-underclass/ Teesinä on, että startupit keskittyvät yhteiskunnan kannalta “vääriin” ongelmiin. Ne keskittyvät joko eliitin ongelmiin (korkeasti koulutetut kosmopoliitit) tai eksoottisiin kolmannen maailman ongelmiin, joihin usein luovat lumeratkaisuja kestävien ratkaisujen sijaan. Sen sijaan alemman keskiluokan ongelmat jätetään huomiotta: esim. työttömyys, uudelleenkouluttautuminen, sotaveteraanit (USA). Tätä kohderyhmää kuvataan näkymättömäksi “alaluokaksi”, koska startupeille he eivät ole […]
Experimenting with IBM Watson Personality Insights: How accurate is it?
Introduction I ran an analysis with IBM Watson Personality Insights. It retrieved my tweets and analyzed their text content to describe me as a person. Doing so is easy – try it here: https://personality-insights-livedemo.mybluemix.net/ I’ll briefly discuss the accuracy of the findings in this post. TL;DR: The accuracy of IBM Watson is a split decision […]