Blog: http://www.library.ohiou.edu/subjects/businessblog/

A message on how to be a great coach, and his approach to customer validation from the former CEO of ShareThis.

“I have no idea if your idea will succeed… make me believe you. Prove it.”

Measure, Learn, Build

Lean Validation Method:

1. Pre-Validate – Focus  on the Total addressable Market

2.  Survey Validation

1. List your features
2. Add your competitors to the survey list
3. See if anyone really wants yours more

♦BE AWARE:  When 40% say they will buy, less than 5% actually will.

When the Process, Technique, tools, and coaching have been considered and completed, move onto the:

3. Prototype Validation

When your prototype has been evaluated and fine-tuned to be as efficient as is possible, move onto the:

4. Business Model Validation

5. Build it! – Execute!

Previously, Josh consulted in a variety of industries including, Food and Beverage, Retail, Financial Services, Oil and Gas, Manufacturing and Higher Education. His work has appeared in TechCrunch, the Washington Post and other media outlets. Prior to that, Josh spent 9 years as an Internal Auditor building the IT Audit departments. As an auditor he performed technical and business process reviews of operations and technology to identify organizational and departmental strengths as well as business risks.

Josh is a 2001 graduate of Ohio University with degrees in Marketing and MIS. He has earned his CISA certification. His website is www.joshpremuda.com. Follow him on twitter @joshpremuda.

Eric has spent the last 8 years building companies that help entrepreneurs thrive.

In 2004, Eric was part of the founding team of Startups.co, the first online funding platform that has grown to over 400,000 members and 20,000 active accredited investors. Three years later, Eric launched IdeaBuyer.com, which grew to be the largest online marketplace for intellectual property, matching over 10,000 patent holders with licensees and buyers.

Eric currently serves as the President of Fundable.com, which he co-founded to help entrepreneurs benefit from the recently launched JOBS Act, providing a platform to further streamline the funding process.

Eric is a contributor to Forbes and The Washington Post. He was recently inducted into the Empact 100 and recognized by the White House as one of the most influential entrepreneurs under 30.

Consulting since 1993 and founder of Interactive Directions, Heilbrunn brings a number of careers to these advisory services and academic placements – a national journalist and in senior management at The Associated Press for nearly 10 years; a founding executive of multiple startup online services from the days that personal computers were initially introduced through the height of the Internet; and a visiting university professor, teaching how to develop innovative new forms of media and communication. In 2010, he was appointed as a national trustee of Ohio University, a state institution of higher education with 30,000 students.

You can learn more about Henry at https://sites.google.com/site/interactivedirections/

The first in our series on fireside chats with “been there, done that” entrepreneurs, Henry will be speaking on Presentation Skills and Practicing Success from Big and Small Failures.

By night he continues that quest as he’s also the co-founder of Big Kitty Labs (BKL), a rapid prototyping lab he formed in 2008 shortly after his first startup experience failed big time, leading cause- didn’t make the product.  Rebounding from not doing, he formed Big Kitty Labs (named after his wife’s cat), and initially targeted his own itch, building ideas and concepts for Big Kitty itself until business blossomed by sheer demand of hungry startup development needs.  In the short time from 2008 to 2012, Dan and his team cranked out over 33 concepts working for some 12 startup clients nationally.

Prior to working on building startups, Dan worked over 11 years in product design, research and user experience at Lextant. There he learned alot about listening to customers, working with fortune 500 clients and honed his skill set helping researchers build tools to capture, analyze and gleam insight from data.  He is a self professed trend hound, consuming large quantities of content online to stay on the bleeding edge of next and leverage everything possible to net momentum for himself and his clients and related projects.

He’s also avid event promoter, the co-host of WakeUp StartUp, central ohio’s premier startup pitch event, Ignite Columbus a technology themed TEDx style event and he’s a regular speaker at Columbus Startup Weekend.

You can also learn more about Dan by following his blog:  http://bigkitty.quora.com/ and visiting his business website: http://bigkittylabs.com/

You can follow along with the process by picking up The Business Model Generation and follow the ins/outs of their experience in future blog posts.

Mr. Parkinson currently teaches a Lean Startup Innovation Lab at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management and a startup business accelerator program at Ohio University.  He has also taught courses in entrepreneurial finance and venture capital at Kellogg, the University of Illinois at Chicago, the University of the West Indies and the Czechoslovak Management Center.  He is a mentor and a member of the National Advisory Committee for Pipeline, an entrepreneurial fellowship program based in Kansas City, Kansas.  He holds a bachelor’s degree in Economics from Northwestern and an MBA from Kellogg with a specialization in Urban Economic Development.