Blog

Founders

• Getting started:

  • • Dear Advisor: I have a start-up idea, what should I do next? (or) How to validate your idea -- and align incentives -- before spending money to build an MVP (September 2020, March, May -- August 2021)

    • Dear Advisor: My MVP demos are not converting (November 2020)

    • Dear Advisor: How do I Find a Cofounder? (or) Why you Don't Need One (August 2022)

    • Dear Advisor: Why is it so Hard to Integrate with EHRs? (Or) Why I Don’t Recommend Integrating with an EHR, especially in your MVP (September 2022)

• Extending Runway:

  • • What are the most common pre-seed and seed-stage pitch deck mistakes? (December 2020, updated March + September 2022)

    • Resources for Extending your Runway (July 2020, updated monthly through April 2021 + September 2021)

    • Aligning Product, Technology and AI: Advice from Due Diligence (July 2022)

• Post MVP:

  • • Dear Advisor: Can I just survey my customers to help me decide what to build next? (Or) Why I Don't Recommend NPS Scores (July 2021)

    • Dear Advisor: What metrics should I be thinking about? (September 2020)

• Dear Advisor: Should I pivot? (August 2020)

• Becoming data-driven:

  • • Dear Advisor: I’d like to make data-driven decisions. Where do I start? (May, July 2021)

    • Dear Advisor: Who should be my first data hire? (April 2021)

    • Dear Advisor: How to work with a data scientist? (May 2022)

    • How to Deliver Business Impact with Data (January 2020, updated May, June, and October 2020, April, November and December 2021, January 2022)

    • 5 Aspects of your Business you Need to Track Today to make any Data-Driven Decisions (October 2019 + September 2021)

    • Dear Advisor: How do I avoid the biggest data/AI/ML mistakes others make? (June 2020, updated August 2020, September 2020, April 2021, April 2022)

    • Dear Advisor: What should (not) be your AI roadmap? (or) Why You Don't Need AI in your SaaS MVP (April 2022, updated May 2022)

    • Why there's no such thing as clean data (June 2021, updated June 2022)

• Data-driven Product Market Fit:

  • • Dear Advisor: How do I do Product-Led-Growth (PLG) as my Go-to-Market (GTM) strategy for Product market fit (PMF)? (September 2021, updated May 2022)

    • Product Market Fit Roadmap in 6 Parts (November 2020)

Data Professionals

• Developing data products:

  • • How to Deliver Business Impact with Data (January 2020, updated May, June, and October 2020, April, November and December 2021, January 2022)

    • The Dark Arts" of Stakeholder Management (November 2021, updated January, February and March 2022)

• Career advice:

  • • How to Break into your First Data Role as a Non-Analytics Manager (February 2021)

    • How to Break into your First Data Role: Tips to Tackling the Cold Start Problem (October 2019, updated May + September 2020)

    • How to get your Resume to Stand out? (October 2020, October 2022)

    • Companies still Hiring during COVID (May 2020, updated monthly through April 2021, April + September 2022)

    • 10 Questions to Ask Yourself When Considering a Continuing Education Program (April 2020, updated June 2020, September 2020 + April 2021)

• ML in Production:

  • • ML model in production is doing worse than locally (January 2021, updated February 2021)

    • Four "R"s of Machine Learning Software Development (February 2020, updated December 2020)

    • Iterative Development of Machine Learning Models (January 2020, updated June 2020)

• How to Run a Jupyter Notebook in a Virtual Environment (March 2020)

Consultants

• What do I Need to Know to Start my own Business? (December 2019, updated June 2020)

• Why my exploratory calls are NDA-free (August 2021, updated May 2022)

• 5 Steps to get Started -- and Keep Blogging (January 2022)

• To incorporate or not? That is the question (February 2022)

Leadership

• Dear Advisor: What should I consider when launching an accelerator? (June 2022, updated July + September 2022)

• Hiring:

  • • Dear Advisor: Who should be my first data hire? (April 2021)

    • Dear Advisor: How can I hire and retain candidates during the "Great Resignation"? (December 2021, April 2022)

• Advice and Sample Agenda for your First 1-1 with Direct Report (October 2021)

• How to Break into your First Data Role as a Non-Analytics Manager (February 2021)

• Dear Advisor: How do I know if my company is compliant with security and privacy regulations? (December 2021, updated February 2022)

• Roadmapping 101: Why do you need one – or are asked for one? What is it? How to Create it? How to Iterate? (March 2022)

Project Management

• Column: Your Business Has Lots of Ideas on What To Work On. Here’s How To Decide on What’s Next (April 2021)

• How I "built, measured, and learned" that long-distance running is for me (March 2021)

• How to “build, measure, learn” to see if your startup needs to pivot OR improve its product (March 2021)

• Dear Advisor: Should I pivot? (Or what is "build, measure, learn"? (August 2020)

• Roadmapping 101: Why do you need one – or are asked for one? What is it? How to Create it? How to Iterate? (March 2022)

• How to Prioritize when Everything is High Priority: the Data-Driven Approach (April 2020)

Please see Publications for links to peer-reviewed publications and pre-prints.