10 Movies That Every Entrepreneur Should Watch This Summer

by raquelms | Jul 18, 2017 | Uncategorized

All entrepreneurs should have a daily dose of inspiration and passion in their life. These moments are necessary since they are what keeps us going when we’re going through the hard times of building a business. Movies are great sources of inspiration and the stories of those who succeed are great examples of passion and determination.

With this in mind, we’ve made a list of the 10 movies you should watch this summer as an entrepreneur. Forget about Game of Thrones for a second and watch these 10 movies that will inspire your life.

(this list is in no particular order)

 1.Pirates of Silicon Valley

Pirates of Silicon Valley is the (often historically inaccurate) portrait of one of the two most influential minds of the century: Steves Jobs and Bill Gates.This movie brings us back to the 70s all the way to the 90s and it shows us how these two men built their tech empires and how their rivalry developed throughout the years. This movie can teach you not only to pursue your dreams and to follow through but it also gives you an important look on the value of competition.

 2.The Pursuit of Happyness

The Pursuit of Happyness shows Will Smith, in one of his most brilliant performances, portraying a salesman that after losing everything (wife, house and job), instead of giving up, works hard to follow his dreams and provide for his son. It’s a heartwarming tale (based on a true story) of hard-work, sacrifice, and passion that should inspire every entrepreneur.

 3.Moneyball

Moneyball, also based on a true story and with Brad Pitt on the leading role, has many lessons that an entrepreneur would find valuable. It tells the story of Billy Beane and how he, with limited funds, was able to successfully assemble a baseball team using statistics and data. It’s an important movie to watch because it shows the power of innovation and creative thinking (two key traits to build a successful business) and also it teaches you to trust your gut, Beane never listened to those who doubted him and stayed focus on his vision.

 4.The Godfather

The Godfather needs no introduction since it is a well-established masterpiece. It’s considered one of the best movie of all times. The family story of a mafia dynasty has many lessons to teach to the ones who want to be successful in business. It shows what it takes to go to the top and more precisely what it takes to stay there, how relationships and networking can help your business, how helping people only benefits your deals and why understanding the competition is so important. It’s full of powerful scenes that will have a lasting impact on you and will change the way you think about business. Although the techniques used in this movies are often times very illegal, the principals of these could be very well applied to the business world. Definitely a must-watch.

 5.Wall Street

Known for the phrase “Greed is good”, Wall Street is the story of a young stockbroker who does anything to succeed, even taking part in highly illegal and moral reprehensible business. This movie will make you rethink your values when doing business since it shows that being an entrepreneur is not only about getting the money and high quality of life that many wish for, but it also should come with responsibilities and ethical values.This movie takes a deep critical look into what excessive ambition can do to an entrepreneur.

 6.Catch Me If You Can

With one of the most memorable Leonardo Dicaprio performances, Catch Me If You Can, is the surprisingly true story of a teenage con artist who forged millions of dollars worth of checks and the F.B.I agent who becomes obsessed with catching him. This movie has many things to teach to an entrepreneur such as: showing the power of confidence, and the need for creative thinking and out of the box solutions.

 7.Office Space

Office space is a comedy that portrays the monotonous and mind-numbing routine of the typical office job and the drive of a man to break it. This hilarious movie will definitely inspire you to get out of your boring repetitive job that you don’t enjoy and start looking for a job that will provide meaning to your life, while also giving you a refreshing perspective on what work should be about. It also provides helpful insights on leadership, office relationships and career development.

 8.Jerry Maguire

Jerry Maguire, with Tom Cruise as the leading role, follows a sports agent, that after writing a polemic article about the lack of morality in the sport’s world, is fired and is left with only one client and a former secretary. Jerry becomes committed to succeeding as an independent sports agent by applying his new found philosophy. This movie will not only teach you the power of persistence and of staying true to what you believe, but it’s also a great testimony of the coexistence of competitiveness and the desire to succeed with friendship and generosity.

 9.Glengarry Glen Ross

Glengarry Glen Ross, starring Al Pacino, Jack Lemmon, Alec Baldwin, Alan Arkin, Ed Harris, Kevin Spacey… is a careful examination of the tough environment of the real estate business in the 80s. It shows what happens when money and sales are validated above everything else and workers are not given the right conditions to work in. It is also a great showcase of the unexpected effects that intimidation and manipulation tactics can have on workers.

 10.Joy

Joy is, in my opinion, a highly underrated film. It tells the inspiring true story of Joy Mangano, a young woman who revolutionized the mop business and created her own business empire. The movie shows the MANY setbacks that Joy has to face in her rise to success. With captivating performances from Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence, Joy can be a great teacher in perseverance and the capacity of not giving up even when everything and everybody is getting you down. It is also a great demonstration of the numerous task that an entrepreneur has to do (leadership, marketing, sales, customer support…). It’s also the only movie in this list lead by a woman, which clearly shows the need of telling more stories about women succeeding in business, which I am sure there are many.

Here are the 6 lessons I learned on how to validate an idea

by raquelms | Jul 12, 2017 | Uncategorized

One of the main concerns for people who built or are currently building a startup is dealing with customer development and idea validation. These are considered one of the main reasons for the failure of many startups, not only because is mostly done wrong but also because, in many cases, is not even done at all.

However, talking to customers shouldn’t be a setback, on the contrary, it allows you to discover not only which things you should be improving and redefining in your idea but also, and most importantly, if your idea is worth the money and time you were going to invest in it.

 1.Understand who are your potential customers

The first step to take is thinking about what kind of people are you going to reach out to, and understand who will be giving you useful information for the type of product you want to build. Think not only about which demographic you are going to tackle but also where you are going to find these people.

 2. Hear what’s on their minds instead of planting ideas on their heads

After you do this, you start talking to them, actually, in reality, you start listening to what they have to say. One crucial mistake that startup founders usually make is pitching their idea instead of asking questions about the habits of their potential customers. You want to hear what’s on their minds not plant ideas in their heads. You should be trying to find out about their lives, how that particular person uses similar products, some problems that they notice, what could make their life easier, etc.

 3.Don’t talk about your product

Keep in mind that you’re not fishing for compliments or seeking validation for your product, you’re trying to understand which problems the customers may have and whether your product solves those problems.

Because of this, you should never talk about your product or present specific features in the interviews, especially in the early stages of the startup. Questions like “What do you think?”, “Is it a good idea?” or “Would you buy it?” should never be mentioned either since they only are going to give you useless responses, that should only generate bad data.

Bad data includes false demonstration of enthusiasm (people will deliberately lie to not hurt your feelings), opinions (stick to facts and the consumer experiences), general claims (“I always”, “I never”, “I would” …) or empty promises of the future (people are usually optimistic about what they say they are going to do in the future, normally they never do it.).

A common mistake is to interpret negative feedback or non-enthusiastic responses as useless or as bad news, although this response may hurt your ego, they can, actually, been more helpful than a “I love the idea”. Responses like this allow the opportunity to reevaluate your idea, maybe it’s not as needed or groundbreaking as you initially thought. These responses can show that maybe, all that money and time you were going to spend making your idea come true can be applied in another idea or in a different path.

 4.Fully understand your customer’s problem

When someone on the interview mentions a problem, especially a problem that your startup solves, don’t just take note and move on. You need to understand exactly what the problem is and how much this problem affects the person in question. Ask what are the implications of the problem, in which way it makes their life harder. Often the consequence that this problem has on a person’s life or work are minimal, which means it is, probably, not something worth to delve into. Another way to understand the impact of a problem is by asking in what ways the person has tried to solve it, if the answer is “in no way at all” it’s, probably, because this problem is not big enough or important enough for the person, since she didn’t even try to google the solution. If this is this case, you probably shouldn’t be trying to create something around solving it. If they don’t look for existent solutions, they are most certainty not going to look for yours.

 5.Always filter the suggestions you’re given

In the more later stages of your startups, when you already launch the product, if a customer gives you ideas about improving a certain aspect or suggest the creation of a specific feature for your product, again, don’t just take note and rush to implement that idea. Ask questions, try to understand how this change would help your customers, how much would your customer use it and how it would improve the product for them.

 6.Avoid emails and surveys at all costs

Finally, avoid emails and surveys when doing the interviews, these are static, and even if they provide you with some answers, they don’t give you the chance to question the answers or ask the interviewee to elaborate on what they just said. In-person interviews or via skype are much more effective. A good idea is to record the interviewers, this will make taking notes, unnecessary, allow you to focus 100 percent on what the person is saying and share the data with your co-founders and staff without any changes to the content.

When you start to hear the same answers over and over again, that’s a good indicator that you probably, have everything you need and you should move on to analyse the data that you have collected.

These are only a few basics notion to deal with customer development, for a more extensive development of the topic read “The Mom Test” by Rob Fitzpatrick (a book that every entrepreneur should read) and/or check the “How to start a startup” lectures on YouTube (especially lecture 16).