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Four Steps to the Epiphany: the Moby Dick of start-up books « robocosmist

Yes this is about robots. Robot businesses. Robert Morris is scathing on the lack of customer development and systematic risk reduction in existing robotics businesses.

7:14 AM Aug 30 2012

I've read the book twice, but never thought to apply it to robot businesses.

7:28 PM Aug 30 2012

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RobotLaunch

Neither have most robot businesses. :)

9:11 PM Aug 30 2012

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ifindkarma

Well clearly that needs to change. Lean robots are the future!

12:52 AM Aug 31 2012

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RobotLaunch

It's a great book. I love worksheets!

It's harder to apply to general consumer products, where your audience can be diverse. But if your audience is fairly homogeneous it's gold out of the box. if your audience is heterogeneous, it just takes a bit of work to figure out how to effectively do customer development. But perhaps that helps startups focus. The stuff on Markets is solid gold.

and good on Reis for making the core concepts more digestible for the general populace, as well as adding his own special twist.

7:20 AM Aug 31 2012

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ifindkarmaRobotLaunchtom.masiero

Agree. The book is gold - and worth any number of inferior degrees! But segmenting a market is one of those key skills that is hard to get without lots of practise. Vlaskovits and Cooper put a lot of emphasis on that aspect of lean methodology and customer development.

7:53 AM Aug 31 2012

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ifindkarmatom.masiero

Speaking of lean robots - Autom the Weightloss Coach Robot is looking for Series A funding (a lead investor at least - they have the others) - Any suggestions?

Autom is a project by Dr Cory Kidd, from MIT's Media Lab, and his advisor Dr Cynthia Brezeal. It's well down the development path and for last 2 years, Cory has been in Hong Kong getting from prototype to manufacturing stage. It's also very cool and media love it.

Also, I love it. I preordered but had to join weight watchers while I wait!

http://www.intuitiveautomata.com/autom_intro.html

7:59 AM Aug 31 2012

Series A funding for robots is tough right now.

Softbank might be a good co-investor but they cannot lead.

Will think about if I know anyone who'd be interested.

There really should be a robot fund!

3:29 PM Aug 31 2012

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RobotLaunch

You are so right! I'm working on it. :)

10:31 PM Aug 31 2012

Props Given By:

ifindkarma

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