Planning & Strategy A Must Read this week is the paper from Balaji S. Srinivasan’s Stanford University class on Entrepreneurship, Market Research, Wireframing, and Design, where he frames the evolution of a startup along the initial critical steps. "An idea is not a mockup, A mockup is not a prototype, A prototype is not a program, A program is not a product, A product is not a business, And a business is not profits." Both Chris Dixon and Brad Feld have a take on it, with slightly differing views, respectively with The Idea Maze, and A Startup is a Continuum of Ideas. Customer Feedback Albert Wenger discusses the dilemma facing entrepreneurs on how to handle customer feedback, in Listening Too Much / Too Little. On that topic, I suggested that how you treat customer feedback before or after product/market fit is very different in The Leaping Startup. Listening too closely to feedback might lead you to the wrong places. Albert added in his comments, “Customer feedback…is best received by observing what customers do rather than what they say.” Business Models Classic quote from Spotify’s CEO: “We have actually now proved our business model”. Despite losses, Daniel Ek knows that they are keeping more than they are in paying in royalties. Lesson for entrepreneurs is to know when your business model has been validated.