The document discusses Ken Singer's "Berkeley Method" for entrepreneurship and startup teams. It outlines Singer's model for the startup journey, emphasizing the importance of team formation and diversity. Successful teams require a variety of skills and personalities. When choosing teammates, it is important to find people with complementary strengths to balance the team across business functions, roles, experiences, and other aspects of diversity. Teammates should be chosen for their skills and ability to work through disagreements, rather than just being agreeable.

1. THE BERKELEY METHOD
January 2015Confidential Material: Property of Ken Singer
Ken Singer
Managing Director, Sutardja Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology
IEOR Department, UC Berkeley
Entrepreneurship. The Ultimate Team Sport.

2. THE BERKELEY METHOD
January 2015Confidential Material: Property of Ken Singer
Disruption:
• A proposed change in the order of things
• A rejection: that the current way is insufficient
• Threatens the incumbents
• They use their market dominance and power to
keep out new players
“A Startup is an Act of Rebellion” – Ken Singer

3. THE BERKELEY METHOD
January 2015Confidential Material: Property of Ken Singer
What do Entrepreneurs do?
Learn Innovate / Adapt Teach

4. THE BERKELEY METHOD
January 2015Confidential Material: Property of Ken Singer
The Entrepreneur’s Journey.
Ideation
Fund Raising
Pilot
Basic Skills / cross training
Prod / Market Fit
Tech Issues
Conflict Management
Hiring / Firing
Team Formation
Legal
Accounting

5. THE BERKELEY METHOD
January 2015Confidential Material: Property of Ken Singer
Team
Customer
Validation
Market
Validation
The Startup Journey
Scale
Singer Startup Journey Model (2016)
Go To
Market
Product /
Market Fit
Idea
1
Problem /
Solution Fit
User
Validation

6. THE BERKELEY METHOD
January 2015Confidential Material: Property of Ken Singer

7. THE BERKELEY METHOD
January 2015Confidential Material: Property of Ken Singer
Team
Idea
Customer
Validation
Market
Validation
The Startup Journey
Scale
Singer Startup Journey Model (2016)
Go To
Market
Product /
Market Fit
Idea
1
Team
2
Problem /
Solution Fit
User
Validation

8. THE BERKELEY METHOD
January 2015Confidential Material: Property of Ken Singer

9. THE BERKELEY METHOD
January 2015Confidential Material: Property of Ken Singer
Problem /
Application
Team
Team
Idea
Customer
Validation
Market
Validation
The Startup Journey
Scale
Singer Startup Journey Model (2016)
Go To
Market
Product /
Market Fit
Idea
1
Team
2
Research
3
Problem /
Solution Fit
User
Validation

10. THE BERKELEY METHOD
January 2015Confidential Material: Property of Ken Singer

11. THE BERKELEY METHOD
January 2015Confidential Material: Property of Ken Singer
Problem /
Application
Team
Team
Idea
Customer
Validation
Market
Validation
Problem /
Application
Team
The Startup Journey
Scale
Singer Startup Journey Model (2016)
Go To
Market
Product /
Market Fit
Idea
1
Team
2
Research
3
Research
4
Problem /
Solution Fit
User
Validation

12. THE BERKELEY METHOD
January 2015Confidential Material: Property of Ken Singer

13. THE BERKELEY METHOD
January 2015Confidential Material: Property of Ken Singer
Problem /
Application
Team
Team
Idea
Customer
Validation
Market
Validation
Problem /
Application
Team
The Startup Journey
Scale
Singer Startup Journey Model (2016)
Go To
Market
Product /
Market Fit
Idea
1
Team
2
Research
3
Research
4
Problem /
Solution Fit
User
Validation
Gravity
Graveyard

14. THE BERKELEY METHOD
January 2015Confidential Material: Property of Ken Singer
How do you get there?

15. THE BERKELEY METHOD
January 2015Confidential Material: Property of Ken Singer
Problem /
Application
Team
Team
Idea
Customer
Validation
Market
Validation
Problem /
Application
Team
Teams are the leading indicator of success.
Scale
Singer Startup Journey Model (2016)
Go To
Market
Idea
1
Team
Research
3
Research
4
User
Validation
Graveyard

16. THE BERKELEY METHOD
January 2015Confidential Material: Property of Ken Singer
Entrepreneurship is NOT an Individual Sport.

17. THE BERKELEY METHOD
January 2015Confidential Material: Property of Ken Singer
Diversity is an Act of Survival

18. THE BERKELEY METHOD
January 2015Confidential Material: Property of Ken Singer
Successful Teams Have Many Diverse Skills and Traits

19. THE BERKELEY METHOD
January 2015Confidential Material: Property of Ken Singer
• Loves to discover how things work
• Seeks insight
• Understands how to apply lessons
• Always strives to improve
• Willingness to be proven wrong
Self-Learning & “Tinkering” Mentality

20. THE BERKELEY METHOD
January 2015Confidential Material: Property of Ken Singer
Listening is Your Most Powerful Tool

21. THE BERKELEY METHOD
January 2015Confidential Material: Property of Ken Singer
Efficient / Effective Two-Way Communication
• Give direction
• Ask for direction
• Verify and clarify

22. THE BERKELEY METHOD
January 2015Confidential Material: Property of Ken Singer
Sees Everyone & Everything as Opportunities to Learn

23. THE BERKELEY METHOD
January 2015Confidential Material: Property of Ken Singer
Brutal Honesty IS a Business Strategy

24. THE BERKELEY METHOD
January 2015Confidential Material: Property of Ken Singer
Healthy Conflict and Resolution

25. THE BERKELEY METHOD
January 2015Confidential Material: Property of Ken Singer
Find the Right Balance between Intuition and Evidence

26. THE BERKELEY METHOD
January 2015Confidential Material: Property of Ken Singer
Timing is Everything. Luck is Good Too.

27. THE BERKELEY METHOD
January 2015Confidential Material: Property of Ken Singer
Creative in All Parts of the Business

28. THE BERKELEY METHOD
January 2015Confidential Material: Property of Ken Singer
Knows how to delegate work & leadership
responsibilities

29. THE BERKELEY METHOD
January 2015Confidential Material: Property of Ken Singer
Good, Speedy Execution is More Important than Strategy

30. THE BERKELEY METHOD
January 2015Confidential Material: Property of Ken Singer
Willingness to take risks

31. THE BERKELEY METHOD
January 2015Confidential Material: Property of Ken Singer
Equally willing to Accept and Learning from Failure

32. THE BERKELEY METHOD
January 2015Confidential Material: Property of Ken Singer
Your Team is Your Competitive Edge
How To: The Art of Team Formation

33. THE BERKELEY METHOD
January 2015Confidential Material: Property of Ken Singer
Choose Your Team Wisely

34. THE BERKELEY METHOD
January 2015Confidential Material: Property of Ken Singer
Your Team must be able to:
• Ideation
• Team management and grow
• Project Management
• Product and UI/UX Design
• Product development & engineering
• Product marketing & positioning
• Customer qualification
• Lead generation and marketing
• Business and revenue modeling
• Competitive analysis and managing “co-opetition”
• Sales and evangelization
• Customer management & support
• Deployment and system management
• Accounting and budgeting
• Fund raising

35. THE BERKELEY METHOD
January 2015Confidential Material: Property of Ken Singer
The 6 sides of Team Diversity
• Business function
• Roles
• Dynamic
• The Tipping Point
• Life Experience
• Silicon Valley Triptych

36. THE BERKELEY METHOD
January 2015Confidential Material: Property of Ken Singer
Traditional Business Function
• Business Planning/Data Analyst (strategy)
• Designer (user/creative)
• Engineer (builder)
• Sales/Marketing (customer development)
• Project Manager (nanny)

37. THE BERKELEY METHOD
January 2015Confidential Material: Property of Ken Singer
Roles to Play
• Idea Guy (“The Dreamer”)
• The Communicator (“The Politician”)
• The Peace Maker (“The Glue”)
• The Problem Finder (“The Detective”)
• The Problem Solver (“MacGyver”)
• Executor (“The Ninja”)
• “Balloon Popper”
• “Puppy Shooter”

38. THE BERKELEY METHOD
January 2015Confidential Material: Property of Ken Singer
Team Dynamic
Clutch AcceleratorBreak

39. THE BERKELEY METHOD
January 2015Confidential Material: Property of Ken Singer
The Tipping Point

40. THE BERKELEY METHOD
January 2015Confidential Material: Property of Ken Singer
Diverse Life Experience = Parallax

41. THE BERKELEY METHOD
January 2015Confidential Material: Property of Ken Singer
Silicon Valley Triptych
• Hustler (sales)
• Hacker (builder)
• Hipster (designer)

42. THE BERKELEY METHOD
January 2015Confidential Material: Property of Ken Singer
Meet as many DIFFERENT people as possible
who are interested in the SAME subject matter
Coffee Breaks

43. THE BERKELEY METHOD
January 2015Confidential Material: Property of Ken Singer
Leverage next 48 hours to meet potential team mates.

44. THE BERKELEY METHOD
January 2015Confidential Material: Property of Ken Singer
Self Evaluation
• What are your strong suits?
• (How can you showcase them?)
• What are your weaknesses?
• (How can you mitigate them?)
• What is your topic interests?
• Why do you want to do a startup?

45. THE BERKELEY METHOD
January 2015Confidential Material: Property of Ken Singer
Building a Team that Complements
Your Team must be balanced across all
6 sides of diversity:
• Business function
• Roles
• Dynamic
• The Tipping Point
• Life Experience
• Silicon Valley Triptych

46. THE BERKELEY METHOD
January 2015Confidential Material: Property of Ken Singer
How to Choose the Right Teammates
• Don’t choose members because they are “agreeable”
• Find smart people you can disagree with but can come to agreement
eventually (how do they respond when you disagree?)
• Discuss everyone’s strengths and weaknesses early on
• VALIDATE people’s strengths: are they REALLY good at Swift?
• Find teammates whose strengths fill your weaknesses
• It is more important that you choose the best team mates than join
the best idea