February 2010
4 posts
I'm Not Alone....A Cautionary Tale →
I have to meet this man. I could tell almost the identical story. From the rounds, the travel, the hiring, firing, the weight gain, the acid reflux to life changes. My god this is scary similar.
For the rest of you, especially my first time entrepreneur friends or my young “it will never happen to me” friends. It can and it will….my next post will say how NOT to have this...
Smackdown! - Enterprise On boarding style…
This is a cathartic email for those in startup land. I just came out of a 3-hour product-brainstorming meeting that I thought was going to last 20 minutes. The topic, user registration for people part of an enterprise.
Why did I misjudge it so much? Well, because I just had to harness much of the last 5 years of my life. Nah, not harness, rather pour freezing cold water on all we tried...
CEO of "Everything"
I’m sure everyone in startup land has read the “CEO of something” piece by Zynga CEO. My thoughts:
· Of course everyone in a startup should have that mindset
· Of course every CEO of a startup should encourage that culture
· But like Ronald Regan said, “Trust but verify”
· Every good CEO needs to be on top of their and everyone else’s shit. It’s great if everyone is...
Surprise surprise
First time at Indy airport. Wow! World class. So big, clean, modern and easy. Love it. Top 5. Did not see that coming
January 2010
4 posts
2 tags
Board Meeting 101 Slideshow (click to link) →
Board Meeting 101 Slideshow (click above to link to it)
No list of “do’s and don’ts” rather a board meeting template that i more or less use. i get asked a lot by folks for tips on how to put together a board deck so i figured i’d share one
Why should you care?
- experience - 10 years of startups x 10 board meetings per year = 100 board meetings with 8 or so world...
1 tag
Startup Triplets →
I think this is an awesome startup list by Dharmesh. Plus it’s fun which is waayyy rare vs the usual b.s.” here is key to startup lists.” nice work. my personal favs are the ones tied to the two things i think matter - great friggin people and laser friggin focus.
December 2009
8 posts
More Startup tips
I swore this would not become “another” startup blog but it’s the new thing in my life so here it is…
i saw a great post by trizle that i got me thinking and led to an email i sent the team today..
law 1 - any email, bullet point, statement should almost always have a number of some kind behind it. e.g. the project will be late….bad..project will be late by 10...
Mockingbird | Wireframes on the fly →
whoa - this is friggin cool if you are in the tech startup space. death to the napkin and my chicken scratch. also the best “get up and get using it” apporach since old geni.com well done
Startup Folk Travel Tip #107 - Learn to pack →
Maybe i’m getting old, but now i actually pay attention to tips like how to pack properly…You should too..read this! Startups are poor, so we don’t often stay at five star hotels with cleaning services. We also are busy, so spending an hour ironing or steaming clothes to look good is not gonna happen either. Thus avoid looking like a wrinkled shmo
Facebook: Jason C. Nails It - Totally Friggin... →
Jason C. Nails it. Total bullshit move by Facebook. Simply put:
1. your site was for me and my friends - not the world - and you just by default changed everything to the world
2. shady shady shady - by default changed everything so all users have to spend 10 minutes changing setting “back” to why they joined the site.
3. plenty of sites resort to tricks all the time - hell at my...
3 tags
Startup CEO - TIP 2 and 3 ..communication
We will blend in some personal stuff soon but two more quick startup tips…i call this the shit that nobody tells you or EVER writes about…it’s about communication! doing it right, makes your life much easier.
1. Numbers, numbers and more numbers - Every sentence, claim, bullet in every conversation or presentation should be backed up by numbers.
x% likelihood, $y cost, Z...
2 tags
Startup CEO - Quick Tips
Was on the phone with the CEO of another local startup that i like a lot. We were talking about balancing all that you have to do in the early stages of the journey and how the hell to get it all done. My startup lessons are simple. There are lots of great lists out there but boiling it down to it’s essence.
Hire great friggin people - great people make your life easy, allow you to scale...
Post 1
So here we go. A good friend has convinced me that i should maintain a blog. I’m at a very exciting stage in my life when a lot of amazing (or interesting) things are occuring
I’m 40 - no longer spring chicken, dealing with that but hopefully enjoying the fruits of my life experiences so far
I’ve got a very serious girlfriend. 15 months in and she’s been such a great...