Happy new year! This is a new post format. Does this sort of once-a-week curation deliver any value, or is it just blog spam? Please let me know in the comments, on twitter (@robfitz), or via email (rob@thestartuptoolkit.com). Thanks! All the very best. The idea that we need to be sane and organised to do [...]
30 Dec
I’ve done nothing for the past 5 years but drive companies out of business. Through doing so, I’ve learned how to make failure sustainable. Career entrepreneurship isn’t viable if you’re forced to return to a full-time job after every slip-up. Upside versus downside A few years ago, I would have claimed that the definition of [...]
29 Dec
28 Dec
Paul Graham knows how to make new things: I like to find (a) simple solutions (b) to overlooked problems (c) that actually need to be solved, and (d) deliver them as informally as possible, (e) starting with a very crude version 1, then (f) iterating rapidly. » 6 Principles for Making New Things by @paulg [...]
27 Dec
You want to start a company restoring ancient stained glass windows to their former glory. You live in a country rife with cathedrals and have spent a lifetime appreciating these translucent masterpieces, but you don’t have any deep technical knowledge of their restoration. How do you get started? Why is it that most people can [...]
26 Dec
Merry Christmas! Here’s some homework. It will take somewhere between five minutes and a week. I’m going to do it too, and my answers (and the consequences thereof) are down below. First, write down what this is all about. Second, Write down the top three things you need to learn to achieve that. I know you’re [...]
24 Dec
Before you’ve begun, the most important thing is to give the ball a blind, forceful kick and get it rolling. Until you’ve done this, inertia will kill you dead. Perfection and planning are inertia’s tireless guardians and your enemies. Once you’ve started, the most important thing is to learn how to learn. The universe helps [...]
23 Dec
The first few times you’re selling something expensive[1], it’s really more exploratory. You don’t know if it’s something they care enough about to pay for, or how they budget for it, or what they value it at. Even if you get a “yes”, it’s probably a suboptimal yes, in that you could have charged more. [...]
15 Dec
I’ve noticed myself become increasingly conservative in evaluating early-stage ideas. You can do the math yourself, dividing burn rate by price point and judging whether it’s plausible to sell enough copies and reach profitability before bankruptcy. If that equation goes red, what do you do? Radically overhaul the pricing model? Play to investor interests? Fight [...]
14 Dec
I used to blog out of guilt. Every now and then, my investors would sternly suggest I blog more. I’d grumpily obey and then point to the flat traffic graph as clear evidence of blogging’s fruitlessness. It was a self-fulfilling prophecy of fail. I’ve written previously about my first month of serious blogging in terms [...]
31 Dec