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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
07 Dec
A friendly reminder: The problem isn’t you. The problem is the problem. –Steven Pressfield Some stuff is just hard. We start thinking we messed up. That it’s an issue with us. But it’s not. The work is hard and the problem is hard. You need to solve the problem, not fix yourself. The quote above is from [...]
04 Dec
I recently spoke to Joseph Hill of Aeir Talk–a beautifully designed speech & language helper app for autistic kids–and wanted to share his story for a couple reasons. First, it shows an unbelievable amount of hustle — he built up enough market evidence & excitement for a development team to agree to get involved and [...]
01 Dec
The approach I follow is a combination of customer discovery and effectuation, constrained by lifestyle goals (and making heavy use of the business model canvas). Begin with constraints Which parts of the business model do you care about? This takes a little bit of soul searching. Start with a business model canvas and fill in [...]
28 Nov
How often have you been told to negotiate “like you don’t need it”? Frequently, I would wager. But how does one go about developing this crucial (and somewhat mythical) skill? The “advice” puts the focus on your in-meeting tactics, whereas–for most of us–strong negotiation arises naturally from the groundwork you did outside the meeting. It’s [...]
26 Nov
If you’re starting a company from scratch, you may as well pick one which plays to your strengths, expertise, and connections. Find a war in which you’ll have an edge. But once you’ve taken the leap, I think it’s advisable to flip that on its head and begin playing to your weaknesses. You’re meant to [...]
17 Nov
04 Nov
While I would admittedly be uncomfortable asking a colleague how much cash is sitting in their bank account, directly re-applying personal etiquette to a business discussion is generally a mistake. You’re a startup. It’s okay. There exists some critical, make-or-break information that you’ll find impossible to tease out in any other way. As long as [...]
30 Dec