There is never enough time to do everything you have to do. While you should always seek to be more productive, the reality is that you have to focus for effect: priorities trump productivity.
Priorities Trump Productivity Read More »
One formulation of Conway’s Law is that communication problems in an organization will manifest in their finished products: communication channels matter.
Conway’s Law: the Co-Evolution of Business Organization and Product Design Read More »
Key takeaways from “Eight Rules for Prototyping” by John Hanks and Todd Dobberstein. A prototype is used both to assess technical feasibility and to provide a demonstration to a customer to get feedback. Customer development is a sequence of prototypes.
Customer Development is a Sequence of Prototypes Read More »
Cecily Drucker, CEO and Founder of Bottom Line Time–and daughter of the late Peter Drucker–has a good post up on the “What Would Dad Say” blog entitled “Secrets of a 64 year old Startup Virgin” that lists fourteen startup secrets she has learned with her first startup. She has a few more insights in her introduction
Cecily Drucker’s Startup Secrets Read More »
Be Here Now When Giving a Talk I spent Monday through Wednesday of this week at O’Reilly ETech and was struck by how infrequently the audience met the presenter’s expectations. We rarely seemed to be large enough. Since this is about emerging trends I picked a number of oddball sessions and saw the same reaction
Be Here Now When Giving a Talk Read More »
Yesterday’s post talked about traction as the ability to set and hit goals. Here are three tests for goals to determine if they well-formed for your startup team.
Three Tests For Goals Read More »
Networking is good questions, listening, and helping others. Carry more than your own card. Connect folks who will benefit from talking.
Three Things I’ve Learned About Networking Read More »
Three Answers We Need Before We Will Use a New Productivity App Do You Have a Pricing Model? We use many web applications to run our business and deliver services. Often our clients are also users of the application. If the application has a problem our clients hold us accountable. We need to see a
Three Answers We Need Before We Will Use a New Productivity App Read More »
Five tips for end of year planning for startup entrepreneurs. As the year draws to a close dates in calendar are closer than they appear.
Last Full Work Week of 2008: Tips for End of Year Planning Read More »
Last December Michael Arrington wrote “The Twice Shy Entrepreneur” lamenting that entrepreneurs like himself who had lived through the dotcom meltdown were more cautious. They were “once bitten, twice shy.”
Michael Arrington “Twice Shy” One Year Later Read More »
See www.xkcd.com/ for more comics. This scene plays out in one form or another several times a year.I have learned to: send the E-Mail just to myself and read it again in the morning. save the forum comment in a separate text file. save the blog post for review in the morning. Update Tue-Nov-5: Jim
Late Night Comments and E-Mail Read More »
Some post-Thanksgiving musings on my belief that most people want to do a good job. As you grow your startup find ways for everyone involved to work hard, see an impact, and improve. “Ancient Greeks defined happiness as the exercise of vital powers, along lines of excellence, in a life affording them scope” Edith Hamilton
Offer Scope for Employees to Exercise Their Vital Powers Read More »
A great write-up by Yatin Trivedi on the value of coopetition: the motivation for a partnership program in any company is to better serve the customers beyond one’s ability.
Yatin Trivedi on the Value of Coopetition Read More »
Interesting web site demo at http://nextgenerationelectronicsdesign.com/ by the folks at Altium. Unlike any PCB demo I have ever seen and an interesting use of self-deprecating humor to talk about the challenges of linking FPGA, Board, and Mechanical design. Two time coded remarks at 2:25 “We did what any traditional EDA company would do, we denied
Disruptive Tools Can Stall At Group Boundaries Read More »
In April of 2001, as the euphoria from 1999 started to fall to earth again (by October it would be accessible only by Deep Submersible Rescue Vehicle) Daniel Pink wrote “Land of the Free” in Fast Company that was a teaser for “Free Agent Nation” as a hardback in May of 2001 and paperback in
Daniel Pink’s “Free Agent Nation” Worth Revisiting Read More »
When you are very angry, think about how momentary a man’s life is. Marcus Aurelius I worked in the router software marketing group at Cisco in the early 90’s. I had left engineering and taken up residence in the marketing department. I was playing asteroid to a number of dinosaur protocols: we had realized that
Odd Jobs With an Even Temper Read More »
Having a public reference, testimonial, or case study is a significant risk reducing asset for a startup. It’s prudent to negotiate the level of reference in parallel with price.
Negotiate the Level of Reference in Parallel with Price and Others Terms and Conditions Read More »
I have several rules of thumb I follow to avoid sending and email I regret. I don’t hit send after 8pm, or when I am angry, or when the other person is angry, or when a phone call is called for.
How I Avoid Sending Email I Regret Read More »
I met Scott Sambucci when I spoke at TVC in July of 2007 in Menlo Park as a part of their “Entering the Entrepreneurial World” seminar. He was kind enough to blog about his takeaway from the talk in “Definition: Entrepreneurship” where he concluded that even though it was a noun it should be defined
Scott Sambucci on “An Entrepreneur’s Lessons Learned” Read More »
The October 2008 issue of Inc. magazine made it to the top of my reading pile today and I was delighted to read another great “Street Smarts” column by Norm Brodsky “Secrets of the $110 Million Dollar Man” which offers ten guidelines for starting a successful business.
Norm Brodsky’s Guidelines For Entrepreneurs Read More »
