February 2012
4 posts
“Like technical debt, management debt is incurred when you make an expedient,...”
– http://bhorowitz.com/2012/01/19/management-debt/
Build partners
In startups, I’m a big fan of “you don’t know most of what you don’t know.” This essentially translates into you don’t know anything when you’re just getting started, which many entrepreneurs can relate to. Looking back at Invite, it is utterly amazing at how little we knew about the ad industry, how to build a company, how to run an engineering team,...
New Way to Pay Doctors
UnitedHealth, Nation’s Largest Insurer, Is Latest to Announce Fee Overhaul
This is really big, if they actually go through with it and roll it out in a big way. In my opinion, one of the biggest structural problems with our healthcare system is that the incentives are all screwed up. As a result, and as Jon Stewart smartly said, it’s one of the few systems where literally every side...
Ideation
I’ve pretty much decided in my head that no one, except for a few people, have that lightbulb in their head that goes off from time to time with genius, entirely unthought of ideas for new businesses or inventions. It’s cliche at this point, but the concept of “there’s no more white space, it’s all about execution” comes to mind. In my experience, both in...
January 2012
3 posts
“The business model has worked to attract young aspiring entrepreneurs who were...”
– http://eu.techcrunch.com/2011/12/15/rocket-misfires-%E2%80%94-samwers-lose-key-people-ahead-of-huge-fund-raising-to-clone-globally/
betashop: Knock-Offs Are Bad Design →
betashop:
Here at Fab.com we’re all about good design.
Authenticity is part of our soul.
We guarantee that every product we sell is authentic and that we are authorized to sell it.
We offer our own unique graphic designs on website.
Everything is home grown and original.
That’s what good design is all…
December 2011
2 posts
How to get started
If you want to start your own tech company but don’t know how to get started, the best advice I can give is to go work for one. The earlier stage the better too. Even if it’s just a summer internship, the experience you get from observing how things work (and don’t), doing whatever it takes to get something done, and learning by osmosis is a great starting point. You’ll...
Talk to Adaptly: Introducing Adaptly Momentum:... →
adaptly:
Social network advertising is like no other digital channel that we’ve ever seen before. Each social network is a platform on its own with a completely unique, non-standard ad experience. Standard ad banners are nowhere to be seen; instead, each platform has embraced integrated…
October 2011
2 posts
“By its own count, Wal-Mart has 460 terabytes of data stored on Teradata...”
– http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/14/business/yourmoney/14wal.html?_r=1
Adzerk Team Blog: DevOps at Adzerk →
adzerk:
“A system of local optimums is not an optimum system at all.” - Dr. E. Goldratt
DevOps, the mutant offspring of software development and the subsequent operations to keep that software functioning, is typically an abberaration for most organizations. Most engineering groups create a cultural…
August 2011
2 posts
“There are two times in my life the hair on my arms has stood up: The first time...”
– http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandy_Koufax
Startup advice: define who your customers/users...
In a B2C startup, you’re going to have users/consumers using your service. In a B2B startup, you’ll be selling your service/product to businesses. In each case, it’s important to put in the time upfront to define who your customer/user is and revise it over time. For one, your customers will define what your product evolves into over time, based on their feedback and requests....
July 2011
1 post
Startup sales strategy
If you’re starting a company, you’re going to have to sell your product/service to potential customers (at least if you plan on making any money). This especially applies to enterprise software companies or B2B companies in general, as you’re selling to someone who’s job may ultimately be on the line for the “who we’re going with” decision (related post:...
June 2011
2 posts
Thoughts on building startup technology
About 3-4 times a week I get the privilege of talking with soon-to-be or first time entrepreneurs, most of them still in school. It’s a great thing to see and support, as I agree with others that many of the great new companies are founded by younger folks. As I’ve written about before, it’s not surprising given that starting an innovative new company often requires fresh...
May 2011
6 posts
Thoughts on best ways to manage a VC round
We spent too much time raising money at Invite. Raising money when running a startup is extremely distracting, because every minute you’re fundraising you’re not working on your product. Sometimes I like to think about what else we could have done at Invite if we didn’t spend probably a third of our company’s lifespan fundraising, either full-time or part-time.
However,...
“Most of us young kids who play [online poker] at nosebleed stakes don’t really...”
– http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/27/magazine/mag-27Poker-t.html?pagewanted=3&_r=1
SOTD: R.L. Burnside - Someday Baby (feat. Lyrics... →
Don't assume people are smart
I learned this one from my co-founder Zach. It may be a controversial/touchy post. We were walking out of a meeting one time and he goes “Wow, that person was actually smart.” I didn’t realize until someone had pointed it out, but he had grown by default to assume someone wasn’t smart. His approach isn’t meant to be rude or arrogant, it is (in my opinion) a very...
10 principles for startup recruiting
I’ve read a lot of interesting and well-written articles recently that cover best practices for hiring people into startups. The first thing I’ll say is that, having done it, unsurprisingly recruiting into a startup is really really hard and equally as important. It requires more attention than you could ever could have planned for, and if not done correctly is one of the easiest...
April 2011
11 posts
SOTD: The Band - Atlantic City →
The quality of the intro
When you’re trying to get introduced to someone, take very seriously who introduces you. Often, and especially if you’re already a well-connected person, you may or could have multiple options to get introduced to someone you’re trying to meet.
Probably for good reason, the person you’re trying to meet takes very seriously who introduces you to them. I know that when...
My all-time favorite SNL commercial →
The importance of being able to sell something
Besides being technical-enough and able to think up and build a product, one of the most important things you need in order to succeed as an entrepreneur, in my opinion, is the ability to sell something. I love meeting someone who is starting a company and I know right away that they’ll be able to sell stuff. I’m scared when I meet someone who is unable to convince me of anything...
The IBM effect
Of the few things I actually learned in college, one of the things that stuck with me was “the IBM effect” from marketing class. I’m not sure if there’s a more official codename for the concept, but that’s what I remember it as. Essentially, the idea is a marketing strategy that IBM was successfully able to pull off, in that “you never get fired for picking...
Being good at email
I think it’s underrated at how important it is to be good at email. You notice that right away about first-time entrepreneurs or people at companies. Someone’s email to you is often your first impression of that person. Being good at email really is a skill, and people can be at either end of the spectrum or any point in between. It’s not just how long it takes them to...
Awesome post from Ben Horowitz on managing your... →
Follow-up to "product feedback cycle" post, this...
The following is a follow-up to my post on the “product feedback cycle”. This post was inspired and written mostly by JJ Geewax, who was/is our VP of Engineering at Invite Media. He has been with us since the beginning, so his perspective is well ingrained in what we actually experienced. He brings up some great points not to be left out when looking at this concept as a whole...
March 2011
10 posts
Every deal sounds good these days...
That’s the general feeling I’m hearing from friends who do investing (VC or angel). They’re starting to feel like every deal could work and that people seem to be glazing over potential weaknesses and not second-guessing things. I’m no professional investor, but I feel like the day you get comfortable and stop questioning things, that’s probably pretty correlated...
The product feedback cycle
One of the things I’ve been noticing recently, and from personal experience, is how many different variations of the “product feedback cycle” there are. My co-founder Zach was the first to actually bring this up as an observation as to how we ran things at Invite vs. our competitors and other companies, and I think he’s right. What he means by this is simply, how long...
Follow-up to recruiting today, this time on how to...
In response to my post over the weekend about how to recruit good people in today’s environment (“grow entrepreneurs, not just employees,” as @dherman76 puts it), I got a bunch of questions about another angle of the concept. In short, a few folks question how you manage the implications of having a team full of entrepreneurs. Here are my thoughts on that topic.
As I discussed...
SOTD: The Faces - Ooh La La
http://www.last.fm/music/Faces/_/Ooh+La+La
One of my favorite all-time songs.
A quick thought on recruiting today
I’ve had the pleasure of talking with a lot of new or aspiring entrepreneurs recently. One of the most common themes I’ve noticed is that just about everyone is having a hard time recruiting good people. This isn’t really a surprise, just about every tech blogger has talked about this in the last few months. The reason this is interesting and important to dive into is just how...
Old blog post, but really interesting. I think... →
February 2008
1 post
January 2008
6 posts
