Steve Jobs, 1955-201...

“That’s been one of my mantras — focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.” – Steve Jobs,...

Aren’t We All ...

Maybe you should stop introducing yourself as a Startup and simply say what you’re business is successful at delivering. - John Kobel Background In my last post - Start Hanging Out With People Who May Have Your Solutions, I reiterated the value of Steve Blank’s “Get Out Of...

Start Hanging Out Wi...

Stop staying around people who have your problems and start staying around ones who have your solutions. - Jeffrey G. Allen, Instant Interviews Background About a month ago, I was at local Startup Drink night and met Mohd Shahnawaz. Crying in my beer about my inability to get traction for my...

Pivoting for Profit

Just build a _____ profitable business! – David Heinemeier Hansson, This Week in Startups #46 (1:10:45) Reflection In the spirit of Agile, here’s my retrospective on when we realized the primary objective is to build a business & not to get funded. Inflating Our Own Bubble Back in June 2009, I read about the TechCrunch50 2009 contest & while we barely had any running code, submitted an entry. My collaborators thought it was a bit of a stretch, but we all agreed it’s nice to set goals. So while trying to get a grip on what was required of us, I immersed myself in TechCrunch stuff. From what I understood, there was a...

Meet Greg Meyer: A M...

I learned this when reading Guy Kawasaki’s Reality Check: Leo Rosten, the Yiddish maven and author of The Joys of Yiddish, defines mensch this way: Someone to admire and emulate, someone of noble character. The key to being “a real mensch” is nothing less than character,...