A lot of people have been asking me how to get into BD recently. Similar to Venture Capital, I don’t think there is a boilerplate prescription for getting into BD. There are definitely things you can do to put yourself in a favorable position like networking, blogging, and gaining an understanding of what BD actually [...]
Archive | January, 2012
What All Humans Crave
It sucks to be cold. It sucks to be hungry. It sucks being lonely. It sucks to be sick. A lot of harsh realities suck. But you know what sucks more than anything else? Feeling like you’re a lesser human or even worse, like you’re not one at all. I’ve come to realize over the [...]
Do More than Be A Great Employee
Most young people working at a startup have aspirations of starting their own company some day. If you’re in this camp, I think its important to aspire to more than just being a great employee. Your tenure working for someone else is an awesome time to also familiarize yourself with the unique challenges of starting [...]
BD 101: Less Obvious Ways to Find A Decision Maker
Pro-active business development is about finding decision makers and making it happen when you do. LinkedIn is a pretty powerful tool for finding a decision maker, but sometimes it’s not enough. Let me illustrate an example of what I’m alluding to from my subscription commerce days. As a budding [...]
The Biggest Networking Fail
If there is one networking virtue I wish I knew earlier in my career it’d be consistency. Tell me if this story sounds familiar: I go to the Crunchtech Explosion Conference. I meet the contact of my dreams and we end up having an awesome conversation. After exchanging information I send a thoughtful follow-up [...]
Rethinking Nights and Weekends Projects
I talk to a lot of people who have “nights and weekends” projects. Sometimes these are things they’re working on for fun. Other times these are products that people think they’d like to form a company around some day. People in the latter camp often say they’d leave their day job if their nights and [...]
I’m Reading 850 Books in 2012: Part Two
In the first part of this post, I defined inputs and outputs in the context of progressing your career. The main point is that you should consider the degree to which inputs enhance outputs when evaluating how you spend your time. Reading 850 books might sound cool, be fun and make you feel good, but [...]
I’m Reading 850 Books in 2012: Part One
Amidst the barrage of publicly broadcasted New Year’s resolutions I’ve consistently noticed the aspiration to read a ton of books. Reading is awesome. I thoroughly enjoy it. But I wonder if the people that are planning to take down a small library this year aspire to do this for the right reasons. This trend is [...]
Dramatically Increase Your Email Productivity
Get Weeks More Time This Year
Want A Startup Job in Biz Dev?
Check Out My Book
