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 and executing on something. Gaining insight into what it’s actually like will better prepare you for the day you ultimately go out on your own.
As an employee you often have the luxury of:
⁃ Structure: your work starts and ends at a certain time at a designated place
⁃ Direction: an understanding of what you’re to accomplish and how to do that
⁃ …
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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 weekends project was further along. But they can’t leave the day job they’re not too content with until they reached a certain milestone.
If I found myself in this situation, I’d have a mornings and weekends project. Here’s why:
Mental Freshness
I don’t know about anyone else but I’m wiped after my foots been on the gas for an …
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Two things that I love are learning and businesses that create surplus from uncaptured value. A space that particularly intrigues me is the Knowledge Economy.
So much of the incredible knowledge that people have gained through experience lies dormant. People always want to improve, gather more data points, and find things faster so there is a continuous demand for this knowledge. The supply is equally abundant: Odds are someone else has done what you’re trying to do or found what you’re trying to find. Yet despite someone really smart inventing the internet, there is still a disconnect between knowledge supply and demand. I attribute this to the fact that the channels through which knowledge is exchanged are still not fully matured …
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One thing I’ve become increasingly cognizant of is that the intake of information is only part of an effective learning process. The greatest learning occurs when we actively apply our knowledge. This notion has been popularized by the phrase “learning is doing.”
One of the challenges we face as a race is that only a small percentage of people are poised to actively apply their knowledge to solve the world’s greatest problems: problems such as curing cancer or creating sustainable solutions to address the diminishing oil supply. It seems kind of odd that their is not a greater concentration of talent focused here considering the scale at which innovation can make humanity better off. This is not a call out, just …
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Check out this google sandwich
It’s just so savory.
I wanted to share this awesome Savored Picks section because I’m always looking for new date spots or places to “grab drinks.” I can’t be the only one with this problem.
If you feel weird or embarrassed about using a discount on a date, you shouldn’t. It won’t come up because the discount is integrated into the check via the reservation. No coupons.
If for some odd reason it comes up, just tell you’re date she’s lucky to be with such a financially savvy guy…then putting the icing on the cake by offering to go grab a night cap afterwards using the money you saved : )
So how is (enter startup name) going?
Many people answer this question with some iteration of “good” regardless of where things stand. I’ve talked with founders who I know are flailing, yet they still come up with some anecdote that things are “going well”. I’m not surprised at this behavior; we live in a world that says show your best and hide the rest. I just think it’s an ineffective, unsustainable paradigm. So save the dog and pony show.
When people ask “how things are going,” it’s far more productive to be honest and authentic. I have far greater respect for and more meaningful interactions with people that are.
Why You Should Always Be Authentic:
Intimacy:
No one is perfect. Everyone just pretends to …
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Just because you can put cool items people want inside of a box does not mean a viable subscription commerce business exists. After the success of Birchbox, so many people are trying to find ways to emulate the coveted subscription commerce model. Why? My guess is because it’s an attractive, easy to understand model.
Over the past 8 months, I’ve heard the “Birchbox” for x countless times. The problem is that this model is not plug and play. I feel comfortable saying this because I tried to start a subscription commerce company not too long ago.
Like many, I gravitated toward the idea of emulating Birchbox in another vertical. From the sidelines, the model just seemed so attractive. So …
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A trend I’ve been noticing amongst SMBs I interact with is that they’re increasingly using technology to capture value from one-off interactions where they previously failed. Larger brands have long recognized the power of an email address or social media relationship and have provided consumers with incentives to trade this information. This information is a gateway for maintaining relevancy and hopefully cultivating a relationship through the penetration of your inbox or social stream. The diligence of retail brands in this arena serves as a stark contrast from my experience with SMBs. However, a few of my most recent interactions indicate SMBs are now getting in the game:
After putting my name on the waiting list at a local restaurant, the …
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