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Entrepreneurship
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11.20.095 Unconventional business books for the holidaysThe holidays are coming up, which means many of us will be spending a lot of time on airplanes and other places where we might have some free time. So I thought it might be helpful to post suggestions for some good books to read while you are getting where you are going, or maybe when you get there. Below are 5 books I recommend that deal with business or product, often in unconventional ways: How Successful People Win--Using Bunkhouse Logic To Get What You Want Out Of Life, by Ben Stein. This is a great book giving insight into how successful ...
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11.13.09You and your researchIn an interview with Joe Armstrong in "Coders At Work," the excellent book I described in a recent post, the author Peter Seibel refers to a famous talk by Richard Hamming entitled "You and Your Research" in which Hamming advises young scientists on how to do great work, make significant contributions to their fields, and achieve career success. Hamming addresses numerous issues that are relevant for anyone who wants to make their mark and achieve success, certainly including entrepreneurs. I will go into only one of these points in detail here, although I would advise anyone and everyone to take a ...
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11.12.09Connecting the SoCal Tech dotsToday I wanted to give a shout-out to Dr. Tony Karrer, creator of the Southern California Tech Central (SCTC) web site, which aggregates blogs from various folks working in technology throughout SoCal. As of this week, Tony started including this blog on the site, as you can see from the new banner on the right side of the page. I am excited and flattered to be included among such well-known and respected bloggers, so Tony thank you very much and I look forward to working together. A bit of background on SCTC. Tony founded the site about 6 months ago as a community ...
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11.09.09Read this book: Coders At WorkRecently I began reading "Coders At Work, Reflections on the craft of programming," by Peter Seibel. The format of the book is based on the earlier work by Jessica Livingston, "Founders at Work," in which Ms. Livingston interviewed founders from a dozen or so successful startups on the details of their approach to starting companies. In Coders, Peter Seibel interviews 15 of the most well-known and respected coders from various disciplines, ranging from relatively younger coders leading the development of scalable web technologies such as Brad Fitzpatrick and Jamie Zawinski to the gods of the craft including Donald Knuth and Peter ...
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11.06.09When anti-stealth is goodThere seems to have been an increase recently in the discussion among entrepreneurs and others related to startups of whether and to what extent a startup should remain in "stealth" mode. For those who not familiar with the term, stealth mode refers to a startup explicitly not discussing in public its products or strategies. The degree to which a company can cloak its intentions can range from simply not publicly demonstrating its product on one hand to using a false company name during development on the other, only to reveal the true name just before launching. A notable example of the ...
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11.03.09What goes in v1.0?The good news: team KlickFu is close to working through all the major technology issues needed to deliver a fairly solid version of our initial product. Now comes the next challenge, especially for the product manager (i.e., me)--deciding which features are must-haves for version 1. Part of the challenge is deciding what exactly V1.0 is and what is it going to be used for. In the past, this was pretty clear, especially for a desktop software application. V1.0 was the first version of your software, the one that had to make a big splash with the media, users, potentially software resellers and distributors, ...
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09.22.09Who I follow… and whyA number of my friends and colleagues who do not work in high-tech or startups have mentioned recently they have read some of my blog entries and have a growing interest in consumer Internet and entrepreneurship. Several of them have asked for references to other blogs on the subject, so I thought it might be helpful to give a brief summary of the blogs and news sources I follow along with why I find them valuable. Below are some of the main ones, arranged in order by usefulness and the order I consume them. I read most of these in ...
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09.17.09Learn PythonThis post is aimed at founders/CEOs of high-tech startups, who consider themselves to be "non-technical" execs. Note, I include myself in this group. While I was a computer geek in high school and I have built a few fairly robust web sites, I did not take advanced computer science courses in college nor do I consider myself an engineer. My recommendation is: if you have not yet learned a computer language you could use to build a simple web site (or desktop app), learn Python. Why bother learning a programming language now? CEOs are busy, they have a lot on their plate ...
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09.09.09Looking for designer to create new user experienceYesterday I had a meeting with an early-stage VC to talk about KlickFu and the best ways to move forward. In preparing for the meeting, I was anticipating various questions they might ask--certainly one was, "if you had funding in the bank today, what is the first thing you would do tomorrow morning?" After considering it for a bit, the answer is clear: the first thing I would do is hire a worldclass user experience designer. (In fact, I am not waiting until we are funded to find a designer, I am looking for one right now.) Of the different positions ...
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09.03.09How much is an idea worth? (Hint: more than 1%)As a startup founder, I go to several "entrepreneur" networking events each month. Often these events feature panel discussions on topics relevant to starting a new company, such as how to raise angel financing, how to form strategic partnerships, whether and how to outsource, etc. In general, the panel discussions are on point and helpful and the panelists are successful, experienced, and candid with their comments. However, inevitably at some of these events, the subject of "what it takes to be successful" comes up, and one of the panelists will say the following, usually with all the other panelists nodding in ...
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