Author, Investor, Speaker, Mentor
Forbes has been doing a great job of covering the story behind WhatsApp. If you’re too lazy to read their entire stories, here are a few more lessons that I took away from the saga: http://onforb.es/1fH2ai1 1. Do something that people easily understand. WhatsApp had a simple vision: SMS, but free. Hard to argue with … Continue reading More Lessons from WhatsApp
A recent Atlantic piece on humor and psychology, which focused on the “dark psychology” of comedians, seems to me to have buried the lead: http://bit.ly/1futmup What’s really interesting to me are the relationships between humor, intelligence, and gender. 1. Humor is correlated with intelligence: “For a 2011 study published in the journal Intelligence, Greengross gave … Continue reading Humor and Gender
Facebook’s acquisition of WhatsApp for $19 billion has dominated all news in Silicon Valley for the past 48 hours. Yesterday, I was at a urinal, and a group of people asked me what I thought. Most of the discussion seems to be around whether Mark Zuckerberg was crazy to pay so much for a relatively … Continue reading What Entrepreneurs Should Learn From WhatsApp
One of the things that I occasionally have to deal with in the startups I work with is conflict, either between founders, or between employees. The most famous (infamous?) example was one founder to got mad at his co-founder because he claimed that the co-founder had rolled his eyes when the founder was talking. As … Continue reading What Entrepreneurs Can Learn From Marriage Counseling
One of the expressions I hear a lot in the startup world (and which I even use from time to time) is “it’s a numbers game.” What the speaker means is that in certain activities, such as selling a product, pitching a VC, or asking a woman out, failure is the most likely result, and … Continue reading Startups Are A Numbers Game, But Use Your Good Sense
I was fascinated by a recent report that Upworthy, Elite Daily, and Distractify–buzz-based content repurposers whose “viral” headlines have plagued my Facebook feed–had seen their traffic drop by 50% after Facebook changed its news feed algorithm: http://read.bi/1gmjx5u The rapid decline of these previous “hot” startups illustrates a basic principle of business. You have to ask … Continue reading Do You Have A Relationship With Your Users?
Most of us have a problem with procrastination. I could certainly argue (with real justification) that a majority of Facebook and Twitter’s usage occurs when people are procrastinating. Despite my wide array of productivity techniques, even I find myself procrastinating. Ironically, one of the main reasons I end up procrastinating is because I have trouble … Continue reading Two-Face Productivity
When the Bible said, “love of money is the root of all evil,” it was focused on the ability of greed to tempt people away from their faith. But you don’t have to be religious to worry about the impact that money has on our minds. As a true blue capitalist, I believe that money … Continue reading Escaping The Mental Money Trap
I ran across Startups Anonymous, and a post entitled, “We’re Shutting Down and I’m Scared” caught my eye: http://bit.ly/1gc2r95 For better or worse, I’ve either been through or participated in shutting many companies down, so I thought it would be fun and potentially useful to provide my blow-by-blow advice: *** After over two years, backing … Continue reading So You’re Shutting Down Your Startup And You’re Scared…
John Lilly at Greylock recently wrote an excellent post about how entrepreneurs often fall victim to survivorship bias. Because we tend to hear about positive outliers, we end up feeling inadequate: http://bit.ly/1bxzwcH “The companies and people we all compare ourselves to are the ones who won, and who are winning. The Googles of the world. … Continue reading Motivate yourself from within, not with comparisons