Author, Investor, Speaker, Mentor
One of the popular expressions used by investors is “How much hair is on the deal?” A hairy deal includes messy complications, like a product that hasn’t yet found a market, or inexperienced founders. Some investors shy away from hairy deals. I, on the other hand, have decided to ply my trade as a startup … Continue reading Life as a Startup Barber
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 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
Entrepreneurs are frequently admonished to “stay hungry.” These words are almost like scripture, having been cited by Steve Jobs himself in his legendary 2005 Stanford commencement speech. Intuitively, these words seem to be true across a host of domains. Starving artists of all types feel the curse of the sophomore slump; going from hungry unknown … Continue reading Don’t Stay Hungry
I’m always looking for ways to apply insights from other disciplines to the startup world. The other night, I was at a parenting seminar, when the presenter (Kirk Steupfert) talked about the importance of “No, because.” What me meant was that when you’re a parent, it’s very tempting to respond to your children’s constant requests … Continue reading No, Because
We love winning and winners. In sports, we hand out trophies and belts to scorers and champions. In business, we celebrate CEOs who increase their stock price. In politics, we anoint winners and losers based on the votes they win. What do these have in common? In each domain, it’s easy to keep score. In … Continue reading Don’t Mistake Winning for Accomplishment
Credit and blame are two faces of the same coin, and both aren’t worth as much as you think. When I was young, I was very concerned with credit and blame. My old mentor, Thor Johnson, called me “a shameless self-promoter,” and he meant it as a compliment. When things went right, I made sure … Continue reading Credit and Blame
When people talk about power, they invariable are referring to hard power. Hard power is the power of authority and might. Hard power is swift and decisive. Hard power is the ability of the President of the United States to order assassinations, and have them carried out half a world away by drone strike. In … Continue reading Hard Power and Soft Power
When entrepreneurs ask me where to find good ideas, I advise them to read promiscuously and make connections. (No, this isn’t some kind of advertisement for Tinder or Grindr.) To read promiscuously means to be voracious and unselective. I was at the library on Sunday, looking for audiobooks, and as usual, I picked up a … Continue reading Read promiscuously and make connections