Famous teacher or good teacher
Years ago, when I was at Columbia, I heard about an interesting-sounding course taught by a Nobel Laureate. Competition to get in the course was tough so I decided to sit in on a class first (always a good idea). What I found astonished me. The class was half full with most of the attending […]
Random factoid about Cluetrain Manifesto and URL longevity
Here’s something I put together while on hold on the phone. Everyone remember “The Cluetrain Manifesto”? I came across a copy of the book a couple days ago, full of references to “electronic mail.” After the 12 years or so the book has been out I wondered what the longevity was of the URLs they […]
Are the TechStars Results accurate?
I have total respect for TechStars and what I know about it tells me it’s a great program. So when I recently saw TechStars’ results page with a 80% success rate I had to learn more. I’m always very interested in “success/failure” at startups so I looked through their list of previous classes, going back […]
Steve Blank quote
Steve Blank quote from GigaOm video interview: “I did this at SXSW. I said ‘There are 500 people in this room. The good news is, in ten years, there’s two of you who are going to make $100 Million dollars. The rest of you, you might as well have been working at Wal-Mart for how […]
Some things that will help you learn how to improve your startup
Recently, a couple people in the Startups Unplugged class asked me to take a more formal descriptive approach and talk about the general principles that help you learn how to improve your startup. I’m including some personal experiences from when I was building my startup Chatfe (these are mostly examples of things that didn’t go […]
Selling Shovels in the New Startup Gold Rush
Back during the 1849 California Gold Rush, few prospectors struck it rich. Most of the people who made money back then were those who “sold shovels” (and jeans, tents, pickaxes and other supplies and services) to the prospectors who lived hard lives panning for gold. The perspectives of these two types of entrepreneurs (the shovel […]
Are pitch events eating your brain?
Startup pitch events are an important way to hear about other businesses and learn how to talk about your work, but many events could be improved by a little preparation. Too many events have judges who haven’t taken the time to learn about the startups they are judging. This could be because the organizer didn’t […]
You can’t sing about that yet
I remember seeing an older singer, whose life was a drama worthy of a movie, tell a younger singer struggling with a song “you’re not old enough to sing that yet.” Think about this… Have you tried to build something and seen it go nowhere? Been delighted when people tell you your idea is cool? […]
Why I don’t write about startup news
When I was in college I used to spend 2 hours a day reading newspapers. I’d start with the NY Times, go to the Wall Street Journal, maybe pick up the Financial Times, El Mundo, South China Morning Post, or for kicks People’s Daily. Few of those news stories meant anything lasting to me. I […]
What startups can learn from the May 21 Judgment Day group (the greatest startup marketing campaign I’ve ever seen)
(And they did it during NYC TechCrunch Disrupt, too!) The greatest marketing stunt I ever saw came from a fundamentalist religious group called Family Radio. I knew about these guys over a year before Judgment Day (received a flier from a convert) but I was amazed at how much awareness they eventually got for […]
