2010

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Be Careful not to Become a Conference Ho

Both Sides of the Table

You know the type. You see them on Twitter, Facebook or Plancast plotting out their next 12 conference. You see their Tweets from airports across the globe. Look at me! I’m in Spain! Now I’m in France. Next week I’m speaking in Cabo San Lucas! They are professional conference attendees. They are CEO’s addicted to the schmoozing.

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Mattel Unleashes Twitter Device For Dogs

socalTECH

Not happy with just keeping up with the thousands of updates from your fellow Twitter users? If not, El Segundo-based toy maker Mattel has launched a new toy this week which connects the Twitter micro-messaging service to your own pet dog. Mattel said it has launched a new gadget called Puppy Tweets , which allows users to follow their dog's activities via Twitter.

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Better Business Bureau? For who?

Eric Greenspan

How many BBB logos are there? What is the Better Business Bureau? It’s not a government agency. It’s not policed by a government agency. It’s not even run like a top down corporation. It’s a franchise model, run by local “owners&# or “President/CEOs.&# It is a private institution run by local presidents that make their living on selling local merchants on becoming a member.

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Some People Are Indispensable, But No One Is Irreplaceable

InfoChachkie

Reginald Martinez Jackson was a perennial major league baseball all-star throughout most of his 21-year career. Reggie earned the nickname “Mr. October” because of his consistent ability to hit home runs during clutch situations in playoff and World Series games, which contributed to his teams winning five Championships. He was also often referred to as a “hotdog” for his self-promotional antics and lackadaisical on-field play.

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Can You Ask for Office Rent Relief? How to Manage Your Lease During COVID-19

Office leases are one of companies’ largest expenses, and if your whole team is working from home with no clear end in sight, you may be wondering what to do about your lease.

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Ten of the Worst Reasons for Starting a Business

Startup Professionals Musings

Every entrepreneur needs to be honest about their strengths and weaknesses, and realistic about their reasons for choosing the startup route. For any entrepreneur, even the best business opportunities, if entered for the wrong reasons, will likely fail. Some of these reasons seem obvious, so forgive me for restating, but I still hear them too often.

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Networking Tips for Entrepreneurs

Jason Nazar

Ten Tips on How to Make it in the Meet-up Scene. The technology meet-up scene is an odd co-mingling of entrepreneurs, engineers, social media mavens, service providers, and up and comers. Here are ten actionable tips to make the most of your meet-ups. • Meet More – the key to any meet-up is first to meet others. Seems like that would be rather self explanatory.

Tips 112

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TEDxSB – Inspired Environments

Daradiction

My TEDxSB talk on Inspired Environments. After watching this video I got inspired to get a tan, hit the gym, and cut down my sugar intake by 80%. What a positive difference this has made in my energy levels and well being. Click here to view the embedded video.

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What I learned from losing a million…Market knowledge comes FIRST.

Berkonomics

Know your market and competition, or don’t spend a dime on anything else. I have stated previously that I love absolutes – statements with no wiggle room for gray-area responses. Well, here is one of those, and it deals with market research first and foremost. . Let me tell you a short story at my own expense. In 1994, (I know a long time ago), I invested over a million dollars into a company whose entrepreneurs had a vision that I bought into for many reasons,

Marketing 247
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73.6% of all Statistics are Made Up

Both Sides of the Table

How to Interpret Analyst Reports. The headlines in the media are filled with that latest stats. Stats sell. The stats are often quoted from the latest reports. People then parrot them around like they’re fact when most of them are complete bullsh*t. People throw them around at cocktail parties. Often when they do I throw out my favorite statistic: 73.6% of all statistics are made up.

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Life is 10% How You Make It and 90% How you Take It

Both Sides of the Table

Startups are hard. When you read the press you only read the glamorous bits. You read about Mark Zuckerberg or the guys at FourSquare, Twitter or Zynga. But that’s a bit like reading about your state lottery winner and feeling bummed out because you haven’t won despite years of trying. The reality is that most of you will never hit it BIG yet you’ll lead fulfilled and productive lives.

Blogging 407
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Want to Know How VC’s Calculate Valuation Differently from Founders?

Both Sides of the Table

Back in 1999 when I first raised venture capital I had zero knowledge of what a fair term sheet looked like or how to value my company. Due to competitive markets we ended up with a pretty good term sheet until we needed to raise money in April 2001 and then we got completely screwed. It was accept the terms or go into bankruptcy so we took the money.

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Want to Know the Difference Between a CTO and a VP Engineering?

Both Sides of the Table

I recently did a post for startups on understanding sales people. A few people have asked me to try and define the perfect startup organization chart. I don’t believe that one exists. Every team configuration is different. But I do have more insight into understanding your startup team. This time I thought I’d try and address engineering talent.

CTO Hire 400
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Never Hire Job Hoppers. Never. They Make Terrible Employees

Both Sides of the Table

This is part of my startup advice series. This post isn’t going to be popular. I’m sure of that. That’s OK. It’s still important advice for startup founders and something that I’m passionate about. And I care more about the debate than trying to be popular. And it’s important because it’s true. I never hire job hoppers.

Startup 392
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It’s Better to Beg for Forgiveness than to Ask for Permission

Both Sides of the Table

I have always believed in the saying, “It’s better to beg for forgiveness than to ask for permission.&# It’s a way of life. It’s not about abusing situations but about knowing when to push the boundaries. It’s about knowing that the overwhelming number of people in life are naysayers and “no sayers&# and sometimes you gotta just roll the dice and say WTF.

Startup 379
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Don’t be a Grin Fucker

Both Sides of the Table

OK, this will be a test of whether using real curse words in your title or post gets all of your stuff blocked by spam filters or from appearing on HackerNews or the like. I thought about trying to spell it differently (like Guy Kawasaki always says Bull Shitake (as in the mushroom, but slightly misspelled) but somehow it lost the same effect that this saying has always had for me.

Startup 378
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Understanding How The Innovator’s Dilemma Affects You

Both Sides of the Table

One of the most influential books of my career is The Innovator’s Dilemma by Clay Christensen. I cannot recommend it enough for people in the technology or media sectors. Many people bandy about the definitions of “disruptive technology&# or “the innovator’s dilemma&# without ever having read the book and almost universally misunderstand the concepts.

Startup 376
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Do you Suffer from the Urgency Addiction? It’s More Common Than you Think

Both Sides of the Table

I suffer from the “urgency addiction.&# I know it sounds like one of the falsely humble things like telling somebody in a job interview that your weakness is that you’re too much of a perfectionist. But the urgency addiction is a bad thing that I’m fortunate enough to get away with. When I first discovered the concept I found it enlightening.

Slides 374
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The Benefits of Top-Down Thinking & Why it is Critical to Entrepreneurs

Both Sides of the Table

For the first 5 years of my career I was a “bottom up&# thinker and worker. I assembled tons of data, grouped things, found results and drew conclusions. It was difficult to make the transition to a “top down&# thinker but as a senior executive – and as an entrepreneur – you’re far less effective without this skill in your arsenal.

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How to Run Better Presentations & Improve Results

Both Sides of the Table

I sit through a lot of presentations. It’s usually people wanting to raise money and/or persuade me of something. Many of these are not as effective as they could be. 1. Understand Personality Types – One of the benefits of working for a big company (Accenture) was that we had lots of speakers come in and train us in topics like leadership, creativity, presentations, strategy, etc.

Slides 358
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What Tech Entrepreneurs Could Learn from Chamillionaire

Both Sides of the Table

On why you should be an entrepreneur, “A lot of people do what they have to do. You want to get yourself to a position where you can do what you want to do&# (Chamillionaire). Last night I co-hosted a dinner at Soho House in Los Angeles with some of the most senior people in the media industry with executives from Disney, Fox, Warner, media agencies and many promising tech & media startup CEO’s.

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How to Manage Employees When They Make Mistakes

Both Sides of the Table

I was recently involved with a company (not as an investor) where an embarrassing mistake was made. One of the leaders took a sort of “heads will roll&# approach. It’s not my company so I basically stayed out but tried to encourage him to think differently about the “punishment.&# I didn’t stick around for the repercussions so I hope the process was balanced.

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Journeymen, Mavericks & Superstars: Understanding Salespeople at Startups

Both Sides of the Table

Most technology startups seem to be founded by three types of people: product managers, engineers or biz dev types (MBAs and the like). Very few of them are started, in my experience, by sales people and very few early stage companies really understand sales. That’s why I started the Sales & Marketing Series and at one point I will do a bunch of posts on the sales methodology we developed at my first company called PUCCKA.

Startup 350
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The Power of Twitter in Information Discovery

Both Sides of the Table

It surprises me how many really smart people I meet still doubt the power of Twitter. It seems the urge to be a naysayer of Twitter is really strong for some. I think some of this stems from the early days of Twitter when it was presumed that it was a technology to tell people what you ate for lunch. Twitter never seemed to really take the offense in PR and marketing.

RSS 349
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Building Products for Mass Adoption

Both Sides of the Table

Chris Dixon wrote a blog post last week titled, “ Techies and Normals &# in which he defined “Techies&# as people who are not just “early adopters&# but also have more of a geeky, technical, product bent. Normals (or “Muggles&# as Catarina Fake called them) are people who, unlike Techies, don’t just use products simply because they’re infatuated with them and with showing the world how cool it is that they’re using the latest tech product.

Product 348
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Twitter Networks are Different than Social Networks

Both Sides of the Table

If you use Twitter and think it is a valuable service then you’re probably tired of the steady stream of your friends who tell you it’s just a fad and they don’t feel compelled to join. They “don’t care what people ate for lunch.&# They’re fine on their existing social networks, which these days mostly means they’re happy with Facebook.

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Startup Sales – Why Hiring Seasoned Reps May Not Work

Both Sides of the Table

A while back I wrote a bunch of posts on Sales & Marketing and have been meaning to get back to that theme for a while. Even if you don’t have “direct&# sales I would tell you that “everything is a sale&# including fund raising, hiring, getting press and doing business development. So I hope these posts will be useful to all and not just those who need road warriors.

Sales 346
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The Right Way to Cancel a Meeting

Both Sides of the Table

Canceling meetings is part of modern day life. I seem to get so over programmed that if I ever want to have a “break-out&# unplanned trip somewhere I seem to have to reschedule meetings. Not fun, but a reality. And people reschedule meetings with me on a regular basis, too. If done correctly I never have any problem with it at all. Done poorly and it really puts a bad taste in my mouth.

Startup 346
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Bring Me Solutions, Not Problems (I know you think you know this, but …)

Both Sides of the Table

I recently wrote a post on how to ask for help or favors from people. This is a related post that will not only help you get the results you want more effectively but will also help earn the respect of your senior people (whether management or your board). I know you think you know this already. Everybody says that. It surprising how few people actually follow through this this advice.

Slides 342
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Fight When it’s Time to Fight. Be Gracious When It’s Time to Give In.

Both Sides of the Table

There are times to fight. I must admit it’s part of my DNA to enjoy a good fight (not as much as does Jason Calacanis, mind you ahem: Facebook. Er: Comscore , Cough: Angel funding payola ). But there are times to given in and compromise. Don’t confuse the two. When you give in, do so graciously. Take the high road. Act and feel zen.

Demand 340
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Don’t Take the Little Things for Granted

Both Sides of the Table

Yesterday I wrote about the importance of choosing happiness. Today I want to write about a related topic: not taking the little things in life for granted. I promise not to turn this blog into a personal self-help blog! But today is a special day and I’m thinking about this topic so please humor me just one more time. More later in the post.

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Embrace Losing – It Will Make You Stronger

Both Sides of the Table

This is an updated post from my ongoing series on Startup Advice that I learned from founding two companies. . I HATE LOSING. I hate it. I really, really, really hate it. It chaps my hide. It rips at my core. I don’t get over it easily. I lose sleep. I fucking hate losing. It’s not so much the actual outcome that I hate – it’s the process.

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Be Careful not to be Penny Wise, Pound Foolish

Both Sides of the Table

Justyn Howard, founder of Sprout Social has a blog post that he’s written about his experiences of migrating from scrappy tools to more efficient ones (i.e. Using Balsamiq instead of SnagIt, Website Optimizer over just Google Analytics and FTP). It’s a great topic, his post is well written and given that he’s going through it right now in his startup it’s worth reading his point of view on the topic.

Startup 333
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How to Ask for Help, Favors and Intros

Both Sides of the Table

An entrepreneur recently sent me an @ reply message on Twitter asking for some help with a decision coming up in his business. I get these frequently via Twitter, Facebook or email. I don’t mind. I can’t always get to them. Basically a request like this is stacking on top of my already large to-do list. But I do like to try and make time for some and I’ll admit I’m a bit random about it.

Help 332
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Running More Effective Board Meetings at Startups

Both Sides of the Table

Like many of you I’ve sat through my fair share of Board Meetings over the past decade. For the most part I’d call them Bored Meetings. The first 7 years I was running them and the past 3 years I’ve been attending them. Most board meetings aren’t as effective as they could be. Everyone has their own opinion on board meetings so you’ll get conflicting advice.

Startup 331
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Embrace Losing – It Will Make You Stronger

Both Sides of the Table

This is an updated post from my ongoing series on Startup Advice that I learned from founding two companies. . I HATE LOSING. I hate it. I really, really, really hate it. It chaps my hide. It rips at my core. I don’t get over it easily. I lose sleep. I fucking hate losing. It’s not so much the actual outcome that I hate – it’s the process.

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Design for the Novice, Configure for the Pro

Both Sides of the Table

I recently wrote about my philosophy of minimalism that “ less is more &# with the mantra “when in doubt, leave it out.&#. I’ve had a long-standing rule of thumb in product design, which I call “design for the novice, configure for the pro.&# I started saying this back in 2001/02, long before the era of Web 2.0, lean startups or even the advent of AJAX.

Design 325