The Complex System

Yesterday my wife and I took our twins (who will be 3 next month) to Disneyland for the first time. It was wonderful and fascinating to watch them experience all that is Disney for the very first time. I could probably write a short essay on that alone, but for this post I want to [...]

I’ve heard about a thousand variations of this statement which is used to explain the business model for way to many companies. Personally, I don’t believe in it. The idea is that if you build a localized mobile application or some verticalized (new word I’m using by the way) content play, you’ll be able to [...]

What a day. My inbox was as full as it’s been in my entire life. I feel like I had two days in one today. Launching a new company is a very satisfying thing. The first time you go out to the world and announce yourself is liberating. You know you’ve been working hard, building [...]

It’s been way too long since I was in the thick of things at a very early stage startup. I’d forgotten how many things there are to do, fundamental things and strategic things. It’s like there are a million little Lego pieces strewn about the ground and it’s my job to pick them up, one [...]

#3 of the 10 part series on Docstoc and it’s about motivating some of the most important people in your company, engineers. It starts with the environment; they’ve got to love it there. Then pile on challenging and though provoking projects and your own the right track. Here are 4 things I like to do. [...]

#2 of the 10 part series on Docstoc and it’s about recruiting. Getting the smartest people (yes, smarter than you) to join your company in the early days should be obvious, but it’s not easy. Here are 3 tips that have worked for me. Link to DocStoc: 3 Tips for Recruiting Your First Superstar Employees

Yup, I’m binary like that. When it comes to entrepreneurship, I’m either on or I’m off and it serves me well. It’s also a curse to be truthful, but I don’t know any different. Here’s the thing. I just don’t do things half ass (well my wife might say different when it comes to picking [...]

This is the first video from my 10 part series on Docstoc. I like the style of the videos they produce, they’re short and to the point with good nuggets; not just mine, all of them, and there are hundreds from other smarter guys than me. That said, the stuff in my videos is pretty [...]

What’s more important, great engineering or insane product management? Well, seeing as I’m not an engineer for shit (although I think I might have been in a past life), I’ll say the passionate product guy. I don’t think this has been the common thinking for some time, at least as long as I can remember. [...]

In my experience, and particularly these days, when it comes to building a technology or product company, things tend to go in phases. The first phase is the product building phase. This is where you actually build something that works, hopefully. This phase also includes some really good thinking about what problem your solving, how [...]