entrepreneur

Seth’s Blog: Cutting through Singer’s Paradox Understanding people’s motivations for giving and helping out others: CLOSE & NOW: (…) Many times, we act generously or heroically because to avoid doing so is to risk being shamed. (…) GRATITUDE : Even though it might not be at the top of mind, the fact is that once we pull someone out of the pond, we anticipate that they will thank us, and so will the community. (…) And this is the problem every good cause outside of your current walk to work faces. They are trying to solve a difficult problem far away. They’re working to do something that is neither close nor now. And often, because the work is so hard, there’s no satisfactory thank you, certainly not the thank you of, we’re done, you’re a hero. ...

fundersandfounders: Too Late To Start? quarter-life crisis and mid-life crisis

How to Create a Business that Prints Money | Forever Jobless Step 1: How can you create something of value in a market better than what’s out there? Step 2: When you do that, how can you reach your potential audience? If you can answer “yes” to both, do you have something you think you’ll enjoy, and can make an amount of money that may be interesting to you? Cool. Jump in. ...

The default state of any new idea is failure. It’s the execution–the fight against inertia–that matters. Dustin Curtis (via The Fight ) It’s so easy to get stuck in the waiting place, putting things off until later, even when those things are vitally important to making your dreams come true. But the truth is that, in order to make progress, you need to physically and mentally fight against the momentum of ordinary events . ...

Ideas are just a multiplier of execution | Derek Sivers To me, ideas are worth nothing unless executed. They are just a multiplier. Execution is worth millions. AWFUL IDEA = -1 WEAK IDEA = 1 SO-SO IDEA = 5 GOOD IDEA = 10 GREAT IDEA = 15 BRILLIANT IDEA = 20 NO EXECUTION = $1 WEAK EXECUTION = $1000 SO-SO EXECUTION = $10,000 GOOD EXECUTION = $100,000 GREAT EXECUTION = $1,000,000 BRILLIANT EXECUTION = $10,000,000 ...

Free is only a tactic, not a business model. Free: a Tactic, not a Business Model | Tech News and Analysis

Redeye VC: The Penny Gap … my primary point was to state that many people (mistakenly) believe that getting a consumer to go from “free” to $1/month is just as difficult as getting someone to go from $1 to $2/month. I think that there is a huge burden to getting a consumer to pay anything — and entrepreneurs tend to underestimate the level of effort.

nateweiner: “The entrepreneur’s dilemma: Maintaining friendships. Building a great company. Spending time w/family. Staying fit. Getting sleep. Pick 3.” @RandiZuckerberg 3 seems generous. Replace “getting sleep” with “eating” or any other body function and that part stops making much sense.

Burn Your Business Plan! – Forbes Now let’s be careful, I’m not saying business plans have no place in the universe, but I am saying they are a bad place to start. There is a much better process to follow and when you are done then, and only then, should you write a business plan. See practical example from XoomPark : Xoom park bmc_international_new_sp [autosaved] View more presentations from Steve Blank

(…) 3 different types of products out there: In the first case, we have something like purchasing food. Immediately that hamburger has a lot of value (you’re hungry right?) but after you eat it, the value is largely gone. In the second case, there are products that deliver the same amount of value to you every day. A newspaper subscription is a great example of this. Every day it shows up at your door and you get the same value from it each time. ...

Brain Crack (Explicit Version) :: Best of the Show :: 07-11-06 (by zefrank1)

Dodd’s Blog: How My Side Project Generated Sales and 66,000 Unique Visitors in 1 Month doddcaldwell: At the end of February, I launched a side project, Loft Resumes, with a friend of mine, Emory Cash. Our tagline is “Style-Conscious Resumes for the Standout Job Seeker.” As you can tell from the Google Analytics screenshot below, from the time that we first tweeted about it on February 21st to mid-day March 31st, we’ve received over 81,000 visits (over 66,000 of them uniques,) and over 209,000 page views. ...

Startup Death Clock The startup death clock tells you what day your startup will run out of money.

Startup Exercise: What can’t be solved with money? (…) show how the important problems facing your business are those that can be solved with money, because money is what they’re providing . Even if you’re not pitching this is a useful exercise, because if you’re good at the things money can’t buy, you’ll remain competitive even when confronted by a well-funded competitor. (…) The pattern: concepts , behaviors , knowledge , and process cannot be fabricated with money, and possibly cannot even be accelerated. Once you know what to do or, more likely, you know how to learn quickly, then money becomes an accelerant . ...

Never say “no,” but rarely say “yes.” So the principle is easy: Set the conditions of “yes” such that: If they say “yes,” you’re happy because the terms or money are so good, it more than compensates for the distraction, possibly even funding the thing you really want to do. If they say “no,” you’re happy because it wasn’t a great fit anyway, so it’s not worthwhile for a small return on your time and effort. So that’s the punch-line, but before you go I’d like to over-emphasize the idea of “funding the thing you really want to do.” ...

A startup can focus on only one metric. So you have to decide what that is and ignore everything else. Noah Kagan, in The full story of “the one important thing” for startups At a little company there’s no time for small changes achieving small goals. — Jason Cohen

Your time is $1000/hour, and you need to act accordingly. Jason Cohen , founder of WP Engine in How should a startup founder value her time?

Startups, This Is How Design Works – by Wells Riley But what is ‘design’ actually? Is it a logo? A WordPress theme? An innovative UI? It’s so much more than that. It’s a state of mind. It’s an approach to a problem. It’s how you’re going to kick your competitor’s ass. This handy guide will help you understand design and provide resources to help you find awesome design talent.

(via A VC: The Startup Curve )

Startup Tools | Steve Blank Awesome reference guide with tools to help start a new business.