I love reading Paul Graham. Heck, everyone loves reading Paul Graham’s writings on entrepreneurship and investing. The two best thing things about the Y-Combinator founder’s essays are: 1) They are intensely insightful – from his broad and deep understanding of the startup experience, and 2) They are indeed essays as
Ordinarily it takes an act of God to make me spill a drop of my morning coffee, but reading the news this morning nearly caused a grand-mal seizure: “Jilted Kickstarter Backer Neil Singh Is Now An Assistant Attorney General Of Arizona” My first, second and third reaction
I finally get Klout. No, I never had much clout in any kind of situation, but I finally understand the concept of “Klout” – the social influence metric. Klout is like a credit score for social networking influence, calculating and assigning a number that depicts a person’s relative influence (clout) in
It was a brilliant observation from Tim Huntley of An Entrepreneurial Life, based on an exchange with an entrepreneur. The entrepreneur is stuck in some sort of circular-loop thinking preventing him and his team from making progress. In a rather rare display of self-awareness, the entrepreneur likens his dilemma to a
Tapestry. It’s the title of one the most powerful episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Captain Jean-Luc Picard gets to re-live his life and correct some of the ‘stupid mistakes’ he made in his youth. This time, he avoids confrontation, avoids risks and plays it safe. Later we see the outcome of
The infographic below is a very good overview of startup funding, particularly for first-time entrepreneurs, from our friends at Funders and Founders. For new entrepreneurs the chart can be a tad overwhelming. When you’re scraping for your first few dollars from friends and family it’s hard to look ahead
Usually, I am cynical about pithy posts proffering advice such as “5 steps to …” – particularly when it is about becoming a successful entrepreneur, or raising venture funding. Most often, I find these posts written by articulate armchair quarterbacks (who have never really done it themselves) or by what I
So many articles; so many self-proclaimed entrepreneurship experts (who have never started a successful venture themselves) – yet this never stops them from publishing definitive advice on how to be a great entrepreneur. But every so often, one of these formulaic post nails it. Top Reasons Why Startups Fail
I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry. Sure, it’s a parody, but this is as close to the typical entrepreneur-pitch experience as it gets – particularly the comments of the VCs responding to a pitch by one of the greatest innovators that ever lived. And, sadly, I’ve been on
A surprisingly inspirational commencement speech, with important lessons – delivered humorously – from Twitter CEO Dick Costello: