Why startups are dying left and right
52 games over the course of six years
That’s how long it took before the creators of Angry Birds launched their successful game from the verge of bankruptcy in 2009.
Turned down 25 times
That’s how many tries it took Tim Ferriss to find someone willing to publish his best-seller The 4-Hour Workweek. (And even then, they admitted they didn’t think it was anything special.)
Four years of failure
That’s how...
Age is Just a Number..Don’t Let it be an Excuse..
I can’t recall the number of times someone would tell me, “I’m too old for this.”
“I can’t do that anymore — I’m getting too old!”
I’m too old to run.
I’m too old to travel.
I’m too old to learn a new language.
I’m too old to start a new business.
People seem to think that once they pass a certain age, their minds slow down and their bodies become weak...
Why Google Should Sell Nest.
Promise vs Reality
When Google acquired Nest in 2014 it was the biggest acquisition of an energy tech company. Nest had taken the lowly thermostat and made it desirable and sexy. It was the first smart home product that made utilities think ‘customers might actually care about this stuff!’. The Nest story also became a slide in every energytech company’s fundraising pitch...
Go-To-Market Fit: The Missing Link for Enterprise Growth
By Bob Tinker and Tae Hea Nahm
If you spend time in the incubators, accelerators, or coffee shops of tech hubs, you’re bound to hear entrepreneurs and investors alike talking about finding Product Market Fit (PMF). Finding PMF is the eureka moment that fills the origin stories that great entrepreneurs handed down from founder to founder. It is the imperative...
Are You Working on a Side Project or a Startup?
David Frankel, Managing Partner
Not every tech product or service should be a business, an even smaller set should be venture-backed startups, and plenty of potential $100 million companies fail because they raised capital as if they would become billion dollar unicorns. The problem is that it’s hard to tell how big an idea can become at the outset. It...
Two Principles That Will Help You Form Any Habit
The battle between good and bad habits is something each one of us does daily.
Sometimes we feel motivated, and we managed to do something, but in most cases, bad habits take over, and we don’t move towards our positive habits.
Sounds familiar?
Same thing with this article.
I know that it will help me keep my streak, and on the other hand,...
17 Creative Brainstorming Methods That (Might) Produce Brilliance
Being creative is a muscle — it needs to be worked in order to stay active.
But just like a muscle, it can also get used to the same exercises if you aren’t careful to change things up every now and then.
If you’re ever stuck in a rut, try one of these:
1. The “J.K. Rowling” Brainstorm.
Legend has it J.K. Rowling began her fateful journey...
Want To Become A Multi-Millionaire? Do These 15 Things Immediately.
“The greatest reward in becoming a millionaire is not the amount of money that you earn. It is the kind of person that you have to become to become a millionaire.” — Jim Rohn
Most people wish their circumstances would magically change for them. They don’t have the desire to become better themselves so they can proactively improve their own circumstances.
Unlike most people,...
Copycats are always out there: Startup Survival Guide
Like President Trump says “Make America Great Again” and now out here many people began to use to the phrase. Such copycats.
opycats are always out there.
People only copy something when they see something is good!
If someone is trying to copy you in one way that is good! That means you doing something right and that should motivate you to...
Do Big Advertisers Even Matter to the Platforms?
P&G, Unilever and others are throwing their weight around with Google and Facebook. The platforms can afford to ignore them.
The IAB annual meeting — an industry event featuring all manner of digital media and marketing folk — is in full swing right about now, and it’s managed to capture a news cycle by releasing an early draft of a speech from Keith Weed, CMO of...
How focusing on the customer (not the competition) brought us over 1 million new signups in a year
Last February, we launched a new product version.
We had spent nearly all of 2016 revamping a core feature and we were excited about what we’d built.
But shortly after the release, our design director found a discussion thread on Designer News.
The top commenter quoted the first two lines of our About page (which says the company was founded in 2006),...
Do you get the feeling apps are getting dumber?
They are, and that’s a good thing. Behind the surprising simplicity of some of today’s top apps, smart developers are realizing that they’re able to get users to do more by doing less. A new crop of companies is setting its sights on changing user behaviors; the small behaviors in your life, hoping to reap big rewards.
They’re using the best...
The Tragedy of Fritz Haber: The Monster Who Fed The World
By the spring of 1915, The Great War had already scattered the shredded, rotting flesh of men and boys across the once lush Belgian fields of Ypres. Bloated corpses bobbed in the greasy waters of shell craters. Bullets cut through the air in angry swarms as they hunted men down. Deafening mortar shells burst unceasingly around the soldiers. Those...
The Importance of Building a Platform Company in the Modern Economy
Working with early-stage companies is an exciting opportunity, whether it is reviewing potential investments as an angel investor or advising those in the community or investment portfolio. Recently, it seems the speed of development and the growth of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) businesses resulted in an explosion of “product” companies over “platform” companies. In my estimation, the growth of “product” companies...
Setting Funds on Fire: How and Why Most Startups Waste Their First Round of Investment
Do you remember the first time you were handed $20 by your parents or received your first paycheck from a part-time job while in high school? You most likely don’t, and you probably don’t remember what you spent it on either. I don’t think I’m going out on a limb by assuming that you didn’t put it in a...
Want to build a successful startup? Adopt these 3 mindsets immediately.
What if you put in time, money and effort to create a product, to see that no one buys it?
You’ve put your hopes and dreams into a product, and are left with nothing to show for it.
You launch, and sit there waiting to see results. But imagine, nothing happens.
It happens to most founders, myself included once.
So you start questioning...
