Tag: Startups
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BURNOUT
Founders typically don’t talk about their burnout, usually out of fear of the judgments of others (employes, investors, potential investors, etc). And maybe that’s the way it should be; the wrong perception can kill a business. Jerry Colonna talks about it in this article from earlier this week. I’ll take a bit of a risk…
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Quick Post: Go Do.
It’s Monday and I’m still packing. The movers get here in an hour or so, and the list of things I need to do is longer than time can accommodate. Take a minute, make your list, prioritize simply must do today get it done this week sometime On your must-do-today list, add this: make 10…
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Showing Up
It’s a beautiful day in Lancaster County. I’m on the train, rolling by Amish farms under a cloudless sky. It’s home. what’s wrong with this picture? But I’m ambitious, and while I’ve got a ton of work to do to close up the house before Monday, I also have a few great meetings in NY.…
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Collecting Logos vs Productive Partnerships
[No update on yesterday’s post] The early days of ChiliSoft were the early days of they dynamic web, and the very, very early days of corporate adoption of web technologies. We had little credibility, which made it difficult to sell our first product, ChiliReports, which was the first web component to write data from a…
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A Deal's a Deal
I’m surrounded by boxes and packing material. And I just got off the phone with the movers; I cancelled. The realtor called at 8:30 this morning–the day of our move–to say there had been a snag. Really? Huh. I thought you said the last time we spoke the deal was done and there was no…
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The Lifestyle Company
A business friend of mine came to visit yesterday and course we talked about business. He was wearing shorts, which is the linqua franca in his office. Even his customers know about his fashionable look. Years ago he and his partners had raised venture capital from a few small funds in this region. Things didn’t…
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When Things Slow Down
Over the past few weeks my focus has been highly fragmented by weekly trips to New York, staying at AirBnb places, planning a big move after the sale of the house, and planning my next steps. It’s a lot. In the meantime, it’s taken a while to work out some bugs, partly because I didn’t…
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Hammer Out a Quick Slideshow
I just hammered out a quick slideshow to explain a possible new business model around the “interest graph”. I’ll just say this: there’s no such thing as hammering out a quick slideshow, for me anyway. It took a couple of hours, and I’m still tweaking it. Needs work. Fred Wilson puts together pretty good graphic…
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Getting Your First Paying Customers
The other night one of our founders talked about his revenue goal: a million a year. It could be less, it could be a lot more, but it’s a good milestone to focus on. Getting there is the trick. Let’s assume that the monthly target is about $80,000 and that’s constant–it’s the target monthly revenue.…
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Discovery
I’m fortunate to have a number of great friends–some of whom I’m very close with. This past week I had the chance to spend some good time with close friends in New York, catch up on what they’re up to (typically amazing stuff), etc. I also had the chance to meet a new friend, introduced…