The Real Odds That Your Startup "Succeeds"
Henry Blodget is a smart journalist who knows how to drive pageviews. He certainly got me to click through when he picked the headline, “DEAR ENTREPRENEURS: Here’s How Bad Your Odds Of Success Are” Blodget riffs on a tweet by Paul Graham to estimate the odds of startup success: “Graham says that 37 of the […]
Everyone Feels Like An Imposter
I had the good fortune of being allowed to be a mentor at the Unreasonable Institute this year. If you ever get the chance, it’s something you should definitely do. In my two days at the institute, I got to meet a bunch of amazing people who are maki…
An Entrepreneurial Success Story
I had lunch today with two entrepreneurs. I had been an advisor to their previous company, a promising startup that, due to some external personnel issues, had been forced to close down despite some early traction in the marketplace.I met these entrep…
Talk With Everyone
Reading Mark Suster‘s excellent post, “Why You Need To Take 50 Coffee Meetings” brought to mind one of my personal corollaries: Talk with everyone. I’m a relatively small-time investor. It’s a documented fact, and I don’t try to hide it. But that means that I need to deliver value beyond money if I’m going to […]
To Make Money, Be A Garbageman
Plumbers and garbagemen make a good living despite their lack of PHP coding skills. That’s because they’re willing to do the necessary but unpleasant.Basic economics teaches us that prices are determined by supply and demand. Scarce skills like being …
Failure Fridays
Someone very close to me is about to begin a very cool new gig. Its a role that most would love and in fact be envious of (I sure am – and will be blogging about it soon!). So this…
Entrepreneurship is about happiness, not wealth
When entrepreneurs come to me, I always point out the following: 1) The chances of a venture-backed startup being a hit and returning meaningful wealth are about 1 in 10. 2) You’re likely to have about 20-25 years in your career where you can found a company. 3) Each time you found a company, you’re […]
Becoming Self-Employed? You Already Are!
Zen Habits has a post up called "The Get-Started-Now Guide to Becoming Self-Employed". As with most ZH posts, it’s well-written and thoughtful, but that’s not what I’m blogging about. Regardless of what you think or what your W-2 says, you are already self-employed. If you want to be successful, start thinking of yourself as […]
