The Archives

• 09.21.07
  Are NDA’s a Waste of Time for Startups?
  Entrepreneurship Comments

  NDAs, Non-Disclosure Agreements, are (in theory) one of the small protections afforded to entrepreneurs looking to protect an idea. However, most VC's will refuse to sign them for a number of reasons. Entrepreneurs wrongly assume that venture folk are the most trustworthy people alive. Under this assumption, the same entrepreneurs will gladly fork over the 'secret sauce' during a pitch in hopes of securing funding -- this is a serious mistake. By not signing an NDA, a VC is simply making a weak promise not to disclose information. But, in actuality, VCs are the persons with the most reasons to ...
  
  
• 09.06.07
  Hiring a Designer
  My Experiences Comments

  Here is my problem with most good designers: they are selling a product, you are buying a service. What do I mean? Most good designers are very confident people and believe what they design is the best. Their design is right. The problem is that when you hire a designer you hire someone to provide a service. Generally you hire someone whose 'design style' jives with you, but you ARE NOT asking them for a direct copycat of something, or to create something without your input. Allowing someone free reign is nuts. Also anyone who says good design intuitively leads ...
  
  
• 09.06.07
  NameStorming a Business or Blog When Domain Options are Few
  Brands and Marketing Comments

  If you're someone currently on a quest to name a business or blog, you are well aware of how time consuming, difficult and frustrating this process is. This difficulty is a direct result of modern society's self-imposed obstacle: domain names ending in .com. Sure you can be creative, settle for a .net or a hyphen, but facts are facts: the naming landscape sucks. With a rise of new naming conventions (think web 2.0 names) we must take into account differences such as generations and demographics. For example, "Nu" in French is nude and is popular among French porn-site SEO. Also ...
  
  
• 08.27.07
  LeveragingIdeas Now has a BlogPlan and So Should You
  My Experiences Comments

  I know I have been saying this FOREVER, but my blog redesign will hopefully be out at the end of next week. In conjunction with the redesign, I have also prepared an official blog business plan ("blogplan") for LeveragingIdeas.com and have made it publicly available here via Scribd. (Note: Scribd isn't working so I am going with Zoho Writer). I encourage your feedback and suggestions - particularly because this plan will serve as the guiding force for my strategy and content for the foreseeable future. A blogplan is a great exercise to help authors focus their content and strategies as ...
  
  
• 07.31.07
  Never Compromise Your Values. Never.
  Entrepreneurship Comments

  Seth Godin has a great post today on ’Toxic Employees.’ Seth identifies such individuals as sharing two common characteristics: 1. They confuse "How can I help this prospect/customer?" with "How can I get rid of this person and get back to work?" 2. They confuse, "How can I have a better day by treating this person with a great deal of respect?" with "Why isn't this person treating me with the respect I deserve?" In related news, I recently acted on a really difficult decision fitting Seth’s description #2 to a tee. Having to look past friendship, I decided to ...
  
  
• 06.24.07
  Running a Logo Design Contest on SitePoint
  My Experiences, Social Media Comments

  I was in need of some relatively simple design work - a logo/badge stating, ’community optimized.’ Looking to get something done cheaply and not really sure what direction to go in, I thought a cool idea would be to find a website offering contests. Essentially, the contest owner puts up cash and then chooses from among various submitted designs from the community. After checking out a few possibilities like elance, I decided to give SitePoint Contests a try. Only 24 hours into the contest and I have 35+ entries so far. You can see the submissions by following this link. Overall ...
  
  
• 06.04.07
  The Truth About Truemors
  Business Models, Entrepreneurship, My Experiences, Venture Capital Comments

  There has been a ton of blogosphre buzz lately surrounding Guy Kawasaki and his launch of Truemors. Today Guy came out with a transparent ’by the numbers’ look at the Truemors production. Specifically, Guy seems very proud about only spending $12, 107.09 to build his new company. However, I think a lot of people are missing a crucial point: it’s not what it costs to build, so much the length of the payback period that an entrepreneur should be concerned with. In this case, since Guy made a free website that will likely make a minimal amount of money on advertising, ...
  
  
• 05.21.07
  Why MBAs Suck at Creating Startups (Hint: It’s not all their fault)
  Campus Chatter, Entrepreneurship, My Experiences, Venture Capital Comments

  Darren Herman recently blogged about his experience of attending the DFJ East Coast Venture Challenge at Columbia University. The awards for the winners included $250k in seed funding (with the option for more) and many other perks such as office space at Sunshine Suites. Damn! Darren’s take was that while some of the ideas were good, he was shocked ’that many of the companies presenting had little to no traction.’ Darren goes on to say ’lots of people in the digital media space always talk about how cheap it is to start a company for $50k, why couldn’t any of these folks ...
  
  
• 01.21.07
  Strategies for Building a Business Using Zero Capital: Part I
  Entrepreneurship, Tech'nomics Comments

  The #1 issue for both myself and for most entrepreneurs, is a lack of capital. Many people will argue that the key ingredient for a successful startup or business service is training, technical expertise or a solid network. However, all of these shortfalls can be overcome with money. I plan to post a series stories and insights describing how entrepreneurs can overcome this chasm and turn an idea into a product with virtually zero capital. As stated in the title of this blog, the process is all about using leverage. However, when I refer to leverage, I do not mean using debt ...
  
  

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