YakShaving

Normative thinking around entrepreneurship is around solving a “problem” that people have. Many great online experiences aren’t borne from a solution to a problem. What “problem” did facebook solve? Here’s a useful startup lesson I learned about ideation: A little while back, I drove down to Portland with Vinita and my buddy Rich and to [...]

Lately I’ve been trying to understand strategically the creation of 2 sided networks/marketplaces and turning them into {web} businesses. I’ve come across some interesting articles and thought I’d brain dump them and share them here with other people who are trying to pursue similar end goals. Two sided networks are interesting: They’re characterized by extremely [...]

This past weekend, I was a part of Chicago Startup Weekend. We (Some friends, my brother, and I) gave a solid college try at launching a minimum viable product (MVP) to help foodies connect to personal chefs and aspiring food entrepreneurs called BigStove. We did hone our message and are working on taking some important [...]

If the world were easily explained by some meta production possibilities curve that included every single possible output, I wonder which “output” most people are spending their time, energy, and money. It might seem odd to boil the entire world of production into this simple curve (but economics by its nature is a simplification). I [...]

I’m surprised I waited so long to read this book by Randy Komisar, now almost a decade old, titled The Monk and the Riddle: The Education of a Silicon Valley Entrepreneur. The book is a light read, I finished it between two short airplane flights to/fro Philly. Lots of this stuff is intuitive if you [...]

Lately I’ve been thinking about high concept pitches. I read pitching hacks by Naval Ravikant and Nivi, and I’ve looked over lots of stuff before that says you need to have the simple, high concept pitch. Here’s how it usually goes: 
”We are the X meets Y”
 Most of the time, this is X.COM meets [...]

The NatureMill composter is terrible. The waste still smells so much worse than when I put it in… it’s incredibly loud, and the thing is designed so flimsily (Is flimsily a word?). What a sham (also, a shame). I’m returning it promptly and getting my money back. This is the thanks I get for being [...]

Last night I was reflecting on working on BettrAt for the last year… Talking with a friend and commiserating about how no one really appreciates how hard it is to start a company (a meaningful and sustainable one) on the internet and not just be a feature or a commodity. I talked about showing my [...]

This is embarrassing, but I have to admit a remarkably cheesy thing about myself. When you’re working on a somewhat crazy, new to the world idea, and your primary intention is to “make meaning” and to improve people’s lives, people doubt you a lot. “Why would I use that? That doesn’t make sense to me… [...]

I just switched to Disqus commenting (I’m a huge fan of Disqus. Not that I get a ton of comments on here, but I haven’t been posting a ton in the past several months, which I fully intend on changing. For reals. In part I was reinvigorated to communicate the dire situation that our world [...]