Unexpected Startup Lesson #1: Quitting the day job
May 09, 2010
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3 minutes
Quitting my day job to start Snapvine (founded 2005, acquired by WhitePages in June 2008) paid off fast: within 4–5 months I was ROI-positive on networking, learning and satisfaction, with startup costs around $5k vs an MBA’s $85k, proving quitting can be a zero-risk, high-gain move.
If you want to ship, cut, cut, cut!
April 17, 2010
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2 minutes
Let’s get clear, regular updates with a visible work-item list (Lighthouse or similar) you can access. On a call, cut non-essentials to hit a minimally viable release: decide which features and bugs are mandatory, drop the rest, and ship—look-and-feel can wait.
3 Things I’ve Learned To Recruit Great Hackers
April 09, 2010
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1 minute
Lead with value: recruit hackers via 'try before you buy'—enlist contractors not tied to agencies to keep a full-time option open. Do coffees to meet interesting people and spark buzz. Hyper-focus on one school: informal talks, brown bags, affiliate dinners, open houses, and post-fair meetups with top students.
How much traffic do you get from being on the front page of Hacker News?
March 20, 2010
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2 minutes
A week after hitting Hacker News front page, my post 'Sell Ice Cream, Not Cream and Ice' drew 2,530 visits in 3 days: 1,542 from HN, 574 direct, 50 from Twitter, 49 Craigslist, 32 JimmyR.com, 200+ elsewhere; ~15/day before, ~30/day now, and I gained ~30 followers, showing syndication's power.
Sell Ice Cream, Not Cream and Ice
March 12, 2010
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2 minutes
At LeadsCon I saw how startups succeed by business, not just tech: acquire traffic, filter by simple web forms to gauge intent, then sell the leads. Education lead-gen could hit $1B; a home-improvement firm scaled to $10M/year in three years, after $500 first-day profits.
Avoid This Startup Mistake: Losing Customer Focus
February 20, 2010
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2 minutes
To keep engineering focused on users, we printed hundreds of new user photos and pinned them on walls, fueling weekly focus groups. In 2006 Snapvine hit 1M signups in 7 weeks and briefly turned off 25% of signups; this simple visual feedback boosted real user insight—try it.
Crucial first hire: the "do-it-all office admin"
December 16, 2009
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5 minutes
Back in June 2006, after a Series A, we hired a Do-It-All Office Admin to tame distractions and get essentials done, enabling founders to focus on building the business. Over 2.5 years we had 2 successors; they were self-driven, smart, trustworthy, and could problem-solve with limited guidance.
The positive follow-up to complaints, failures and ideas.
November 09, 2009
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1 minute
Complaints gain value when paired with solution ideas; failure becomes innovation when it includes honest learning; ideas gain impact when followed through. Next time someone brings you any of these alone, inspire them to deliver the positive follow-up and unlock the potential.
FiReGlobal West Notes
October 20, 2009
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3 minutes
At FiReGlobal West as a guest on a CTO Panel, I argued tech can boost civic engagement; education must move from fixed pacing to coaching and individualized progress; 52% of CO2 comes from buildings; InTouch Health enables remote hospital care; Dell envisions mobile, virtualized IT with 'Standardize, Simplify, Automate'.
Competition. Am I screwed?
September 29, 2009
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2 minutes
No, you’re not screwed—competition validates your direction. Copy proven ideas, learn from their customers by contacting 10 random users about top features and missing ones. Early success isn’t destiny: in ’98 I panicked after Yahoo bought a similar firm and sold; one competitor doesn’t matter, keep building.
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