After posting "Financial Models for Underachievers: Two Years of the Real Numbers of a Startup" about the two years of actual costs of Redfin, many people asked for a generic version of the financial model that Redfin used to project costs. Here it is! Redfin used this model over the past two years, but beyond [...]
Fred Greguras is a partner at the Silicon Valley law firm of Fenwick and West. He is also a buddy of mine, and I asked him to answer the most common questions of newbie entrepreneurs. His clients have included BioMarker Pharmaceuticals, Excite, Kintana, and Speedera Networks. It’s very important to make the right decisions in [...]
Frank Warren started PostSecret as a community art project in November 2004. Since then people have sent in one hundred and seventy-five thousand anonymous postcards. They are featured in art galleries, a music video, and Frank’s bestselling books: PostSecret, My Secret, and The Secret Lives of Men and Women. His new book is A Lifetime [...]
Jajah is a VOIP phone service that doesn’t require a download or headset. It enables you to make VOIP calls from any phone to any phone. The company recently introduced “Jajah buttons.” This product enables people to call you at no charge (or very low cost) by clicking on a button in places such as [...]
I subscribe to over sixty feeds, and they generate 1,000 posts per day. If you subscribe to multiple RSS feeds, you’re probably overwhelmed by the amount of posts like I am. FeedHub reduces the number of posts to those that are most relevant to your interests. To start, you export your feeds to an OPML [...]
I’m speaking at the Business of Software Conference on October 29th at the San Jose Marriott. Other speakers on the agenda include Joel Spolsky, Rick Chapman, Dan Nunan, Jennifer Aaker, Tim Lister, Jeffrey Pfeffer, Eric Sink, Hugh MacLeod, Bill Buxton, Alberto Savoia, and Matt Mason. There’s a 22% discount going on right now. I hope [...]
I love this kind of stuff: Website Grader. You submit an URL, and the test grades how effective the site is in terms of search engine optimization. This blog got a score of 99%! Admittedly, I don’t know a thing about SEO; in fact my SEO strategy is: “Create as good content as you can [...]
My buddies at Avenue A | Razorfish provided me this copy of a study called “Fast Forward: Designing for Constant Change.” It consists of thirteen essays and research that explore how consumers’ digital media habits affect the ways that companies should design user experiences and digital brands. The company wrote the report for marketers who [...]
My buddy at Redfin, Glenn Kelman, decided he wanted to bare his financial soul so that other entrepreneurs could get greater insight into the witchcraft called financial modeling. In this two-part posting, he reveals his numbers and his lessons. They are eye-opening for most entrepreneurs. Part I: Numbers Startups face one primary challenge: To never [...]
Chris Brogan is a social media expert specializing in building communities using digital tools. He is co-founder of PodCamp, a free unconference exploring the use of social media like podcasting and videoblogging to build relationships. He produces the Video on the Net conference for Pulvermedia and blogs at Chrisbrogan.com Question: What problem does Twitter solve? [...]
Halo 3 shipped on Monday at midnight, and there were launch parties at Microsoft campuses around the country. These are pictures from the Mountain View, California location. This is the registration line. Yes, that’s Robert Scoble standing in line like any schmo. Scobleizer with his five cameras. He thinks his Canon 5D is better than [...]
Like CEOs, marketers, engineers, entrepreneurs, and venture capitalists, lawyers tell their own specialized tales. Most of my experience is with lawyers who do work for tech entrepreneurs, so this is my focus. “I’m really excited about what you are doing and will give your company my personal attention.” Once someone gets to the partner level, [...]
Please join me for a free online WebEx seminar called “The Art of Evangelism.” During this seminar I'll explain the strategies and tactics of evangelism for products and services. I hope you can join me. Tuesday, September 25th 11:00 am Pacific Register here
I loved this PowerPoint adaptation of "You Know You're Old When" (be sure to read the comments). Here's also an audio version that I did. Just in case you missed it the first time around.
Popurls is a site that aggregates feeds from the likes of Digg, del.icio.us, Reddit, Flickr, Stumbleupon, Slashdot, Google News, ifilm, BoingBoing, Fark, etc (see very partial list in picture). This enables you to see, on one page, what much of the Internet is buzzing about—think of it as an Internet “dashboard.” There is a fair [...]
David Bornstein is the author of How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas. He recently updated this book, and it’s now available for the first time in paperback. No less than Nelson Mandela said the book is “wonderfully hopeful and enlightening.” David is also the author of The Price [...]
Have you heard of the concept called “disrupt-then-reframe”? The theory is that you introduce a non-sequitur or unexpected element into your pitch and then immediately inject a call-to-action. The disruption theoretically neutralizes critical thinking and makes a person more susceptible to agree. This concept is the result of a study by Barbara Davis and Prof. [...]
One of the challenges that geeks, inventors, hobbyists, hackers, burners, and artists who are trying to change the world face is finding a place to do their work. Ideally, it would have lots of equipment, supplies, and other geeks. Until the last year, they would have to set up their own workshop or beg for [...]
I blew it. Two weeks ago I was supposed to offer discount tickets to Jeffrey Pfeffer’s Stanford talk called “What Were They Thinking?: Unconventional Wisdom About Management.” It’s on Wednesday, Sept. 12th. Here’s the link to the discount. Sorry that this is so last minute.
Many people ask me what tools I use to write this blog. The primary one is MarsEdit by Red Sweater Software, and version 2.0 of it recently shipped. I've found, after MUCH looking, that MarsEdit is at the top of the heap of blog editors, so please check it out.