Want to be inspired? Check out this collection of videos about social entrepreneurs from around the world. It’s called the FRONTLINE/World series. Here’s a description: “…we have searched for stories about people who innovate in ways that truly transform our interconnected world. This special site will feature the stories of people whose ideas and organizations [...]
I am three weeks behind the times, so I’m just catching on to how cool the Facebook Platform is. Then I read “Analyzing the Facebook Platform, three weeks in” by Marc Andreessen. It’s a must read for any social-networking entrepreneur. Facebook Platform is almost as exciting as developing Safari apps for the iPhone. :-)
In the spirit of the $12,107.09 startup, check out how some folks started FROG, an organization to help Guyana (no relation to me), on the very cheap. It includes a great list of free/cheap apps to use. Lots to admire and learn here.
I’m moderating a Churchill Club event this Thursday called “No Plan, No Capital, No Model…No Problem: Companies that Defied What VCs Will Tell You.” Here’s a decription of the event: Conventional wisdom says listen to the venture capitalists. They know what works. They know how to successfully build a startup. But Silicon Valley wasn’t built [...]
I’m going to the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference to cover Steve’s opening keynote. I’ll post real-time reports beginning at 10:00 am Pacific on Monday morning at Truemors. Yes, this is just another ploy to draw traffic to Truemors. :-) If this isn’t the coolest way to get this message, I don’t know what is: via [...]
The most common question about by Truemors post (besides “How could you be so dumb as to think this could be a real business?”), was about what I got for $4,824.13 in legal fees. The fees covered the following: Trademarking Truemors Drafting a Terms of Use Discussion of copyright, liability, infringement, IP, and insurance issues [...]
Threadless is a very interesting company because of how it has “community-sourced” its product design. If you had told me that a company could succeed by running weekly tshirt design contests and then selling the winning designs, I would have told you that you’re nuts. I met Jeffrey during my tour of the Threadless offices [...]
Because of Truemors, I’ve learned a lot about launching a company in these “Web 2.0” times. Here’s quick overview “by the numbers.” 0. I wrote 0 business plans for it. The plan is simple: Get a site launched in a few months, see if people like it, and sell ads and sponsorships (or not). 0. [...]
In the early 1990s, Bruce Webster wrote and published The Art of ‘Ware (M&T Books, 1995), a reinterpretation of Sun Tzu’s The Art of War. Basically, Webster applied Sun Tzu’s work to creating and marketing IT products. Webster recently updated his original version. If you’re a Sun Tzu fan, you’ll enjoy what Webster has done. [...]
Check out Launch: Silicon Valley 2007. It’s a half-day conference featuring thirty tech startups who are launching new products and services. Think of it as a poor man’s Demo. June 5th Noon to 6:00 pm Microsoft campus (Mountain View, California) Registration I’ll be giving a speech called “How I Launched a Web 2.0, User-Generated Content, [...]
I recently visited the worldwide headquarters of Threadless in Chicago and took a boatload of pictures. I’ve been to the offices of many startups, but few compare to Threadless’s offices in coolness. Walls covered with graffiti. src="http://files.guykawasaki.com/blog/img/Slide3_2.jpg" /> An “office” in an Airstream trailer for recording podcasts. Inside the office recording a podcast. Interior offices. [...]
Where ignorance is bliss, ‘Tis folly to be wise—“On a Distant Prospect of Eton College” by Thomas Gray With all due respect to Thomas Gray, he missed the target when it comes to entrepreneurship: ignorance isn’t bliss, ignoring is. For example, last week I posted a “help wanted” entry soliciting “truemorists” for a site called [...]
Seth Godin provided me with a copy of his new book, The Dip: A Little Book That Teaches You When to Quit (and When to Stick), and I think it will definitely get people to think about life. To give you a taste of what’s in the book, here’s an interview with Seth about the [...]
This is a follow-up to the posting of March 14th based on a new book called Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. It is a video of Professor Carol Dweck explaining fixed and growth mindsets. Also, this diagram explains the differences between the two mindsets. It’s great—but that’s not surprising because Nigel Holmes created it. [...]
I recently learned about Science Daily. It is a treasure chest of interesting studies that has implications on business practices. I’ve collected so much material from it that this is going to be “Science Daily Week” in my blog. For example, have you ever wondered whether giving employees a pay-for-performance bonus or a merit raise [...]
I’m making a speech next week (March 29th) in Kelowna, BC for the Okanagan Science and Technology Council’s “2007 Silicon Vineyard Innovation Awards.” If any of you are in the area, I hope you can make it.
The guys at iInnovate posted a lovely interview with Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google. Among the topics they covered were: Anti-trust (with a beautiful deke to create “time and space” as we say in hockey) Innovation Competitive advantages Motivation of entrepreneurs Maintaining the entrepreneurial spirit Traditional and non-traditional organization design What Microsoft and Yahoo does [...]
If you manage any people or if you are a parent (which is a form of managing people), drop everything and read The Effort Effect. This is an article about Stanford psychology professor Carol Dweck. It examines her thirty-year study of why some some people excel and others don’t. (Hint: the answer is not “God-given [...]
This is a picture of my copy of Founders at Work: Stories of Startups’ Early Days. It has broken my record for the “book with most stickies.” My system is that the stickies on the top edge are ideas for my next book, and the ones on the side are ideas for this blog. As [...]
This is the MP3 version (52,715K) of the CommunityNext founders panel in case you want to listen, as opposed to watch, it. Also, you’ll probably find this presentation by Threadless to be quite interesting. This Chicago-based online retailer solicits t-shirt designs from its community and then sells them. Rumor has it that the company’s sales [...]