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 [...]
At the Elite Retreat I gave an off-the-cuff answer to a question concerning getting the attention of venture capitalists. My buddy Wendy Piersall blogged about my answer, and it was a very popular. However, to truly help entrepreneurs, I’d like to provide a cogent list of the tips to get the attention of a venture [...]
The Kauffman Foundation is launching EntrepreneurshipWeek USA from February 23rd to March 3rd. The theme is “What’s Your Big Idea? Take it On!” There will be educational programs around the country. Stanford is embracing this program in a big way starting with the kickoff event on Saturday. The schedule for the week is packed with [...]
Before you dedicate your life to crafting a business plan the length of a book, read these two paragraphs from the 1/9/07 edition of the Wall Street Journal in an article called "Enterprise: Do Start-ups Really Need Formal Business Plans" A study recently released by Babson College analyzed 116 businesses started by alumni who graduated [...]
My prediction for Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die is that it will join The Tipping Point and Built to Last as a must-read for business people. The book explains why some ideas stick and some don’t--and I’ve been on both sides of this equation. A warning though: If you read [...]
Here’s a New Year’s resolution for entrepreneurs: ”I will fix my pitch.“ And here’s a suggestion on how to do this written by Bill Reichert, my colleague at Garage Technology Ventures. Endless articles, books, and blogs have been written on the topic of business plan presentations and pitching to investors. In spite of this wealth [...]
Here’s a video of my interview with Mike Arrington of TechCrunch. The salient question that Mike answers is, ”How do I get my company in TechCrunch?“ The short story is: The “standard answer” is to send an email to [email protected] and take your chances. Thirty pitches come in per day this way. The most effective [...]
The world is running amok with entrepreneurs pitching every sort of Web 2.0, social networking, user-generated-content startup. It’s the attack of the bull-shiitake startup projections, so I’m losing my hearing; there’s a ringing in my head, and I get dizzy every once in a while. Before the world implodes (again), here is a top-tenish list [...]
Over at Escape From Cubicle Nation, Pam Slim has compiled the top ten entrepreneur’s song list, complete with samples. Speaking of music, I was listening to the Greg Kihn show on KFOX this morning, and Gregg Allman called in because his daughter’s band came in second in the station’s “Last Band Standing” contest. In response [...]
SVASE (Silicon Valley Association of Startup Entrepreneurs) is hosting an event called “Launch: Silicon Valley” on November 8 at the Microsoft Campus in Mountain View, California. SVASE is looking for new companies that are ready for launch or have launched recently. If you want to nominate a company, please email a two-page executive summary to: [...]
I’m on the campus of UCSB this week at family camp, and it’s inspired me to blog about what students should learn in order to prepare for the real world after graduation. This is an opportune time to broach this subject because the school year is about to begin, and careers can still be affected. [...]
Guy Kawasaki 3300 Hillview Palo Alto, CA 94304 [email protected] 650-354-1854 August 16, 2006 Dear Libby, I read your interview in Guy Kawasaki’s blog (To show I’m digitially hip enough to have read a recent blog item.), and your responses sparked an interest (A little bit of sucking up to show her that I thought that [...]
This is HR and recruiting week on my blog! This is an interview with Libby Sartain of Yahoo. She is responsible for leading Yahoo! Inc.’s global human resources efforts and managing and developing the human resources team. Prior to joining Yahoo! in August 2001, Sartain was “vice president of people” at Southwest Airlines. She holds [...]
Many people ask me for advice about getting a job in Silicon Valley, so here’s the inside scoop. Not everyone will agree with this advice, and some will outright deny what I’m saying, but if you use these tips you will stand head and shoulders above most candidates. Love what the company does. Passion for [...]
Jim Fowler is the CEO of Jigsaw. This company ignited a controversy because it enables users to exchange information about each other’s contacts. The fear is that a hapless, privacy-seeking middle manager gets inundated with sales pitches for Nigerian banking schemes, organic vegetables, outsourcing services, spam filters, and get-rich-quick seminars because she handed out her [...]
When I posted my entry about the speakers at TED, I did not highlight any of them. Now I’d like to specifically suggest that you watch the video of Majora Carter because there’s a lot we can all learn from this magnificent performance. You can watch it online here or download it here. Again, kudos [...]
1. Make everything available. 2. Help me find it. Chris Anderson, The Long Tail I love authors like Malcolm Gladwell and Chris Anderson. They’re writer’s writers: digging through mounds of research, conducting interviews with famous people, crafting their text, and then publishing tomes with cool titles like The Tipping Point and The Long Tail. And [...]
Harold Keables taught me how to write. He was my English high-school teacher in the early seventies (1970s, not 1870s). I wasn’t that great a student, so he’s probably having a good laugh in heaven watching me write books and blogs. Mr. Keables used Good Writing: An Informal Manual of Style when I was in [...]
Kathleen Gasperini is the co-founder and senior vice president of Label Networks. We met in May, 2006 at the Surfing Industry Manufacturers Association conference in Cabo San Lucas. Her company helps leading brands such as Apple Computer, Verizon Wireless, Pepsi, Vans, Levi Straus, and Burton Snowboards understand the global youth culture. She is also the [...]
In the spirit of anti-bozosity that Pam Slim’s posting recently established, here is an interview with Bob Sutton. Bob is a professor of management science and engineering at the Stanford School of Engineering. His latest book, co-authored with Jeffrey Pfeffer, is called Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths, and Total Nonsense: Profiting From Evidence-Based Management. It’s a [...]