Rules of Thumb

Advising Entrepreneurs

I spend a fair amount of time advising entrepreneurs, both informally when solicited and formally when I have been retained–and sometimes even when I have not been asked for advice.  Here are some key principles I follow.

Three Tips for Small Talk and Casual Conversation

“A good listener is not only popular everywhere, but after a while he knows something.” Wilson Mizner One of the more challenging aspects of entrepreneurship for engineers is the need to be able to engage in “small talk” and casual conversation with strangers. I have three suggestions that go to state of mind more than …

Three Tips for Small Talk and Casual Conversation Read More »

Knowledge That Is Not Written Down, Yet

There are categories of knowledge that are not written down, yet. They include observations that have not been curated but drive intuition-based decisions, first hand stories of events–successes and failures–that have not been filtered and sanitized but still offer insight and explanatory power. They are important because they are sources of competitive advantage. Knowledge That …

Knowledge That Is Not Written Down, Yet Read More »

Mavericks, Iconoclasts, Dropouts and Misfits

“The truth is, start-up-land is littered with mavericks, iconoclasts, dropouts, and misfits.” Sramana Mitra in “The Real VCs of Silicon Valley” Entrepreneurship is Involuntary I have come to the conclusion that most entrepreneurship is involuntary. Either someone is an entrepreneur from the time they are young, which was my personal experience, or they are thrust …

Mavericks, Iconoclasts, Dropouts and Misfits Read More »

Gabriel Weinberg Interviews Me For His Traction Book

Gabriel Weinberg is a serial entrepreneur (latest startup: DuckDuckGo), a Hacker Angel, insightful blogger, and frequent contributor to Hacker News. He is writing a book on how startups get traction and interviewing folks like Patrick McKenzie, Jimmy Wales, and Paul English to collect lessons learned from a variety of perspectives. I was delighted when he …

Gabriel Weinberg Interviews Me For His Traction Book Read More »

Debugging Teams/Meetings: Start With Goals & Roles

Startups have fewer meetings than larger companies but entrepreneurs still need to make those meetings effective, in fact there is less margin for unproductive meetings in a startup than there is in a larger firm. Here are two sources of good information on effective teams and how they meet: James Shonk’s “Working in Teams” is  …

Debugging Teams/Meetings: Start With Goals & Roles Read More »

Pierre Khawand’s Results Curve

Pierre Khawand has an intriguing E-book out “The Results Curve™: How to Manage Focused and Collaborative Time” that makes the following suggestions for increasing your personal effectiveness in the face of the plethora of sources for interruption and distraction we can leave ourselves vulnerable to if we are not careful. He has five key observations/suggestions …

Pierre Khawand’s Results Curve Read More »

Treat Social Capital With the Same Care as Cash

Actively  Manage Expectations With Clear Communications Always Assume Everything You Do Will Become Public Listen For What Isn’t Being Said Predictable Behavior Inspires Trust Trust Doesn’t Scale, It’s Knit by Aligning Actions With Prior Commitments Related Posts Honesty in Negotiations The Business is Everyone’s Business Conserving Trust in a Downturn Bouncing Back

Scroll to Top