Veterans Day 2010
On Veterans Day 2010 we honor those who have served in the military and lived: this year I want to recognize one veteran for his service in WW2.
skmurphy
Build On Your Passion With A Basic Model And Numbers
What follows is a chat transcript from an hour long conversation I had with a entrepreneur recently. I have cleaned up all of our typos and removed or modified some identifying information. The basic business was for a website to arrange services for travelers. I wanted the entrepreneur to move beyond his passion for the
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Fall Back 2010
It’s Fall Back 2010, you get back the hour you lost when you pushed the clocks an hour ahead in the Spring of 2010: how did you use the time?
Fall Back
Daylight savings time ends tonight in Silicon Valley: we get the hour back we lost in the Spring. So tomorrow is technically a 25 hour day, something I wish for when I can’t prioritize. We have eight weeks left in 2010 and there’s not enough time left to accomplish everything I wanted to this year.
Good Decision, Bad Outcome
You never have complete information, if you do it’s a choice not a decision. You have to evaluate a decision in the context of the information that was available at the time. “Good Decision, Bad Outcome” When I first heard someone use this phrase it took a few weeks to sink in. Too often we
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Spend Some Time On How To Disprove Your Hypotheses
There is a strong temptation for founders to prioritize their efforts on the basis of “What is the simplest thing we could do here to prove this hypothesis about our product or our business?” It’s often more fruitful to consider what evidence would disprove your hypotheses and what is the simplest thing you could do to
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What To Do When An Early Prospect is Excited
Here is another excerpt from my September interview with Gabriel Weinberg. This one is focused on what to do when you encounter a B2B prospect who is excited about your product and this is only the first or second time this has happened with someone who wasn’t a friend or prior associate. The short answer
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Entrepreneurs Sign The Front Of A Paycheck
Entrepreneurs sign the front of a paycheck. They take prudent risks and create functional businesses that provide value to customers, employees, suppliers, investors, and partners.
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Read Mark Zimmerman’s Zhurnaly to Renew Your Gumption
Mark Zimmerman’s Zhurnaly (“Russian for Journal”) ) is food for the soul. The wiki format allows him to blend a journal, a runner’s diary, a commonplace book, and short essays. I enjoy his insights and his exploration Zen and ongoing self-improvement. It’s worth reading whenever you want to renew your gumption.
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Quotes For Entrepreneurs–October 2010
A collection of quotes of interest and use to entrepreneurs: these quotes for entrepreneurs were identified in October 2010.
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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
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E-Mail Is Not a Conversation
E-mail is not a conversation. I have to remind myself of that from time to time. When I am deadlocked with someone and tempted to send one more e-mail to clarify or I find myself getting angrier I have to remember to take a five minute walk around the building and pick up the phone.
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Scope and Scale of Plans and Activities
Inspired by Eames’ “Powers of Ten” I explore the scope and scale of plans and activities based on duration. I take a one hour duration as the starting point and look at a factor or 10,000 in each direction: from 1/300 of a second to 10,000 hours.
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EDA Knowledge Portal Headline Screenshot
Here are the daily headlines for thousands of news sources, sites, and blog feeds. Service Discontinued
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Clients In The News
I do this all the time for Clients. I really should do it for ourselves. Below are projects we have help work on with our clients. Here is a roundup of coverage for our clients.
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Need Input on the Design Automation Conference
This is a solicitation for Input on the Design Automation Conference and how it can be improved.
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Sean Murphy to Moderate Panel “Will Work for Equity – the World of Startups” at Silicon Valley Code Camp 2010
EVENT ADVISORY for San Jose, CA – Sean Murphy, CEO at SKMurphy, will host the “Will Work For Equity – the World of Startups” panel discussion at the 2010 Silicon Valley Code Camp at Foothill College, Los Altos Hills, CA. The panel will outline important tips and issues to consider if you are investing your
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
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The Limits of Legal Self-Help
Every bootstrapper has a limited budget for attorney’s fees. Attorneys can help you foresee problems and craft contract language, which looks remarkably similar to English but is in fact code that is executed by the legal system. Use them to protect valuable assets–intellectual property, source code, revenue streams–not create them. A small digression If you
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“Work For Equity” Panel at SVCC Set For Sun-Oct-10 2:45pm
If you are considering joining a startup or are in the process of building out your initial team I am moderating a panel at Silicon Valley Code Camp with three startup CEO’s that you should find helpful. It’s scheduled for Sunday October 10 at 2:45pm and you can sign up here. We will explore: Practical
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