For all the talk about how to track progress on goals (cough OKRs) there seems to be much less said about figuring out goals in the first place. Over the last couple years I've been adopting SWOT thinking as a key piece of this puzzle. It's not a complex process, but it brings together looking … Continue reading Thoughts on SWOT
Thinking about Techies and Normals 10 years on
It’s been 10 years since Chris Dixon’s post on “Techies and normals” described a few ways products can penetrate markets (in order of preference): Techies-first, Normals-only, and Techies-only. Enough has changed in the last 10 years that I think it’s time to think about it differently if you’re looking at maximizing the market for a … Continue reading Thinking about Techies and Normals 10 years on
Books 2019
I didn’t set out to read a book for each month but it turns out I read 12 books in 2019, so there you go. It was my readingest year ever as I had time available and I made sure I took it. I bought my first Kindle in the last few days of 2018 … Continue reading Books 2019
On Thriving
My belief is that, as long as we are our healthy selves, we want to thrive and we want those around us to thrive as well. We want to “be happy”. We root for the underdog. We celebrate someone fulfilling their potential and succeeding. The US Army recruited with it for years: Be all that … Continue reading On Thriving
Being a Founder in the Best Time for Consumers
Reading Jerry Neumann’s post The Deployment Age four years ago has really stuck with me, probably because I can track my career through working on technology that feels like they moved through the transition that the Perez model describes. This post will (hopefully, and maybe only) make sense if you’ve read Jerry’s post, so I … Continue reading Being a Founder in the Best Time for Consumers
Make Progress Meaningful
Unless your primary concern is just waiting out the year, this is probably not meaningful “progress”: A sort of progress... Maybe as a measuring stick for a goal requiring consistency it might be useful; i.e., have you been consistent through the first 10% of the year so far? Progress Isn’t Automatically Meaningful Meaningful progress is … Continue reading Make Progress Meaningful
Go Salary or Go Founder?
TL;DR Glass half full or half empty doesn't matter when you're enjoying the drink. The Set Up Catching up Jerry Neumann's latest blog post last week on Schumpeter on Strategy something that really caught my eye was this chart, which is cited as from The Illusions of Entrepreneurship. The chart compares employee and entrepreneur income, … Continue reading Go Salary or Go Founder?
[Content] Diet for 2019
I think I do pretty well already, but I plan to do better. Better content consumption for better thinking. A month or so ago I read a post entitled It's Time to Embrace Digital Nutrition which I thought was well timed given the approaching rolling over of the year. It has thoughts about content ratings … Continue reading [Content] Diet for 2019
What Are You Wrong About?
Q: Do you think you're right about everything?A: NoQ: So what are you wrong about?A: ... That simple exchange as a thought experiment is originally from Will Storr and relayed by David McRaney as one great part of a really good discussion on cognitive biases, beliefs, and communication (video below). Those two simple questions and … Continue reading What Are You Wrong About?
Last Week Last Week
So last week was the last week, of Yieldbot that is. The company that I co-founded 9+ years ago hit the red light. Don't pass go, and definitely don't collect $200. This isn't one of those startup post mortem posts, but I'll probably speak to those lessons individually at some point. For now I just want … Continue reading Last Week Last Week