Spirit. Science. Art

Until joining the Founder’s Institute, I hadn’t thought too much about the market characteristics like growth rate, total revenue estimates, and avg company size mainly because I haven’t had to do too many investor pitches. Sales presentations are a lot different than investor pitches, but they do share one thing in common which is Return-On-Investment. In the electronic health records space, solar installations, or enterprise software your customer is primarily interested in what the rate of payback is and how much your product will increase their productivity. When you approach... Read The Rest →

So last night was the first night at the Founder’s Institute in Del Mar Heights. There was an eclectic group of people there mostly in the web space with a smattering of people in nanotech and biotech. Got put on the hotseat unexpectedly. Thanks Adeo. Got grilled. Met great people. Meditations: Ideas don’t mean much Launch a project Act Now: Biggest mistake entrepreneurs make is that they wait too long Innovators Dilemma

Wow. It’s been a rough couple of weeks. Had my first demo last week, loads of feedback on my executive summary, and a VC call me yesterday to chew up my plan. Wasn’t the first time and certainly won’t be the last. Entrepreneurship is a tough game, no doubt about that. If I wasn’t doing what I’m doing right now, I honestly couldn’t imagine what I’d be doing. Being an entrepreneur and forcing myself to be versed in sales is allowing me to grow as a person. Every time I... Read The Rest →

I don’t believe that entrepreneurship can be taught by taking a course or reading a book. I think you just learn by getting off your ass and starting a company. There is something to be said for good case studies from guest lecturers who have been there and done it. I guess thats what makes B-schools like Stanford and Sloan special. Here’s a cool resource for teaching yourself entrepreneurship here at StartUpNorth by David Crow.

We’re doing implementations of open source healthcare software like patientos and openvista right now. I called a proprietary medical software company recently and they said I’d have to pay for a resellers license. What was the price of the license to sell THEIR SOFTWARE, you might ask? $15,000 for a silver VAR label and $25,000 for their gold. Thats right. $25,000 to peddle software to hospitals and doctors. In a time and age where Open Source rules and affiliate programs run rampant, there are still software companies that charge you... Read The Rest →

Been following Takashi Murakami’s artwork for a while. He’s got some pretty cool print pieces that he does in a style that he describes as “Superflat. He’s leading a new wave of Contemporary Japanese artists who represent a blend of pop and otaku culture. Otaku is known for its obsession with anime and manga. I see Takashi Murakami’s superflat style pop up everywhere nowadays. It pops up in graffiti and seaker art all the time.

This is another stream of consciousness post, written for no other reason than to collect my thoughts. You’ve been warned. Remember 80/20 rules in business, relationships, health and spirit Focus on leadership, relationships, creativity. Outsource everything else. Small minds discuss people, average minds discuss events, and great minds discuss ideas. Only you can set the agenda for the rest of your life. Cut the lifeboats. You’re young. You can fail two or three times and you’ll be find. Taking that risk puts you in the path of wealth. You’ll never... Read The Rest →

If there’s one thing I’ve learned with after 2+ years of working with outsourced developers, it’s that they never say no. You can introduce all the agile-scrumming-gantt-charting-waterfall-SDLC you want. At the end of the day, if you have not clearly outlined everything in clear form, visually, to three degrees of detail, you’ll be at a disconnect with where your vision of the product should be and what the developer produces. It sure does force you to become a better product manager though. For those of you starting tech companies, do... Read The Rest →

Learn to bootstrap. Now!

I finally got around to reading the “Blue Ocean Strategy” by Kim and Mauborgne. The message of the book is that competition becomes irrelevant when companies create “blue oceans”, new innovative industries, the way Southwestern Airlines did for the airplane industry or CNN did for the TV industry. I’ve always been interested in business strategy, but only from a purely academic level. You can do Porters Analyses, financial models, and BC matrices until your blue in the face, none of that matters for early stage startups. In my eyes, startups... Read The Rest →