One of the most valuable skills to have as an entrepreneur is the ability to strip an idea down to its core essence so that you can validate it quickly and cheaply before creating the full product. This is the story of my most recent launch (GUIToolkits.com), how I tested the market demand for the [...]
Every one fails at some point or another. However, very few can survive so many failures, and fewer would take one hit after another, and turn them into a lifetime of accomplishments. The following is the true story of a man who did exactly so…
It all happened too fast… The raft entered the rapid, heading directly toward the rock wall, and bouncing up and down through the waves. I heard the guide yelling something about leaning in and holding on. The side of the raft hit the rocks and was thrust by the strong current further up the [...]
Over the years, I’ve heard mixed opinions about this topic. Some people say keep your job and work on your idea on the side, because you need the income and you never know if your idea is good enough. Others say having a job will prevent you from giving your full attention to your idea, [...]
I recently learned an interesting fact: Most of the fuel in a space shuttle is burnt in the first few minutes of launch, in order to bring the shuttle to enough speed and altitude to escape Earth’s gravity without falling back. That speed is called escape velocity. Once the shuttle breaks free, much less [...]
I recently had a very interesting conversation with a friend who recently launched an online business, and it surprised me how our fears are never what they seem to be It went something like this:
Do you check your email first thing in the morning? Do you answer your phone when it rings? Do you reply every message and tweet you receive? If so, you might be sacrificing a lot more than just your time and focus; When you do these things, you are playing your role in the selfless [...]
The past couple of months have been very interesting. Since launching Keynotopia, I’ve witnessed many serendipitous events that made me believe that the simple act of starting up something without knowing how to finish it ends up attracting those who can help finish it. This is one of those events: One of the most frequent [...]
In 2007, after four years of serving time in a large organization, I decided to work with startups. Here are some memorable conversations I’ve had in both environments.
Photo Credit: Pranav Mistry Being a good hacker is an invaluable skill. But is being a coder the same as being a hacker? Is it possible that coders are at a creative disadvantage to hackers who don’t know how to code? Here’s a story that helped me see the difference. I was recently invited to [...]
Last year, I played a game that changed my life. I was taking an improv class, and the instructor gave us a game to play before getting on stage, so that we can turn off our over-rationalizing minds and get into the flow. The game was called Status, and it went like this: A stack [...]
Several people asked why I chose WordPress as a platform to launch Keynotopia. Before answering, I’d like to share a short story: When I was at Microsoft, I worked with great developers. But one of them stood out: He was extremely productive, his code was clean, well commented, and almost bug-free. One day, I got [...]
When my earlier post on how I launched a profitable product in 3 hours with a $47.50 budget made it to the homepage of hacker news, the most voted comments requested that I’d go through the specifics of how I did the launch and which tools I used. So this time we’re getting our hands [...]
Which one would you rather have: A finished perfect product that you spend a year or two creating and optimizing before launch? or a half-baked product that you launch in a couple of weeks, and that people start to use right away? I was lucky enough to experience both cases first-hand. Here are two stories [...]
The year is 2007, and I had just left Microsoft to dive into the startup world. Like many first time entrepreneurs, I was very excited about the adventure. And like many first time entrepreneurs, I didn’t know where to start. So I attended events, meetups, conferences, and mingled with the local startup community in [...]
