More Good Inc. Last year I was pleased and proud to write about our debut on the Inc. 500 list of America’s fastest growing companies. At that time I wrote that “Now our challenge, of course, is STAYING on the list, and hopefully upping our ranking next year!” Well, I am again please and proud to announce that we, in fact, stayed on the list. (You can read all the Inc. coverage here and see our press release about the ranking here.) Unfortunately, we didn’t make the second part of our goal to up our rank. But, we did up our growth – our three-year revenue growth rate was 18% higher than last year. This is a testament to the…
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Entrepreneurship
Father/Mother Knows Best?
Father/Mother Knows Best? USA Today had an interesting article today about how founder-led companies perform better than their non-founder-led counterparts, with a 15-year stock price appreciation of 970% vs. the S&P 500 average of 222%. That’s pretty powerful data. The general reasons cited in the article include founders having deep industry knowledge…having a powerful presence in the company…having a huge financial stake in the success of the business…not looking for the next job so can take a long-term perspective…being street fighters early on I think all those are true to some extent. And it’s certainly true, as one of the CEOs interviewed for the article said, that it’s not because founders are smarter or harder working. But to add to…
A Model for Transparency
A Model for Transparency Rob Kalin from Etsy (a marketplace for handmade goods) wrote an outstanding blog post today that Fred describes as a transparent window into what makes the company tick. I’d like to riff off of two themes from the post. First, the post itself and the fact that Rob, as CEO of the business, is comfortable with this degree of transparency and openness in his public writing. I still think that far few CEOs blog today. There is probably no better window into the way a company works or the way a management team thinks than open and honest blogging. One member of our team at Return Path described my blogging once as “getting a peek inside…
Must Read Post on Entrepreneurship
Must Read Post on Entrepreneurship As usual, I’m a little late to the party, but let me echo Fred’s and Brad’s sentiments and endorse Marc Andreesen’s new blog. If you’re an entrepreneur or like thinking big entrepreneurial thoughts, this is a gooe blog to add to your blogroll. My only critique is that some of his postings are really long — but they’re worth it. His most recent post, which finally prompted me to post this, is a list of reasons why NOT to do a startup (it also includes a good list of reasons TO do a startup). Just a snippet to pique your interest, but you have to click through to see all of it — the richness…
Google en Fuego
Google en Fuego Google announced on Friday the acquisition of RSS publishing powerhouse FeedBurner (media coverage here and here). I was fortunate enough to be a member of FeedBurner’s Board of Directors for the past year and had a good window into the successes of the business as well as the deal with Google. It was all very interesting and good learnings for me as an entrepreneur as well as a first time outside director. My original post (the “fortunate enough” link above) contained all the things I love about FeedBurner in it, so I won’t rehash those here, but I will try to distill my top 3 learnings from my experience with the company: Creating value through focus is…
Old and Young Alike?
Old and Young Alike? Fred has a couple good posts today about the age of entrepreneurs (here, here). His evidence is that most entrepreneurs are in their late 20s or early 30s — in a very non-judgmental way. I have a slightly different take on it. I heard from someone once that entrepreneurs are either late 20s/early 30s or in their 50s or even 60s. So basically, the young entrepreneurs have nothing to lose because they’re so early in their careers…and the older ones can afford to take risk because they have already made their money elsewhere. Not sure how much universal truth there is to that, but one thing I’m certain of is that using the Internet as a…
Highs and Lows, Part II
Highs and Lows, Part II A couple years ago, I wrote about the Highs and Lows of entrepreneurship, and how you didn’t just have to steel yourself mentally for a roller coaster of highs and lows, but that you had to really prepare for the whiplash of having the highs and lows hit you at the same time. My sequel to the original post was inspired by some conversations with my colleague George Bilbrey this week. It used to be that when the high/low whiplash occurred, while I probably shared either the high or the low with someone in the company, it was unlikely that I shared both. So other individuals might see a high or a low, de rigeur…
Marketing is Like Baskin Robbins
Marketing is Like Baskin Robbins A couple years ago, I wrote that Marketing is Like French Fries, since you can always take on one more small incremental marketing task, just as you can always eat one more fry, even long after you should have stopped. Today, inspired in part by our ongoing search for a new head of marketing at Return Path and in part by Bill McCloskey’s follow up article about passion in email marketing in Mediapost, I declare that Marketing is also like Baskin Robbins – there are at least 31 flavors of it that you have to get right. McCloskey writes: I submit that the über marketer who is expert in all the various forms of interactive…
Right, That's MY Job
Right, That’s MY Job I made a dumb comment at our recent Board meeting that got me thinking. We came into the meeting with, in addition to lots of the regular updating and reporting, one specific strategic topic we wanted guidance on from the Board about something that’s been nagging the management team for a while without an obvious solution. We had a great conversation about the topic with the Board and got very clear guidance as to their perspective on what we should do. I agreed with most of it, albeit with a couple modifications, but more than anything else, I was happy for the note of clarity on an issue with which we’d been struggling as a management…
Book Short: Virtuous Cycle
Book Short: Virtuous Cycle Danny Meyer’s Setting the Table: The Transforming Power of Hospitality in Business is a fun read if you’re a New Yorker who eats out a lot; a good read for entrepreneurs around scaling leadership skills as the business grows; and a great read for anyone who runs a serious customer service-oriented organization. I’ve eaten at all of his restaurants multiple times over the years except for the new ones at MOMA (perhaps a few too many times at the Shake Shack), and while I like some more than others (perhaps the Shake Shack a bit too much), they all do have great hospitality as a common theme. While there are a lot of good lessons in…
OnlyOnce is Ok
OnlyOnce is Ok Fred and Brad from Union Square Ventures have a great post today about the kinds of entrepreneurs they like to back and why. I particularly like it because almost half their portfolio is made up of companies led by first-time CEOs, which as you probably know, is one of the founding themes around this blog.