Book (Not So) Short: Raise Your Hand If You’re Sure I couldn’t get the catchy jingle from the 80’s commercial for Sure deodorant (you remember, the one with the Statue of Liberty at the end of it – thanks, YouTube) out of my head while I was reading the relatively new book, Confidence: How Winning Streaks and Losing Streaks Begin and End. Written by HBS professor Rosabeth Moss Kantor, Confidence is one of the few business books I’ve read that’s both long and worth reading in full. The book has scores of examples of both winning and losing streaks, from sports, business, politics, and other walks of life, and it does a great job of breaking down the core elements…
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Entrepreneurship
Lucky 7, or the 7 Year Itch?
Lucky 7, or the 7 Year Itch? Today is the seventh anniversary of the founding of Return Path. There are days when it feels like it’s been much longer, but most of the time, I feel like we’re still in the first quarter of the game here. The business is completely different than what we started and what we ever thought it would be, but it’s healthy, growing, and we’re having more and more fun every day. When I started the business, another more seasoned entrepreneur told me, "however long you think it’s going to take to build a great business — triple it." I’m not sure how long I thought it was going to take for us to hit…
Book Short: Another 8 Habits
Book Short: Another 8 Habits Besides having a fantastic title, Richard St. John’s Stupid, Ugly, Unlucky, and Rich is a fun and quick read. It’s a completely different style than Stephen Covey’s “habits” books (The 7, The 8th). It’s a little cartoony and list-oriented, and it’s a much quicker read — and also easier to put down and pick up without feeling like you’re losing your place. The book’s foundation is interviews, mostly by the author, of successful people who span many different careers, from artists to actors and models to athletes to politicians to business leaders. The organization is very solid, and the content is highly motivating. It’s a good guide to success in any field, and in particular…
Always On is Too Much On
Always On is Too Much On Among other things last week travelling abroad for work, I learned another good CEO lesson — sometimes it’s ok, even good, to be a bit out of touch. Don’t get me wrong. I’m Always On at the office, while travelling in the US, and usually at home and on weekends as well. And as I’ve said before in various postings (here, here, here, and definitely here), it’s great to completely unplug at least once a year for a peaceful vacation with friends & family. But last week was a nice lesson in the middle ground. I had an international cell phone that people at work didn’t seem to want to call, so they could…
The Good, The Board, and The Ugly, Part III
The Good, The Board, and The Ugly, Part III To recap other postings in this series: my original, Brad Feld’s, Fred Wilson’s first, Fred’s second, Tom Evslin’s, and my lighter-note follow-up. So speaking of lighter-note takes on this topic, Lary Lazard, Tom Evslin’s fictional CEO who ran Hackoff.com, now has his own tips for effective board management. You have to read them yourself here, but I think my favorite one is #3, which starts off: Never number the pages of what you are presenting. Lots of time can be used constructively figuring out what page everybody is on. Enjoy.
Counter Cliche: Connected at the Top
Counter Cliche: Connected at the Top Fred hasn’t written an official VC Cliche of the Week for a while, but his post yesterday on Connectors is close enough — in it, he talks about how he likes to be a good Connector between people and thinks it’s a quality of great VCs. First, we should give credit to Malcolm Gladwell for a great definition of Connectors in The Tipping Point. Gladwell not only defines Connectors as Fred has but also defines two other types of people who are critical in the social networking/buzz building arena: Mavens and Salesmen. I’d argue that a great VC has to have a bit of all three! But in terms of entrepreneurs (the point of…
The Good, The Board, and The Ugly, Part II
The Good, The Board, and The Ugly, Part II Much has been written of late on various VC and entrepreneur blogs on effective management of a Board of Directors, Board materials, running good Board meetings, and the like. A couple years ago, I even wrote out a few tips for those things myself. But here’s one critical ingredient of a good Board you won’t find in all those posts: have fun! This picture was from today’s Halloween Board meeting at Feedburner…as one of Dick’s colleagues labeled it, The Dawn of the Living Costolos. Happy Halloween!
Another Entrepreneur Blog
Another Entrepreneur Blog My friend Jason Devitt, founder and CEO of mobile application company Vindigo, is contemplating his next career move and has started to blog more actively about entrepreneurship (after a 9-month around-the-world honeymoon which made for a great travel blog). His most recent post is about what it takes to be an entrepreneur, which I thought was great, and he promises more good ones on related topics to come soon.
Choose Voice, Part II
Choose Voice, Part II One reader writes to me: I am a vice president at a startup that isn’t in great shape. We have some customers and a product that is meeting some market needs, but we’re way off our plan and don’t show signs of changing our trajectory in a material way. I disagree with the direction our CEO is taking things, which is ok, but more important, our CEO refuses to listen to me when I try to discuss and debate strategy with her. One of our board members has asked me what I thought we should do. I don’t want to be disloyal to our CEO, and I want to seem like a team player who rallies…
Counter Cliche: Between Permission and Forgiveness
Counter Cliche: Between Permission and Forgiveness In today’s VC Cliche of the Week, Fred actually takes a Counter Cliche position himself when he talks about how in a startup, it’s NOT usually better to beg for forgiveness than to ask for permission, as the team needs to be aligned and on the same page. But Fred does go on to say that startups as organizations need to act like mavericks, essentially that the organization needs to break some eggs in the industry in order to make an omelet. I actually think in most organizations — particularly companies who used to be startups but are growing out of that phase (which is where we are at Return Path now) — there’s…
Getting Good Inc.
Getting Good Inc. There’s an old saying in PR about “getting good ink,” referring to good press – a phrase that will probably replaced by something like “getting good bits” soon enough now, I’m sure. Anyway, Return Path was very fortunate to be ranked #167 in this year’s Inc. Magazine Inc. 500 list of the fastest growing private companies in America. See the list here and our press release here. We were also happy to see clients of ours like Constant Contact, Fishbowl, and Zappos on the list, as well as fellow email companies Exact Target, Vertical Response, and research panel Epocrates. That’s all the sign of a healthy industry! While we never rest on our laurels, it’s certainly nice…