There are those who are at home in a start-up environment, and those who are ONLY at home in a start-up environment. I met Richard Penner when we were both working for a company which, when we joined, employed about 70 people, and during our tenure, grew to over 300. That staggering amount of growth […]
In our social media-enabled, always-on world, we think we can solve most problems with our networks, but there are still millions of users across the globe actively using one of the oldest forms of online conversation: Message Boards. Andrew Sider, founder of Bunch recently chatted with me why he (and several investors) think that cutting […]
Companies very often pivot at some point during their existence. Many start-ups even pivot to a completely different type of company (Groupon was famously a cause-rallying site in its inception.) Where the transition gets hard for companies when they change their basic business model, is possibly giving up built-up market share and clientele. How a […]
We’ve covered a lot of companies who have started up amidst change, and this week’s story is about what happens when that change is too much for a company, as it was originally formed, isn’t enough to be sustainable. I recently spoke with Mike Townsend, previously of Flowtab (more on their story here) about what […]
Becoming an entrepreneur used to be a “they” thing: other people did it, but unless you had one in the family, it was a career shrouded in mystery. How do you get started? Do you have to be an inventor? What does it actually take to work for yourself? That seems to be changing. New […]
Listening to Potential Customers with Shifthub’s Jeremy Potvin Most entrepreneurs are like writers, in that they adhere to the same adage: “Go with what you know.” Sometimes, you can have exposure and experience with a vertical, and still not have a complete picture of how it works, and if you’re building a product to ease […]
Previously in this column, I have shared the progress of my own startup, Shyndyg. While there are still more stories to tell, we’ve enlisted the help of another start-up founder, Jeff Ullrich, President of Earwolf Media (and host of the “Love, Dad” podcast with David Koechner) to discuss his experiences. Earwolf produces the most highly […]
In the earliest stages of Shyndyg, when we went from our basic prototype to ourMinimum Viable Product, we decided to pull in the opinions and advice of experts in VC (we’ve made some finance friends along the way), tech (we wanted to get some mobile/testing advice) and hospitality — people who plan lots of events […]
It’s easy to see the appeal of having your own business: you can set your own hours, you get to collect all of the money, and you can do things your way. You see movies likeThe Social Network, and you watch television shows like Dragon’s Den/Shark Tank,where there are bidding wars for the weirdest ideas, […]