Startup 122: Speech – The Final Frontier

OK, I’ll admit it.  I am psyched to see the new Star Trek Movie.  Check out the new preview.  This is clearly not your Father’s Star Trek…

But what does Star Trek have to do with startups?  It turns out that Star Trek has successfully “predicted” quite a few modern day inventions.   The most famous being the Communicator and the Cell Phone.

Yet even with all this forward looking Star Trek technology, what we never saw on The Enterprise are the crackberry, text messaging, facebook updating, tweetering, iphone addicts we’ve become.  Look around and what do we do each day instead of talking?  Read more... (1323 words, 3 images, estimated 5:18 mins reading time)

Startup 121: Lessons for the Recession from Rice Krispies

The past few months have been, how shall I say, pretty crappy and have caused lots of cut backs for most startups (and companies of every size).  Mostly, this has meant laying people off, cutting expenses, and generally “battening down the hatches to weather the storm”.

I randomly had several conversations with people on the topic of what a startup (or any organization) should do in times like these and some basic things came up each time:  Read more... (1217 words, 2 images, estimated 4:52 mins reading time)

1. Measure to manage
2. Mix it up
3. Take calculated risks

Startup Life 102: Leadership

I recently posted Startup Life 101 which suggested that in order to succeed in having a successful life while in a startup, you need to have a plan and to set the right pace. This is akin to running a marathon or even better succeeding in the Tour De France.

Re-connecting with Stew Friedman from the Wharton school, who has a book and teaches a class titled Total Leadership, is what got me thinking about this topic.  Read more... (1264 words, 3 images, estimated 5:03 mins reading time)

Startup Life 101: The Marathon

Being successful in all aspects of your life – your work, your relationships, your community and your personal life – is not easy especially when working at a startup. Conventional wisdom is you have to work 18 hour days, 7 days a week to succeed. Yet maybe it’s not necessarily the best way to succeed?

What got me thinking about writing about this was re-connecting with a professor I knew from the Wharton school, Stewart Friedman. He recently wrote a book and teaches a class titled Total Leadership: Be a Better Leader, Have a Richer Life.  Read more... (916 words, 2 images, estimated 3:40 mins reading time)

Nice resume, but can you juggle?

Hiring and engaging a great team is key to success for any organization.  And hiring great people is simply difficult.  It’s hard to get great people to show up for an interview, it’s hard to decide position requirements (both functional and relational competencies – see previous post), it’s hard to assess candidates, it’s hard to convince great people to join new teams, and on and on.  Of course, the engaging part is tough too but more on that later.

Of the many hiring challenges, one that strikes me as easy to improve is answering the question, “can a candidate juggle?”  Read more... (951 words, 2 images, estimated 3:48 mins reading time)

It’s the people stupid, part II.

Thanks for all the feedback and emails about my last post It’s the people, stupid.  One theme of the feedback was basically, “Thanks, stupid.  Of course we know hiring great people is important.  Now can we have something other than apple pie?”  

I agree that the tough question is, “HOW to build a great team?”

Since that is a big topic, the next couple of posts, in no particular order, will tackle a couple of key parts of that question.  Read more... (483 words, 1 image, estimated 1:56 mins reading time)

It’s the people, stupid.

A common question I am asked is what made (and still makes!) Vontu a successful startup, company, team, division, etc.   The answer is simple.  People.  Great people.   It is one of the most important (and defensible) competitive advantages a company can have.   It’s the same core belief that made Microsoft, Google, and so many other companies, sports teams, non profits, political campaigns, and others successful.

Some people argue that having a great idea is what makes a successful company.  But how does a company create great products or ideas?  Great people create great products.  Read more... (248 words, estimated 60 secs reading time)