15 years ago, you couldn’t even BEGIN to look for a house without a real estate agent (who takes 6-7% of the purchase price from the buyer). Today, the internet has changed that. 10 years ago, someone starting a small business had to eat a cost of thousands of dollars…
How to Ask for an Introduction
I don’t know a ton of important people. But as a founder of a venture-backed startup with some amazing investors and advisors, I do know a few. With Nivi and Naval preaching the gospel of social proof (can I get an “amen”?!) and with fundraising posts and articles espousing the…
PR for Startups
My startup (RescueTime) has enjoyed some pretty ridiculously good PR (online, print, and video). It’s not a surprise that the most common questions that we get from other founders are about PR. How do you get press and the blogosphere talking about your product? When you research this topic, you’ll…
Design your Blog like You’d Design a Product
When I decided to take a weekend and focus on my blog I realized one big thing: Most blogs are crappy products. And most of my favorite bloggers (the ones that espouse taking design, marketing, testing, and iteration have largely blown off the designs of their blogs To be clear,…
Startup Founder Evolution
In the past two months I’ve been on two different panels with other entrepreneurs. The first was at WTIA in Bellevue, WA (“Cashing in on Web Services“)– the other panelists were very clearly what I’d call “business entrepreneurs”. All of them had relatively successful funded startups, but not a one…
