“We are not UI experts but do know when we see a good design.” I saw this on a mailing list I occasionally read, in a post where a company was looking to hire their first design employee/contractor. I think it’s a big part of why hiring designers is a…
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,…
Software and Making Money (Presentation Slides Included)
(note: this is modified from a talk I gave at Seattle Tech Startups on Wednesday) The more I think about it, the more I’m impressed with software businesses that are great businesses (not just great software). There’s a class of entrepreneur that is product focused (like the folks at Twitter),…
Google is a friend to the news business (but it’s got to evolve)
People are upset about the news industry dying/changing, and with good reason. There’s a lot of great history and romance in journalism, and it’ll be a shame to see them go. There’s a great summary of the issue by Nick Carr and some good thoughts (with a linkbait title) by…
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…
