Tony Wright dot com

A lot of people are damn religious about bootrapping businesses. Especially nowadays when it’s so easy to start a software business– you just need a few hackers, Ruby on Rails, a cheap virtual server and you’re ready to roll, right?
Sure.
But just because it’s cheaper to start a software company, doesn’t mean that it’s that […]

Tomorrow I’m speaking on a panel at the 6 Hour Startup Conference. It should be good fun and (hopefully) informative, so if you’re spinning up a new company (or pondering it), you should come on by. Here are two things I won’t be doing at the conference:

Pitching my own company
Reading bullet items from […]

I can’t help but think that the startup world is a bit drunk on the concept of viral distribution. Distribution is a huge problem for startups, so I suppose that I can’t blame them.
First of all, I want to point out that I think viral distribution freakin’ rocks. It’s amazing. It’s awe-inspiring. […]

One of the frustrating things about iterative software development is that you never get to do a heroic launch (a la Steve Jobs). Your software starts off to be barely good enough for someone to endure. The next week it’s better. Rinse, repeat. If you’re good, someday you wake up and […]

[edit: I should probably have made a stronger point that I am talking about early early early stage startups. 2-5 people, pre-funding. Carry on!]
There is a tremendous amount of venom loosed towards so called “business guys” or “idea guys” (as I’ve called ‘em) in the startup community. They can’t catch a […]

I wrote a little guest post over at FoundRead (part of the GigaOm network). Give it a read!
http://foundread.com/2008/04/02/ycombinator/

There’s quite a flap over Paul Graham’s recent essay.
The attacking author quotes a comment on Reddit (always a good sign) as a good summary of the essay of why we should all be terribly offended.

“I work with young startup founders in their twenties. They’re geniuses, and play by their own rules. Oh… you haven’t founded […]

I think that common sense goes a long ways in UI design… But not all the way. It’s a learned skill like any other. I was reading up on calendar controls today (which I’m obsessed with, by the way) and caught a great post by the curmudgeonly Jakob Nielsen. Here’s the […]

Don Norman recently wrote a fine piece entitled “Why is 37Signals So Arrogant?“. As a student of link/click bait, I have to applaud him. Bravo! It’s right up there with Jason Calacanis’ post about firing anyone who isn’t a workaholic (his followup is a bit more measured).
So I’m going to do one […]

Well, not all of it. That title was blatant click-bait. You’re here and I’ve won. Nyah!
I’ve long been passionate about reading and digesting every tidbit of information about what it takes to build a successful startup. I’m an avid reader of people like Seth Godin, Paul Graham, Guy Kawasaki, the […]