Startups Category

I admit that I am a bit of a contrarian. For a long time, the contention that “if you’re doing a startup, you HAVE to be in Silicon Valley” didn’t sit well with me. Sure, talent is important– but for many startups you need only a few talented folks to prove that you’ve [...]

[Edit: Added the raw data in a table at the end]
Some of the smartest startup brains I’ve ever met have said that if you want to be in the startup game, you MUST be in the Valley. There are plenty of justifications out there for it, and many/most of them make a fair bit [...]

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 Scott Karp. [...]

On Friday I spoke at a “Business Bootcamp” in Corvallis, Oregon. The event was fabulous (big thanks to John Sechrest) and I was pretty impressed to see that kind of passion for startups in Corvallis.
I wanted to follow up with that community with a few thoughts (that might be interesting to a broader audience, [...]

Startup Founder Evolution

In: Marketing, SEO, Software Dev, Startups, YCombinator

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 of them had [...]

This will be a small post, but I stumbled onto some interesting data that I thought I’d share. As a background, we’re currently searching for a great C++ dev to work at our startup here in Seattle. I decided to do a bit of research to see other job postings, compensation packages, etc.
I [...]

My first experience with stock options was at the ripe age of 34 years old, when I was selling Jobby (retired) to Jobster (Gah, make the Web 2.0 names STOP!). Before that, I’d been running my own business for close to a decade– with good success, but there really wasn’t any sense in setting [...]

Last night I spoke at Seattle Tech Startups. Given that lots of people who go to these meetings tend to be wantrepreneurs (aspiring startup folks), I focused on early decisions that need to be be made. Do you shoot for a great lifestyle business or do you aim for a grandslam? Services [...]

Mashable’s Seattle Mixer, this Saturday!

In: Startups

It’s official.
All the cool kids are coming to Seattle (at least temporarily).
First, Mike Arrington relocates to Seattle for the Summer.
Now Pete Cashmore and friends from Mashable are throwing a bit of a party here as their kickoff to their “SummerMash” US Summer Tour.
The event costs $10 (there’ll be food, drinks, and DJ there, so it’ll [...]

Bootstrappers Beware

In: My Life, RescueTime, Software Dev, Startups, YCombinator

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 [...]

Professional Stuff
  • Currently co-founder of RescueTime
  • Built and sold a web startup in 2006 in the recruiting space.
  • Built and sold a 15ish-person web development consultancy

Other Tony Trivia
  • Does not smoke a pipe.
  • Currently bouncing around between Silicon Valley and Seattle, WA.
  • Lived in Alaska for 8 years.
  • Can fly a plane.
  • Grew up racing sailboats.
  • Played pen and paper RPGs, but won't admit it in public.
  • Has killed and eaten a moose.
  • Has never voted for anyone named Bush.
  • Loves to cook and has made his own sausage

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RescueTime

Providing personal time management software and employee time tracking software