Articles

I believe that any startup idea, even if it’s an obviously bad one, can be pivoted into a bigger and better idea, so getting started is probably the most important step in making an idea into a successful execution. Sometimes [...]

We might think highly of what we’ve created. We might think we have a great, unique, and revolutionary solution for a problem. We want the world to know about it. We speak in witty form, touting our approach, and… No [...]

If you are a product manager, by title or role, you are probably familiar with the matrix describing where you should spend your resources. It states that features that are used by most users most of the time are worth [...]

It’s very hard to predict how much it will cost to run a startup or all the services we’ll need to use. When we get started, we make very basic assumptions of the R&D and operational services we’ll use, but [...]

The science of physical activity is exceptionally good — particularly if you compare to less understood lifestyle sciences, like sleep, stress, addiction, behavior, and nutrition — so there isn’t much that a non-expert like me can add to the conversation. But since I’ve done [...]

File this under “Ignorance is Bliss” — As product builders, we have a deep understanding of how our product works, from a functional point of view (i.e. how to get a task done) to the value proposition (how to use it right [...]

Identifying big opportunities is part science, part art. If someone pitched you in 1999 that we need to create a fully open micro-blogging platform that each person can post up to 140 characters for anyone to see, your reaction might [...]

If you come from a business or marketing background, revenue cannibalization is something you are familiar with. It’s the concept of a business launching a new product line that is creating revenue by taking revenue away from another product line [...]

You might have heard the phrase “If you are not paying for the product, you are the product” as a way to describe tech consumer companies where their business model is advertising. It’s a very limited — and wrong — way to explain the [...]

We live in pretty interesting times. On the one hand, we have employers that are treating their employees more and more like adults by giving them a lot more flexibility on how they do their work. This movement, sometimes referred [...]

Let’s get this out of the way. It sucks. It’s like being dumped. Even if you were unhappy with the relationship, you wanted the break up to be on your terms, but it wasn’t. If you are reading this, likely [...]

I didn’t pick the health industry to build my next company. The health industry picked me, by chance. On my first tech-health conference I attended after co-founding EveryMove I felt like an alien looking at all these people and their [...]

I take it as a sign that I must write a blog post on this topic, after seeing the same thread discussed in three different contexts: The end of the software business as we know it. My first interaction was [...]

When you run for 26.2 miles you have time to think. A lot of time to think. I realized that a Marathon is just like the opening ceremony at the Olympic Games. You spend months “rehearsing” for the big show. [...]

Great entrepreneurs are not risk-seekers. They are risk-mitigators. If you eliminate every possible risk for your startup, you succeed. Of course, you can’t eliminate all risk, but you can mitigate, control and eliminate a lot of them and let “luck” [...]

I’ve thought it would be cool to write a blog post about the randomness and full-stackness of being a CTO at a small startup. So here is a summary of my day today, which started at 6:45 AM and it’s [...]

Last week I put my training plan for my Half-Marathon in June (Seattle Rock-n-Roll), and my first full Marathon in October (Chicago). Training plans are a hard thing. Everything on the web is OK, but it’s not for you, or [...]

A common mistake entrepreneurs make is to assume a feature is not necessary because it doesn’t have a lot of usage, thus it can be safely removed from the product. Sometimes that’s the case, but sometimes, not so much. Google [...]

I just registered to run the Chicago Marathon in October 2013. This will be my very first Marathon. I think this is the first time in my life I’m starting something I don’t know I can finish. I actually don’t [...]

You kick off your startup and you start generating revenue or you raise seed money to get things going. You are in a position that you decide to hire the first employee of the company. If one of the founders [...]