David St Lawrence: “I see a future in which a greater number of skilled individuals will look forward to developing their own micro-business, rather than spending their entire career as an employee.”
Technorati tags: microbusiness, startup, entrepreneurship
Cash is king: No matter what, don’t run out of money. Nothing else in this article matters if you run out of money. This means know your burn rate (the net cash that is flowing out of your business each month) and be aware that your low cash point for any given month may not be at the end of the month. In other words, don’t get caught planning based on full month figures only to find that you do not have enough money to pay your most important vendor on the 15th because your customers don’t pay you until the 30th.
Technorati tags: startup, entrepreneurship, finance, microeconomics
Shortly after I left AT&T to found ITXC with my wife Mary, a reporter asked “What’s the difference between being an officer at AT&T and running your own startup?” This was a hard question because a consulting contract with AT&T was a big part of our seed funding and we then thought AT&T might end up with a substantial equity position in ITXC (didn’t happen but that’s another story).
“Well,” I said tactfully, “yesterday, when I went into the bathroom at ITXC, I could hear that the toilet was running uncontrollably. I shook the handle to see if that would fix it but the handle flapped loosely, clearly not connected to anything inside.”
Technorati tags: startup, corporations, productivity, plumbing
John Abrams: “In 1987 I sold my business, South Mountain Company, to my employees (and myself). My sole proprietorship became an employee-owned cooperative corporation. It was a hinge point in the history of the company. Ownership has become available to all employees, enabling people to own and guide their workplace. The responsibility, the power, and the profits all belong to the group of owners.” (via Dane Carlson)
Technorati tags: entrepreneurship, business
John Cook: “Here’s a sign that Seattle’s startup community is back on track. A number of well-known technology entrepreneurs are quietly operating in ‘stealth mode’ — keeping a low profile and purposely hiding details of their business plans” (via Paul Kedrosky)
ChangeThis:”A sneak preview from his upcoming book, “The Art of the Start.” Guy encourages entrepreneurs to make meaning, make mantra, and get going.”
The book has since been released, but the 34-page manifesto is still available for download from ChangeThis.
Technorati tags: startup, entrepreneurship, book
NEWS.com.au: “He told investigators he was having problems with his wife and was hoping the murder story would encourage her leave him.” (via Steve)
Technorati tags: bizarre, relationships
Twodecode: “When you’re involved with a start up you simply don’t have a crystal ball. You don’t have all the answers. People working for a start up have come to terms with this fact and are well aware that mistakes will be made. IMO working in a start up is all about taking a decision, sticking to it BUT if necessary re-think and work out alternatives.”
Last week, Twodecode blogged about getting blindsided by J2ME.
It made me say, “Ouch!” As a software developer I could feel their pain. Getting blindsided by some obscure technical detail is never fun.
What’s remarkable is that they have solved the problem in less than a week. Way to go guys!
Paul Graham: “Like open source, blogging is something people do themselves, for free, because they enjoy it. Like open source hackers, bloggers compete with people working for money, and often win. The method of ensuring quality is also the same: Darwinian. Companies ensure quality through rules to prevent employees from screwing up. But you don’t need that when the audience can communicate with one another. People just produce whatever they want; the good stuff spreads, and the bad gets ignored. And in both cases, feedback from the audience improves the best work.”
Technorati tags: oss, business, paul graham, blogging
Phil Windley on Paul Graham‘s recent talk: “The reasons companies have fixed hours is that they can’t measure productivity. The idea is that if you can’t make people work, you can at least prevent them from having fun. If they’re not having fun, they must be working! If you could measure what people really did, you wouldn’t care when people worked.”
Technorati tags: startup, paul graham, blogging
Ken Dyck 