Month: October 2005

D. Keith Robinson:

When it comes to building a product or brand you want to be:

* The first.
* The best.
* Different.

The isn’t much room for anything else.

Since the early summer, this blog has been obsessively focused on entrepreneurship. As I’ve conducted my own research into starting a business, I’ve shared links to the articles that I’ve found most interesting, in the hopes that you, too, might find some of them useful.

It’s been a blast.

But it’s not what I ever really intended this blog to be. It was supposed to be about sharing ideas, participating in conversations, getting more involved in the world, and meeting interesting people. It’s been too long since I’ve written on a topic where I have some expertise. That’s something I’d like to get back to.

Still, I really enjoy doing the whole entrepreneurial news thing, and I’m not ready to give up on it just yet.

So… I’m thinking of making some changes. Here’s what I’m thinking.

The entrepreneurial material will move to a new blog: Startup Fever, a blog dedicated to entrepreneurial news.

The Meme Deflector will revert back to what I meant it to be before I started posting links to articles about marketing, competition, and startups: a place to share my ideas and experiences (some of which will likely have an entrepreneurial flavour). I hope some of you will stick around for it.

If not, you will still find all the entrepreneurial news and articles that you’ve come to expect at its new home, Startup Fever. If you use an RSS aggregator, like Bloglines or NewsGator, you can already subscribe to the new feed (http://feeds.feedburner.com/startupfever), though you aren’t likely to find anything to read there for a while yet. The site is far from ready to go live.

I hope to post some more reminders before (and after) the move. In the meantime, it’s business as usual. Continue enjoying the usual entrepreneurial stuff here on the Meme Deflector.

Paul Ford (via Merlin Mann):

Distraction is necessary. Minds need to wander to get anything done. But the Internet is sort of the mental equivalent of the snack aisle at a convenience store, filled with satisfying fatty chips and tasty cream-filled cakes. God knows I’ve spent enough time with both the Internet and cream-filled cakes to see the similarities. And I now know that what I want, mentally, is a well-cooked meal. A book gives me that, a well-written, carefully-edited book.

Timothy Faley:

Making a critical evaluation of your business concept at an early stage will allow you to discover, address and correct any fatal flaws before investing time in preparing your business plan.

Seth Godin:

Imagine a book publisher being upset because her company’s books were being shelved right next to competitive books on the same topic…

Paul Kedrosky:

I’ve been saying this was coming for years, so it’s good to see that the confluence of exercise and gaming is finally starting to happen (even if the WSJ writer isn’t fond of the idea)…

Jason Fried:

If I hear “lifestyle business” one more time I’m going to hurl.

Kathy Sierra:

Television is bad for your brain. But television shows can be good for your brain. Until now, that’s been the struggle—if you kill your TV (the cause that’s dearest to me), you kill your chance of watching the shows until/unless they come out on DVD.

Jeff Cornwall:

Health insurance costs are consistently ranked among the most important issues faced by small business owners. This is not a surprise since the cost of offering health insurance is much higher for the smallest employers as seen in a recent study released by the SBA.

Paul Graham (via Larry Borsato:

How do you get good ideas for startups? That’s probably the number one question people ask me.

I’d like to reply with another question: why do people think it’s hard to come up with ideas for startups?

That might seem a stupid thing to ask. Why do they think it’s hard? If people can’t do it, then it is hard, at least for them. Right?