“If you want a thing done well, do it yourself”
If you, like Napoleon Bonaparte, have ever reached this conclusion, you are not alone. Delegating effectively is a struggle and it often feels faster and better to do it yourself.
The challenge is the devil is in the details on how to effectively delegate.
Read More »How to Delegate Without Being a Micro-Manager
In fall of 2018 I had one of the most formative self-development experiences I’ve ever had to date — attending a Fellows retreat with Leaders in Tech (LIT). My mind was blown because it is SO different from many of the offerings out there, and I wanted to write a post to share what this organization is about and how it’s made a difference. In fact, it made such an impact that I jumped on the opportunity to get more involved and joined their Board of Directors last year.
Read More »My Fellows Retreat with Leaders in Tech
Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTubeTranscript: Lenny’s Podcast I was recently invited onto Lenny’s Podcast and had so much fun there talking about how to make better decisions, career strategy, and living a life aligned with our values. Topics covered: Have a listen and hope you enjoy it!
I think most would agree that one of the best resources for making better decisions is the advice of knowledgeable people who know us well. Unfortunately, it’s often an underutilized resource. The main challenge is, how do you actually do it?
I use something I call a curiosity loop to systematically extract wisdom from my network.
Read More »Make Better Decisions with Curiosity Loops
When I founded my first company Connected back in 2011, I was really surprised by the intensity of the emotional rollercoaster. By then I’d already worked everywhere from large corporate Microsoft to tiny new startup and felt prepared. I was dead wrong. I remember describing it to a friend as, “After I started a company, everything became 10x more intense. The highs and lows filled with terror, sometimes all in the same hour. Everything else I’d done in my professional career fades in comparison.”
Read More »7 Things No One Tells You About Being a Startup Founder
Last Friday I attended the unSEXY conference, a one-day conference hosted by 500 Startups focused on the unsexy topics of distribution and money makin’ for startups. You can see the conference slides here.
A new project I’ve been so heads down working at my new startup that I’ve neglected to update my blog. Sorry guys! A few months ago, I left Mochi Media and the world of games to start a new adventure with Connected, which provides contact management without the work. It automatically pulls in contact information from across your email, calendar and social networks and gives you the tools to proactively manage your network. Why Connected? Because relationships are important One of the key reasons for my original decision to join Mochi Media was because I just liked the founder and team,… Read More »My new startup Connected is contact management without the work
One of the challenges of early product design is creating the initial product hypothesis on what the product actually is. Internally, products tend to be more easily described as a bundle of features, but it’s difficult to convert that into an actual description. Marketing and initial product design is often the realm in which everyone has an opinion, and it’s hard to judge which one is more valid. Should this button be red or blue? Is this the right message for the user, or should we phrase it another way? The answers to the questions, however, can be very important… Read More »Breaking Stalemates on Product Design Questions
Last weekend, Sachin Rekhi and I did connectme.cc as a little hackathon project for the Cloudstock Hackathon. I’m proud to report that we were a finalist for the event and even made it onto Techcrunch! If you’re not familiar with it, Cloudstock is a small event offshoot off of the larger Salesforce.com Dreamforce conference designed to bring developers and cloud technologies together. Meet our project: connectme.cc The premise behind connectme.cc is simple. Send your business card with one text. Even though we’re living in this world with social networks and online profiles, many of the existing applications are dependent on both… Read More »Lessons from designing a product in less than 24 hours
Gamification as a buzz word seems to be picking up steam and there’s a lot of conversations going on about the topic these days. After my recent post defining gamification and giving examples of it, I’ve pulled together a roundup and quick summary of the topics. To start off, the web can’t seem to decide whether or not gamification is a real word. Wikipedia deleted the word from its index and since then it’s reappeared again. There also seems to be a disagreement about whether it’s spelled gamification vs. gameification, and it looks like a pretty even heat. Trying to… Read More »Roundup: Ongoing Gamification Debate