Category Archives: amaths-wars

Friends

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Treat your colleagues as friends. I apply the same basic rules to all my relationships, business and personal. I interact with my bosses and other colleagues exactly the same way I interact with friends. I’m sociable and laid back, I joke around, I’m honest, and if you’re being stupid I’ll let you know. This isn’t just some clever trick I use to make people like me. I just have a lot more fun without the smoke and mirrors that “professionalism” brings. And as a lot of bosses will tell you, it’s a lot harder to fire someone you like.

— How to Find Your Dream Job

— by Brad Bollenbach

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2010.12.01 Wednesday ACHK

Raising money

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Livingston: What advice can you give about raising money?

Graham: The advice I would give is to avoid it. I would say spend as little as you can, because every dollar of the investors’ money you get will be taken out of your ass — literally in the sense that it will take stock away from you, but also the process of raising money is so horrible compared to the other aspects of business. You can’t work your way out of it like you can with other problems. You’re at other people’s mercy.

— Paul Graham

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2010.11.30 Tuesday ACHK

Users

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My philosophy on these types of companies — consumer-based Internet companies — is that you don’t need to worry about the business model initially. If you get users, then everything else follows. Basically any technology can be copied, any concept can be copied. In my opinion, what makes one of these companies valuable is the users. That can’t be copied.

— Mark Fletcher, Founders at Work

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2010.11.29 Monday ACHK

Reassurance

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It’s natural to seek reassurance. Most of us want to believe that the choices we make will work out, that everything will be okay.

… But everything is never okay.

Finding the bravery to shun faux reassurance is a critical step in producing important change. Once you free yourself from the need for perfect acceptance, it’s a lot easier to launch work that matters.

— Seth Godin

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2010.11.27 Saturday ACHK

In between frames

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Scott McCloud’s classic book on comics explains a lot more than comics.

A key part of his thesis is that comic books work because the action takes place between the frames. Our imagination fills in the gaps between what happened in that frame and this frame, which means that we’re as much involved as the illustrator and author are in telling the story.

Marketing, it turns out, works precisely the same way.

— Seth Godin

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2010.11.26 Friday ACHK

Scale

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So we have definitely said to ourselves, “We don’t want any outside money. We actually don’t even want to grow our team.” We’re trying to design our products in a way that they can scale with more users without us having to scale as a company.

— David Heinemeier Hansson

— Founders at Work

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2010.11.25 Thursday ACHK

Jesus’ money

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The gospel of St. Matthew told of the angry Jesus driving the merchants and money-changers out of the temple, knocking over the tables of the money-changers and spilling their coins on the floor. Jesus was not opposed to capitalism and the profit motive, so long as economic activities were carried on outside the temple. In the parable of the talents, he praises the servant who used his master’s money to make a profitable investment, and condemns the servant who was too timid to invest. But he draws a clear line at the temple door. Inside the temple, the ground belongs to God and profit-making must stop.

— Freeman Dyson

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2010.11.24 Wednesday ACHK

Joel Spolsky

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Livingston: If people have to pay more, they take the product more seriously?

Spolsky: Definitely. There was a five-user license that was like $199, and that just feels like shareware, practically. But today, when you say that a ten-user license is $999, it starts to feel like a more substantial product. In that market, it still is actually a good deal. But you really have to have a price point that conveys what you think the product positioning should be. Many people will judge where your product fits in the market based on its price.

— Joel Spolsky, Cofounder, Fog Creek Software

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2010.11.23 Tuesday ACHK

Marketing 4

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Ross: I thought marketing was something that required a degree and formal experience. It turns out that marketing is just making the product good enough that people spread it on their own, and giving them ways to do that. It’s a lot easier and more natural than I thought it would be. Now I can’t stand meeting with professional marketers who try to “craft” the “message” and all that junk.

— Blake Ross, Creator, Firefox

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2010.11.21 Sunday ACHK

Shipping 2

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A key part of shipping is the ability to fail. The reinvention of the marketplace demands that one have the ability to fail, often and with grace — and in public!

— Seth Godin

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2010.11.20 Saturday ACHK

Physics and French literature

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Q: I disagree with your generalization that physicists are smarter than professors of French Literature.

A: Try this thought experiment. A dictator takes over the US and sends all the professors to re-education camps. The physicists are told they have to learn how to write academic articles about French literature, and the French literature professors are told they have to learn how to write original physics papers. If they fail, they’ll be shot. Which group is more worried?

— Paul Graham

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2010.11.19 Friday ACHK

Shipping

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We grew up isolated. The future is connected. We grew up unable to have substantial interactions with anyone except a small circle of family and co-workers. Now, we earn the right to interact with just about anyone.

I think this changes everything … if we let it.

— Brainwashed: seven ways to reinvent yourself

— Seth Godin

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2010.11.18 Thursday ACHK

Apple

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Wozniak, at first skeptical, was later convinced by Jobs that even if they were not successful they could at least say to their grandkids they had their own company.

— Wikipedia on Steve Wozniak

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2010.11.17 Wednesday ACHK

Write a book

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Someone once said that the world would be a better place if people only wrote books because they had something to say, rather than because they wanted to write a book.

— Paul Graham

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2010.11.12 Friday ACHK