Letters Remain

Category: entrepreneurship

  • Entrepreneurship and the Possibility of Real Failure

    In 2007 Vinicius Vacanti quit his highly-paid job in finance to take on life as an entrepreneur. In a short post describing his reasons for doing so, Vacanti says that most of us haven’t faced the possibility of real failure, and entrepreneurship is a way to test your limits by attempting to create something of…

  • A “Felt Need” Is What Makes Us Buy

    A “felt need” is what differentiates a vitamin from an aspirin: when we crave something (relief from pain), a product that satisfies that desire becomes a must-have rather than a nice-to-have. Realising this and re-framing a product in terms of this craving is an important step in ensuring a product’s success, say Dan and Chip…

  • Marketing Lessons for Startups

    When Ilya Lichtenstein offered free marketing advice to startups (as a way of thanking the Hacker News community) he received over 150 requests and set to work. Certain patterns started to emerge in his advice, and so he decided to produced a three-post ‘startup marketing lessons learnt’ series (parts two and three). There’s some fantastic…

  • WordPerfect Business Advice

    In 1980, as a $5-an-hour part-time office manager, W. E. Peterson joined the small company that would go on to become WordPerfect Corporation. Then, twelve years later, after helping grow the company to half a billion dollars in annual sales and becoming the Executive Vice President, Peterson was forced out of the company and set out to…

  • Preventable Startup Mistakes (That Caused the Downfall of Seven Startups)

    Verifiable, Wesabe, Storytlr, TwitApps, Vox, Swivel and EventVue: All companies or products that no longer exist after preventable problems caused their downfall. 37signals collects their stories so that we don’t repeat the same mistakes, presenting a set of brief post-mortems on failed startups. The recurring issues seem to be: solving problems that the world isn’t…

  • Focus Points for Entrepreneurs

    When someone asked for advice on How to become a millionaire in 3 years on Hacker News, serial entrepreneur Jason Baptiste took the task seriously providing thirty-seven things to focus on when starting a company, including: Market opportunity Inequality of information Surround yourself with smart people Your primary metric shouldn’t be dollars If you do…

  • Selling Software on a Shoestring

    From the early days of development through to the release and refinement of the final product (and further), Patrick McKenzie has been chronicling his journey as a one-man Micro ISV (Micro Independent Software Vendor). McKenzie has recently compiled a fantastic list of his best posts and this acts as a list of practical advice for…

  • Essential Startup Essays

    Om Malik presents what he believes are the ten essential startup essays of 2009: Paul Graham: What Startups Are Really Like Sean Ellis: Milestones to Startup Success Eric Ries: Myth: Entrepreneurship Will Make You Rich Venture Hacks: What Is the Minimum Viable Product? Mike Speiser: The Power of Continuous Improvement Mike Speiser: Getting Comfortable With…

  • The Keynote MBA

    Truth is, the great value in most MBA and JD programs can be boiled down to 5 to 10 talks, presentations, classes and conversations that changed the way you experienced the world. Following up on this comment, Jonathan Fields presents The Seven Keynote MBA: seven keynote speeches, from a diverse group of people, that together…

  • The Ideas of Frank Chimero

    Designer Frank Chimero presents his ‘Ideas’: his manifesto of sorts principles on creativity, motivation and innovation. Chimero briefly covers seven topics, entitled: Why is Greater Than How Not More. Instead, Better. Surprise + Clarity = Delight Sincire, Authentic & Honest No Silver Bullets, No Secrets Quality + Sincerity = Enthusiasm Everything is Something or Other I’m…