Letters Remain

Category: entrepreneurship

  • Creative Capitalism

    ‘Creative capitalism‘ is a term popularised by Bill Gates at the World Economic Forum in Davos, 2008. Here Gates delivered a speech saying that many of the world’s problems are “too big for philanthropy” and that the free-market capitalist system itself would have to solve them. Creative Capitalism: A Conversation has a transcript of Gates’ speech but it…

  • Obsession and Writing on the Web

    At SXSW 2009, John Gruber and Merlin Mann held a panel on “building a blog you can be proud of, trying to improve the quality of your work, reaching the people you admire, and maybe even making a buck”. The talk, available as a 43f Podcast on Mann’s site, is worth your time whether you…

  • Good Employees and Successful Entrepreneurs

      In an article profiling Google’s Marissa Meyer (employee number 20), there’s this quote on Meyer’s views with regard to hiring practices:  One candidate got a C in macroeconomics. “That’s troubling to me,” Ms. Mayer says. “Good students are good at all things.” Another candidate looked promising with a quarterly rating from a supervisor of…

  • Making a Significant Contribution

    Why do so few scientists make significant contributions and so many are forgotten in the long run? That was the question the noted mathematician and computer scientist Richard Hamming (he of Hamming Codes fame) asked and tried to answer in a talk he gave at Bell Labs in 1986. However his educational and inspiring talk,…

  • Risk Tolerance as a Competitive Weapon

    After Josh Kopelman sold Half.com to eBay in 2000 he stayed on with the company to witness eBay’s defeat by and eventual acquisition of PayPal—at the time a relatively small startup. Kopeland suggests that the main reason for PayPal’s success was their risk tolerance in a number of situations: Legal Risk Paypal’s product was widely…

  • Unsolicited Internships

    Expanding on an idea originally posted on the Freakonomics blog, Andrew Lynch suggests soliciting people you admire or respect for an unpaid internship: Find someone you really admire or respect. Email them. Describe your skills, how you can help them, what you have to offer. Link them to your blog full of quality posts. Then…

  • 13 + 17 Tips for Startups

    Two articles of fundamental startup tips, from two people who know what they’re talking about: Startups in 13 Sentences, by Paul Graham of Y Combinator. Of the 13 sentences, which one does Paul believe is the most important? Understand your users. That’s the key. The essential task in a startup is to create wealth; the…

  • Execution is Everything

    With the premise that execution is everything and that without execution ideas are worthless, the participants of Seth Godin’s Alternative MBA program have produced 999 business ideas free for the taking. The majority; worthless. A few; excellent. Although I think we can still state: point proven.

  • Business Models for Web Apps

    Looking at the business models of the top 100 web apps of 2008, Dan Zambonini of Box UK found that 34% use Advertising, 12% a Variable Subscription model, and a further 8% each for Virtual Products, Related Products and Pay-Per-Use. Continuing this analysis he compiles an extensive list of different methods to monetize web apps. via @zambonini

  • Designing for the Poorest 90%

    The majority of the world’s designers focus all their efforts on developing products and services exclusively for the richest 10% of the world’s customers. Nothing less than a revolution in design is needed to reach the other 90%. —Dr. Paul Polak, International Development Enterprises Design For the Other 90% is a design exhibition aiming to…