Category: entrepreneurship
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Start-Ups Are Where You Want to Be
I suppose you could call Ooga Labs a conglomerate of start-ups. On their ‘About’ page they give a compelling argument to join their company, but more enticing is the open letter from their CEO imploring everyone to avoid the prestige (hype?) of big companies and do something entrepreneurial. So you’re going to take a cube…
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Startup Ideas Y Combinator Would Like to Fund
A list of startup ideas Y Combinator would like to fund: A cure for the disease of which the RIAA is a symptom Simplified browsing More variants of CRM Web Office apps Online learning Tools for measurement A form of search that depends on design New payment methods A web-based Excel/database hybrid A buffer against…
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The Better Idea
Since reading Ramit’s The Myth of the Great Idea over two and a half years ago, I’ve been tinkering with the idea. However, it’s always the simplest things that win-out in the end. The myth of The Great Idea is a dangerous one. It makes you constantly search and search for something that you’ll probably…
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Build a Fully Functioning Web 2.0 Business in 66.5 Hours
In 2007 Matthew Inman created Mingle2, a fully functioning online dating business/website, in just 66.5 hours. From concept to launch. 6 months and 2 million visitors later, it was acquired by a competitor. He shared his experiences in the aptly named Mingle2 – How I Built a Web 2.0 Dating Site in 66.5 Hours. Let…
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The Startup Bibles
Want a crash course in entrepreneurship? Then read the startup bibles. [These books] range from academic textbooks to sales essays, recruiting tips to popular science. Each book and article provides insight into the skills needed to successfully run a startup. Recruit or Die (homepage) The Entrepreneurial Venture Don’t Make Me Think The Tipping Point (homepage)…
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Peopleware and Private Offices
A Field Guide to Developers is an article by Joel ‘on Software’ Spolsky. From reading this you can tell that Joel is a man who knows how to run a software house and how to keep staff happy. From it, I’ve also added another book to my reading list. Last year I went to a…
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37signals on Creating a Devoted Audience
37signlas—creators of the book for software designers—have given us a round-up of how they built a devoted audience/client-base. From the beginning, we allotted plenty of time for side projects. Things that would get us attention, experiments with new ways of selling our services, ways to show off our design thinking, etc. Here are a few…
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Joel Spolsky on Strategy
Trawling through the Joel on Software archive, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed reading the Strategy Letter series. Building a company? You’ve got one very important decision to make, because it affects everything else you do. No matter what else you do, you absolutely must figure out which camp you’re in, and gear everything you do accordingly, or…
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How to Write a Business Plan
BBC Business’ How to Write a Business Plan has some sound advice for that basic business plan. However, being written by a multi-national corporation, I had an inkling that it wasn’t going to be very—I hate saying this—Web 2.0, so I went to the usual suspects. This Ask Y Combinator thread has some good advice…