Inane Market Sizing

June 15, 2014

Sizing the market for a disruptor based on an incumbent’s market is like sizing the car industry off how many horses there were in 1910. — Aaron Levie (@levie) June 8, 2014 Over the years, at various times we have talked with potential acquirers or VC firms. Some of these asked us to size the […]

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Intent of Rounds of Funding

June 14, 2014

Marc Andreessen likes to microblog on twitter and he often has fascinating posts. In response to a recent one of these microblogs, Fred Wilson communicated clearly in a single tweet the intent of the first three rounds of funding: @pmarca I assume Seed is to build product and get to PMF, Srs A is to build […]

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Calendly Trumps ScheduleOnce

June 13, 2014

I’ve written before about how helpful ScheduleOnce had become in my routine. I no longer go back and forth with people to schedule meetings. I just let them pick a slot directly on my calendar. I was happy with ScheduleOnce for providing me with that concept. The user interface was annoying, but I didn’t care […]

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It’s Becoming Easier To Sell As A Startup

June 12, 2014

When we first started our company in 2007, I felt a noticeable difficulty selling as a startup. There was often resistance from potential customers to buy from a small startup, despite the goodness of our product relative to competing solutions, merely because of our small size. In 2014, I rarely encounter that feeling any more. […]

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List Building

June 10, 2014

This summer we are working on new startup ideas. Part of the work in those ideas is to define an ideal customer profile. Once an ideal profile has been determined, it becomes important to start building lists of potential prospects for your startup. List building is a fascinating subject. It is the life blood of […]

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Marketing Voice and Copy

June 9, 2014

One of the most sensitive aspects of any business is its marketing voice and choices in copy. Everyone surrounding the company is bound to have opinions on its voice and copy. Voice includes the key points that are made in the company’s messaging. In our company we talk about faster code and productivity to developers. […]

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Invest In Things You Can Control

June 6, 2014

Kyle Porter wrote a great post today about improving the odds in angel investing through a moneyball-type approach. I thought it was an interesting thought, and it prompted me to consider my own approach. Back in January, I wrote about investing money and my opinions remain the same. The way I personally have chosen to invest […]

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The 8 Dimensions of Leadership Test

June 5, 2014

Allen Nance shared an online test that helps determine which of the 8 dimensions of leadership best describes you. I took the test and like many others in Atlanta was diagnosed as “Pioneering.” It is interesting to me that most of the entrepreneurs that have reported their results have all found “Pioneering” to be their dimension. […]

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Coding Is Emotional

June 4, 2014

“Early in my career as an engineer, I’d learned that all decisions were objective until the first line of code was written. After that, all decisions were emotional.” –Ben Horowitz, in The Hard Thing About Hard Things Those who have never coded for an extended period of time do not recognize how much art and […]

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