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Harder than it needs to be

Posted on December 29, 2011

For a recent project, I needed to re-create some corporate pages on wordpress. WordPress needed to run on a separate server, with just the right version of PHP, and all of the customizations required to make it look sharp required … Continue reading →

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Warning: FMFD can be lethal to your start-up

Posted on November 19, 2010

FMFD is my own acronym for Founder’s Magic Fairy Dust*. I’ve seen the fixation on FMFD many, many times, and the frantic search for Founder’s Magic Fairy Dust can easily derail a young company (or otherwise severely impair its sanity and health). It begins … Continue reading →

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Proving it to yourself

Posted on October 28, 2010

Coincidentally, I’ve had separate conversations with several very talented people in the last week who seem to acknowledge that they are capable of “doing more” professionally if they pursued their own start-up — i.e. more excitement and fulfillment than they … Continue reading →

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rehashing a Livemocha blog post from Sept 2009

Posted on October 13, 2010

[from Sept 2009]  It’s not often in that one has the opportunity to experience, in a corporate setting, the power of an talented team inspired by a common purpose. When you get great talent together, and assemble them around a … Continue reading →

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Dogpatch Labs is taking off

Posted on October 12, 2010

It’s pretty exciting to see what my friend Ryan Spoon is presiding over at Dogpatch Labs in SF. Unfunded companies can incubate their new ventures there at no cost, even if they are just at the concept development stage. Ryan … Continue reading →

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Customer retention as a proxy for "virality"

Posted on January 15, 2010

If they like your site, they will come back. If they like your site, they will tell their friends. What will make people like your site, tell their friends, and come back repeatedly? What does your site do better than … Continue reading →

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Coupon Crack: how to avoid dependency on discounts to grow your business

Posted on January 28, 2008

Although I my expertise is strongest in Internet marketing, this little lesson is applicable even to businesses that have no Internet presence at all. It’s the story of Coupon Crack, how you get hooked, and why you should avoid it. … Continue reading →

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Top 5 tips for engaging with bloggers

Posted on January 21, 2008

Here are my top 5 tips for marketing professionals to productively engaging with bloggers in their industry: 1) Talk to them directly. It’s easy… even hobbyist bloggers like to be treated like real media professionals, which they often are, in … Continue reading →

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Pre-launch build-up

Posted on August 7, 2007

Zoomin.com is the 5th new business I’ve been a part of (3 of my own smaller companies, and Half.com), and one dynamic has remained consistent throughout: the Roller Coaster. The Roller Coaster, described very well here by Marc Andreesen, is … Continue reading →

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An insider’s case for an eBay-Yahoo merger

Posted on June 22, 2007

As of this post, eBay is worth $43.4 billion dollars. Yahoo is worth $36.9 billion dollars. As a former eBay employee, I can say with certainty that ego flows deep and wide in the executive ranks at eBay. My sources … Continue reading →

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