We’re written already about virtualization software company “VMWare”:http://www.vmware.com/ and it’s blockbuster IPO earlier this summer, the biggest tech stock offering since Google’s debut in 2004. We, and others, have pointed out that it was a long, slow slog through the desert for this Silicon Valley success … Read More »
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Carleen Hawn
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Harvard’s tips to founders on how to delegate more effectively.
By Carleen Hawn
Sep. 18, 2007, 8:11am PT
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Editor’s Note: I said I would post this Monday, but we rearranged. Sorry. Plenty of our readers express feeling overwhelmed by the quantity and variety of management responsibilities they have to shoulder as startup founders. A standard leadership solution to this problem is “hire-up and delegate-down.” But … Read More »
One of the biggest problems for founders is knowing when to spend your startup’s cash. You don’t always know when you’re going to need money, and there rarely ever seems to be enough of it, so, the tendency is to covet it — sometimes to your … Read More »
When to sell your business, rather than raise more venture $$
By Carleen Hawn
Sep. 17, 2007, 3:48am PT
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A friend of GigaOM, blogger Scott Lawton, passed on to us a great post that reveals why it is sometimes better to sell your business than raise more venture capital. The example used to illustrate this point is Alan Warms’ decision to sell his shop, BuzzTracker, … Read More »
Harvard Business School’s “Working Knowledge”:http://hbswk.hbs.edu/ weekly newsletter has a very helpful piece today, authored by marketing professor “John A. Quelch”:http://drfd.hbs.edu/fit/public/facultyInfo.do?facInfo=ovr&facEmId=jquelch@hbs.edu about how you can take advantage of what he calls “the Scarcity Illusion Strategy”:http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/5776.html when you’re getting ready to introduce your new product or service. By using … Read More »
Our colleague Liz Gannes has “a story today on Gigaom”:http://gigaom.com/2007/09/13/amazon-web-services-start-ups/ that raises a relevant topic for Found|READers, and it’s our *Question of the Day:* *Can the messy “black art” of starting up a company be streamlined into a science? And more, can it be outsourced to Amazon?* At … Read More »
I attended a mixer for entrepreneurs in San Francisco organized by “STIRR”:http://www.stirr.net/about called “Founder Hacks II”:http://www.stirr.net/. These events are cool beacuse at each mixer, STIRR invites a few repeat founders to get up and share one of the “success hacks” they’ve learned along the way with … Read More »
More Must Reads
“Last.fm”:http://www.last.fm/about/ a five-year-old online music site based in London, uses software to collect, mine, and then categorize the digital tunes people are listening to, in an effort to help us all find more of the music we already know like, and other stuff that we might … Read More »
*Business is like activism. It is a way of saying what kind of world you want to live in. Protest is not enough. You need a vision to be successful.* – “Anita Roddick”:http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Deaths.html?_r=1&oref=slogin, founder of The Body Shop. *Founders’ Lesson #19:* Is your business-mission an expression of ‘the … Read More »
Long before Google made its claim on the notion of doing business without doing evil, British entrepreneur “Anita Roddick”:http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/business/AP-Obit-Roddick.html?ex=1347163200&en=53da0835e43ac13c&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss built an billion-dollar cosmetics empire on this very maxim, and at least one more: “Businesses have the ability to good,” Roddick said, as often as anyone would … Read More »
Luck is just the product of many other entrepreneurial qualities, such as: boldness; inventiveness; motivation; honor; and leadership. Think about this the next time you feel ‘lucky,’ or are tempted to dismiss someone else’s success as ‘lucky.’ – Founder Ursula Schwuttke, in the conclusion to her earlier … Read More »
Last week, I had the pleasant surprise of interviewing a genuinely egoless and insightful private equity investor. (Really. They do exist.) When I say insightful, I mean he spoke candidly and with a unique perspective on the PE trade, as well as on the tech industry … Read More »
By Carleen Hawn
Aug. 29, 2007, 5:25am PT
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“If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Then quit. No use being a damn fool about it” – W.C. Fields *Founders’ Lesson #17*: Quitting is just a stage in starting anew. Recognize when it needs to happen, and do it. You’re now one step closer to … Read More »
By Carleen Hawn
Aug. 29, 2007, 4:47am PT
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Standard economic theory treats human beings as rational, calculating machines, but behavioral economics holds that the machine often breaks down. Businesspeople, no less than others, are subject to cognitive biases that can undermine their objectivity–particularly in potentially career-destroying decisions to exit foundering businesses or cancel struggling projects.” — *”When to exit … Read More »
By his own account, “Jon Serbin’s”:http://www.foundread.com/admin/contents/body_edit/11419 early business life was the quintessential, “All-American,” sort: Born and raised in New Jersey, he went to college in St. Louis, Missouri; then business school in New York City; followed by law school in Boston before he finally went into… … Read More »
With the roaring IPO this week of virtualization software company “VMWare”:http://www.vmware.com/, there can be no question that the company’s “cofounder and CEO, Diane Greene”:http://www.vmware.com/company/leadership.html, has earned what so many founders aspire to: strategic and financial success. VMWare’s marketcap is already north of $20 billion, valuing Greene’s … Read More »
By Carleen Hawn
Aug. 15, 2007, 8:48am PT
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“Start-ups are like medieval monasteries: always convinced that paradise is just ahead or that things only recently got worse. If you can begin to enjoy the process of building a start-up rather than the outcome, you’ll be a better leader.” – “Glenn Kelman”:http://redfin.com/stingray/do/about-management, CEO of Redfin, in … Read More »
One of our goals at Found|READ is to create an environment where founders feel free to talk about topics or issues they don’t even want to _think_ about, much less discuss in an open forum. Such topics might include: their strategic missteps; failure; or most loathsome, … Read More »
Merv Griffin, a musician, singer and actor whose Hollywood career only really took-off when he became a TV game- and talk-show host died in Los Angeles Sunday, of prostate cancer. He was 82. Griffin may be best-known to Found|READers as the creator of the game … Read More »
*Discussion:* As many of you will have heard by now, Gregory Reyes, the 44-year-old former CEO of storage area network company, Brocade Communications, was convicted yesterday in federal court on 10 counts of securities fraud for backdating stock options he gave to his employees between 2000 and … Read More »
I published a “guest column today on GigaOM”:http://gigaom.com/2007/08/05/did-club-penguin-sell-up-or-sell-out/ about the announcement last week that “Disney is acquiring Club Penguin”:http://corporate.disney.go.com/wdig/press_releases/2007/07_0801_clubpenguin.html, the fantastically successful social networking site for “tweens” (kids aged 6-14), for up to $700 million. Club Penguin’s three founders, Lane Merrifield, Lance Priebe, and Dave Krysko, will … Read More »
Editor’s note:A side deal in the sale of Dow Jones that we raised as an issue here on Tues is now generating some real controversy. Were the Bancrofts’ advisors ‘bought off?,’ asks “The New York Times”:http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/08/02/the-side-deal-in-the-deal-for-dow-jones/. If so, were the interests of the family well-served in … Read More »
Entrepreneur, author and Found|READ contributor, “Tim Ferriss”:http://4hourworkweek.com/, is a force of nature and an amateur marketing genius. With virtually no professional assistance, the first-time author has managed to get his novel self-help/ management book, “The 4-Hour Workweek”:http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/ onto _both_ The New York Times and Wall Street Journal … Read More »
The debate over whether patents are a worthy safeguard or a money sink is long-standing on this site. But given that so many startups are cash poor (as we’ve been discussing over the last few days “here”:http://www.foundread.com/view/zero-cash-plan and “here”:http://www.foundread.com/view/a-zero-cash-case) we want to know, *when a cash-strapped … Read More »
“Om’s post today”:http://gigaom.com/2007/07/17/100-days-of-jerry/#more-9828 critiquing Yahoo! founder Jerry Yang’s proclamation in an earnings call yesterday that he would take 100 days to review his company’s stragtegic shortcomings has prompted some hot dialogue. Om writes candidly that he thinks 100 days is too long: “_Am I the only … Read More »
This afternoon, as I was preparing to have coffee with entrepreneur “Wil Schroter”:http://www.gobignetwork.com/profiles/Wil-Schroter.aspx, whose “previous Found|READ post”:http://gigaom.com/2007/07/03/stop-hiring-people-to-do-your-job/ you may have read, I ran across a great post on his site called “Five Ways to Move your Startup Forward without Cash”:http://www.gobignetwork.com/wil/2007/7/10/five-ways-to-move-your-startup-forward-without-cash/10175/view.aspx. As described, the piece has useful … Read More »
By Carleen Hawn
Jul. 16, 2007, 2:21pm PT
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“I’ve recently (about six hours ago!) decided to cut the cord from my full-time job in consulting to pursue the internet startup I co-founded…Some say I’ve ‘lost it.’ I’d say it has been found.” –Matt Trush, founder of “Convos”:http://www.convos.com/. *Founders’ Lesson #15: The only thing you have to … Read More »
Read “more comments”:http://gigaom.com/2007/07/16/facebook-founder-vs-founders/ on this story at the “Mothership”:http://gigaom.com/, under Om’s byline. This morning I read with interest the blog and media coverage of a three-year-old lawsuit against “Facebook”:http://www.facebook.com/ founder “Mark Zuckerberg”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Zuckerberg brought by three of his former Harvard classmates. Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss and Divya … Read More »
For the past month, I have been sitting in a federal courtroom in San Francisco watching as ex-Brocade CEO Gregory Reyes is tried for criminal securities fraud in the backdating of employee stock options grants. It has been a learning, if mostly boring, experience. But once … Read More »
So our friends at the “Mother Ship”:http://gigaom.com/, have this “very intelligent take”:http://gigaom.com/2007/07/12/mackey-and-me-why-rahodeb-speaks-for-all-of-us/ on the budding scandal plaguing Whole Foods CEO John Mackey. He is being taken to task by the FTC and the media now for some apparently incriminating feats of self-promotion on a Yahoo! message … Read More »
_We had planned last week to post on GigaOM about Durham, North Carolina-based “iContact”:http://www.icontact.com/. The four-year old email marketing and blogging software startup closed a $5.35 million round of funding from “Updata Partners”:http://www.updatapartners.com/interior_portfoliocompanies_dev.asp and “IDEA Fund Partners”:http://www.ideafundpartners.com/ on June 29 — which is still news, especially … Read More »
As the saying goes, a thing is worth what someone is willing to pay for it. But as the founder of Zantaz greviousy discovered July 3, this adage doesn’t always apply to a startup. When multiple layers of professional financings are in place, sometimes a company … Read More »
Just in case you missed it: On July 5, GigaOM celebrated its 1st Birthday. In “Om’s humble tribute”:http://gigaom.com/2007/07/06/the-longest-year-the-shortest-365-days/ to his first 365 days as an entrepreneur, Found|READ’s indefatigable leader, and muse, reflected on his biggest lesson of all: that the work of a founder is non-stop; … Read More »
*Dear Readers:* *Tomorrow marks Found|READ’s three-month anniversary.* Your participation in the site has been fantastic over the last 12 weeks — besting our traffic estimates week-in, and week-out. We’ve hit the home page of “Digg”:http://www.digg.com/search?s=How+to+work+the+room%2C+www.foundread.com§ion=news&type=all&area=all&sort=score a couple of times, and “reddit”:http://reddit.com/search?q=www.foundread.com, too — real thrills for a … Read More »
By Carleen Hawn
Jul. 3, 2007, 11:41am PT
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Courage is not the absence of fear, but the ability to hold true to one’s convictions and ideals while facing down the bureaucracy that inverts entrepreneurship’s fundamental premise of service. — “Dr. Elliot McGucken”:http://artsentrepreneurship.com from his lecture, _”Hero’s Journey Entrepreneurship.”_ *Founders’ Lesson #14: Your fear is a … Read More »
*Tell us, Found|READers: What are YOU afraid of?* A few nights ago I had a conversation with a founder whom I’ve long-admired. Barely 40, he’s already done a lot in his career, and his company has achieved a level of recognition that most founders can only dream … Read More »
*Ode to Liz (1929 -2007)* Liz Claiborne, one of America’s most influential fashion designers, “died yesterday in New York City”:http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/28/business/28claiborne.html?ex=1340683200&en=abbb7dc04be084b0&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss after a long fight with cancer. “Ms. Claiborne”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liz_Claiborne_%28fashion_designer%29 might not be the best-known entrepreneur to the *Found|READ community*, especially to those of us who toil away in … Read More »
A friend of mine recently had the opportunity to meet the filmmaker and father of “The Godfather”:http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068646/ trilogy, “Francis Ford Coppola”:http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/cop0pro-1. The occasion was an event at one of “Coppola’s newest California wineries”:http://www.ffcwinery.com/ffc.html, this one called “Rosso & Bianco”:http://www.wineroad.com/Wineries/memberpage.asp?ID=9&Category=1&Region=0, in Sonomoa County. For those of … Read More »
By Carleen Hawn
Jun. 27, 2007, 4:06am PT
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*Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for? –Robert Browning* It is a class quote from the Victorian-era British poet. We reinterpret it here as *Founders’ Lesson #13:* If you’re not struggling a little, and *making mistakes,* you’re just not trying … Read More »
Just over a year ago, Found|READ contributors “Matt Brezina”:http://www.xobni.com/executive_bios.php#matt_brezina and “Adam Smith”:http://www.xobni.com/executive_bios.php#adam_smith took $12,000 dollars from “Y Combinator”:http://www.ycombinator.com/ and hunkered down in an MIT dorm room to figure out how to improve email. The result is San Francisco-based “Xobni”:http://www.xobni.com. They are now backed by “Vinod Khosla’s … Read More »
I’m in the U.S. District Court in San Francisco this week observing the “criminal fraud trial of ex-Brocade CEO Greg Reyes”:http://www.sec.gov/news/press/2006/2006-121.htm. Reyes helped found the “storage area network company”:http://www.brocade.com/company_info/index.jsp in 1995, and coached it into one of the dotcom-era’s highest fliers by 2000. Now Reyes is … Read More »
The “departure yesterday of Terry Semel as CEO”:http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyId=16&articleId=9025200&intsrc=hm_topic was newsworthy for sure, but more interesting to us was that Yahoo! co-founder Jerry Yang took up the helm, again. It is noteworthy that Yahoo!’s board didn’t give Jerry the common title of “interim CEO” (which would have indicated … Read More »
By Carleen Hawn
Jun. 11, 2007, 10:51am PT
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One year ago, “Found|READ contributor Luke Sontag”:http://gigaom.com/2007/05/11/passion-spotting/ co-founded “Vidoop”:http://www.vidoop.com/technology.php, a Tulsa, Oklahoma-based start-up which plans to change the way companies secure their websites, as well as the consumer experience of logging into them. As Sontag puts it, if he and his team have their way, “the … Read More »
By Carleen Hawn
Jun. 5, 2007, 6:12pm PT
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Learn from the bad experiences, replicate the successes, and always, always be gracious. *Founders’ Lesson #12* : Enough said. Read More »
By Carleen Hawn
May. 31, 2007, 5:56am PT
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*”People say iTunes is their favorite piece of Windows software…It’s like giving a glass of ice water to somebody in hell.”* – _Apple founder and CEO Steve Jobs, from the dais of the WSJ “D” Conference in Carlsbad, Calif. yesterday, when asked how he feels about being … Read More »
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