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Kristin Zhivago (via Bill Keagy):
Working on things that don’t make sense is the single biggest source of job dissatisfaction. Who wants to work on something that is obviously going to fail? Who wants to fight traffic, spend 8 to 15 hours in a windowless office, answer another 200 emails, and sit through at least 5 boring meetings every day, just to do something stupid?
Technorati tags: management
Posted by Ken Dyck as Uncategorized at 7:05 PM EDT
If a rabid donkey were guarding your computer and you were only allowed to ever view three business-oriented blogs again, without getting bitten or kicked, what would they be?
Technorati tags: blog, entrepreneurship
Posted by Ken Dyck as Uncategorized at 6:55 PM EDT
While there are plenty of businesses that don’t seem to understand that the web can do amazing things for them, there are some cases where an entire industry seems to not understand the full potential of the web. I use the word “industry” loosely. Here’s my list.
Technorati tags: web2.0
Posted by Ken Dyck as Uncategorized at 6:52 PM EDT
1) Utility – Do I use the product or service often, and do I like the way it works every time?2) Value – Is the price I paid worth the utility of the product/service (frequency and impact in my life)?
3) Delight– Have I been wowed beyond expectations in the product or the company? Is the product/service differentiated?
4) Integrity –Does the company have people, actions or policy that reinforces integrity and commitment?
5) Relevance – Is the product / service ubiquitous enough to be useful to you?
Technorati tags: marketing
Posted by Ken Dyck as Uncategorized at 6:50 PM EDT
I am convinced that being virtual is the best way to start a company. The benefits go beyond cost (although the culture of frugality can go a very long way). In our case, it improves the product. But generally it is more productive. When the bandwidth for collaboration is constrained at times, you gain a certain focus. And with wiki, you develop a group memory to draw upon as you go forward.
Technorati tags: telecommunting, startup, technology, real estate
Posted by Ken Dyck as Uncategorized at 7:33 PM EDT
I realize startups are not the main target of those who want to eliminate economic inequality. What they really dislike is the sort of wealth that becomes self-perpetuating through an alliance with power. For example, construction firms that fund politicians’ campaigns in return for government contracts, or rich parents who get their children into good colleges by sending them to expensive schools designed for that purpose. But if you try to attack this type of wealth through economic policy, it’s hard to hit without destroying startups as collateral damage.
Technorati tags: startup, inequality, risk, economics, wealth
Posted by Ken Dyck as Uncategorized at 6:53 PM EDT
In keeping with our own (unpublishable) mission, we at the CDU launched an investigation of core values. We assembled a sample of 21 companies, about half from among the most- and half from the least-admired in the United States. Firing up the CDU computers, we input the companies’ values and their performance relative to the S&P 500 over five years. What did we find?
Technorati tags: values, success
Posted by Ken Dyck as Uncategorized at 6:45 PM EDT
Cubicle Coder (via Ian Landsman):
So I’ve been thinking a lot about giving up the microISV dream (WARNING – A bit of whine will now be served). Life is hectic. My role at work is changing, and I can’t seem to get traction with all the projects I’m “sort of” involved in. I’ve already dropped several balls. Home life totally revolves around the kids. And my new baby girl can’t decide if she wants to sleep at night or just party. I never know when there will be down time. And when a break comes along, I don’t really have a clue what to do
Technorati tags: entrepreneurship, microisv
Posted by Ken Dyck as Uncategorized at 7:19 PM EDT
The fears and emotions that we experience in startup mode are shared uniformly across just about every entrepreneur from the most brazen to the most timid. What I learned after being in the early stages of over a half dozen startups (some great, some bad) is that the process is almost exactly the same every time.I’ve broken the process down into three phases.
Technorati tags: entrepreneurship
Posted by Ken Dyck as Uncategorized at 7:12 PM EDT
Despite the dream of some entrepreneurs to meet a VC with deep pockets, the fact is that 99.9 percent of business owners will struggle alone, pulling themselves up by their bootstraps. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing. With a little luck and a lot of pluck, bootstrapping a business can be both financially and emotionally rewarding.
Technorati tags: bootstrapping, startup, entrepreneurship
Posted by Ken Dyck as Uncategorized at 6:36 PM EDT