Long ago a young entrepreneur reached out to me from the UK. She wanted me to consider mentoring her. I liked her smarts and attitude, so I gave her some guidance pro bono and eventually decided that her concept had some merit and agreed to help — to mentor her.[…] Read On
It’s impossible to overstate how destructive one toxic individual can be to a company. While that’s especially true in an early stage startup where just about anyone can have a big influence on team performance and morale, it can happen in any organization of any size if that individual is[…] Read On
The problem I see with today’s entrepreneurial culture is a surprisingly unrealistic if not utopian expectation of the startup process. They have this notion of going straight from founding and funding to fame and fortune. Never mind the whole building a company and growing a business thing. Some of these[…] Read On
I’ve resisted watching HBO’s Silicon Valley for years. Another cynic’s view of what Silly Valley has become in the latest bubble seemed too depressing to watch. And make no mistake, we are in a bubble. Not just private equity — ideology too. Having gone through the dot-com bubble, way too[…] Read On
The first time I was enticed to join a tech startup by some well-known executives and VCs, it didn’t take long for me to figure out that these experts must have been smoking something when they signed up for this gig. I quit after nine months. Sure enough, the company[…] Read On
Your product is your brand. Its value proposition to customers should be at the very core of how, when and what you communicate to the world. Apple, Nike, BMW and Disney have powerful brands because they are leaders in their respective industries, not the other way around. Contrary to popular[…] Read On
From Wall Street to Silicon Valley, everybody’s trying to figure out what’s wrong with this year’s crappy unicorn IPO class. Uber, Lyft, Peloton, Slack, Pinterest – they’ve all underperformed post-IPO. WeWork couldn’t even get off the ground with that loony $47 billion valuation, finally ousting CEO Adam Neumann and pulling[…] Read On