“In the beginning, the hardest part was the mental game. It is like coming out of the closet to admit to your family and friends that you are going to do this thing.”
Eric Ryan, co-founder of Method cleaning products, dishes on the road to starting his wildly successful business with a childhood friend.
K3 Projekt Wheels TIP OF THE DAY!
(Source: brotips)
Dharmesh Shah picks apart a recent Fast Company article on the lean startups method popularized by Eric Ries. Among his qualms:
FastCo:
“You only get one shot to make a real splash with a product launch and truly impress the world, right?”
Shah:
“Actually, wrong. If your strategy is to bet it all on a single product launch and the hopes to get the magical ingredients “just right” to make that big splash and impress the world, odds are, you’ve already lost. In any case, it’s at least sub-optimal. Why put so much emphasis on this “big bang” lauch model? Why not try and learn from early users, iterate and maximize the odds of market enthusiasm when you do think you’re ready?”
(via Why FastCompany Gets “The Lean Startup” Almost Completely Wrong)
Life inside successful Web startups—especially the really successful ones—can be nasty, brutish, and short. As companies grow exponentially, egos clash, investors jockey for control, and business complexities rapidly exceed the managerial abilities of the founders.
Venture capitalist Peter Fenton calls this phenomenon “the violence of a startup.” And nowhere has the violence been fiercer, or more public, than at a company Fenton invested in and has helped to guide: Twitter.
Great article on the evolution of Twitter. Well worth the read.
K3 Projekt News
Tracy built her company, Recycled Media, out of necessity. She hasn’t raised any venture capital. She drove her company to profitability before paying herself a modest salary.
She leveraged herself and even sold many of her possessions to get started. And when her assets were tapped she rented out her bedroom and even her couch on Airbnb to afford her year-one operations. More on that later.
She actually IS the prototypical entrepreneur. Just not the kind you would initially read about on TechCrunch. That may soon change. And that’s what I love about her narrative. It represents the great majority of entrepreneurship and eschews the fairytale rags-to-VC-riches stories we so often read about in the press.
(via How This Entrepreneur Raised $28,000 Using Airbnb to Fund Her Startup)
(Source: gypsyinhersoul, via everythingyoulovetohate)
Buy Nothing New For a Year: DECIDING WHAT, DECIDING HOW & BUYING NOTHING NEW
One thing I have come to realize lately is that every single moment of every day I am making decisions about how I choose to live my life. Even if I am putting off making a decision about something, I am essentially still making a decision. Indecision is a decision.
On the flip side,…
“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” — George Bernard Shaw
The quote behind The Unreasonable Institute, a Boulder-based not-for-profit that takes its inspiration from the well-known tech incubator/accelerator, TechStars.
“But whatever you do, don’t sit on the fence. Commit to something. Don’t hedge. Give it all you have. Make it your life’s first occupation. If you can’t get excited about it — find something else.”
(via Startup Lessons From 17 Hard-Hitting Quotes In “Moneyball”)
The Internet has become an integral part of everyday life precisely because it has been an open-to-all land of opportunity where entrepreneurs, thinkers and innovators are free to try, fail and then try again.
—
K3 Projekt News: Ron Wyden, articulating the Freedom To Innovate Agenda
Sen. Ron Wyden: My Letter to the Internet
(via fred-wilson)
(via amexopenforum)
K3 Projekt News:
CBM: What qualities have you found that all entrepreneurs share?
JAH: Successful entrepreneurs combine optimism, creativity, passion, courage and perseverance. They have an uncanny ability to keep going when times get tough. They have such excitement about what they are doing, and a need to prove to the rest of the world that their idea has merit and that they don’t quit. While many people consider successful entrepreneurs to be “lucky”, my sense is that they have positioned themselves and their enterprises to take advantage of opportunities, or to create opportunities, that emerge either from new technologies, new regulatory environments, or other market needs. They tend to be perfectionists interested in every detail of what makes a successful product or service offering. (via An Inside Look at the Entrepreneurs Who’ve Transformed Our World)
(via amexopenforum)
How to Pay Down Your Debt and Invest at the Same Time
Great video from Ramit Sethi on how the mathematical answer isn’t always right when it comes to finances.
(via amexopenforum)
K3 Projekt: “Cool Find”
Amethyst X-1 iPod/iPhone Docking System
We’re sold on the Amethyst X-1 iPod/iPhone Docking System for looks alone. Just look at it. It looks like the gorgeous love child of a Ferrari and a space plane. But that’s not what makes the Amethyst X-1 really stand out among the sea of iPod docks on the market—it’s the controls. It features IR controls that allow you to turn it on, control the volume, pause and select songs with hand gestures. You could also use the included remote which allows you to access specific songs and playlists, but that’s not nearly as impressive as waving your hands around like an all powerful wizard. $150
Read more: Amethyst X-1 iPod/iPhone Docking System | Cool Material http://coolmaterial.com/tech/amethyst-x-1-ipodiphone-docking-system/#ixzz1iUv4Xlna
Read more: Amethyst X-1 iPod/iPhone Docking System | Cool Material http://coolmaterial.com/tech/amethyst-x-1-ipodiphone-docking-system/#ixzz1iUv4Xlna
Its begining to look a lot like CHRISTMAS!! K3 PROJEKT Wheels launching 1/1/2012
