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Be where your business is
This post previously appeared on the readwrite blog. A CEO running a B-to-B startup in needs to live in the city where their business is – or else they’ll never scale. I was having breakfast…
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The danger of the mediocre success when testing startup hypotheses (2023)
Or, how to ensure you learn absolutely nothing.
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uBeam's insider story by ex employee?
Today is the 6 month anniversary of my resignation from uBeam, a startup I'd spent the previous two and a half years working on. I had...
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Candy Japan 2014 Year in Review
Looking back on what happened in 2014 for the Japanese candy subscription box Candy Japan.
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You Can’t Make Money Charging $1 Per Month
Photo by Images of Money I recently received the following question from a reader: When we spoke at a recent conference] I had been thinking of a $1/month price point [for my product aimed at teachers] to make it a “no-brainer,” and you strongly advised against it, suggesting $5-7 at a mini
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Going Through Y Combinator (YC S13): Lessons Learned
Last year, I shared our story of applying, our application, and some advice on the YC application. Now that the Winter batch is in full swing and the application is open for the summer, I thought I...
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An MVP is not a Cheaper Product, It’s about Smart Learning
A minimum viable product (MVP) is not always a smaller/cheaper version of your final product. Defining the goal for a MVP can save you tons of time, money and grief. Drones over the Heartland I ran…
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B2B Is Unsexy, and I Know It
Discuss this post on Hacker News. When I tell people I do B2B software I get some very interesting reactions. “Why do B2B? It’s so unsexy.” And that’s true
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Hackers can be business guys, and other lessons from Paul Graham
Spent most of this evening reading YC applications. We ask applicants to record themselves for about a minute with their cofounders just so we can get a sense for who they are in person. We fire up...
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Why education startups do not succeed
I co-founded PrepMe in 2001. We were one of the first education companies online and the first purely online, personalized platform. We were acquired in 2011 by Providence Equity-backed Ascend Lea…
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The dude that built DudeRanch.com
[orig published in 2019; re-published & updated in 2023 & 2025] The outdoor patio was filled with dude ranchers. It was their yearly conference at Tanque Verde Ranch in Tucson, and I was there as a vendor (and first-time attendee). I remember saguaro cactus lining the landscape. It was early evening, the sun was…
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Tips for Founders Sales: Lessons from Starting Two B2B Startups
Thus far I’ve founded two bootstrapped B2B startups, and led sales on both. One is off to the races, profitable, and growing. We even hired a general manager so that I can free myself up to work on other projects. The other is slightly more nascent, and just barely at ramen profitability.
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You’re a little company, now act like one
You're afraid that looking like being a small company means you'll lose sales. It's actually the opposite -- you're alienating your best customers.
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Subscriptions are out, refills are in
Everything these days is a subscription. And honestly, on reflection, subscriptions are complete horseshit.
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Caller ID Made Simple
I'm building OpenCNAM with friends: a simple API that returns caller ID names for phone numbers, with a free tier of 60 queries an hour, no account needed.
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LinkedIn's Series B Pitch to Greylock: Pitch Advice for Entrepreneurs
At Greylock, my partners and I are driven by one guiding mission: always help entrepreneurs. It doesn’t matter whether an entrepreneur is in our portfolio, whether we’re considering an investment, or whether we’re casually meeting for the first time.
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Tune In, Turn On, Drop Out – The Startup Genome Project
In April 2010 I received an email that said, “I’m an incoming Stanford student in the fall and working on a project that a number of people suggested I get in touch with you about.̶…