Archive for Lessons to self

Startup Commandments

By | Published October 4, 2008

Startup LogosStartup Commandments

  1. Your idea isn’t new. Pick an idea; at least 50 other people have thought of it. Get over your stunning brilliance and realize that execution matters more.
  2. Stealth startups suck. You’re not working on the Manhattan Project, Einstein. Get something out as quickly as possible and promote the hell out of it.
  3. If you don’t have scaling problems, you’re not growing fast enough.
  4. If you’re successful, people will try to take advantage of you. Hope that you’re in that position, and hope that you’re smart enough to not fall for it.
  5. People will tell you they know more than you do. If that’s really the case, you shouldn’t be doing your startup.
  6. Your competition will inflate their numbers. Take any startup traffic number and slash it in half. At least.
  7. Perfection is the enemy of good enough. Leonardo could paint the Mona Lisa only once. You, Bob Ross, can push a bug release every 5 minutes because you were at least smart enough to do a web app.
  8. The size of your startup is not a reflection of your manhood. More employees does not make you more of a man (or woman as the case may be).
  9. You don’t need business development people. If you’re successful, companies will come to you. The deals will still be distractions and not worth doing, but at least you’re not spending any effort trying to get them.
  10. You have to be wrong in the head to start a company. But we have all the fun.
  11. Starting a company will teach you what it’s like to be a manic depressive. They, at least, can take medication.
  12. Your startup isn’t succeeding? You have two options: go home with your tail between your legs or do something about it. What’s it going to be?
  13. If you don’t pay attention to your competition, they will turn out to be geniuses and will crush you. If you do pay attention to them, they will turn out to be idiots and you will have wasted your time. Which would you prefer?
  14. Startups are not a democracy. Want a democracy? Go run for class president, Bueller.
  15. You’re doing a web app, right? This isn’t the 1980s. Your crummy, half-assed web app will still be more successful than your competitor’s most polished software application.
  16. You will have at least one catastrophe every three months.
  17. Outsource effectively, or be effectively outsourced.
  18. Do you thrive on stress and ambiguity? You’d better.
  19. The best way to get outside funding is to be successful already. Stupid but true. But you, cheapskate, don’t need money, right?
  20. People will think your idea sucks. They’re even probably right. The only way to prove them wrong is to succeed.
  21. A startup will require your complete attention and devotion. Thought your first love in High School was clingy? You can’t take out a restraining order on your startup.
  22. Being an entrepreneur requires a healthy amount of ignorance. Note I did not say stupidity.
  23. Your software sucks. So what. Everyone else’s does also, and re-architecting is the kiss of death for a startup. Startups are no place for architecture astronauts.
  24. You do have a public API, right?
  25. Abject Terror. Overwhelming Joy. Monstrous Greed. Embrace and harness these emotions you must.

- Mark Fletcher ( http://www.startupping.com/ )
~Founder of Bloglines.com

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Keep up the enthusiasm

By | Published August 20, 2008

I saw the job request ad below and I remembered that I had a rough week trying to prepare my most important pitch so far. It was for the job interview at MPI and I had to do a market analysis on a segment and then based on it to propose a new business in this segment and develop the business plan, forecasts, competition study, marketing plan, etc.

Initially I thought that this task was to hard for me/my experience and that I would never manage to come up with something remarkable. But, driven by the desire to get this job and to do something better for my career, I received an enthusiasm overdose and managed to see the light with my project. Presenting it was something very confusing – I didn’t know whether I was doing it right or not, I had cold feet and thought I was terrible. Everything was lightning fast (at least that’s how i felt it) and only after a couple of hours, a text message from my current boss cleared out the fog from my head – “it was excellent!”. I managed to sell myself, and I did it good.

So – important moment – high enthusiasm – over achieve – performance & success. What about the daily tasks, the moments that don’t seem that important? How do we keep up the enthusiasm? How do you stay driven everyday? How do you manage to be motivated in daily repetitive tasks and dealing with difficult clients? Always seeing the big picture? Enjoying every single thing that you do?

This guy certainty knows how to sell himself, how to make all those bad things from his past work in his advantage:

Former Marijuana Smuggler

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Hate somenthing, change something

By | Published August 19, 2008

“Hate something, change something” is a very powerful message and I wish I could remember it everyday and apply it accordingly in business and personal life.

But it’s also the motto for a multi-awarded Wieden+Kennedy Honda ad that has a very nice story – Kenichi Nagahiro a Honda designer – hated with all his guts the diesel engines:

How did Honda react?
It was a memorable presentation. It’s a great thing taking in a guitar. In fact, my advice is, always take in a guitar. Even if you’re not presenting a song. People can’t help being nice to people with guitars. We sang live as we flipped through our doodled storyboards. When we’d finished, Honda said ‘Make it just like you’ve presented it.’ The following five months was about trying to capture the spirit of that presentation. It was pretty much the only direction Honda gave us until we delivered the finished ad. They understood our vision was all in our heads and they encouraged us to make it happen. A truly amazing client.

Via Dragos Bucurenci

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Drive carefully

By | Published July 21, 2008

Impressive ad

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Inspiration for the day

By | Published January 11, 2008

A master’s awareness of spiritual laws directs him or her to manifest major life changes by working with their thoughts, not by working harder.

Which isn’t to say they don’t sometimes work very long hours, because they do; they just don’t think of it as work. Which also isn’t to say that they all have cool jobs that anyone would love, because they don’t; they just see every task before them, no matter where they work, as a gift to unwrap.

Hmmmmm…

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2008: Dati tot ce e mai bun si mai frumos in voi!

By | Published January 7, 2008

Maine Azi este probabil pentru multi dintre noi prima zi de lucru din 2008. Pentru mine sigur este. Incep acest an extrem de motivat, cu multe lucruri incitante in perspectiva apropiata si cu foarte multe promisiuni personale. Dupa o vacanta mult mai lunga decat in alti ani si un pic cam prea multe sticle goale, sunt ferm convins ca noul an va fi unul dintre cele mai bune de pana acum, daca nu chiar cel mai bun. Si nu, nu cred ca e de la sticlele goale si nici de la continutul lor. :)

Nu sunt adeptul “new year’s resolutions” si nici al lucrurilor incepute de la 1 ianuarie dar ceva ma face sa cred ca multe lucruri se vor schimba anul asta in plan profesional dar si personal. Intotdeauna mi-a placut sa imi inchipui cum vor fi lucrurile dupa un anumit milestone si sunt fascinat de modul in care gasim resurse sa ne motivam pentru niste chestii care ni se par “the ultimate milestone”, pentru ca apoi, dupa ce trecem cu brio de ele, sa ne gandim si sa ne motivam sa le trecem pe urmatoarele. Va mai amintiti cum ne gandeam la bacalaureat si la admiterea la facultate? Mie unul mi se parea ca daca trec de astea 2 hopuri, the sky is the fucking limit. Imi faceam planuri despre cum o sa urc pe munte si o sa fac un foc de tabara cu toate cartile din liceu si cum nu o sa mai imi pese de nimic. Sau despre ziua cand va veni timpul sa intemeiem o familie….wawaweewaa ….asta era chiar tare. You get the point….

Ca sa revin la ce spuneam, anul asta, mai mult ca in alti ani, am o imagine destul de clara despre cum o sa arate viata mea la sfarsitul anului ce de abia incepe. Si am toate motivele sa fiu bucuros. Ma consider un tip extrem de norocos iar pana acum toate imaginile pe care le-am avut despre viitorul meu mai clare sau mai putin clare, s-au transpuns in realitate. Sunt norocos pentru ca stiu ce vreau, pentru ca am langa mine o fata care ma intelege si care ma iubeste, pentru ca avem puterea de a ne face planuri pe termene oricat de lungi sau scurte. Nu, n-am fumat nimic …dar chiar sunt HIGH …HIGH on life !

Program TV 25decembrie 1989Voi nu? Atunci uitati-va un pic la imaginea din dreapta – este programul radio-tv din data de 25 decembrie 1989. Incercati sa va inchipuiti continutul programului “PUTERNICA MOBILIZARE PENTRU INDEPLINIREA PLANULUI PE LUNA DECEMBRIE SI PE INTREGUL AN” adaptat la 2008. :)

Life is just a long series of experiences meant to make us better. Make the best out of it!

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Career move, MPI, peopleware

By | Published October 28, 2007

OPNAfter spending more than 3 years (since Sept 04) in Oracle, acting as Senior Web Specialist in the EMEA OPN Web Admin Team and dealing with the administration of Oracle PartnerNetwork portal & eMarketing campaigns, more and more signs that my journey with Oracle was reaching it’s end, started to show.

Don’t want to say something that I would regret later on, but the possibilities to develop my career further in Oracle where extremely limited and the worse part is that I was becoming a lazy corporate boy, learning nothing new and doing nothing merely exciting. As my manager said in a recent email, regarding my departure “No hard feelings on the fact you leave, I actually think that it’s a fair option for everyone as we would not be able to meet your expectations and vice-versa!”, things were not longer working for me. That “vice-versa!” part was a bit mean, but justified by my lack of involvement and motivation during the last months and also by his poor management skills.

I am not being ungreatful, I learned tons of things @Oracle and I got the chance of participating at some pretty exciting stuff. Being responsable for a high trafic portal, for the entire EMEA region and being part in meetings with senior Oracle EMEA management were surely experiences that I will benefit from in the future. Coaching new colleagues and helping them become autonomous was also very challenging. I also met some extraordinary people which I am proud to call my friends – hopefully they will drop by and read my blog from time to time.

Moving on to the next step, I am eager to join, starting November 1st, a team of great professionals, Media Pro Interactiv, managed by one of the pioneers of the online advertising industry in Romania, Orlando Nicoara. I don’t know exactly what my job role will be, nor if I am allowed to disclose these kinds of information (it involves some development plans of MPI), but I am more than excited about the people I already met and the new learning curve I might benefit from. Also, the recruitment process, was nothing like the ones I was familiar with. Corporate world definetly has an impact on you, and after 3 years you live to think that the corporate way is the only way. Well, it is not, and the process that made me “sign” with MPI was not at all corporate. If you indulge me this exercise of modesty, it was more of a head-hunting, rather that the standard interview, only that it was “provoked” by me. Anyway, it’s pointless talking about a job that I didn’t even start and I am pretty sure this is not what my blog is about.

One of the signs, I mentioned earlier, came during the interviews, in the form of a prize. I won the Peopleware book in the contest that Jobber started (thanks Filip!), to help spread the word about their really cool site and product. I believe this book will prove to be very helpful in the new challenge that I was offered the opportunity to take.

Jobber is running a IT job board focused on developers, designers, etc and they recently decided to offer their product as an open-source platform. I am pretty sure that it will have a great success and it’s certainly the platform I would use for helping the HR department of a SME company that does not have a good & stable online recruitment system put in place. Please check out Jobber Development Network if you are interested in the product. You might as well put the jobs widget on your site/blog and participate in the monthly drawings. Filip is offering some pretty cool books. I am fan of Jobber and not only because it’s a Romanian product, but it’s also a great tool.

Later edit: A small mistake in the part about jobber. The open-source platform for Jobber can be found @ jobberbase.com. JDN is something else, even more exciting! Check it out and don’t miss the launch!

Stay tuned! :)

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The Top 10 Things They Never Taught Me in Design School

By | Published April 10, 2007

The Top 10 Things They Never Taught Me in Design School
by Michael McDonough

1. Talent is one-third of the success equation.
Talent is important in any profession, but it is no guarantee of success. Hard work and luck are equally important. Hard work means self-discipline and sacrifice. Luck means, among other things, access to power, whether it is social contacts or money or timing. In fact, if you are not very talented, you can still succeed by emphasizing the other two. If you think I am wrong, just look around.

2. 95 percent of any creative profession is shit work.
Only 5 percent is actually, in some simplistic way, fun. In school that is what you focus on; it is 100 percent fun. Tick-tock. In real life, most of the time there is paper work, drafting boring stuff, fact-checking, negotiating, selling, collecting money, paying taxes, and so forth. If you don’t learn to love the boring, aggravating, and stupid parts of your profession and perform them with diligence and care, you will never succeed.
Continue reading »

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Freedom

By | Published April 7, 2007

Wolf and Dog (an Aesop’s Fable)
retold by Kevin Strauss 2001

Long ago, Wolf was hungry. Now you might think that Wolf is always hungry, and you would be right. But on this day, Wolf hadn’t eaten for weeks. It was almost as if all the deer and rabbits had evaporated from the forest like mist in the morning. Wolf was so hungry that he decided to look for food near where the humans lived. It was dangerous for Wolf to hunt near humans.

Some wolves that go there never come back. But Wolf had never been this hungry before. So as the sun dipped red behind the western hills, he walked through the forest to the edge of a farmer’s field.

Wolf sniffed the air and scanned the field, looking for a calf or lamb to eat. It was then that he heard a strange sound. The barking noise was coming from a creature that looked a lot like he did. The creature was running toward Wolf. Continue reading »

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14-20 January 2007 – It’s slow down week !!!

By | Published January 16, 2007

slow down week

Adbusters.org have a great proposal for all workaholics who forget to spend some time for themselves or spend to little time with their friends and loved ones. Brilliant idea and I will always encourage such projects.  Click on the image above or download the swf movie right here:

Slow down week movie

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