I just started in on the Kauffman Foundation’s TechVenture program, being facilitated by Steve Morris at OTBC to about 10 of us entrepreneurs. This was the first session, with a really useful focus: why, not what — at least that’s how I digested it. I’ll try to record my learnings here from the class over [...]
We’re getting ready to incorporate our business. Part of the expectations-setting process on my team was fleshing out the personal reasons for wanting to commit to building a new business. Here are my reasons.
So you’re finally ready to leave corporate life. Before you walk out the door, here are some things you should make sure to consider during your last couple months of employment. I’ve tried to put these into something of an order. IOW, you can start planning your business right now, but don’t wipe your laptop [...]
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I just bought a brand new highly juiced Lenovo R61 laptop for $760. This post documents my selection criteria, and I hope it will help you with your next purchasing decision. Some guys over at Hacker News were recently discussing laptop criteria, so I figured I would add mine here. Some people really care about [...]
As I mentioned in my last post, Eventbrite has kindly provided a list of all 50 SWPDX attendees, including their blogs. I also noticed an “OPML Feed” link there. Sweet! Unfortunately, that OPML is useless for Google Reader (lacking xmlUrls), and likely the same story for other readers. I had to manually load each one [...]
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Portland Startup Weekend starts tomorrow night at 6:00. I’ll be covering the event though my lens in upcoming posts here. It’s been a bit tedious to gather all the bits and pieces of the event. Here is a list of sites that participate in its organization: The Portland Startup Weekend Blog The “Portland” sub-blog of [...]
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A look at the many hats worn in startups, and at those who wear them. I’ve been thinking about how to prepare for Startup Weekend, which is approaching quickly. Part of the registration process was assigning yourself a “specialty”. Of the seven designations, I chose architect for myself, whatever that means. But the role-designation question [...]
There’s a lot going on around Portland, Oregon, to get hackers working together. Below is a list of groups/events I’ve discovered. I haven’t yet attended any of them, but I’m planning to hit most of them throughout this year. Not all are focused on entrepreneurship, but I bet that the attendees are the right types [...]
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I just recently finished one of the most popular marketing books of the decade, Purple Cow. It’s by Seth Godin, one of my new heroes (not that I’m a marketer — his heroism comes from being able to communicate with non-marketers). The whole book is centered around the “idea diffusion curve”. I won’t describe it [...]
Contrary to the notion that books are dead, I’ve recently been making great use of my local library. While I agree that learning is best accomplished by doing, I still like to start exploring subjects by amassing a bunch of relevant dead-tree books. I like to prop back in an old La-Z-Boy and get real [...]