Posts Tagged ‘founders’
The Death of Ecommerce Startups?
Tuesday, January 15th, 2013
Imagine having to collect and remit sales tax to hundreds of taxing authorities. For etailers, that nightmare may soon be a reality.
The last mentioned opportunity is actually not a startup yet as I am in the information-gathering stage. Whether I decide to promote it to a viable startup depends on the results of what I call my startup due diligence process.
Red Flags A Waving
As I’m going about the process of due diligence with this concept — determining whether or not this opportunity makes business sense — a big potential red flag has become apparent. This year or next, there might very well be a massive headache with respect to collecting online sales tax from out-of-state customers. Read more »
Coders Of The Future Will Not Be Engineers
Tuesday, October 23rd, 2012
When most people who read my blog see the word engineer they immediately think of those who write code for a living. In other words, computer programmers who may or may not have actual degrees in computer engineering. This is the definition of engineer that you should be thinking of in the title to this post.
Two-years ago this Saturday, Peter Thiel made a still-controversial announcement that kids are better off dropping out of college — or not going in the first place — and instead starting a company. To help motivate his quarry, and entice (grab) young talent twenty-years old and younger, Thiel offers a two-year mentorship and $100k. However, the thumbing of a college education may be a short-lived trend. Why? Because the next version of hacker will not be the computer whiz kid who is touted as the up and coming coding guru.* The next celebrated hackers will not be able to safely learn how to cut complex code in their bedroom. Read more »
Do You Live to Work, Or Work to Live?
Wednesday, February 8th, 2012
At my previous company, my partners and I agreed on many issues. We also disagreed on a number of issues. But perhaps the biggest area of disagreement between myself and my partners was work style.
As a consulting company, we tracked each hour of each employee’s day. We knew what they did and for how long they did it. We could calculate an employee’s total number of hours worked per year, average hours worked per day/week/month, what activities they spent most of their time focused doing, and therefore, each employee’s chargeability. That is consulting slang for how much profit we could squeeze out of each lemon employee. Read more »
Rash Decisions Are Not Good Decisions
Friday, January 22nd, 2010I recently posted an article entitled, Looking for Two Startup Partners 35-plus years Old.
It is interesting how some people quickly jumped to conclusions and made sweeping assumptions based on a single blog article, or worse yet, blog title. Although the majority of people who have taken the time to comment or tweet about this post have been positive about my efforts, a small minority (across the age spectrum), have been negative, even seemingly offended. Read more »
Looking for Two Startup Partners 35-plus years Old
Thursday, January 14th, 2010At first, that might seem like an odd announcement. But when Dave Winer made a recent post about ageism, I decided that I would try a little reverse ageism in finding startup partners.
Since I am not hiring employees, I am not breaking anti-discrimination laws. I am not making job offers. I am searching for business partners with whom to start a business. Read more »
