Startup Lessons: Managing Market, Vision and Scope

Here’s the situation. Your team’s busy working on X, executing on the ‘roadmap’, but the pressure to grow gets heavy. Engineers are busy trying to ship the next feature. Product is managing the roadmap. And then comes the hard part. A big client has a request. It doesn’t match your product vision; at least in…

If Countries were run like Companies…

What if countries were run like companies? What would be different? What could be better? Let’s take a minute to think about this… — The President would be the CEO. His main role, to create value for shareholders. He wouldn’t be elected in with a voting system and a popularity campaign. He’d be called upon…

Startup Lessons: Thinking About Growth

Growth is King. At any venture, big or small, growth drives the agenda. Failing to grow implies a loss in market opportunity and competitiveness, along with an inevitable end to profitability.  A recent friend of mine gave me some perspective about the challenge of growth. In chatting, he identified the differences between how companies pursue growth,…

Startup Lessons: Bounded by Scope

# Prologue It’s a tough thing to deal with Scope Creep. Clients ask for more than what was initially promised. This is human. It feels good to get more than you bargained for. Scope Creep occurs when the project team ceeds. When the team caves into the pressure of satisfying their client and fulfilling their…

25 Things I’ve Learned in 2015

I finally got around to sitting down and thinking about the past 5 months. Here are a few of the things I’ve learned in 2015: Problem Solving 1. How you define the problem matters more than how you solve it A great solution to the wrong problem is a grandiose waste of time. Spending extra…

Sam Altman’s Startup Advice, Briefly”… Improved

I’ve recently read Sam Altman’s post “Startup advice, briefly“. Here are the gems of wisdom I took from this post… I’ve added my own grouping to help make the lessons more digestible. — From Idea to Project: 1. You should start with an idea, not a company. The stakes are lower and you’re more willing to…

Startup Lessons: Project Management (24-28)

For the past 6 months I had the opportunity to be a Project Manager at Ubiqua. Here are some of the lessons I’ve learned so far… — On Managing The Bigger Picture “If you just focus on the smallest details, you never get the big picture right.” – Leroy Hood   First Impressions Matter. First impressions matter. A…

Startup Lessons: Project Management (21-23)

For the past 6 months I had the opportunity to be a Project Manager at Ubiqua. Here are some of the lessons I’ve learned so far… — On Building & Sustaining Momentum “Momentum refers to the ‘the impetus gained by a moving object’. When achieved, Sustained Momentum makes progress an unstoppable force.” – NBTC 2015   Identify a…

Startup Lessons: Project Management (16-20)

For the past 6 months I had the opportunity to be a Project Manager at Ubiqua. Here are some of the lessons I’ve learned so far… — On Managing Stakeholders “Exceed your customer’s expectations. If you do, they’ll come back over and over. Give them what they want – and a little more.” – Sam Walton “Find the…

Startup Lessons: Project Management (11-15)

For the past 6 months I had the opportunity to be a Project Manager at Ubiqua. Here are some of the lessons I’ve learned so far… — On Managing People   “I believe the real difference between success and failure in a corporation can be very often traced to the question of how well the organization brings out…