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I can remember with complete clarity the times when I received feedback so honest and pure it felt like getting smacked in the head with a 2×4. Those moments when someone I trusted cut through all my bullshit and knocked the wind

Building a company from the bottom up is an interesting journey.  At each rung of the ladder you raise a bit more money, hire a few more employees, and hit a few more milestones.   In the early days especially you have to place really

It doesn’t really matter much the subject; you don’t really understand something until you can explain it to someone else so that they understand it.  And that job, of explaining with clarity, gets more difficult the less the person you’re explaining

Constraints matter.  A lot.  By embracing them we become better and stronger than we ever could without them. 2 very different examples are below.  I also outline a process I cribbed from a good friend and former colleague on how to pick the best

If you ask me how our business did in 2012, chances are I’ll pepper you with a story of amazing network growth and spectacular results.  If you stop by our offices, you’ll see a constant buzz of excited activity –

Its been far too long since I’ve posted here on my blog.  Its not like I don’t write.. just not here all the time. Retargeting and rethinking the click Publishers confront the Mobile Mess Publishing in the viewable Ad era Why in-view

Solving coordination problems in hidden markets is a really big deal.  The last 5 years at Lijit and the 4 years prior to that building an Open Source software business evolved my thinking about the nature of markets and how institutions take advantage of

Building a business is hard.  Mostly its hard because of the known and unknown unknowns of the environment in which you’re building.  The more I do this, the more I’m convinced that the separation between a thriving and growing business

Its been a while.. and I miss not writing some of my hairbrained thoughts.  Turns out the past few months have been busy for me, not the least of which because my wife and I went to China and adopted a baby boy.  Its

People that know me are well aware of my passion for cycling.  I ride all year and in all kinds of weather (as long as the temp isn’t too far below my age).  I race cyclocross in the fall, and a few

I hear this alot, particularly in the start-up world: "fail fast".  I’m not exactly sure who popularized it, perhaps it was my friend Brad Feld.  I’m pretty sure Brad didn’t mean that failure – and doing

Venture capitalists are “meta” smart. Lots of people are deeply smart about very particular things.  Niches that they dig into and become experts in.  They become masters of their domain.  They understand their ecosystem of a particular economy of a business. It’s this

I’ve written on this blog before about my affinity for Peter Drucker.  Anyone that is a student of management theory and genuinely interested in building kick-ass businesses needs to read the Essential Drucker. This morning I read an article on the Harvard

No matter what company, job, industry, time of year, state of the economy, one’s age, or position in life – the words are always the same “I’m too busy”.  Of course the words themselves vary from person to

We form the decision-making process during and around the act of consuming content.  We seek, or stumble, into information that interests us. We dig deeper because we’re engaged by the content.  Its authenticity, opinion, or perhaps even its entertainment value is what grabs

Recently I’ve been thinking about what creates multiples of value in a business.  In other words, why one company is more valuable than another company even if they each have the same revenue and same growth rates.  Obviously revenue and growth are

When in doubt – talk to a customer. It happens that I get to work in a fascinating, quickly evolving, and super-fun market.  Doing what we do is constantly entertaining and we get a “ring-side seat” to watch this enormous shift in how brands

I used to be that guy.  For a long time I wished I were older.  Had some gray hair.  I wanted to have longer tenure and more credentials on my resume.  All my career I’ve been the youngest guy in the room.

Thinking about the people I admire most in business, they are all "product guys" (or gals).  It doesn’t matter if they’re the CEO or the Director of Marketing or if the company is 3 people or 3,000.

Human nature is to compete. Especially among motivated and high-performing people competition is always “on”. Its tempting to value collaboration over competition, but I think that misses the point. One is a consequence and the other is a cause of being successful. Human’s

It took us a while to hone our story in the market. When I joined, the company was well-regarded among the social media mafia elite as a fantastic on-site search technology. A trusted search technology that any publisher (bloggers mostly) could implement on his

It turns out WE are the audience.  We buy the toothpaste.  We take the vacations.  We check out the new ‘whatever’ it is we want to buy.  We are the people that get marketed to.  And we are the

A few days ago I drove over to the CU campus and participated in the Obama administration’s Startup America roadshow. To be honest, I didn’t come with very high expectations, but I did keep an open mind. What I saw and heard

At breakfast the chicken is involved, but the pig is committed. Lots of people take on challenges.  Losing weight, running a marathon, climbing a rock, starting and building a profitable business.  It all seems to get easier once you get past the

Great things happen when you’re on a roll. Coming up with a smart idea usually kicks off more smart ideas; more smart ideas lead to innovations. Being confident in what you know and what your doing has a positive reinforcement in making you