The process of leaving the known and stepping into uncertainty is a persistent conversation among founders and also established organizations. Game-changing ideas and innovations often occur amidst that realm of uncertainty. Co-founders Justin Brown and Mark Bakacs decided to embark on that journey in September 2012 when they quit their occupations and committed entirely to […]

Silicon Valley’s “fail fast” mentality sounds exciting: Go big, or go home! The problem, of course, is that failure isn’t appealing. It’s hard, painful, and, in certain cases, career-ending. But if success is better than failure, why do so many startups flame out? A recent study by CB Insights found that most startups fail because […]

Meeting a potential business contact for a drink can be a stressful affair. Where should we meet? How much time is this going to take? How do I leave the conversation without being rude? During my first year of entrepreneurship, I went to about 100 meetings (literally, I counted) with strangers whom I was hoping […]

When Adam Brown began GrubLife, a company dedicated to connecting college students with local businesses (think Groupon-on campus), time and time again he interacted with businesses that were having trouble navigating social media platforms. This was a major impediment, as they couldn’t appeal to their tech savvy customers. Size didn’t matter: companies both large and […]

Thanks to the startup ecosystem, San Francisco is an engineering capital of the world. Or, is it the other way around? Everywhere you look, software startups are popping up that are innovating every industry under the sun — a quick search on CrunchBase lists over 1,000 within one mile from my company Nitro’s headquarters in […]

Should I Hire Interns? Please raise your hand if you’ve ever felt personally confused about hiring an intern. When you initially think about it, you envision a super (cheap) intern swooping in, saving yourself from all of the work you have no time to do. The feeling of tranquility quickly dissipates though as your head […]

You already know a pitch deck is important to securing funding for your startup, but how do you avoid the common mistakes that can keep you from getting funded? When I started helping startups with their pitch decks, it used to take rounds of iteration and feedback to avoid these mistakes. Since then, not only […]

By now, it’s become pretty commonly accepted that multitasking can make you less productive. While it’s true that trying to do multiple high-concentration tasks at the same time isn’t a great idea, there are several times during the day when “double-tasking” can be your friend. By grouping the activities below, it’s simple to add up to four […]