A long time ago, Amanda Palmer did an incredible TED talk on the “Art of Asking.” The whole time I thought about how relevant her experience in music has been to my career in startups. In her talk, Amanda spoke of how she often asks fans for money—and how another artist she had met refused […]

If a picture says a thousand words, then the perfect prototype surely says even more about your startup. What is a prototype? It’s a rough working model of your product, giving people (and yourself) a better idea of its potential, functionality, features, size, color, pitfalls and more. It’s not fully-functioning (that will come later), but […]

If you work out of a WeWork space, you know it’s a place where you have the opportunity to meet amazing and interesting people. On any given day, you could meet an architect designing a new skyscraper or a developer working on the next Twitter or Facebook. Sometimes, you will meet someone who just moved […]

I’ll never forget the moment I realized that making the highest possible margin on a sale was the least important part of a deal. I was a junior at UMass Amherst, and on a field trip to TJX (the parent company of retail giants Marshall’s and TJMaxx). TJX is an incredible company, and I have […]

With all its downsides, social media has proven to be a life-changing medium. While there are seemingly countless examples of how social networks have sparked romances and friendships, I’ve found that the impact social media leaves on your career isn’t given enough attention. My story alone isn’t too wild: My past two roles are tied […]

The number of startups trying to solve problems with innovative technology is growing rapidly. With that growth, we’ve seen more technology accelerators looking to help those entrepreneurs by providing education, guidance and investment capital in exchange for a stake in their companies. It’s important to note that there are many different types of tech accelerators […]

You have an amazing idea! Now, all you need to do now is turn it into a reality and customers will be lining up. Right? Well…if you plan to spend months developing and perfecting, what happens when the “final” product is built, and no one is in the queue? To prevent loss of time, money […]

The question of whether software should be patentable stirs up strong feelings in the tech community, on both the pro and con sides, a divide that also extends to the law, which has struggled for almost 50 years to provide concrete guidance on how software should be treated by patent law, if at all. An […]