As entrepreneurs, we often get wrapped up in the little details. Clearly, details matter. They drive execution and most companies rise or fall based on how they execute on an idea. A mediocre idea well-executed will typically outperform a great idea with poor execution. But whenever I come to Defrag, I am reminded of the…
I attended a great pre-conference dinner last night in Boulder, Colorado hosted by T.A. McCann, founder of Gist, where we talked about how tech entrepreneurs can have a greater impact on legislation and regulation, especially in Washington, DC. Naturally, with my background, that was a topic I had a lot to say about. And would have…
In recent years, we have heard much talk of services like Facebook, Twitter, Salesforce and others being “platforms.” The implication is that they are much like operating systems like Windows, Linux, or OS/X where developers can build applications on top of them. And that’s true, at least in a technical sense. The problem is that…
The other day I found myself telling someone that a company I know of has “a product that demos well, but it doesn’t work well once you buy it.” We all know the type, right? At the extreme end are some of the gimmicky items you find sold on TV infomercials. Some of them actually…
In communications and in business, too many people get hung up on measuring for the sake of measuring. Just because you can generate all sorts of metrics with impressive numbers and charts doesn’t mean that what you’re looking at will really make a difference in your ultimate success. I tackle one specific element of this…
I had a conversation yesterday that spurred me to think back to the “old days” of the World Wide Web. You see, I’ve been at this game long enough to remember Yahoo before it was at Yahoo.com. Most of you probably don’t know that it used to live at http://akebono.stanford.edu. In any case, I took…
I get a lot of email. And a lot of that email reflects pretty poorly on the sender. Some of the emails I receive wouldn’t even make the cut as amateur ransom notes. They are often laden with misspellings or typos. Frequently they fail to make a succinct point. They routinely seem to be disorganized…
I like to think that I have learned a lot in managing business teams for nearly 15 years. One area where it is particularly evident – at least to me – that I have grown is in the area of collaborative planning. When I first became CEO of a company in 1997, I largely kept…
One of the hardest things I do for work is attend cocktail receptions. Yeah, I know, poor me. Go somewhere for free food and drink and casual conversation. It’s the same look I get when I complain about having to travel to Key West to speak at a conference in the dead of winter. But…
Many entrepreneurs assume that to be successful they need to be acquired or go public in an IPO. Netscape, Google, and more recently LinkedIn teach us this, it seems. High-tech companies, then, are often built to sell. That tends to mean a focus on revenues over profits. It drives fundraising activity, as acquirers and public…