Wed, 27 August 2008
My original and only business plan for my company was based on a Dr. Suess book. I wish I were kidding. Owning up to my liberal arts major and rebellious roots, I didn't think I needed a "real" plan. And, for the most part, I did fine for a decade, securing lots of clients and making a good living. But honestly, I think that I was just not thinking about business planning the right way. I imagined reams of paper, onerous spreadsheets and carefully crafted mission statements. Yuck. Now, Tim Berry, founder of Palo Alto Software and prolific blogger about all things startup, has come out with a new book called the Plan as You Go Business Plan. Even though his company makes business planning software, Tim felt a bit frustrated by the perceived hurdle new entrepreneurs attributed to business plans. When I asked him why most people didn't write them, he said:
Instead of this perspective, Tim encourages you to think of business planning as a fun and critical part of your entrepreneurial journey. He says: I interviewed Tim on this topic for my book, but he was generous enough to let me share the conversation as a podcast. It is about 37 minutes long. I truly am motivated to finally create a plan after twelve years in business. I hope you are too! |
Tue, 5 August 2008
Find Part 1 of this interview here.
I get a lot of questions about blogging from people who are considering starting a business and are new to the social media world. So does my friend Nathan Bowers, who is a web developer by trade, and also an artist/musician and all-around renaissance guy. Nathan and I connected on Twitter recently and started a whole series of offline conversations which resulted in this 2-part podcast interview. We wanted to reduce anxiety for new bloggers, and also draw the connection between the importance of good technology crossed with good content. As we both noted, there are plenty of popular blogs with crappy designs, mine included. Part 2 of this interview covers:
Wordpress All-in-one SEO plugin Art and Fear Anecdote from the book Art and Fear |
Tue, 5 August 2008
I get a lot of questions about blogging from people who are considering starting a business and are new to the social media world.
So does my friend Nathan Bowers, who is a web developer by trade, and also an artist/musician and all-around renaissance guy. Nathan and I connected on Twitter recently and started a whole series of offline conversations which resulted in this 2-part podcast interview. We wanted to reduce anxiety for new bloggers, and also draw the connection between the importance of good technology crossed with good content. As we both noted, there are plenty of popular blogs with crappy designs, mine included. Part 1 of this interview covers:
Seth Godin's advice on naming Neutron LLC naming case studies As a side note, Nathan walks his talk and recently redesigned Fred Wilson's popular blog avc.com. He made the connection with Fred by commenting on his blog frequently, and suggesting improvements. Fred was so intrigued that he hired Nathan, proof that valuable business connections come from social networking done with integrity. |