They’re still just people — and not always good ones — Over the years, I’ve met my share of CEOs, founders, entrepreneurs, and “visionaries.” What they all have in common is a deep, bottomless belief in their ideas and the will to make them happen. They can be myopic, dismissive, unpredictable, but are also often charismatic, exciting, unusual. As they build…

Multi-tiered pricing is a simple way to grab quick market share, but it might dampen your enterprise ambitions — You’ve seen it a million times and it might already be a staple on your own website. I’m talking about a website’s price page with the standard three or four boxes of tiered offerings. That price menu might just be undercutting your entire enterprise business. Multi-tiered pricing is a popular…

Ignore the haters and understand the benefits — Not long ago, a colleague of mine said some nasty things about the no-code and minimum viable product (MVP) movements in front of me. And that bugged me. At first a little, then a lot. It’s no secret that I’ve been a pretty vocal proponent of no-code tools and MVP…

The line between vision and fraud is only drawn in hindsight — “A man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?” — Robert Browning Entrepreneur is a synonym for salesperson, and salesperson is the pedestrian term for storyteller. Pro tip: No startup makes sense. We (entrepreneurs) are all impostors who must deploy a fiction (i.e. story) that captures imaginations…

Thoughts on the Theranos verdict and what it says about startup culture — The Theranos verdict seems to be a judgment against ‘fake it ’til you make it’, a core tenet of startup culture: it’s prompted founders and incubators to make gloomy and panicked pronouncements about the death of innovation. But Theranos’s error was really to conflate confidence with delusion. …

Taylor Swift has fought many battles in her career. With the success of ‘Red (Taylor’s Version)’ the singer has mastered more than music. — In true Taylor Swift fashion, she’s back and she reached the top of the charts. Red (Taylor’s Version) has become Taylor Swift’s 10th #1 album on the Billboard 200 charts. …

Is it the end for the infamous startup strategy? — At the heart of the Theranos trial is a story about a founder with a potentially world-changing idea who took some questionable steps in desperation to achieve it, only to see that dream go up in flames. …

Corporate consolidation is squeezing our economy — Back in 2005, comedian George Carlin gave a ruthlessly cynical take on big business in America. To an audience of mostly regular workers, he said: You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They got you by the balls. He added that politicians exist to give you the illusion…