Entrepreneurship


A model for strategy

[This post is part of a series on "Mental models and beliefs: an exercise to identify yours." If you don't see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you'll get more value than reading just this post.] Strategy is a fundamental study for many fields, including leadership, military, games, and plenty areas of business. If you're reading this page, you don't need motivation to understand its value. I've read a bunch on strategy, taken classes, written a book on strategy and North Korea, and lived through my share of strategic situations. I play chess decently too. Of all the resources I know, one stands above, the book Competition Demystified: A Radically Simplified Approach to Business Strategy, by Bruce…

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My Seminar on Leadership Through Emotional Intelligence and Self-awareness in four evening sessions starting June 17, 6:30pm-9:30pm in New York

I'll be leading the next session of my leadership seminar in New York in June. I'm experimenting as four three-hour evening sessions Session 1: Monday, June 17 Session 2: Wednesday, June 19 Session 3: Monday, June 24 Session 4: Wednesday, June 26 I'll give the same full attention I do for a weekend session. Sign up here. Here's the course description: What You'll Learn If you don't know how to lead, you can only do what you can do yourself. If you can lead, you can achieve anything anyone else did with a team. Even if you want only to live a quiet, happy, rewarding life you still have to lead yourself. The more you know how to lead, the more you are in control…

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A model to get more sales and to stay calm under pressure

[This post is part of a series on "Mental models and beliefs: an exercise to identify yours." If you don't see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you'll get more value than reading just this post.] Do you want to get more sales? Even if you don't sell anything, you probably propose things, pitch things, apply for things, and so forth. Do you want to be more successful there and to close more? I learned today's model in sales class in business school, but it applies to many cases -- nearly any situation where you try to persuade someone of something nontrivial they have to agree to. Think of anything you bought for more than pocket change.…

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A model on achieving goals: The Samurai Walk

[This post is part of a series on "Mental models and beliefs: an exercise to identify yours." If you don't see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you'll get more value than reading just this post.] You want to do something meaningful. You know it will take resources -- time, energy, attention, etc. You have your goals. You have a general plan. So far so good. Most people get this far. How do you finish your project? How do you stick with it despite inevitable distractions? Would you be amazed to find you can use those distractions in your favor? Today's model gives an effective way to work on something, keeping your goals in mind, avoiding getting…

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How not to overspend on things you don’t want

I can't resist reposting a comment I posted on the forum of one of my favorite other blogs, Mr. Money Mustache. I'm reposting it because two other readers rated my response highly, one giving my response this animated image, making me proud. The post I responded to Alright mustachians [the term for people in the Mr. Money Mustache community who practice his principles of not spending money on stuff that doesn't improve your life] I need your sage advice. In the last three months I have really cut down on my bad habits. I pack my own lunch to work every day. I broke up with cable. I stopped ordering books from amazon on a regular basis. I changed my eating habits from quick and…

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“I am a freedom junky” — David Allen’s inspiring words that simplified my life

Do you feel stress from too much stuff to do or lose track of things? Many entrepreneurial and management types I know read Getting Things Done and put it into practice. I recommend it. I read the book and like the philosophy -- in particular, his observation that if your mind has to remember something, it will allocate resources that distract you from everything else. The more you have to remember, the more it will preoccupy your mind. I didn't connect with it on my first reading, when I thought it was just about efficiency. What made me appreciate it was meeting David Allen at a cocktail party. He described himself as a "freedom junky" and the book his way of creating freedom. I value…

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Kingpins of Silicon Alley: meeting entrepreneurial luminaries and supporting entrepreneurship in New York City

If you're an entrepreneur or VC in New York, clear off Monday, April 15, 2013 from 7:00 PM to 9:30 PM. I've written before about InSITE, the entrepreneurship group I started working with at Columbia Business School, and a friend there winning a competition with a business to reduce pollution. If you didn't know, InSITE brings together graduate students at various schools around NYC (mainly from Columbia's and NYU's business, law, engineering, computer science, design and PhD and post doctorate programs in natural sciences and medicine) for a two-year program designed to engage these talented people in the NYC startup community. It recently expanded to Harvard and Stanford too, but it's still strongest here in New York. I learned a lot working with the group…

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A question nearly every investor asks that you, the entrepreneur, can almost never answer

Investors describe themselves as helping entrepreneurs and often they do, but somehow every entrepreneur I've asked about the challenges of working with investors could still tell me stories about how investors made their lives and business difficult. However much investors want businesses they've invested in to grow, their interests never perfectly align with those of management, especially before they invest in the firm in question. I wouldn't call that difference good or bad. You just have to realize the different interests as inherent to the system. Realizing the difference in interests isn't personal helps keep things calm. Investors expect entrepreneurs to handle their interests in stride, but I find they often don't themselves recognize how their pursuing their interests impedes optimal growth. Of course they…

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Leadership in garbage we can learn from

I just read that Sweden is separating their trash so effectively, they're buying garbage from other countries. That is, their reducing-reusing-and-recycling programs work so well, their waste-incineration program is running low. Needless to say, reducing waste reduces pollution more than incinerating garbage, so one program starving the other helps the environment. According to Phys.org, Europe's average amount of trash ending up as waste if 38 percent. Sweden's is 1 percent. I shudder at what the United States' is. My home country doesn't lead in this area. It follows. Probably embarrassingly, at least for people who don't like to pollute the air and water their children breathe and drink. Since I started composting, my garbage amount decreased a lot. Cutting back on processed food reduces my…

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An entrepreneurial example of leading by example

In September, 2001, the company I co-founded, Submedia, was installing its first display in Atlanta for our first big launch. We anticipated a lot of press. Giving away part of how the story ends, we did get a lot of media attention. The night before launch was crazy -- we had a few hours to finish installing the display, we had to prepare for the Fire Marshall's inspection the morning before the launch, and we had national, Atlanta-based, and possibly some New York-based press scheduled to attend the launch. At the pace we had worked before, we'd need more than a few hours to finish. Needless to say, we, nor anyone else, had ever installed or launched a commercial display like ours. We had no…

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Scandal about that refreshing voice on copyright from a hard-core conservative

Do you like music, art, literature, innovation, invention, creativity, entrepreneurship, and things like that? Then you probably liked the document I mentioned a few weeks ago about problems with copyright and how to fix them. I considered it well thought-out and felt it proposed ideas that would improve the country. I was surprised to see it coming from the type of hard-core conservative that supports corporate welfare. Until the group that originally distributed the document disowned it and took it down from their site. (here's the original document) I don't know if you follow copyright or patent policy, but as a writer, inventor, writer and holder of a half-dozen patents, and one who enjoys culture, I find the topic incredibly important. I find the direction…

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Experimenting with ads

Based on recommendations from readers and other bloggers, I'm going to experiment with here. You may have noticed already. This page is for the readers, so I hope you'll share if they affect your experience here and, if so, how. I don't know if ads will help or hurt more, so the scientist in me says to experiment and find out. I'm sure it will appear clunky at first as I figure out how it works. Sorry if stupid ads show up in weird places while I figure things out. If it works ads should be starting to show up. Please let me know your thoughts, though please be patient for a bit, either emailing me directly -- josh@spodek.net -- or in comments below. People have…

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Another genius business idea: Iron Designer tv show

I haven't shared one of my crazy genius business ideas for my Another Genius Business Idea Series in a while. I like people to realize entrepreneurship is more accessible than most people think, since so many people tell me they want to start a company but can't think of the ideas. This series doesn't present fully formed ideas, but kernels you could develop into successful companies or projects. The inspiration I have a friend who is an amazing designer. He mainly does web design, but I've also seen him do great work in animation, print, outdoor, and more. Even fine art. MoMA has shown his work. Working on his computer is a wonder to behold. It's like a dance. His hands move faster than you…

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Protected: Starting a leadership school

The project I am starting a school for leadership. I have a business plan and early seed funding. My first goal is to create an online presence. I have started other successful businesses before. The project is driven by the large demand for leaders and lack of supply. The main institutions teaching leadership are business schools, military schools, and corporations (only to their employees). While successful and effective, they focus on areas useful only to large corporations and the military. This leadership school will teach aspects of leadership common to all applications, without focusing on banking, finance, consulting, war, etc. I see parallels to how acting is taught since, like leadership, actors must know their emotions and how to create them in themselves in order…

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INSEAD leadership seminar

When I met Jose Gaztelu, my business school classmate and friend who did the bulk of the organizing for this weekend's INSEAD leadership seminar in Singapore, at the hotel Friday, he asked how many people I thought were signed up. When my flight had taken off that morning from Shanghai it was ten or twelve so I guessed about a dozen. "Thirty-two" So the attendees filled the room -- a great group. They were attentive, asked great questions, and started applying the material before the seminar ended. When I mentioned burpees, they wanted to get me to do a few and all started clapping to force me to do it. I said I would if they would. So about half the room did five burpees…

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Amazing essays by amazing writers and thinkers

I stumbled on this more-than-a-decade-old amazing trove of essays. Just reading the authors' names is impressive. They are essays written by great thinkers, writers, etc on "best" things of the past thousand years. I'll cut and paste most of the essay titles and links here. I've only read a few so far, but I've loved each. Sorry I haven't reformatted much, but you can always go to the original site for the full treatment. Eyes Wide Open By Richard Powers Every Dictator's Nightmare By Wole Soyinka When Tristram Met Isolde By Joyce Carol Oates Best Magic Trick By Teller Video Best Feat of Engineering By David Macaulay Best Nuisance By Penelope Fitzgerald Best Innovation in Painting By Michael Kimmelman Slide Show Best Vision By James…

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My Mom, the new face of fashion

It seems grandmothers running marathons appeals to a lot of people. A fitness and fashion line called Miss Matahari has profiled my mother as one of (currently the first on the page, naturally) several inspirational women representing the fitness and fashion-inspired brand. Better branding you won't find at any price. Their tagline is Have you ever wanted to do something others told you was impossible? I could get behind that perspective. Here's one of the images of the brand (neither model is my mom) Personally, I think the clothes look great. I know Natasha, the entrepreneur behind Miss Matahari, but that's not why I'm talking about her site and line. I just like how the clothes look. EDIT: I'm taking the liberty of quoting Natasha…

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Occupy Disney

Back when Occupy Wall Street was making more news and I was writing about it and leadership and on it and responsibility, I had an idea about corporate control of our lives I thought would be interesting. As an entrepreneur and inventor, I felt the control closer to those areas of my life. I've written about how the patent and copyright systems have created monopolies and oligopolies that distorted their effects from promoting invention to stifling it and small business. There's more to things than just one sentence, so I hope you'll forgive my oversimplicity for the sake of brevity. The Occupy Wall Street movement seems to have lost steam, but recent stories about patent fights between Apple and Samsung are turning the stomachs of…

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How I got to work a day or two a week

Despite my posting on how I find asking "so what do you do" a boring question, apparently everyone I meet hasn't read every post on my site, so they keep asking me what I do. It's hard to answer the question when you know they want to know your work when work is such a small part of your life. You can talk about making art, writing, travels, etc, but those answers never satisfy them. They want to know your job -- passions, hobbies, relationships, etc be damned. You may want to suggest how they don't have to accept one's job defining so much about a person -- or that if it does you don't have to ask, they'll tell you. But if someone did…

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So you’re good at meeting people. How do you choose whom to meet?

A reader asked about how to meet people once you're good at it. I'll start with a current example for me. Actually, first I'll note different categories of meeting people since I meet people in different situations in different ways. Today I'll look at an entrepreneurial business situation. Another time I'll look at regular business situations or social situations. An entrepreneurial business situation means I'm trying to do something big that's never been done before so I don't know about any existing systems or communities doing exactly what I'm thinking of, though there are people who do related things. I hope you don't mind I'm not yet sharing the idea so I have to stay vague. I think of starting a new project like how…

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My essays for getting into an Ivy League business school in 23 days

Here are my Columbia Business School application essays, to complete the series on getting into business school in 23 days. I edited them slightly, mainly to take out personal details. In the optional essay 5, I can see I was blatantly name-dropping Columbia Business School Professors and my experience at the school. I think I could have used more subtlety. My graduate school stipend -- what I lived on in Manhattan for about four years -- surprises me to this day. I think the number was accurate, but wonder if the first number might have been a 2 instead of a 1. Anyway, here are the essays. Essay 1 1. What are your short-term and long-term post-MBA goals? How will Columbia Business School help you…

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My background for getting into an Ivy League business school in 23 days

Yesterday I posted about the process I stumbled into for getting into an Ivy League business school in 23 days. How to read this post Today I'll talk about the credentials that made it possible. But please recognize, the point of these posts is not merely to show you how to get into business school, but to show you that you can combine whatever you have in your past into something bigger than you expect. You have to be aware of the possibilities and ready to act on them. If you are insecure and want to justify why can't succeed, you'll read this post to see how other people can achieve big things because they have advantages you don't. I used to look at things…

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I started at an Ivy League business school 23 days after deciding to apply. Here’s how.

On December 10, 2004 I decided to apply to business school. I had written no essays, taken no GMAT, reviewed no school's web site or application process, and asked no one for a recommendation. On January 2, 2005, 23 days later, I began orientation at Columbia Business School (ranked #5 by Forbes, Economist, and Financial Times). I got my MBA the following May, less than eighteen months from deciding to apply. Prep schools (such as Manhattan GMAT and Kaplan) recommend starting the application process eighteen months before starting classes. I completed my entire application and degree in less time than they recommend for just applying. Business school ended up one of the best experiences of my life, a turning point improving it in many ways…

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More on becoming a superstar

I wanted to comment on a quote in yesterday's post about becoming a superstar that illustrates an aspect important for the aspiring star -- you. And, again, superstardom can mean breakout success in any area -- starting a company, making CEO, being a superstar boyfriend, girlfriend, or spouse, etc. A musician I quoted yesterday commented that American Idol's shooting-the-moon style isn't really about music. It's about all the bad aspects of the music business — the arrogance of commerce, this sense of 'I know what will make this person a star; artists themselves don't know.' I've only seen a few minutes of the show, but it looks like the judges speak authoritatively (not that they have authority, just that they speak that way) on what…

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How to become a superstar

This post is about breakout success in any area -- starting a company, making CEO, being a superstar boyfriend, girlfriend, or spouse, etc -- but I'll put it in the language of entertainment superstardom. I'll leave translating it to the language of the field you want to succeed in as an exercise. But I guarantee it applies. Superstars make it look so easy. They dress how they want, say what they want, and do what they want and the world loves them for it. Everyone else has to think about what they say and do all the time -- and then gets judged for it. How do they do it? Building a solid foundation I'm conservative about hitting it big. This quote on a Bruce…

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