Choosing Constraints
I write a lot of open-source software and prospective users often ask whether it's possible to do [thing they want] with it. I tell them that of course it's possible -- just probably infeasible under reasonable constraints.
entrepreneurship
Staying in School
Yesterday the new Dorm Room Fund blog launched, and along with it Steve's post What It Really Means To Drop Out. Steve explains how meeting amazing Thiel Fellows (who are given money to drop out of school and start companies) lent confidence to his conviction to stay in school, saying "that is exactly why Dorm Room Fund exists."
What does success look like?
When I meet with founders, this is one of the first questions I ask. What does success look like in 6, 12, 18 months? In other words, what are your goals, and how will you know you've accomplished them? What do you need to prove in order to make the effort worthwhile? And how big is your vision?
Letting Go
I recently read something by Aza Raskin that resonated with me. He suggested that delegation -- letting others have ownership over your baby -- is an essential part of leadership that is often inhibited by an attachment to the product, and this attachment comes from the fact that the product's success or failure is a reflection of your own success or failure as the product's leader.
Startups: Don't Build (just) a Social Network
As the guy who wrote one of the first open-source status update systems in 2007, the main developer behind Acquia Commons social business software 2.x, and an evangelist of social communications technologies, writing the title of this post feels strange. I've spent the last 5 years of my life building software to make it easy for people to build social networks, so why would I suggest that sometimes you shouldn't do it?
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