Shit, I can’t even spell it.
Thanks to Nick for catching me doing what I do best… checking e-mail. A big thanks to the organizers and other sponsors of BarcampDC3. It was a great experience for everyone, and it’s hard to believe that this is the the third one, organized by essentially the same group of people. Startup Metrics for Pirates – Jared dug in depth one of the most important concepts of the...
It’s hard to believe that a little over two years ago, the first Barcamp was held – being my first foray into the DC tech community. It was a life-changing experience, as it’s where I met all the people I work with on a daily basis, inspire me, and genuinely consider my friends. I’ll be speaking/organizing on two main topics: Freelancing After years of moonlighting before...
Entrepreneurship – at least for tech-minded folk – is more often than not omitted from curriculum in college. As I was finishing up my degree at the University of Maryland, it was assumed that everyone there would go to work for one or another government contractor or large enterprise, who would dominate job fairs with huge flashy booths and t-shirts. That’s all the...
Tom Friedman has a great op-ed in the NY Times regarding the auto bailout. He raises a good point which I believe can apply to entrepreneurship… As I think about our bailing out Detroit, I can’t help but reflect on what, in my view, is the most important rule of business in today’s integrated and digitized global market, where knowledge and innovation tools are so widely...
The biggest source of inspiration for me in my entrepreneurial dreams is seeing people who I know personally succeed in building something from the ground up. Last week, Jared launched AwayFind, which aims to curb distraction from e-mail by offering senders a way of getting in touch with you rapidly, thereby lessening the mental need to check e-mail constantly. I think it’s a great idea...
When evaluating an idea, and considering making a serious push for it, we’re always told to focus on validating the idea. Who says it’s solving a real-life need, and not just a solution in search of a problem? I looked everywhere for validation on my idea. Of course I felt it was needed, as did a select few entrepreneurs. But I received rejection from everywhere. VCs I met with said...
Late last week Sam Huleatt approached me to tell me about a side project he was working on, in addition to his company and main product. I, while working for JESS3, volunteered to help out, and whipped up a logo for him. Sam launched it today. StartupTweet is an open forum for people to make micro-posts. You’ll be able to subscribe to the content over Twitter. Pretty neat, right? Check it...
Learning from other people’s mistakes is a heck of a lot better than learning from your own.
Continuing the *Camp franchise, a group of entrepreneurs with failures under their belt held an unconference in Philadelphia to focus on their failures. It was last weekend. Sad I missed it!
Check out FailCamp. Hope they post their slides and such soon!
BarcampDC2 is coming up in September/October – are you ready? We’re just wrapping up a planning meeting for BarcampDC2, here at Murky Coffee. We are looking for sponsors and such, and soon opening it up to people to register. If you have an idea or are interested in sponsoring, check out the wiki here! BarcampDC was a pretty big turning point for me. Having lived in the DC area for so...
Straight up, Paul Graham has a page up on YCombinator’s site about ideas they would like to fund. In light of all the recent Facebook and Social Media frenzy, which, to me, has very little impact outside of it’s self-engineered ecosystem, I’ve been thinking about ideas that that solve issues that really matter. Look no further than this list. Really gets the ideas flowing. Going...