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My top ten summer posts
For those of you who foolishly decided to take a vacation this summer rather than stay at home and read my blog, I wanted to summarize what I feel were my top ten posts this summer (and below will also...
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Winner takes it all
I recently read The Second Machine Age by Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee and they highlighted a phenomenon extremely critical for technology and game companies. The economy has evolved, especially...
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Don’t underestimate the competition
One mistake I frequently see is when tech or game companies underestimate the competition, particularly when responding to a competitor’s product or game. Coupled with the need to be 9X better to get...
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Lifetime Value Part 23: Triggers, the key to both retention and virality
One theme that comes up repeatedly in what I read, and thus write, is the importance of Triggers. In my February analysis of Jonah Berger’s book Contagious, I discussed how triggers are one of the five...
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Creating billion-dollar businesses through recombination
I recently wrote about the winner-takes-all economy, based on what I read in The Second Machine Age by Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee. The authors also provided some fascinating insights into how...
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Look closely at track record, with the emphasis on closely
You often hear how important it is to look at a person or company’s history before hiring, investing, etc., and although it is crucial, it is also crucial to do more than look superficially....
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Bringing out the best in your team
I have written multiple times about collaboration and how valuable it is, and a recent piece in the Harvard Business Review – Bringing out the best in your team by Brian Bonner and Alexander Bolinger –...
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Using tours of duty to have a better company employee relationship
One of the best books I read this year is The Alliance: Managing Talent in the Networked Age by Reid Hoffman. The core concept in the book is that there is no longer employment for life but there is...
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Psychology that can improve your metrics
There was an interesting post recently on the Kissmetrics blog, “5 Psychological Principles of High Converting Websites,” that had some very interesting insights not just for website conversion but for...
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The collaborative economy is an opportunity for all companies
I hate writing about the next big thing because it is usually trite, clichéd or just hype, but I read a great piece in the Harvard Business Review about the collaborative economy (“Sharing’s Not Just...
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Are you a high-motor worker?
For those who watch sports, we almost universally admire the “high-motor” players. It might be fans, announcers, teammates, but whoever it is, we love players who give an incredible effort on every...
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Turning unhappy customers
I have always said the best measure of a company and its customer relationships is not how they avoid unhappy customers but how they deal with unpleasant situations. Inevitably, you will do something...
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Using charity to improve revenue
A recent article in the Harvard Business Review, “Making Charity Pay” by Michael Norton and Jill Avery, shows how business can use philanthropy to improve profitability. They point out that charity can...
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Define your own tour of duty
A few weeks ago, I wrote about Reid Hoffman’s book Alliance and his innovative ideas on how to structure the employee company relationship. One issue that some people raised to me was it sounded great,...
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Foster a growth mindset in your company to improve growth
There are two ways of looking at employees, and for them to look at themselves, either a fixed mindset where they either possess or lack talent, or a growth mindset, where your team can develop new...
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Don’t fight the last war
I recently read To End All Wars by Adam Hochschild, a book about the First World War, and although I was trying to avoid reading a business book it pointed to some things very relevant in the business...
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How negative churn can be a strong growth driver
I came across a great post by VC Tomasz Tunguz on a great growth mechanism, negative churn. In effect, negative churn creates the same compounding effect as a high rate bond, over time it generates...
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90-day plan to increase your company’s innovation
While everyone agrees that companies need to innovate to succeed, actually doing it is often quite challenging. While most successful companies can lay credit to some innovations, most have occurred by...
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What it really means to be a thought leader
Although many refer to themselves as industry thought leaders, few understand what a thought leader represents. By leading, true thought leaders initiate new ideas and strategies that others follow and...
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It’s all about the base
I was recently reading about the challenges NASCAR has faced in the last ten years and it reminded me of that great philosopher, Meghan Trainor, who wrote it’s all about the base. When I first moved to...
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