Startup Advice

People act like having a startup fail is the worst thing that can happen to you. And man, that's not even in the top 10. It's bad, I've done it, it's awful. It's really bad, but far worse is to be in a company that won't die, a zombie, undead company that you hate, but you can't leave. Oof, have I met people like that, and we're having a mental... See more

One of the best ways to introduce a sense of urgency is to create a series of forcing functions: deadlines, milestones and goals with clearly-defined objectives,” Palan writes in a Medium article about the experience. “TechCrunch Disrupt was just the forcing function we needed. It forced us to tackle many of the things we’d been postponing. We... See more

Separate what you can control from what you can’t. It’s a small way to lift some weight off your shoulders. Take 15 minutes to create a list of everything that you’re worried about. Then label each one as a ‘within’ or a ‘beyond’ to see your sources of stress and anxiety laid bare

Designing products for a single person

In business, there are countless examples of products invented for a single person that then became mass-marketable. Here are a few of my favorites:

• Baking soda —invented in the 1800s by British chemist Alfred Bird so that he could make bread for his wife, who was allergic to yeast.


• The typewriter —one of the

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To find happiness in your career and life, embrace the philosophy of playing infinite games, where the goal is to keep playing rather than reach an end goal.