December 2010
6 posts
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Overvaluing The Idea →
Siqi Chen:
The Silicon Valley wisdom that Execution > Idea hasn’t penetrated as far as it needs to. There are still too many entrepreneurs who are chasing that perfect idea instead of focusing on building the team and processes to make the idea irrelevant.
November 2010
29 posts
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How to Pitch Your Startup to The Press →
Write this down:
That your company exists is not, in itself, an interesting story.
No, seriously. Write that down.
Frank Chimero: Content →
viafrank:
You ever order soup at a restaurant and get a bowl that’s mostly broth?
The problem is the register at the restaurant is four-hundred bucks under what it was the day before, and everyone is running around screaming “No one wants to buy our soup!” Then they start looking for different ways to…
Frank, I loves ya. Also: WTF?
“It’s weird to say your life needs more friction. But I think mine does....”
– Frank Chimero - De-optimizing
This is from January of this year. I wrote it thinking “I need to apply a bit of friction for myself to aim my focus, to prevent myself from getting distracted.” Which is true. But now, a few months on, I’m thinking a bit differently about friction in a larger...
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How to Convince A CEO →
Mark Hurst:
Show the CEO, in person, a user struggling to understand the site, finally giving up, and saying, “this is a beautiful site that I can’t figure out and I’m never coming back.”
Show the CEO several of these people, having the same problems in their experience despite not being forced into it by leading questions or any sort of script.
Show the CEO all of this...
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Clients From Hell: How Low Can Your Logo? →
clientsfromhell:
An anonymous reader writes in to tell us about the How Low Can Your Logo contest. In true crowd source fashion, participants compete to design shitty logos for Excellencico, “a global leader in providing a focused, broad range of services to a world-class, international, region-centric…
Contest of the Year 2010.
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“I used to hate awards, too. I’ve only recently started coming around.”
– Jeffrey Zeldman
Well-rounded thoughts from Mr. Standards (though he wouldn’t say that) himself.
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“The company will also announce that it has raised $800,000 in venture capital,...”
– The New York Times on Pulse growing and making the app free
I’m happy for the Pulse team. Pulse is great. But this quote, for which the blame lies more on this article’s author, is (probably unintentionally) ridiculous.
Hundreds (if not thousands) of iPhone and iPad apps are made by profitable...
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rentzsch.tumblr.com: Hierarchical File Systems are... →
rentzsch:
Margo Seltzer and Nicholas Murphy:
As users have begun to interact with increasing amounts of data and are increasingly demanding search capability, such a simple hierarchical model has outlasted its usefulness.
It occurs to me that we’re putting applications first (and I include web sites…
Well then.
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Exiting One Startup World, And Entering Another →
Brant Cooper:
And I can’t help but feel that when you have a powerful groundswell of entrepreneurship occurring on the one hand, and an absurd peak of celebrating ignorance in our society on the other, that we are perhaps reaching toward the next epoch of innovation and enlightenment.
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Time Flies →
Good design all-around.
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Build For Jack & Jill, Not Larry & Sergey →
Spencer Thompson:
If data is the weapon of choice for large companies, emotion is the weapon for small companies. Solving a real problem and optimizing your product for the solution is the best thing you can do. These two things only lead to one result, and that is to create the best possible experience for the user.
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The Gunnian principles for design critiques →
bobulate:
Dan Saffer tallies what he’s learned about design critiques from watching Tim Gunn of Project Runway. Gunn’s principles for critique seem to be:
• The purpose of a critique is to make the design better. • Be supportive. • First, figure out what the designer was trying to accomplish. • Offer direction, not prescription. • Humor and metaphor work better than criticism alone. •...
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None Of This Makes Any Sense
thetylerhayes:
I increasingly find myself looking around and thinking “Wait. None of this makes any sense.”
Then I realize I’m just noticing infrastructure catching up with new ways of thinking.
And I get back to work.
Meta.
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Six Principles for Making New Things →
Paul Graham:
Here it is: I like to find (a) simple solutions (b) to overlooked problems (c) that actually need to be solved, and (d) deliver them as informally as possible, (e) starting with a very crude version 1, then (f) iterating rapidly.
BONUS: Why people tend to overlook such methods and their results, in a nutshell:
So when you look at something like Reddit and think “I wish I...
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A Parable for Customers →
Merlin Mann:
Guys, avoid working for anyone who’s not hungry enough to compensate you for your sandwich. It literally doesn’t pay.
And other somesuch aged wisdom. Like a fine, digital wine.
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15 years. 1 Big Mac.
merlin:
The email it’s taken me fifteen years to write.
Read More
This week, on “Merlin Mann has HUGE cojones.”
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What The Fuck Has Obama Done So Far? →
thetylerhayes:
This website will answer all your questions. And give you many great responses to the rampant asshattery afoot in the U.S. as of late.
Important enough to mention on this design/startup/randomness blog.
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Graphic Design Is Not Morally Exempt →
Peter Bilak:
Right and wrong do not exist in graphic design. There is only effective and non-effective communication. Every one can complain about advertisements in the magazines, but clients are only interested in whether it attracts possible costumers or not.
Yes, they do — right and wrong exist in graphic design. They exist in everything. Just because clients aren’t financially...
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How To Know If You're Working Hard Enough →
Paul Graham:
The best protection is always to be working on hard problems. Writing novels is hard. Reading novels isn’t. Hard means worry: if you’re not worrying that something you’re making will come out badly, or that you won’t be able to understand something you’re studying, then it isn’t hard enough. There has to be suspense.
Inspiration Does Not Happen All At Once →
thetylerhayes:
Spencer Thompson:
One of the best points made in this episode was the idea of “inspiration”. Chuck Close said that the idea of having a moment of “inspiration” or epiphany is just a myth. Artists begin to unleash their creativity simply by working hard. Once they start working and putting together the pieces, the creativity begins to flow. This is an interesting point for...