Recently I was asked to give a presentation to a class at Arizona State University.   As a result, it gave me an opportunity to think about the fundamentals to building a life, career and entrepreneurship.   There is nothing ground breaking here, but my aim was to share a framework for thinking about modern life and careers and to illustrate this framework from my own experiences. 

There are many topics that surround this framework - the importance of family, of mentors, of networks.  I will ...
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There are several excellent articles and videos on the importance of Grit to high achieving people.   This relates as much to new ventures, entrepreneurship as it does parents.

The bottom line is that Grit helps us understand why talent alone does not always achieve the most.   Talent is of course diverse, but the ability to persevere, to be industrious, to be diligent and to do so day after day, year after year - is what helps to define Grit.

This video is worth watching as is the story from...
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There are many good lists and ideas to consider for entrepreneurs.  The best advice I find come from serial entrepreneurs such as Reid Hoffman, the founder of LinkedIn.

What follows are some of his comments from the 2011 South by Southwest Interactive conference in Austin, he recited a list of 10 rules of entrepreneurship.   Hoffman, who is now a partner at venture firms Greylock Partners, cautioned that he “reserves the right” to change the list later on. But for now, here are his rul...
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If you are curious about the value of an MBA to becoming an entrepreneur you should first consider the experience of those who participate in the Harvard Business School Business Plan Contest.  

It is an event I co-chaired as a student in 1999 and is an experience I continue to encourage others to support and be involved in.   Listen to this brief overview of the value of the HBS entrepreneurship efforts.
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Today's New York Times has a great article - posted below regarding a new model for starting companies.   I am not sure it is a new model or a reminder of adapting to customer focused feedback.  My view is that the real theme captured by the thinking below is to "fail fast".  Which means, most entrepreneurs have a great hypothesis for creating a business - they identify a problem, they have a solution and they choose a medium and price to deliver it at.   The challenge is not to over design t...
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This article by David Koretz posted on MediaPost, struck me as something that would benefit my entrepreneurial friends, so I am passing it along not as a (tweet) but as something that will help make us think about our own companies and the organizations we are involved in building.

Organizations require different types of people at different stages.  Although my business life is mostly spent in the first category, I am thankful to have always had a good team surrounding me that were strong 2s ...
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