Beyond CAN-SPAM: The Nightmare Continues Turn back the clock to the end of 2003. A bunch of states had recently passed their own anti-spam bills, and California had just passed the then-notorious SB186. Commercial emailers were freaking out because compliance with a patchwork of state laws for email is nearly impossible given the nature of email and given the differences between the laws. The reult of the freakout was an expedited, and decent, though far from perfect, federal law called CAN-SPAM which, among other things, preempted most of the individual state laws under the interstate commerce clause. Most of us noted that the federal government had never worked so swiftly in recent memory. Now it’s mid-2005, and a new cycle…
Archives / July, 2005
Counter Cliche: Win The Peace
Counter Cliche: Win The Peace Fred’s VC cliche of the week this week is a good one, Hope for the Best and Prepare for the Worst. It’s certainly true, as he says, for startups going through a financing, and in many other instances. I may regret mixing business and politics here, but since Fred has done that before (with the same caveat), I’ll give it a shot as well. As important as it is to prepare for the worst, entrepreneurs and politicians alike need to make sure they’re also planning to win the peace — in other words, planning for a successful outcome. How much happier would we be as a country at war right now if our administration had…
Book Short: Why Not Both?
Book Short: Why Not Both? Craig Hickman’s Mind of a Manager, Soul of a Leader talks about how tapping the natural tension between managers and leaders allows an organization to achieve its best. It covers dozens of topical areas and for each compares how a prototypical manager handles the area (practical, reasonable, decisive) vs. how a prototypical leader handles it (visionary, empathetic, and flexible). Of course, the book describes the ideal organization as “balanced an integrated” between the two extremes. My take for startups, a topic not addressed in the book, is that the job of the entrepreneur CEO is to be both manager and leader, and try to do both roles effectively without driving the team nuts. The book…
Highs and Lows
Highs and Lows I was reminded recently of one of my favorite entrepreneur sayings. What drives me nuts isn’t the inevitable presence of highs and lows of running a new company, it’s when they happen at the same time. It’s one thing to get used to the roller coaster ride of running a startup. That’s part of the fun and the challenge of it all. There are great moments when everything’s working beautifully. Your strategy is proving to be spot-on. Your team is executing brilliantly. Your biggest client renews and gives you a testimonial. Then there are the dark moments of despair. You’re running out of cash. The new product release is behind schedule. A competitor steals a top client. …
New Del.icio.us for: Tag
New Del.icio.us for: Tag As usual the laggard behind Fred and Brad, I just set up a for:mattblumberg tag on del.icio.us. Feel free to tag away for me! If you don’t know what this means, you can read either of their postings about it here or here.
Book short: Blink
Book short: Blink Blink, by Malcolm Gladwell, is a must read for marketers, entrepreneurs, and VCs alike, just as is the case with Gladwell’s first book, The Tipping Point. Where The Tipping Point theorizes about how humans relate to each other and how fads start and flourish in our society, Blink theorizes about how humans make decisions and about the interplay between the subconscious, learned expertise, and real-time inputs. But Gladwell does more than theorize — he has plenty of real world examples which seem quite plausible, and he peppers the book with evidence from some (though hardly a complete coverage of relevant) scientific and quasi-scientific studies. Blink for Entrepreneurs/CEOs: What’s the most critical lesson in Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink, as…