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Entries for the ‘Business’ Category

Been Away For A While

Things over at RE are heating up. In fact, we’re probably going to be doing a soft launch (read here: an early alpha to select people) in the next week or so. If you’re interested in joining the list, send me an email and I’ll see what I can do for you. Until then, here’s [...]

Business Cards Aren’t Dead Yet

Paper business cards still beat technological alternatives.

Why Trying To Find A Technical Co-Founder Will Almost Always Fail

Last night, I went to a local “find a co-founder” meetup for RE. A while back, one of the original people helping get RE off the ground left to pursue other options (an amicable split, which is always nice). I went to last night’s festivities to see if there was anyone else suitable who could [...]

How Resumes Are Stored

If you are a job seeker and you go to most job boards these days, you will be asked to do one of three things: Enter your resume information section by section Upload a file containing your resume Open your resume in some other program (Word, vi, Pages, et al), then cut and paste the [...]

It’s Been 7 Startups

When people ask me if Resume Everywhere is my first startup, they are surprised at the answer. Not the fact that I’ve done startups before; rather, that RE is my seventh. Yes, really — 7. Here’s the breakdown: Company Product/Service Dates Result Best! Software Shrinkwrapped Fixed Asset Depreciation Software 1995-1996 Acquired by Sage Software in [...]

RE’s 2nd Pivot

Since Mike has moved on and Scott and I have been looking for a replacement, we have also been closely evaluating our current business and technical model. At this time, we no longer believe it to be feasible within our current level of resources to pursue resume synchronization; we will be changing our focus and [...]

Passing On Founder’s Institute

As mentioned previously, I have been considering joining Founder’s Institute. I was accepted, but I will not be attending. Below the fold are the two primary reasons why, one old and one new.

Considering The Founder’s Institute

Almost everyone has heard of the startup accelerators these days; the most famous of them are Y Combinator and TechStars. If you’re lucky enough to get into one of those programs, you’ll meet with some amazing mentors, learn from some of the best in the business and almost certainly get funded. Good things, you might [...]

#TechCocktailDC It’s Usual Thing

Last night, I went to the DC TechCocktail for the second time. It was fun, much more so than the last meetup I attended. The DC TechCocktail showcases about a dozen local startups, both for exposure’s sake and (ostensibly) for possible fundraising. My experience, however, has been that the events are long on equal parts [...]

NYEBN Meetup A Bust

Last night, I hopped a train to NYC and went to the NY Entrepreneurs Business Network Networking Event on behalf of my startup. There were good and bad things about this particular meetup. More after the jump…

“Oh, Thank God Oracle Has A New Rivalry”

That’s the title of a great article in TechCrunch about Oracle, HP & Andreessen (yes, him). The main thrust of the article is Oracle does better when it has a serious rival on to which it can focus it’s competitive attentions. Only — pity for reporters– Ellison seems to have tired of the spotlight. Few [...]

OvernightPrints.com Is A Scam

Or, at least, that’s my experience. Here’s the story: you decide for yourself. I have to get some business cards printed. Overnight Prints (henceforth OVP) offers a decent quality at a decent price and they can get them to me in sufficient time before OpenWorld. I received the eps file from my graphics designer, uploaded [...]

Oracle Changes Presidents

Mark Hurd replaces Charles Phillips as president. Let me get this straight. Uncle Larry’s pick for president is the guy who (according to HP) In starker terms, HP says that Hurd embezzled company money…and defrauded the company to hide his own behavior.” and the not quite sexual harassment imbroglio? I suppose that’s better than the [...]

The Current State Of Affairs — The Future Of IT Services, Pt.1

IT consulting has been around as long as there has been IT. Pretty much always has been and always will be. These days, consulting shops run in scale from one person out of their basement to multinational giants. As things move forwards, I believe we will see more companies on either end of the spectrum, [...]

The Future Of IT Services, Pt. 0

Yesterday, at TEDxPotomac, I was talking with some people about what I see as the future of the IT industry. I’ve been thinking more about it, and I thought I’d revise & extend those remarks a bit here. After having written for a bit, I think I’m going to break this up into multiple pieces. [...]

SAP Makes A Bid For Sybase

SAP is offering 5 and a quarter billion for Sybase. Besides saving a troubled RDBMS manufacturer, it’s going to be interesting to see how this plays out for SAP sales. One of SAP’s selling points over the years has been their ability to reside in varying database platforms; sure, they had their own database, but [...]

Fabulous Article About Promotion Structures

From an ex-Googler, a must read on promotions: To a large extent, software engineering is a field full of ambiguity and complexity, and that makes compensation hard. So incentives tend to fail or backfire. Then I tried to invert the problem. What if I tried to design a promotion system to piss off as many [...]

Hire People To Do What You Cannot Do, Not What You Don’t Want To Do

In any job, there are always things things that no one wants to do. If you work on a farm, no one wants to muck the stables. If you work in a restaurant, no one wants to clean the bathrooms. If you work in IT, no one really wants to write documentation (as a hypothetical [...]

6 Interview Mistakes To Avoid

I interview a lot of people. A lot. And, as some of you may have noticed, there are quite a bit more people chasing fewer jobs these days. So, in the interest of helping others out, here are some suggestions of things not to do during an interview. To preface my comments, I work in [...]

How To Sell To Large Companies

Over on OpenForum, Marylene provides her FAQ for startups wanting to sell to the big boys: Question: Will a large company pay for a startup’s product/services? Answer: Yes, if the price is justified, and if you are speaking to people who feel the pain of a real and well-identified problem, and they’re on a mission [...]

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