Chris Dickson, my co-founder, and I share the product role at Parsec. As we got started we tried to employ all of the lessons we’ve learned building other technology companies and products for startups. It was really important to us that we eliminate all of the technical risk as quickly as possible due to the challenge of building an interactive streaming application. Chris started building the product by asking, “if bandwidth, compression, and hardware continue to improve, it should be possible to build a gaming experience that feels native, why not try to build it ourselves?” If we could build the technology, why wouldn’t everyone who is building or upgrading their gaming machine play on a cloud machine? …

Last week, I published a story explaining that the overall picture of the United States is incredibly good on a historical perspective. The Democrats also painted this picture during the convention, and I strongly believe that our Republic continues to reach new heights every year. There’s much to improve, but that has always been a unique aspect of the American Experiment and our Democracy.

As Barack Obama said during his DNC speech:

There are pockets of America that never recovered from factory closures; men who took pride in hard work and providing for their families who now feel forgotten; parents who wonder whether their kids will have the same opportunities we had. All that is real. …

The recent Republican National Convention (RNC) portrayed a very negative version of the current state of the Republic. There are certainly many issues facing the United States — structural underemployment, income inequality, divisive violence — but the truth is, on many counts the country is doing extremely well.

I wanted to collect some of those indicators and present them here to remind us that we’re not failing. In fact, we’re continuing to reach new heights. I’m sure there are many ways to claim that “America is in decline,” but let’s not fall into the politics of fear and despair. Of course, Americans know there are many ways to improve and so we can and should do better. …

This article originally appeared here

Amazon Prime Day 2016 is lauded as its “biggest event ever!” on Amazon.com. It’s routinely compared to Black Friday, which is traditionally the biggest shopping day in America. There are some great deals to be found, but as an Amazon Referral business found in 2015, it’s pretty clear that Prime Day doesn’t compare to America’s favorite shopping Friday or Cyber Monday.

The anonymous data provider referred approximately 76,000 purchases to Amazon in 2015. Although this is a very small percentage of the whopping $64 billion in net product sales in North America in 2015 and represents referral traffic only (20% of Amazon’s traffic), it’s a decent representation of purchases on Amazon in 2015. …

Originally published here, but making available to others on the internet who don’t follow my blog :).

These are my favorite resources on product management, which I’ve used to form the foundation of my product management knowledge. If you want to learn how I apply all of these resources to product management at NewsCred, check out my online course — Building Software Products At Startups.

Steal Like An Artist — No one is completely original; we all learn from our predecessors. This book explains why it’s so important to read and learn from the best to create your unique style. Like the greatest artists, the only way to truly be great at something is to steal from the ideas of people that preceded you and then synthesize those into your own style. In fact, by reading all of the great posts and books listed here, I’m stealing like an artist. I’ve read from all of these great minds, synthesized my own thoughts on product management, and continue to learn from the best. One of my favorite quotes in the book from Kobe Bryant — “I have stolen all of these moves from all these great players. …

This post was published almost 3 years ago, but I just realized that our domain (getarkad.com) had expired (pouring one out for Arkad tonight). Since we want this to be available for future generations of entrepreneurs, I’m republishing here.

We founded Arkad in August 2012 to provide companies with a simple investor and lender relationship tool. Initially, we started with venture-backed companies, but our broader goal was to change how businesses communicate their data.

Unfortunately, we officially shut down Arkad on May 1, but we want to share some of the many lessons we learned throughout the process of launching our first business. …

There has been a significant amount of fanfare and concern as the number of private technology startups receiving a valuation over $1 billion (these companies are called “Unicorns”) has eclipsed 100. CB Insights tracks the number of new private companies eclipsing that valuation each year. In 2014, the number of new Unicorns was almost equal to the 3 previous years combined.

Worried investors use this data as evidence that we’re in a bubble for technology companies. The downside protection on the preferred shares that venture capital investors receive make it impossible to compare these investments against public company valuations. …