One of the most rewarding aspects of founding a company is the opportunity to define the culture. It is also one of the most…
Most technology startups involve some amount of engineering risk. Can we build it at scale? Can we build it for $X by our launch date? Can we refine the product to be attractive before we run out of money? There is a ton of material from the lean/agile world on how to approach these…
I started materialsGIRL because I couldn’t find an online community to discuss materials science. This seemed like a huge ‘unmet need’ to me, but ultimately I failed to build a critical mass.
One of the most fun (and philosophical) parts of starting your own organization is finding your founding values. Today, entrepreneurship is easier than ever, cooler than ever, more valued than ever. As a result, I think that many people are jumping in without any real…
In undergrad, you brainstorm, outline, draft, critique and revise in the convenient container of one semester. Then you turn it in, get a grade and forget all about it.
In grad school, you spend 3+ years figuring out what the hell you are doing, then a few more…
An experiment needs permission to fail. The reason why has nothing to do with the methods and…
You have a dream. I know you do.
This summer I had the opportunity to visit the NYC headquarters of Managed by Q, “The Operating System for Offices”, founded by my cousin Dan Teran. I sat in on a meeting where the major focus of the marketing team’s presentation was on creating content that would teach people how to better…
Have you ever unplugged an external hard drive without ejecting it first? Do you remember the angry message saying, “Don’t Do That!”. Why is it bad? Mostly because you don’t want to interrupt it while it is writing information to the disk. You might corrupt…
Last November I spent a full week in the basement of a masonic temple in Manhattan, an oddly appropriate venue for a workshop about risk. The Real World Risk Institute was founded as a hedge against a very specific real life risk — the possibility that author and risk expert Nassim…
