Building Your Mentor Network

A recent discussion with someone who’s writing a book about mentorship reminded me how important my mentors and advisors have been in my life. I literally wouldn’t be where I am today without their help and guidance.

The Symbiosis Of Success And Failure

Last night, while reading a book which Jane had previously devoured (and marked with a text marker in the process), I stumbled upon a quote by Winston Churchill:

Finding Your Co-Founders

One of the questions I get asked a lot is “How do I find my co-founder?”. The question always leaves me baffled — as it’s such a personal and individual thing. Over the years I have heard anything from “my co-founder is my brother — literally” to “we met at a bar and got completely…

Thinking Big (Is Scary As Hell)

Yesterday I had the incredible pleasure to discuss growth, scale and thinking big with two of the most impressive (and wicked smart) young entrepreneurs I know. The one runs a global accelerator program which simply blows my mind, the other builds a tool which redefines how…

Do What’s Meaningful To You

Time and time again I am part of, get dragged into or overhear conversation where one party tries to instill their values and believes in the other party. Entrepreneurs who are ashamed to say that they are not in it for the money but because they want to make the world a better…

On Empathy (or Why Loving Someone Is Easy)

We talked about empathy quite a bit here at The Heretic. You need deep customer empathy to build products your customers not only want but desire and love. You should also operate from a place of empathy when dealing with your cofounders and employees.

First Time CEOs

The last two days I had the privilege to support a leadership development program here at Mozilla. It’s an incredible gift to work with people on their personal development and see them transform over the course of two short days. Then, this morning, I had the pleasure of talking with one of our…

How Big A Problem Are You Solving?

One topic which comes up again and again when I talk with entrepreneurs about their ideas and/or companies is the question of how big the problem they are trying to solve really is.

Don’t Try To Predict The Future

I recently read in a research paper on entrepreneurship:

“To the extend that we can control the future, we do not need to predict it.”

This is a profound statement — especially when you take into account that the best…