Products vs Solutions

Most companies are in the business of product development. They come up with a cool product, do a bit of market testing and start selling to their customers. In the best case this works out great (e.g. when your CEO is Steve Jobs), more often it doesn’t and sometimes you have to spend a…

The Micro-Managing Antidote

Recently I spoke with a young founder — he observed a tendency in himself to micro-manage his team. When talking about it, it became clear that this tendency mostly came from his anxiety to make sure stuff gets done. He felt that he needed to stay on top of things all the time —…

Everything is a Product

I let you in on one of my secrets — I found it supremely helpful to treat everything I do as a distinct product. Whenever I work on a project I treat the parts of each project as a product.

Beg For Feedback

You want to grow your leadership skills? Beg for feedback! Solicit feedback from your coworkers, your boss, your subordinates, your customers, the people you socially interact with… Request unfiltered, brutally honest feedback. Get the full truth.

First Principles

We all can get caught up in the heat of the battle. We are so deep into the weeds of what we’re doing that we sometimes end up chasing rabbits down their proverbial rabbit holes.

It’s important to get your head out of this mode regularly and go back to first principles: A…

The Creation Story

Creationists believe that the world came into existence in an act of divine creation. It’s a beautiful and simple story — six days was all it took. Science tells us pretty much the opposite: The act of creation is messy, ugly, brutal, random, complex…