Nowadays, fountains typically don’t serve much of a purpose other than to add beauty through sight and sound (and of course the opportunity for kids to put soap in them, or just jump in them).

If you really think about it, most things that are as impractical as a fountain are not so widespread.   What is it about fountains that captures us?

Fountains are symbolic—water represents life, and in a fountain, water takes on a beautiful ephemeral form—as a stream of droplets in the air, before they all crash into the pool below and are recycled again. Read more »

A product is never finished, a business is never ‘built’, and the well of innovation is never dry.

Lately, evangelists such as Seth Godin and Eric Reiss have been leading voices in the call for shipping quickly.  Jon Burgstone, who holds the record for the fastest time from founding a company to exiting with a valuation higher than $1B, has a new book out that instructs entrepreneurs to gather ‘maximum information at minimum cost’ (and remember—time is money).

The message is simple: move quickly, fail fast, collect data, experiment and learn.

The natural question is: until when?

To what end?
Well, that’s sort of the point: there isn’t an end. Your product will never be ready…don’t make the naïve mistake of thinking that once you shipped, you’re done.  Read more »

Whether you’re working at a startup or not, one of the common questions you might ask yourself is, “How am I adding value on a daily basis?” The challenge behind each day is not how much work you can avoid, but how best you can spend your time driving value to your organization.

So how do you add value?

Through years of education, training, and work experience, we’ve discovered what we’re good at. Those with a college or advanced degree spent years honing in on specialties to prepare us for the real world.

During your work reviews, you’re challenged to take your skillset to the next level by producing more than you have in the past. As an entrepreneur, you’re consistently challenged to “do one thing and do it well”. Well, it’s only natural for us to focus on what we’re good at, and lean on that in order to do that one thing well. Read more »

You manage what you measure.

This is one of the wisest pieces of business advice.  It is true: we optimize for stats we can measure, from business to sports to shopping and more.

Metrics aren’t just about data or insights—metrics are a language.  The more articulate we are with our metrics, the more powerful we are as communicators.

Let the metrics speak for themselves.  Good metrics shouldn’t require much thought to process and understand.  The challenge with metrics is solving the puzzle of capturing them easily & automatically while also focusing on the most effective set.  Read more »