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USDA is the biggest proponent of women in tech

I’m pretty certain that I’m a woman in technology. Last night, I was using SAS on a virtual machine through a remote desktop connection to prepare data from the National Hospital Discharge Survey for use in examples of MANOVA and multinomial logistic regression. Today, I was working on improving animation in the Javascript for a…

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FINALLY we look like we know what we’re doing

Yes, I do realize that I’m probably far more excited about our new website coming on line than is normal. Several points here on a Friday night: I completely disagree with those entrepreneurs who say, “You sell the sizzle not the steak” when what they mean is that they really don’t have a good product…

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It’s different for girls and really different for me, apparently

I read an interesting post by Heidi Roizen with the title, “It’s different for girls.” Ms. Roizen is an admirable person. A successful entrepreneur, venture capitalist and mother. (The latter is relevant as you’ll find if you read her post) This is a quote from her post: Wine was brought and toasts were made to…

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Why You Really Ought to Re-Think Older Entrepreneurs

I read some poorly done research the other day that showed a very small number of start-ups that became billion-dollar companies were started by people over 50.  As someone else pointed out in the comments to it, that was lacking a key number, the denominator. That is, if people over 50 only started 20 companies,…

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Succeeding by being a terrible person

Lately, I’ve been a terrible person. I have told many people, “No, I cannot help you.” After six happily profitable years, we’re winding down The Julia Group consulting division. We are not taking any new contracts and not adding on to any existing contracts. As contracts expire, we are not replacing them with new business….

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Start-up Advice after Founder Friday Women 2.0

Most start-up events waste my time. Founder Friday Women 2.0 was one of the few exceptions. Generally,  at start-up events, the people who have an actual company make up a tiny fraction of the attendees, being out-numbered at least 5 to 1 by people with “an idea for a company”. The remainder of those in…

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Make Something, Make a Difference, Make Money

Yesterday, I did the Happy Dance in my office when we finished version 2.2 of Spirit Lake. I said that despite taking me away from virtually every other interest in my life, being obsessed with a start-up is worth it. WHY? In thinking it over today, I realized that 7 Generation Games meets every possible…

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The Pros and Cons of Being Obsessed

Really useful advice for start-ups on How Not to Die from Paul Graham emphasized  The number one thing not to do is other things. If you find yourself saying a sentence that ends with “but we’re going to keep working on the startup,” you are in big trouble…. We’re taking on some consulting projects, but…

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Taking All of Your Children to Work Days: My take away from let’s move

When I add up all of the ad revenue from this blog on top of the business it garners, in a good month it might average out to $30 an hour and in a not-so-good month maybe $10. Since my consulting rate is a heck of a lot more than $30 an hour you might…

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Survivor 8: Statistics on selling the sizzle and not the steak

I attended  Survivor 8, the Tech Coast Venture Network fast pitch competition last night, and I thought I’d give my thoughts in case you are considering attending a similar event in the future. In keeping with the 30-second format, I’ll give you my take away now – it is worth it if you have an…