Sometimes, like Alice in Wonderland, I give myself very good advice. Unlike Alice, though, I occasionally take it. The very best advice I think I have given on this blog is this: Always do one more thing. Before you turn in at the end of the day, when you think you are tired out and…
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….
I read a blog post where the author said the women who dropped out of programming “should have been discouraged” because it’s not for everyone and many women try to use smiles and flattery to get men to do their work for them. I actually have had the experience the author cites, but with both…
One of the many questions on start-up accelerator applications that make me go “Hmm”, is this question : How many lines of code have you written? I have heard of, but thankfully never worked at, organizations that evaluated their technical staff by the lines of code written. Let me give you two stories that illustrate…
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…
Got interrupted by coding, meetings, flying across country, teaching judo, more meetings and flying back across country. Just finishing The Hard Thing about Hard Things and and I thought it was a terrific book EXCEPT for the part about not hiring people from your friend’s companies. I completely disagreed with this, and even though I…
If you are planning on working in business in any way, whether you are still in college, two years into a start-up or thinking of joining a young, growing company, read this book – The Hard Thing about Hard Things. I just saw it is the number one business book on Amazon and deservedly so….
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…
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…
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…