Entrepreneurs love cause and effect. We love being the cause. We love poking life, seeing what comes out. We love change and movement.

But we hate, I hate, I can’t stand that moment when every action has been taken toward the goal, that goal you are committed to, but now you have to wait because everything has been done for now.

No news from sales, no feedback from customers, no final decisions Continue reading →

Photo by NASA on The Commons

I grew up in a tight knit family. But when we talk or I visit home, I can feel like a martian. Like one of those satellites that launch and just keep going. I go out, see and learn new things. But I never get closer to home, always inching farther away.

Now and then we visit and I share my latest experiences and what’s up in my life. But my report gets more foreign to my audience. Sometimes we misinterpret each other. Our list of shared experiences shortens.

But then one day comfort comes from an unexpected place. I read a book and find more in common with the person writing than anyone I know. Their words fit feelings I’ve had but could not describe. And maybe its not the author but the person he or she is describing.

If you took Don Draper’s marketing, added Theodore Roosevelt’s appetite for reading history, and mixed in some greek stoic, you’d get something close to online marketing guru Ryan Holiday.

Ryan dropped out college at 19. Since then he’s went on to work with best selling authors including Robert Greene and Tucker Max and currently heads up the marketing department at one of the most controversial and successful clothing brands of the last 20 years (American Apparel). And he’s 24. He has a book coming out this summer. And there’s been a lot of talk on the publishing industry blogs about the details of the book deal here, here, and here.

Ryan has lived in New Orleans for the past year and I recently caught up with him for the interview below. It covers everything from breaking all the rules in marketing to Continue reading →

I really enjoyed this Kevin Rose interview with Jack Dorsey, the inventor of Twitter and Square.

The part where Jack describes how it is fine to have a great idea and then put it on the shelf stuck with me the most. Since college I frequently viewed any idea I didn’t work on as a failure or a missed opportunity at best. The video reinforces a larger lesson I’ve been learning since college, that seldom are markets, or existing products, or supply chains, or customers ready for any innovation including that idea you had last year, etc. Markets and innovations take some serious dancing before they’re ready for a successful match.

So it is perfectly alright to set ideas on the shelf. The guy that invented Twitter even says so. If anything, get out and meet those people you would need to make your idea into a reality. Also get to know people in the markets and verticals it would affect. The world may be far more primed for the idea in the future than at the original moment you had it.