Posts

Happy Friday.

(Hello from Detroit today.)

1. Your friends are more than their job titles (and so are you) [Link] [Tweet]

I’ve been meeting a ton of people over the past few weeks and, particularly when I’m at a conference or other tech event, asking people about their hobbies tends to (1) keep me from feeling burnt out when talking to so many people, (2) help me learn more about the person standing in front of me and (3) gives me an interesting way to introduce them to someone else at the conference. So, I guess that makes this a bit of a networking hack. Win-win.

2. “The scale of her commercial supremacy defies parallel.” [Link] [Tweet]

I love in-depth pieces (like this one) that shed light on the way successful people do what they do. Taylor’s level of self-awareness is nothing short of incredible.

3. Trade groups and networking groups don’t make regions better, individuals and companies do. [Tweet]

It doesn’t matter whether you’re an angel group, a trade organization or a Chamber of Commerce — in a time where every individual has direct access to a broad audience via the internet, you’re going to lose your influence (and revenue) if you don’t adapt.

Like most industries disrupted by the internet, you need to start thinking about yourself as a service provider rather than an access provider.

4. “The most potent weapon in sales is understanding a buyer’s perception of time.” [Link] [Tweet]

You should internalize the concepts of buyer urgency and seller scarcity. It’s something we used to think about quite a bit when I was selling cars in the early days of Carmax (eg, “So what are you driving now?” and “There’s only one of these on the lot. Oh look, these other people are looking at the car now.”) and it’s still relevant today.

5. “I was thinking linearly. I paid lots of money to create this software, now it’s your turn to pay.” [Link] [Tweet]

The old way of making money: I made this, you should pay for this.
The new way of making money: I made this, you can use it for free, I might charge you for some of the “pro” features.

Go for the max market in both your personal and professional lives. You’ll be surprised by the number of opportunities that will appear along the way.

6. “We’re busier than ever. We’re often on autopilot.” [Link] [Tweet]

I’m on autopilot right now, actually.

7. “Outward appearance isn’t as important as the quality of the work you do.” [Link] [Tweet]

You know, it’s not that everyone should be wearing t-shirts (or wearing suits). It’s that we should wear the clothes makes us most comfortable and wear the clothes that align the most with our customers. Just be comfortable and sell some shit, y’all.

On a related note, the suit-to-jeans ratio is an important metric for any tech conference. Outside of Silicon Valley or other major cities, you can tell a lot about the maturity of a local tech community by the number of jeans (with or without sport coats) in any audience.

8. “Uber’s most recent round of financing did not imply it would have cost $50B to purchase the entire business.” [Link] [Tweet]

Given all the talk of unicorns these days, it’s important to understand how the various classes of stock work. It’ll make your brain explode.

For the investors reading this: “If you hold series seed shares in Uber (a fairly subordinate class of stock) and mark them as if the entire company is worth $50B, and that your shares are worth the exact same as the more senior shares, you’re lying.” You might want to double-check your quarterly portfolio markups and markdowns. Go ahead, I’ll wait.

9. “Today is not yesterday.” [Link] [Tweet]

Yep.

10. “I have more job security now that I work for a dozen co’s than I did when I was a full-time staff member at one.” [Link] [Tweet]

Look, the way we all work is changing — it doesn’t matter whether you’re a founder, an employee or something in between. Everyone needs to be an entrepreneur.

Building a personal brand might feel unimportant but, frankly, you’re going to be at a disadvantage if you don’t put some time into it. In the worst case, your brand will be the “insurance policy” you’ll cash in when it’s time to look for a new job or raise your next round. In the best case, you’ve got that insurance policy and you’ll have opportunities coming across your radar that you would never have received otherwise.

As you know, I’m a big believer in learning better communication and public speaking skills — it really is the lowest-effort-highest-ROI way to build your personal brand. If that’s not for you, find your thing but I sincerely hope you don’t ignore this particular point.

Coming down

I’m on the tail end of a month of heavy travel — flying and talking, flying and talking, flying and talking. I’m spent.

A couple of things I’ve been thinking about as I meet so many entreprenuers, investors and community builders:

• People who compare technology-enabled businesses (a.k.a. “startups”) miss the point: tech-enabled companies can’t be easily compared to existing companies.
• I’ve been talking to lots of entrepreneurs lately, the most successful seem to have one or more traits:
  • They’ve got a functional prototype with small but measurable usage.
  • Small but cross-functional teams: the hacker, hustler and designer are already on board.
  • They can clearly articulate how their product solves a problem for a **specific** customer.
• The best investors and companies (and individuals) see themselves as marketing companies that happen to do what they do — not the other way around. Distribution is everything.

Firehose

You can get the full stream of the things I read, it’s all on Twitter — follow me: @paulsingh. Sometimes I write stuff too. You can always find me on Slack, apply to join.

Have a great weekend!

-P

P.S. If you loved this newsletter, share it with a friend. If you hated this newsletter, share it with an enemy.

P.P.S. I’m starting to do a little bit of consulting for real estate firms and tech community builders around the country. If you think I might be able to help with something you’re doing in your neck of the woods, hit ‘reply’ and let’s talk about it.

Happy Friday.

(Hello from Halifax, NS today. It’s been a long few weeks of travel and I’m looking forward to a few days of downtime when I get back to DC late tonight.)

1. A photographer edits out our smartphones to show our strange and lonely new world [Link] [Tweet]

There’s a 36% chance (seriously) that you’re reading this from a mobile phone which means you probably look like the people in these photos. Your goal today: make eye contact.

2. “I wouldn’t recommend anyone to put more than 5% of his or her investment assets into startups.” [Link] [Tweet]

If you’re a founder considering a fundraise soon, read this to get a better understanding of how investors think. If you’re someone considering becoming an investor soon, read this to understand how hard it is to be a good investor.

Writing checks is the easy part. Figuring out how all the pieces together is much, much harder.

3. “CEO psychology is the most under-appreciated, yet most important part of building a company.” [Link] [Tweet]

There’s not much in here that you don’t already know but seeing the ideas written down somehow makes them feel a bit more real.

My advice: if you’ve raised your first round already, take the time to see a therapist once a week. If nothing else, you’ll have a completely neutral sounding board that you can trust will keep your deepest fears private. The value of that can’t be overstated.

4. “I’ve spent the last 10 years of my life learning how to manipulate people.” [Link] [Tweet]

Sales can feel scary and complicated but this about sums it up: “If you can win their trust, then you don’t have to sell. You just become the guy who has the thing that other people want. And in the world of online sales, that’s the perfect place to be.”

5. “I finally recognized and accepted where my personal problems are, which allows me to deal with them.” [Link] [Tweet]

Love him or hate him, Tucker Max is opening the kimono on this one: “Basically, this whole fucking thing is therapy, as all writing is. It’s just helping you and me both, instead of just me.”

6. “The basic problem is that there’s nowhere for the packages to go.” [Link] [Tweet]

It’s interesting to think that physical places and spaces are getting jammed up with things that we buy online. The solution probably isn’t to build bigger spaces, not immediately any way. The real solution is figuring out how to move the packages through the “last mile” more efficiently.

7. “To survive, manage yourself.” [Link] [Tweet]

Yep: “There are so many things that can kill a company.  There are so many ways to fail it almost overwhelms people.  Make sure that if you fail, you fail because of things you cannot control.”

8. “Stop complaining about how much of your time is already spoken for and start figuring out a way to get it back.” [Link] [Tweet]

I probably say “yes” too much. You probably do too. Let’s fix that.

Default answer: “No.”

9. “There’s little value in pointing out a problem unless you have an actual idea for solving it.” [Link] [Tweet]

This is the most coherent framework for anyone’s first 90 days at a job (and each subsequent 90 days after that).

10. “my worries are drowned out by the kind of unfettered optimism that only $1B valuations (on $0 earnings) can buy.” [Link] [Tweet]

Anecdotally, it seems that overall sentiment from tech investors is shifting from optimistic to cautiously optimistic to “oh shit, everything’s about to fall

I’m coming for you

No, actually I’m done for a little bit. I’ve spent the last few weeks in Madrid, SP (where I gave my first keynote in a bullfighting ring!), Halifax, NS, Chattanooga, TN (where I did my first speaking gig inside an old church) and a bunch of other interesting places. Detroit and Lagos are on the agenda in the next few weeks.

Anything cool happening in your neck of the woods?

Firehose

You can get the full stream of the things I read, it’s all on Twitter — follow me: @paulsingh. Sometimes I write stuff too. You can always find me on Slack, apply to join.

Have a great weekend!

-P

P.S. If you loved this newsletter, share it with a friend. If you hated this newsletter, share it with an enemy.

Happy Friday.

(Hello from Lincoln, NE today where I’ve been checking out Lincoln Startup Week, eating runza and speaking.)

1. “It’s a terrible thing, I think, in life to wait until you’re ready.” [Link] [Tweet]

When you’re starting something new, it’s scary easy to get bogged down in the details before ever taking the first step. “I’m going to need business cards” and “how will I ask for my first sale” are real questions that overwhelm many people before they ever take the first step. As Reid Hoffman (the founder of LinkedIn) famously said, if you’re not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve waited too long.”

Just. Ship. Something.

2. “10 years from now people will be embarrassed to say unicorn.” [Link] [Tweet]

The “short cut culture” is absolutely a real thing. Sometimes it’s easier to think about possible short cuts rather than doing the unsexy work that it takes to grow a company. I’ve done it, you’ve done it and that’s OK as long as you recognize it. The important thing to remember is that “it’s really about love. And sacrifice. And hard work. And putting in the daily things that it takes to achieve great things.”

3. “I like you, but you gotta understand, my friends don’t get out of bed unless they’re writing a $25 million check.” [Link] [Tweet]

I love Semil Shah’s writing, particularly his ability to take complex topics and distill them into posts that anyone can understand. If you’re thinking about raising a fund soon, it’s worth reading this entire post (and subscribing to his blog).

4. “If our research is correct, you need to eat even less and exercise even more.” [Link] [Tweet]

Back in my day, we used to be able to have a Happy Meal every day without thinking twice. Ah, the good old days.

5. “You are the average of the people you spend the most time with. It’s a natural thing.” [Link] [Tweet]

Two thoughts here:

• If you’re having a hard time reaching a certain goal, it’s worth taking a hard look at the people around you most often. Then change it.
• I grew up in the Indian community of the DC Metro area. Many of the young people I knew at the time spent the majority of their free time with other Indian kids on the weekdays and weekends while I, being in enrolled in a private Christian school, spent the majority of my time with anyone but Indians. I’m convinced this was a HUGE benefit to my career. Said another way, I think most Indian kids are at a disadvantage: they spend so much time with other Indians that they never quite learn how to interact with other cultures — this hurts their prospects in the long run.

If you notice that everyone in your circle looks like you, comes from the same place as you and generally does the same thing as you, it’s time to make a change.

6. “Growth is where all the action is, and to where all the money flows.” [Link] [Tweet]

I met a founder today that seemed to have a pretty cool product. The problem, however, is that no one is using it. When I poked the founder about this, he responded, “well, I thought you might be able to help me get customers.”

Wut? No.

Growth doesn’t happen magically and it doesn’t stop magically. It happens because founders focus on it.

7. “Sell yourself, sell your vision to investors, employees and most importantly, to your customers.” [Link] [Tweet]

Yes. Yes. Yes. Everyone needs to be a storyteller.

Oh, by the way, I offer a free email course on public speaking and storytelling. 1,100+ smart people are currently about halfway through the course and I’ll be opening up the next cohort very soon — sign up here. Again, it’s free so you have no excuse not tosign up.

8. “I think innovation can happen anywhere, you just have to dream big.” [Link] [Tweet]

Ashton Kutcher is super smart, you should read the entire article.

9. Yes, Let’s Ask Men in Tech About Being Dads [Link] [Tweet]

Dads are people too.

10. “Truism: customer money is better than VC money.” [Link] [Tweet]

This is amazing to me: “At Arthur Ventures we’ve made 15 investments out of our current fund.  3 of those 15 have not spent a penny of our money and another 3 have burned a relatively small amount (50% or less) before being roughly breakeven again.  All 6 of these companies have had at least a year since initial funding.”

I’m coming for you

Next up (though, not in this exact order): Madrid, SP, Halifax, NS, Detroit, MI, Lagos, NG, Chattanooga, TN (coupon code: PaulSingh) and a bunch of other interesting places.

If there’s cool stuff happening in your neck of the woods, let me know ASAP — let’s get it on the calendar, I want to see how startups are growing in your neck of the woods.

Firehose

You can get the full stream of the things I read, it’s all on Twitter — follow me: @paulsingh. Sometimes I write stuff too. You can always find me on Slack, apply to join.

Have a great weekend!

-P

P.S. If you loved this newsletter, share it with a friend. If you hated this newsletter, share it with an enemy.

Happy Saturday.
(Hello from Vancouver, BC today and a warm welcome to all the new subscribers from Vancouver Startup Week where I delivered a keynote on Thursday. I hope you’ll forward this to a friend if you think they’ll find it useful.)

1. “My job is to give you lots of advice. Your job is to ignore 95% of it.” [Link] [Tweet]

The worst requests for advice all end with the same question: “what do you think?” It’s a terrible waste of time for everyone involved.

If you’re serious about asking for advice, it’s best to start with specific questions. “We’re experimenting with Facebook Ads and seeing a X% conversion rate, is that inline with what you’ve seen elsewhere?” is better than “I’m building a thing for dogs, what do you think?”

Don’t be lazy. If you’re going to burn a little bit of social capital to get some advice, make sure you get the advice you actually need.

2. “We’re in a period of euphoria now. Get ready for a new wave of zombie VCs.” [Link] [Tweet]

This is counterintuitive to most people: raising your first fund is hard, raising your next fund is even harder. The same goes for raising money for your company: your first round will be the easiest money you ever raise.

3. “This is bigger than taxis — ridesharing is on a path to displace cars.” [Link] [Tweet]

The eye opener: “Industry experts estimate 30% of San Francisco lease owners will not renew when their lease comes up.”

Uber’s past the point of being a “taxi company.” They’re laying the groundwork for an entirely new transportation infrastructure.

4. “I’ve seen where my investor’s sentiment leads. Burnout. Depression. Loss of self. Extreme fear of failure.” [Link] [Tweet]

This. So much this.

I’ve been there too — it’s hard to bounce back. Take care of yourselves.

5. “My one and only rule for not getting burned out is simple: get over yourself.” [Link] [Tweet]

Yep: “No one is standing over you at 12 AM making you answer emails. No one is telling you that you can’t go for a run in order to save your sanity. These are your decisions and you have no one to blame but yourself.”

Work hard but put yourself first.

6. “If I work with you nine hours a day and you smell, then you’re ruining my life.” [Link] [Tweet]

This was my favorite read this week. This guy gets it: “I need to make a profit, but I would like to do it with ethics, dignity, morals. It’s my dream.”

7. “Low-margin businesses have never been more fashionable here than they are right now.” [Link] [Tweet]

The key thing here is to understand that your unit economics matter. Many founders don’t realize that it’s sometimes OK to lose money as a company (especially if you’ve raised outside money to speed up your growth) as long as your unit economics are sound.

8. “while nerds have taken over pop culture and technology, there’s one area they haven’t mastered: politics.” [Link] [Tweet]

If you want to make a huge difference in the world, entrepreneurship and politics are the best way to do it. You’re already reading this newsletter, so I assume you’re interested in entrepreneurship but I’m not quite sure where to point you if you’re looking to learn more about politics. (Any recommendations?)

As an aside, I served as an Entrepreneur in Residence at DHS/USCIS in 2012 where we focused on the immigration issues that many founders and entrepreneurs faced when trying to come into the US. Over the first two days of the project, I got a complete braindump on the immigration system: we saw the processing facilities, the training manuals, the people making it all work.

In those two days, I realized that it’s so easy to be the “armchair quarterback” when anything related to the government is brought up. It is, however, much harder to dig into the realities, learn about all the complexity and decide to do your part to help make things better.

9. “when you’re NASA, your idea of shooting something into the sky includes a gravity assist from Jupiter.” [Link] [Tweet]

Going fast is cool.

10. “I just don’t want to tell that story any more.” [Link] [Tweet]

The quantified self is only one half of the equation. The other half is using all that data to encourage consistent behavior change.

1,100

That’s the number of students enrolled in my public speaking course — this cohort started last Tuesday and will run for five weeks. Enroll now if you want to be first in line to hear about the next cohort I’ll be opening up soon.

I’m coming for you

Next up (though, not in this exact order): Lincoln, NE, Madrid, SP, Halifax, NS, Detroit, MI, Lagos, NG, Chattanooga, TN (coupon code: PaulSingh) and a bunch of other interesting places.

If there’s cool stuff happening in your neck of the woods, let me know ASAP — let’s get it on the calendar, I want to see how startups are growing in your neck of the woods.

Firehose

You can get the full stream of the things I read, it’s all on Twitter — follow me: @paulsingh. Sometimes I write stuff too. You can always find me on Slack, apply to join.

Have a great weekend!
-P

P.S. If you loved this newsletter, share it with a friend. If you hated this newsletter, share it with an enemy.

You’re enrolled in Public Speaking for Founders and Entrepreneurs. You’ll get the first lesson tomorrow.

So will over 1,000 other smart people — just like you and me — that are aiming to further their personal careers, raise more money for their companies and influence more customers. Just about anyone can be more successful if they learn how to be better communicators and that’s exactly what this course is about.

Right now, there are less than 12 hours left to enroll. Once class starts tomorrow, signups will close and I’m not sure when I’ll offer this course again. So, today is the last chance for your friends, your coworkers or the members of your favorite online community to enroll.

Please forward this email to someone that wants to learn with us. Or post about the course in your favorite Facebook group. Or retweet me. You get the idea.

See you tomorrow!

-P

P.S. here’s that signup link one more time (please share it): www.resultsjunkies.com/public-speaking-for-founders-and-entrepreneurs/

Happy Friday.
(Hello from beautiful Victoria, BC where I’m keynoting Tectoria later this morning and keeping my fingers crossed for a whale sighting before heading back to DC on Sunday. My free email course on public speaking starts on Tuesday — you’ve got till Monday night to signup. I hope you’ll join me.)

1. “America was supposed to be better than this.” [Link] [Tweet]

The first sentence just about sums this up: “The simple facts are enraging.” Look at the photo of him in cuffs and tell me that doesn’t make you sad for what we’ve become.

2. “I love being the father of a little girl. There’s not a minute of it that hasn’t been awesome.” [Link] [Tweet]

When you study celebrities — TV, sports, whatever — it’s easy to forget that they’re normal people too. This piece on Anthony Bourdain is fantastic and it’s easy to see why people love him so much: he’s raw, real and authentic.

My favorite quote: “I’ve said a million times that I’d rather miss the shot than disturb the mojo,” Bourdain says. “If you’re stopping people to move a light, it fucks up the dynamic and the spontaneity. You end up with a show that looks like everybody else’s.”

3. Public Speaking for Founders & Entrepreneurs is a free 5-week email course w/ less than a week left to join. [Link] [Tweet]

Nearly 1,000 smart people have signed up for my course and it’s starting this Tuesday. My goal is to make you a more confident communicator — on-stage and in-person — over the course of 5 weeks. I hope you’ll join and share the signup page with at least one other person in your network. I’ll be closing signups at 11:59p ET this Monday and it’s completely free so you’ve got no excuse to not sign up (unless, of course, you don’t want to improve yourself).

4. “Facebook now runs three of the most popular apps on the internet.” [Link] [Tweet]

Technology companies will never create the majority of jobs but what happens in the tech sector will disproportionately affect everyone else. In this case, just look at the engineer-to-user ratio and the overall number of people that use Facebook:

• WhatsApp employs 50 engineers for it’s 900 million users.
• Facebook is used by 1.5 billion people and Facebook Messenger is used by 700 million.

On a personal note, Facebook’s Safety Check feature came in handy after the earthquake in Chile earlier this week. It’s strange to think that we didn’t have things like this sooner.

5. “In an attempt to escape my self-imposed fate, I manifested an interest in technology.” [Link] [Tweet]

Sad, but true: “You would be amazed how often you can get away with this if you talk confidently and authoritatively and intertwine fragmented topics into a complex narrative.”

The world needs more critical thinkers and more people that aren’t afraid to provide direct, constructive feedback.

6. “As the saying goes, pics or it didn’t happen.” [Link] [Tweet]

I can’t say that I’ve been in any near-death emergency so I haven’t seen this “I’m about to die” selfie thing happen. How is this a thing?

7. “I feel like I’ve spent a huge amount of my career analyzing and very little actually doing something.” [Link] [Tweet]

Unsexy businesses FTW. (Have I ever told you that story about how I helped my family buy a gas station one time? Great cash flow, shitty business and awful hours. It was a weird year.)

Reminder: you can build an interesting business without starting it yourself and without ever raising a penny from VCs. The world doesn’t need more founders but we do need more entrepreneurs.

8. “today it’s about how fast you can iterate and how much traffic you can drive.” [Link] [Tweet]

Share this with your friend that keeps coming up with ideas but never actually does anything.

9. “ambitious ideas have similar success probabilities to their less ambitious counterparts, if not higher success rates.” [Link] [Tweet]

Consider this a reminder that you should be swinging for the fences, always. It’s the best way to make a difference, do interesting things and build the life you want.

10. “Nobody is going to give you more money until you can prove a lot of people love what you do.” [Link] [Tweet]

This is brutally honest. (Does this stuff really happen in the UK tech scene?)

I’m coming for you

I’m on the road again: Victoria, BC, Vancouver, BC, Lincoln, NE, Madrid, SP, Halifax, NS, Detroit, MI, Lagos, NG, Chattanooga, TN (coupon code: PaulSingh) and a bunch of other interesting places.

If there’s cool stuff happening in your neck of the woods, let me know ASAP — let’s get it on the calendar, I want to see how startups are growing in your neck of the woods.

Firehose

You can get the full stream of the things I read, it’s all on Twitter — follow me: @paulsingh. Sometimes I write stuff too. You can always find me on Slack, apply to join.

Have a great weekend!
-P

P.S. If you loved this newsletter, share it with a friend. If you hated this newsletter, share it with an enemy.

Well, this seems to be working: nearly a thousand of you have signed up to learn public speaking and to become better communicators over the next few weeks. This is going to be fun!

Don’t let anyone miss this opportunity.

Class starts one week from today and, once it starts, sign-ups will close. This is good because we’ll all be in this together but the downside is that if someone doesn’t hear about Public Speaking for Founders and Entrepreneurs, they can’t sign up.

So, it’s very important that everyone who might be interested in participating at least hears about it before the September 21 sign up deadline. Here’s what you can do to help:

• Retweet my tweet.

• Send Public Speaking for Founders and Entrepreneurs to your friends and colleagues. Some entire accelerator cohorts are taking the course together as they head towards their investor demo days.

• Send Public Speaking for Founders and Entrepreneurs to your favorite tech (or other) journalist. If we can get it on TechCrunch, Mashable and other places, we’ll be able to reach pretty much everyone that might want to take the course.

See you next week!

-P

P.S. Here’s that tweet for retweeting once again. Let’s make sure everyone gets a chance to sign up!

Happy Friday.
(Hello from Durham, NC today where I’m spending the day with Chris Heivly and the Triangle Startup Factory team. Also, I’m looking for BBQ y’all.)

1. “I’m starting a (free) email course on public speaking for founders and entrepreneurs.” [Link] [Tweet]

Three things:

1. You people are awesome. I asked a simple question last week to gauge interest in a public speaking course and you overwhelmed me with your thoughts. Thank you.
2. Public Speaking for Founders and Entrepreneurs is now available — it’s a (free) 5-week email course. There’s a community component to the class soplease sign up by September 21 to get in on the action. I don’t know when I’ll offer the class again so please get in before the cutoff date, I won’t be letting stragglers in after 9/21. Sign up here.
3. Before you ask: you made this my #1 engaged tweet (and link) this week, thank you. I usually put all my own stuff down below the weekly content but, since you made this the #1 thing this week, I don’t feel awkward putting my own course at the top.

2. “if you want to change the world (or even just grow a company) you must get things done.”  [Link] [Tweet]

A very wise man once told me “very few people get paid for ideas and you are probably not one of them.” (I’m looking at you, Vid.) So I invested in his company.

Pro tip: if you’re starting your personal or professional pitch with “we’re going to change the world” rather than hard facts about what you’ve already accomplished, you likely won’t.

Regardless of whether you want to make a ton of money, create a lot of jobs or change the world, you need to get things done. It’s surprising how many people forget that simple fact.

3. “AVs are the greatest force multiplier to emerge in decades for criminals and terrorists.” [Link] [Tweet]

This is a (long and) thought-provoking piece. Despite the fact that autonomous cars will likely make driving (er… riding?) safer and more economical, there are a lot pieces that still need to be figured out.

How does the police “pull over” an autonomous car? How do we prevent bad actors from using autonomous cars from carrying out “unmanned” terrorist acts?

If you’re a lawmaker, the next few years are going to be especially tricky. Good luck. (How does one get into politics and lawmaking any way? I digress.)

4. “We may start companies with our friends, but we don’t become friends with our co-workers.” [Link] [Tweet]

This is fascinating: “Focusing our friendship efforts outside work isn’t the norm around the world. In surveys across three countries, Americans reported inviting 32 percent of their closest colleagues to their homes, compared with 66 percent in Poland and 71 percent in India. Americans have gone on vacation with 6 percent of their closest co-workers, versus 25 percent in Poland and 45 percent in India.”

For my Indian friends: make me dinner and take me on vacation with you. (I assume you’re paying, right?)

5. “eSports is big, bigger than you imagine.” [Link] [Tweet]

It’s been a few years since I’ve seen Chris in person (back when he was working on Startup Digest, I believe) but I love these ecosystem maps he’s pulling together. Very useful.

6. “Talent is universal, even if opportunity is not.” [Link] [Tweet]

Ugh. Let’s blame VCs for the lack of capital outside Silicon Valley / NYC. No need to consider that those founders may not be competing at a high enough level or that LPs may have no interest in those markets.

<soapbox>

Look, maybe investors are to blame — but only partly. Founders everywhere need to step their game up and learn to communicate more effectively and broadly. LPs need to understand that companies can emerge from anywhere.

Because here’s the thing:

1. VCs, by definition, are managing LP money. If the LP doesn’t have an appetite for investing outside the Valley, you can bet that the VC won’t either. Call it the tail wagging the dog or call it the reality of venture capital.
2. Founders are quick to blame VCs for not “getting” their amazing business — it’s always easy to blame the other party. How about really understanding the market you’re competing in? How about learning how to communicate and inspire other people? More fundamentally, how about building a business that no one can ignore?

Everyone needs to step up their game: angels, accelerators, VCs, LPs and founders.Everyone.

</soapbox>

7. “Trump isn’t exactly self-made—he inherited substantial wealth from his father—but he is definitely self-invented.” [Link] [Tweet]

I hate to admit that I kind of respect Trump: the dude is a marketing and media machine. You couldn’t pay for the amount of coverage he’s getting these days and, in a presidential election, that’s a pretty important thing.

8. “the soft-skills millenials don’t have may be absent because their first job out of college is their first job ever.” [Link] [Tweet]

“Good social skills aren’t just about getting along with your boss or peers, it is communicating and connecting with people of all skills levels and backgrounds.” This.

If you’re in high school or college, do whatever it takes to join a venture-funded company and try to do as many jobs internally as they’ll allow you. After six months, you’ll likely have experienced more than your peers will see in two years of a “regular” job.

9. “It has become the beginning of a long goodbye.” [Link] [Tweet]

Life is beautiful.

10. “The purpose of all VC meetings is to get another meeting.” [Link] [Tweet]

You kids probably don’t remember the days when the VC industry was opaque. Transparency (and the Internet) FTW! (I fear that I may be turning into a bit of a curmudgeon at my age. The mid-thirties are a bitch.)

I’m coming for you

I’m on the road again: Durham, NC, Victoria, BC, Vancouver, BC, Lincoln, NE, Madrid, SP, Lagos, NG, Chattanooga, TN (coupon code: PaulSingh) and a bunch of other interesting places.

If there’s cool stuff happening in your neck of the woods, let me know ASAP — let’s get it on the calendar, I want to see how startups are growing in your neck of the woods.

Firehose

You can get the full stream of the things I read, it’s all on Twitter — follow me: @paulsingh. Sometimes I write stuff too. You can always find me on Slack, apply to join.

Have a great weekend!
-P

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