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Every so often I go into Apple’s App Store (primarily for the iPad) and look for new apps to try. I’m typically looking for new games – time killers – that I can enjoy and relax with, and maybe share with the kids as well. App discovery isn’t great, and I usually don’t end up downloading anything.

Last week I found a game that I’m completely in love with: Silversword RPG.

It’s very reminiscent of The Bard’s Tale, which came out in 1985 on the Apple II. I started playing The Bard’s Tale… Keep reading >>

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Negative feedback hurts. It’s easy to take personally and get offended. It’s easy to dismiss too. But negative feedback is a lot better than no feedback at all. The worst thing for a startup -at any stage- is crickets.

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Ugh. Silence is the ultimate form of “you suck” feedback. Better that people take the time to tell you to your face. And in many cases, negative feedback can be… Keep reading >>

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HighScore House is one of our portfolio companies at Year One Labs. After leaving Year One Labs, they decided to join 500Startups and go through the 3-4 month acceleration program to continue building their product, learning and growing their network.

Yesterday, they presented at 500Startups’ Demo Day. It’s interesting to see the pitch evolve – changing as the guys learn about how to position themselves, based on the audience, etc. It’s great to see the progress they’ve made in a short few months: launching an iPad app, adding two key members to their team, and… Keep reading >>

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My history with hiring university students and recent graduates for technical positions has not been a good one.

In my first company (~15 years ago) we tried hiring recent university and technical college graduates for junior developer positions. I was struck by the near carbon copy similarities between most of the resumes. Very few of the tech students / graduates had any meaningful experience, and even fewer had done any hacking on the side to develop their skills. Their resumes consisted primarily of the projects they had done in school and non-related jobs. I remember… Keep reading >>

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How you differentiate from competitors only matters if it matters to customers.

Pick any differentiation you want – pricing, features, target market, market gap, performance, etc. – unless customers really, really, really care about the difference, you’re shit out of luck. Hell, pick two or three of them and it still doesn’t matter. You can’t pile them on and assume that’ll make the difference.

When doing competitive research, don’t just look at what the competition is doing, figure out how customers feel about them. Understand why customers are picking one competitor… Keep reading >>

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I got into computers fairly early because of my father. He went back to university in 1986 in his early 40s and did a BSc. in Computer Science. I was 11 years old. Our first computer was a PC of some kind; I don’t remember what it was, but I remember it was expensive, $7,000+ or so. My father then went on to work “in computers” for 15 years. I say “in computers” because that’s what everyone called it back then, it was easier than explaining what he really did.

Strangely enough, I didn’t really… Keep reading >>

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These days, most entrepreneurs I talk to understand the importance of speaking with customers before building a full-blown product. They’re getting out of the building. And that’s great. A few years ago it wasn’t like that at all.

But unfortunately, I often speak with entrepreneurs that have only talked to one or two customers. That’s not nearly enough. The danger in speaking with too few customers is that you bet too much on too little data. If the first customer you speak to loves your idea and you put blinders on to go build the… Keep reading >>

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Anyone that’s ever applied for a job has experienced the resume black hole. You apply for a job and don’t hear anything back (you might get an automated “thank you”). After a few days you send a follow up message (if you can find an email address) and wait some more. Nothing. No word whatsoever comes back.

It’s demoralizing and frustrating. And it’s insanely common. Too few companies take the time to respond to applicants in any way whatsoever.

The task of sending “thanks but no thanks” emails is time consuming and unpleasant. I… Keep reading >>

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Massive Damage is the location-based mobile game company that graduated from Year One Labs last year. I’ve written about them in the past. Their first game, Please Stay Calm (a zombie apocalypse game) is killing it with a strong, dedicated user base, fun / addictive gameplay, and lots of cool stuff coming soon. Plus, the company is generating revenue. From the moment they launched, Massive Damage was looking at growing and optimizing revenue, along with nailing product-market fit on the game side. Things are coming along very nicely…

One of the key… Keep reading >>

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Customers should be rewarded earlier and more often in the relationship they establish with vendors.

This is true of any type of customer and any type of business. Keurig does a nice job of providing members with 10% off purchases. That’s not a ton of money when you’re buying coffee, but it’s something. More importantly, it’s an instantaneous and ongoing reward for being a member. On the flip side, Aeroplan is such a ridiculous program that you never feel like you’ll get anything (on top of which the experience with most airlines is… Keep reading >>