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I remember “disruptive” when it was called “paradigm shift.” That phrase died during the tech-bubble along with “portal” and “think outside the box,” yet the concept has returned. Don’t follow along.

When I get pitched — usually by someone raising money — that they “have something disruptive,” a little part of me dies. You should be worrying about making something useful, not how disruptive you can be.

“Disruptive” is the in-vogue word for the opposite of “incremental improvement.” A disruptive product causes such a large market shift that entire companies collapse (the ones who don’t “get it”) and new markets appear.

Disruptive is fascinating, disruptive changes the world, ..read more

I love to celebrate anniversaries. I’m doing so today with some questions I’d like readers to answer.

Is life any better for consumers than it was three years ago? Is it easier to communicate with large retailers and manufacturers? Is there more protection for consumers when it comes to overcharging, product quality and safety and safeguarding of your rights under the law?

Is life any better for retail investors? Is there hope of transforming the client-adviser relationship after the market collapse of 2008-09 exposed its shortcomings? Is the average person ready to leave high-cost mutual funds with bundled advice and look at alternatives (do-it-yourself investing)?

Finally, is the Internet making a difference for consumers and investors? Is it allowing more effective communication with companies? Do you find ..read more

(P.S. Are you going to SxSW?  If so, drop me a line and we’ll coordinate.)

Most people start their first company while they still have a day job.

It makes sense: You don’t need loans, and you don’t need funding. If you “fail” all you’ve lost is time, but considering the fun, the stories, and everything you’ll have learned, that’s hardly a failure.

You just need to give up all your free time which, if you’ve caught the “founders” bug, is A-OK with you.

But you’ve also placed yourself in a hazardous, potentially legally ambiguous situation. If managed improperly, you’re unnecessarily risking lawsuits and worse.

I’ve been on both ..read more

“You need a business plan” is the mantra of MBA types.

As they say, businesses don’t plan to fail, they fail to plan! Who could argue with such a clever turn of phrase?

Let’s do some quotes:

“Without a business plan, how will you know whether you can make a profit?” (source) “A complete business plan should include five-year financial projections. These projections will assist investors with making decisions about your business and help you to know how much funding you will need to get things rolling.” (source) “Many businesses fail due to poor planning. It is important for every business owner to understand the entire depth, flexibility, strength and weakness of their business plan.” (source) “Adjust ..read more

Strategies for social media and SEO are so… squishy.

You know what I mean. You can’t measure “authenticity.” You can’t measure “relationships.” You can measure “subscribers” and “followers” and “uniques” but that doesn’t tell you anything about influence or reach or effect. You can measure “page rank” and “search engine position” but those algorithms are shifting and unknowable.

Without units of measurement it’s hard to experiment, and without experiments it’s hard to have data to drive conclusions. This is a sucky situation for the scientist in me.

Recently, however, I’ve come across several sources of empirical, experimentally-sound data sources that do tell us how to be awesome at both SEO and social media.

So on behalf of ..read more