'People often talk about “first mover advantage.” But focusing on that may be problematic; you might move first and then fade away. The danger there is that you simply aren’t around to succeed, even if you do end up creating value. More important than being the first mover is being the last mover. You have to be durable. -- The really valuable businesses are monopoly businesses. They are the last movers who create value that can be sustained over time instead of being eroded away by competitive forces. -- An interesting question is why most people seem biased in favor of perfect competition. To start, perfect competition may be attractive because it’s easy to model. That probably explains a lot right there, since economics is all about modeling the world to make it easier to deal with. Perfect competition might also seem to make sense because it’s economically efficient in a static world. Moreover, it’s politically salable, which certainly doesn’t hurt. But the bias favoring perfect competition is a costly one. Perfect competition is arguably psychologically unhealthy. Every benefit social, not individual. But people who are actually involved in a given business or market may have a different view—it turns out that many people actually want to be able to make a profit. The deeper criticism of perfect competition, though, is that it is irrelevant in a dynamic world. If there is no equilibrium – if things are constantly moving around—you can capture some of the value you create. Under perfect competition, you can’t. Perfect competition thus preempts the question of value; you get to compete hard, but you can never gain anything for all your struggle. Perversely, the more intense the competition, the less likely you’ll be able to capture any value at all. Thinking through this suggests that competition is overrated. -- If globalization had to have a tagline, it might be that “the world is flat.” We hear that from time to time, and indeed, globalization starts from that idea. Technology, by contrast, starts from the idea that the world is Mount Everest. If the world is truly flat, it’s just crazed competition. The connotations are negative and you can frame it as a race to the bottom; you should take a pay cut because people in China are getting paid less than you. But what if the world isn’t just crazed competition? What if much of the world is unique? In high school, we tend to have high hopes and ambitions. Too often, college beats them out of us. People are told that they’re small fish in a big ocean. Refusal to recognize that is a sign of immaturity. Accepting the truth about your world – that it is big and you are just a speck in it – is seen as wise. That can’t be psychologically healthy. It’s certainly not motivating. Maybe making the world a smaller place is exactly what you want to do. Maybe you don’t want to work in big markets. Maybe it’s much better to find or make a small market, excel, and own it. And yet, the single business idea that you hear most often is: the bigger the market, the better. That is utterly, totally wrong. -- Well-defined, well-understood markets are simply harder to master. Hence the importance of the second clause in the question that we should keep revisiting: what valuable company are other people not building?'

'A fearless adventure in knowing what to do when no one’s there telling you what to do.' -- Deciding what to work on can be the hardest part of your job at Valve. This is because, as you’ve found out by now, you were not hired to fill a specific job description. You were hired to constantly be looking around for the most valuable work you could be doing. At the end of a project, you may end up well outside what you thought was your core area of expertise. There’s no rule book for choosing a project or task at Valve. But it’s useful to answer questions like these: #Of all the projects currently under way, what’s the most valuable thing I can be working on? #Which project will have the highest direct impact on our customers? How much will the work I ship benefit them? #Is Valve not doing something that it should be doing? #What’s interesting? What’s rewarding? What leverages my individual strengths the most? -- Structure happens: Project teams often have an internal structure that forms temporarily to suit the group’s needs. Although people at Valve don’t have fixed job descriptions or limitations on the scope of their responsibility, they can and often do have clarity around the definition of their “job” on any given day. They, along with their peers, effectively create a job description that fits the group’s goals. That description changes as requirements change, but the temporary structure provides a shared understanding of what to expect from each other. If someone moves to a different group or a team shifts its priorities, each person can take on a completely different role according to the new requirements. Valve is not averse to all organizational structure – it crops up in many forms all the time, temporarily. But problems show up when hierarchy or codified divisions of labor either haven’t been created by the group’s members or when those structures persist for long periods of time. We believe those structures inevitably begin to serve their own needs rather than those of Valve’s customers. The hierarchy will begin to reinforce its own structure by hiring people who fit its shape, adding people to fill subordinate support roles. Its members are also incented to engage in rent-seeking behaviors that take advantage of the power structure rather than focusing on simply delivering value to customers.'

'Workers accept lower wages for certainty. Entrepreneurs accept uncertainty for the opportunity to make higher wages (profits).'

'He pursues the idea, while others wait & wonder its merits. He spends every available minute working on it, because he is so sold on it. He picks up pace. When investors reject his idea, he calls them dump. When others judge him & his idea, he judges them back for not seeing the future. They don’t slow him down. He keeps the pace. He is not overwhelmed by risks that lie ahead, because he is so into the next few yards. He jumps over hurdles because he is already running. He does not second guess himself, not even when he hits a brick wall. His eyes glitter when he presents his idea to collaborators – his enthusiasm gets him collaborators. He is not timid to meet customers because he knows his product is the best.'

'The most dangerous thing about our dislike of schleps is that much of it is unconscious. Your unconscious won't even let you see ideas that involve painful schleps. That's schlep blindness. How do you overcome schlep blindness? Frankly, the most valuable antidote to schlep blindness is probably ignorance. Most successful founders would probably say that if they'd known when they were starting their company about the obstacles they'd have to overcome, they might never have started it. Ignorance can't solve everything though. Some ideas so obviously entail alarming schleps that anyone can see them. How do you see ideas like that? The trick I recommend is to take yourself out of the picture. Instead of asking "what problem should I solve?" ask "what problem do I wish someone else would solve for me?"' -- Brassy muckage

'How and why you are bred to be a wage-slave, and view freedom as disaster...' -- A prison for your mind.

'Thirteen Money Metaphors and their Uses and Misuses: #Money as time-to-deadline/non-renewable fuel #Money as building/growth material #Money as a lever: ...thinking of your money as a way to move more money. #Money as water: though this is about flows, sources and sinks, it is subtly different from the commodity/supply chain metaphor, since it has natural origins. Think in terms of dams, rainwater, artesian wells, money “frozen up” in old families as glaciers/polar ice caps, and so on. This is probably the best way to think about money culturally and socially. -- The metaphors you use determine your money personality, and how much you will be able to do with it. To get to the next level of money, you probably need to think with the metaphors appropriate to that level. Think too far above your league, and you’ll be reduced to daydreaming. Stick to your own level of metaphors, and you’ll never move anywhere.'

'We look for the same things that early-stage investors look for: traction, market, and team. Social proof also helps when you’re trying to get a first meeting. So you need to kick ass in at least one of these areas. Before you pitch investors, build a minimum viable product, put it in front of customers, and learn something about product/market fit. If you can’t get this far on your own, find some idea investors instead. Then write a 150-word elevator pitch and apply to AngelList. Our elevator pitch template is a good place to start. Spend time writing and re-writing the pitch until it’s awesome. Get feedback from good writers and entrepreneurs who have raised money. You have 100% control over the quality of your pitch and there’s no reason not to kick its ass.'

'As for entrepreneurship – really, people make a big deal of it, but it’s not so hard. You need to (1) add value to things you touch, and (2) get some share of the value you created.public victory. -- There’s nothing magical about it. You get some inputs (your time, knowledge, resources, goods, whatever), you add some value to it by improving or rearranging the inputs, and you sell them for more than it cost you to get them. Profit.'

'Lai has been an unrelenting advocate of democracy and high-profile critic of the People's Republic of China government. Moved by the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, Lai distributed Giordano T-shirts with portraits of student leaders and began publishing Next Magazine, which combined tabloid sensationalism with hard-hitting political and business reporting. In addition to promoting democracy, Lai's publication often ruffle feathers of fellow Hong Kong tycoons by exposing their personal foibles and relations with local government. Lai has frequently faced hostility from the many Beijing-backed tycoons, including attempts to force supplier boycotts of his companies and a lengthy battle to list on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange that he sidestepped through a backdoor listing. Lai: "If you have fewer friends, you have more readers." Among Lai's heroes are Friedrich Hayek, John James Cowperthwaite and Milton Friedman, bronze busts of each stand in the entrance hall to Next Media.'

'10. Are you done personally growing, or is this project going to force you to change and develop yourself?'

'#1. Learn how to sell. #2. Deconstruct any business you see. #3. Get experience in an industry or area that you love (so much so that it doesn't seem like work). #4. Look for gaps, errors, and failures. #5. Start something. #6. Learn from your own failures. Do after action analysis. Be ruthless in this. Your failures will be numerous so don't expect otherwise. #7. Hire slowly and with extreme care. Ethics over ambition. Commitment over greed. #8. Invest everything you make into more entrepreneurial opportunities that you control or can touch (or into systems that make you more independent by reducing living costs). #9. Cooperate with others to eliminate barriers. Some objectives are too big for a single person or partnership to tackle. Joining or creating open source networks that break down barriers may help.' -- Comment: Nigel Massen: "Secure your supply chain."

'If you want to start a business, the best $20 you’ll ever spend is to find successful entrepreneurs and take them out to lunch. Spend 90% of the time talking about them: #Ask them how they did it. #Ask them what mistakes they made along the way. #In the final few minutes, you can ask about your idea. Is it crazy? What should you be thinking about? Yes, advice is cheap: Most people love talking about themselves. But entrepreneurs have a curious fascination with helping other entrepreneurs succeed. People want to help you. All it takes is you reaching out.'

'[Arbitrageurs] collect the “spread” until other entrants show up. Arbitrage by definition is low risk and typically a return slightly higher than the risk. Buffett succinctly says: “The key to investing is … determining the competitive advantage of any given company and the durability of that advantage.” -- Both Microsoft and HP would have failed Buffett’s durable competitive advantage test in their early days. To scale, both jumped from one niche to the next without much planning or analysis. Any one wrong jump would have done them in. -- Durable competitive advantage is usually the result of unpredictable and rare random events... They happen to a very small minority. Because entrepreneurs are arbitrageurs, they constantly watch companies with durable advantages. They then try to find a way to carve off a piece of that advantage for themselves. Durable competitive advantage is an anomaly and quite rare.'

'It still blows me away that David’s talk at Startup School 2008 was met with such enthusiasm (I know David was surprised too). The talk was simple. Come up with a product, charge money for it, make more money than it costs to run it, and you turn a profit! This is the formula that’s been in place since business began. Yet in front of a group of new tech entrepreneurs it seemed like a revelation, a brand new story never told before. David said people were coming up to him in droves after the speech thanking him for opening their eyes. Who closed them?' -- CAN HAZ MUNETIZASHUN L8R PLOX?

Jason Calacanis: 'Trust and “curation” are the future. Lots of things in 1.0 and 2.0 are built on a very bad foundation of anonymity, marketers, and shady people. The way to go is taking existing ideas and adding trust and curation to them. Digg is a great system, but the anonymity provides opportunity for improvement. There is no wisdom in crowds. There may be trends or patterns in crowds, but not wisdom… “Wisdom in crowds” was made-up by someone in Silicon Valley to get suckers to work for free. Wisdom of the crowds does not exist.'

'...invent an idea, find content, find publisher, manage the process. The skills you bring to the table are vision, taste and a knack for seeing what's missing. #1. It's much easier to sell to an industry that's used to buying. #2. Earning the trust of the industry is critical. #3. Developing expertise or assets that are not easily copied is essential, otherwise you're just a middleman. #4. Patience in earning the confidence of your suppliers pays off. #5. Don't overlook obvious connections. #6. Get it in writing. Before you package up an idea for sale to a company that can bring it to market, make sure that all the parties you're representing acknowledge your role on paper. #7. As the agent of change, you deserve the lion's share of the revenue, because you're doing most of the work and taking all of the risk. #8. Stick with it. There's a Dip and it's huge. It might take years before the industry starts to rely on you. #9. Work your way up.'

"The way to make money is to make something people need (not necessarily what they want)."

"#1: Be Narrow. Focus on the smallest possible problem you could solve that would potentially be useful. Most companies start out trying to do too many things, which makes life difficult and turns you into a me-too. Focusing on a small niche has so many advantages: With much less work, you can be the best at what you do. Small things, like a microscopic world, almost always turn out to be bigger than you think when you zoom in. You can much more easily position and market yourself when more focused. And when it comes to partnering, or being acquired, there's less chance for conflict. This is all so logical and, yet, there's a resistance to focusing. I think it comes from a fear of being trivial. Just remember: If you get to be #1 in your category, but your category is too small, then you can broaden your scope—and you can do so with leverage. #6: Be Self-Centered. Great products almost always come from someone scratching their own itch. Create something you want to exist in the world."

Solid advice.

'Paul Graham, founder of YCombinator, speaks at Startup School 08 about how to create a successful startup' -- "Being good works." -- "Look for stuff that's broken."

"Domain knowledge is important, but it's easily learnable. Process, on the other hand, refers to the emotional intelligence skills you have about managing projects, visualizing success, persuading other people of your point of view, dealing with multiple priorities, etc. This stuff is insanely valuable and hard to learn. Unfortunately, it's usually overlooked by headhunters and HR folks, partly because it's hard to accredit or check off in a database. Venture capitalists like hiring second or third time entrepreneurs because they understand process, not because they can do a spreadsheet. As the world changes ever faster, as industries shrink and others grow, process ability is priceless. Figure out which sort of process you're world-class at and get even better at it. Then, learn the domain... that's what the internet is for. One of the reasons that super-talented people become entrepreneurs is that they can put their process expertise to work in a world that often undervalues it."

'Scientists observed entrepreneurs running high-technology companies around Cambridge and found that they exhibit more "highly adaptive risk-taking behaviour" than their more cautious corporate brethren and that this can result in far more positive results during stressful business situations. It also suggested that as risk-taking and quick decision-making were linked to the neurotransmitter dopamine, there is a possibility that drugs could be developed that the naturally risk-adverse could take.' -- A drug called Risk.

"Today, it's hugely powerful to apply hacker principles not to bits, but to industries, markets, and companies - because putting resources and activities together is cheap and getting cheaper."

"... being good seems to help startups in three ways: it improves their morale, it makes other people want to help them, and above all, it helps them be decisive.... I'm suggesting [being good] because it works."

'.. every single person I have ever met or corresponded with about leaving the work-for-hire world and trying to create something of their own, something that they really care about, says exactly the same thing: “I should have done this sooner.”'

"We in the technology world are used to that sort of solution: you don't beat the incumbents; you redefine the problem to make them irrelevant."

"A group of 10 people within a large organization is a kind of fake tribe. The number of people you interact with is about right. But something is missing: individual initiative." -- "In an artificial world, only extremists live naturally."

"Ad nets, social nets, and minigames won't change the DNA of the economic system. Radical new approaches to consumption and production across the industries that are broken will."

"Jason McCabe Calacanis is a internet entrepreneur and blogger. His second venture [Weblogs, Inc.] capitalized on the growth of blogs before being sold to AOL in October 2005 for a reported to be about $25 million."

"UnLtd is a charity which supports social entrepreneurs - people with vision, drive, commitment and passion who want to change the world for the better. We [provide] a complete package of funding and support,to help make ideas a reality."

"Here's my point: The best product ideas are often found in the "bad ideas" category!"

"Japanese firms [do] best in manufacturing industries with closed product designs that do not require collaboration with the rest of the industry, and worst in fields based on open standards and modular architectures."

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook: “I don’t really like putting a price-tag on the stuff I do. That’s just, like, not the point.”

"What students do in their classes will change too. Instead of trying to get good grades to impress future employers, students will try to learn things. We're talking about some pretty dramatic changes here."

"Invest wisely. End poverty. At MicroPlace, you can make investments that reach millions of hard-working poor people worldwide." Hmm... I can easily be jokey cynical about this, but good idea and very dignified.

"Optimize at all times for being in the most dynamic and exciting pond you can find. That is where the great opportunities can be found."

"I am a new kind of physician. I strictly make house calls either at your home or work. Once you become my patient and I've personally met you, we can also e-visit by video chat, IM, and email for certain problems and follow-ups."

'Brooklyn Doctor Opens IM Practice: "They're young and wired. Once you figure out an issue, you can follow up with e-mail, IM and video chat. The vast majority of these people don't need repeated physical exams."

"... once a week we'd meet for four hours and brainstorm business plans... A year later, we had compiled more than 500 great ideas... Successful people have this in common. It's not the giant breakthroughs, it's the willingness to take little chances."

"... you need to get yourself in a situation with two things, measurement and leverage. You need to be in a position where your performance can be measured... And you have to have leverage, in the sense that the decisions you make have a big effect."

They are. No doubt about it.

"If you redefined the objective to be, "makes some people uncomfortable, changes the entire competitive landscape and is truly remarkable in that many of the key people we reach feel compelled to talk about it," what would happen?..." Fun!

Proof that the best brands just don't need us.

"Anomaly is not driven to make ads, it is driven to solve business problems. And who is the best person that can solve a business problem? The answer is everyone and anyone."

"Agencies have no incentive to produce amazing results, so they'll extend the project as long as possible because it's all billable hours. But Anomaly has an incentive to do great work. They have the same skin in the game that we do."

"Anomaly, a two-year-old startup, brought a pitch that sounded more like a takeover bid" -- "Here's a look at what separates Anomaly from the rest of the pack. #1. Creative compensation #2. Product design #3. Mobile marketing platform"

"There’s a good reason [Anomaly] is on everyone’s lips..Think about it: in 2006, Anomaly clocked revenues around $15 million. So… they get bigger (double the dollars of intake) and then make cents off of 80% of their business? We gotta get in there"

"Rather than work on a commission basis for creating ads, the agency will just as often eschew commercials and create concepts such as a brand name, licensing a product or designing packaging, and look to take royalties."

"We've declined 40 pitches, and we're getting a stream of entrepreneurial ideas most of which we are turning down...This gives us more partners to say 'do you fancy this? Do we fancy this?'"

"Simon Cowell has his own businesses-within-a-business, Syco TV and Syco Music, housed within Sony BMG. "He's brilliant and his ventures probably bring in 30-40% of Sony BMG’s revenues," "His company has 9 people."

"all of the really good people seem to have their own game going on. They’ve either started their own small companies, or they’re freelancing and living the life that they want, on their terms."

Yet more Steven Jobs pron.

"How new technologies, a proliferation of resources, and a disenchantment with the corporate world are making Generation Y the most entrepreneurial in history."

George Bernard Shaw: "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man."

"There is no one future waiting to happen," Gary Hamel once opined, "the future is something you create, not something that happens to you."

"5 problems with strategic planning: #assumes that industry boundaries are given #assumes all firms behave rationally #assumes predictability #does not believe in giving away value early #does not value sustainability and social responsibility"

Crazy guy getting things done. I want to be him.

"Ideas prosper when they’re built for real-world people, who need those applications (i.e. YOU) — instead of those built on pure speculation (i.e. target market “Jane”)."

"The wild risks, unexpected niches, and day-in-day-out grind behind making a dollar in New York for everyone... from a drug dealer to Goldman Sachs."

"often out of fear that someone will steal their idea, many entrepreneurs don’t actually go out validate it. The most effective method is to talk to as many experts and potential customers as you can... integrate their ideas with your own"

"Finding that one “great idea” will make you lose attention to what you should be really doing: seeing the company as the ultimate invention."

"kick-ass businesses define themselves by something that will never become obsolete."

Just business as usual.

KNOWLEDGE + EXPERIENCE = SHIT! --- “I must abandon everything I have ever thought ... and start from scratch.”

Note to self

"What I Learned: 1. Make no assumptions when it comes to roles and responsibilities. Like my dad says: “Someone’s gotta call quittin’ time 6. Don’t stay where you’re not wanted, respected, or happy. Even if it’s your company.”

Same old same old: '2. Focus on the Numbers: "Don't get sucked into storytelling," says Boon. "You will see very interesting things, but ultimately you will have to make rational choices based on the numbers."'

"Wannabe borrowers give Prosper permission to verify their identity and allow the company to access their financial data as collected by Experian, one of the three big credit-scoring agencies."

"The nontrepreneur learns from the great thinkers and trusts the insights of others. -- The nontrepreneur is critical of the common mode of thought. -- The nontrepreneur changes the world a dozen ways at a time; a business is just one."

"... web 2.0 ... [is] really about data and who owns and controls, or gives the best access to, a class of data. I think it's about the data that's created by those mechanisms, and the businesses that that data will make possible."

"Big companies understand the importance of brands. Today, in the Age of the Individual, you have to be your own brand. Here's what it takes to be the CEO of Me Inc."

Interesting if a little patchy commentary on the economics and politics of personal data.

"You have to love what you do. Without passion, great success is hard to come by. An entrepreneur will have tough times if he or she isn’t passionate about what they’re doing. People who love what they’re doing don’t give up.

"At the heart of the decade's buzzing art scene were two young galleries run by dealers Kasmin and Robert Fraser."

Interesting/shocking analysis of the Second Life economy

Make something people want.

This guy is good!

Some solid business tips for freelancers and startups