Paradigm Shifts: It's Not How Many Ideas You Have

When I started Goodmail, the Accenture consulting group used to run print ads boasting an insightful slogan:

"It's not how many ideas you have. It's how many you make happen."

And that’s indeed the difficult part, making it happen.

Five years into the venture that uprooted me and my family, from the land of milk and honey to the land of unbounded possibilities, it is time to pause, take a step back, and reflect on the journey so far.

So here are some of the topics I might cover in subsequent blog entries:

• Hiring: surround yourself with a team of losers and nothing will ever get done. Get the kind of people Joel Spolsky hires and there will be no mountain high enough.

• Venture Capitalists: a few geniuses, some talented guys, and so many worthless idiots. Masterminds can be found not only amongst the firms who invested in Goodmail (the best advice I ever got came from a VC who passed on the opportunity), but, taken as a whole, an unimpressive herd.

• Marketing: those standing to benefit the most from your product are not necessarily going to be your first customers. Required reading: Crossing the Chasm.

• Upton’s theorem: it is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.