Category: Uncategorized

  • Ignore Startup Competition. Mostly*.

    Paul Graham’s latest essay contained a very interesting interesting piece of advice in the footnote: We currently advise startups mostly to ignore competitors. We tell them startups are competitive like running, not like soccer; you don’t have to go and steal the ball away from the other team.  Graham is spot on with the advice…

  • I love Foursquare

    I love Foursquare. This is a note about my history with the platform, how I use the platform and how I don’t use the platform. Hopefully, this will help Foursquare non-users and skeptics understand how powerful & valuable the platform can be for an active user. My Foursquare story I’ve been an avid user of…

  • PRISM: The US Government, Private User Data and Tech Companies

    The government wants wants the private data of US citizens — absolutely all of it. Just a day ago, we learned that the NSA is collecting our phone records from Verizon, including “session identifying information”. This includes the originating and terminating number, duration of each call and a lot more specific metadata. It appeared, however,…

  • Lobster, Seamless, Amazon and a Hot Summer Night

    It’s 90 degrees and humid in NYC today. Do you know what this time of year & weather calls for in the Northeast? Lobster rolls! I’m going to find some tasty lobster meat and put together some delicious rolls. The Process: Step 1 –> A quick scan of Yelp shows me there’s only one legit…

  • Hello iPad POS!

    With new product launches in the past week by Square, Groupon and PayPal, the market for small business (SMB) point-of-sale (POS) solutions is hot, hot, hot. It is either taking off or getting very crowded, depending on your perspective. The new entrants are competing with a host of others in the SMB POS market such as…

  • Startups & the New York Spring

    The New York Spring is off to a brisk but beautiful start. With the cafes starting to spill onto the sidewalks, the streets lively with natives & tourists and color returning to the parks, the city is operating at its finest. New York’s urban landscape in the Spring becomes a brilliant backdrop for doing business.…