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How to escape from the corporate world into startu->

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KDan
KDan writes "Today, right now, what is the best path out of the corporate world and into startups? What would I advise myself to do, 5 years ago, if 5 years ago was today? Running your own business is an entirely different proposition than working for someone else. There are lots of things you need to learn, hangups you need to get over, habits you need to form, in order to have a chance at being successful. This is the "startup escape path"."
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Books

Take notes to supercharge your learning->

Submitted by
KDan
KDan writes "I've written before that you should take notes while reading advice articles. The more I've practiced this, the more I've come to believe that this is an essential learning tool (and one that I haven't been using properly for many years). The difference in learning between taking notes and not taking them feels, intuitively, like it's at least tenfold, maybe a hundredfold. If you don't take notes while reading a non-fiction, "teaching" book, you might as well not have bothered reading it."
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The Internet

Remembering John Postel->

Submitted by
KDan
KDan writes "John Postel made significant contributions many of the key protocols and RFCs that power the internet (IP, TCP, etc). Of particular relevance today was his stance against US government control of the top-level domains: John Postel transfered the DNS root authority to non-governmental servers, but was overruled by Ira Magaziner, Clinton's science adviser, and forced to reverse the change.

In the current circumstances, this blog post is particularly relevant."
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Facebook

What will kill Facebook?-> 1

Submitted by KDan
KDan writes "This question pops up regularly on Hacker News. What will kill Facebook? Before that, it was "What will kill Google?" Before that, on Slashdot, it would have been "What will kill Microsoft?" Often, the question is asked with a combination of rage and envy. The questioner doesn't like Facebook, they want it dead, and they wouldn't mind if they were the one who came up with something that killed it. Aren't entrepreneurs charming? However, the question is fundamentally flawed. It's the wrong question. It leads nowhere. The only company that can kill Facebook is Facebook. Here's why."
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How to nap - Power napping without sleeping->

Submitted by KDan
KDan writes "I am the kind of person who takes 30 minutes to an hour to fall asleep, most nights. Falling asleep is an ordeal for me (unless I’m completely exhausted). Don’t get me wrong – it’s not an unpleasant ordeal there are worse things in life than lying in bed. But I truly envy those people who can just put their head on a pillow and drift off within moments. Oh, such bliss not for me. I will lie in bed, awake, forever thinking and rethinking whatever happens to be on my mind at the time.

Because of this, I always thought that power napping was not for me. After all, power naps are supposed to last about 20 minutes, and you don’t need to be a maths genius to realise that if it takes you at least half an hour to fall asleep, 20 minutes won’t be enough. So, therefore, I thought, since I can’t fall asleep quickly, I can’t nap.

Fortunately for me, I was completely wrong about this."
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Google

What problems does Google Wave solve?->

Submitted by KDan
KDan writes "There are countless pundits and other tech gurus describing Google Wave as a disappointment, lately. Most of that seems to come from the fact that nobody seems to get what Wave is for. So they compare it to social media.

Is Wave the next Twitter? Nope. Is it the next Facebook? Nope. Is it going to replace Instant Messengers? Possibly, in some circumstances, but not any time soon.

I believe this is partly Google’s fault: they released Wave to geeks and hackers and social media folks first. But Wave is not a geek/hacker tool, or a social media tool, it’s a corporate tool that solves work problems (more on that later). On the other hand, they never claimed it would be a Facebook replacement or a Twitter killer. Google calls wave an “online tool for real-time communication and collaboration”. The way Google should have advertised Wave is: “it solves the problems with email”."
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The Internet

How to make your application viral->

Submitted by
KDan
KDan writes "Everyone wants their application to "spread virally". And why shouldn't they? Viral growth resolves at least part of the expensive and complicated headache of actually marketing your application, by getting the application to grow all by itself. So, then, the question that forms on the lips of any entrepreneur is: "How can I make my application viral?" This guide provides some answers to that elusive question."
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Businesses

Starting up with a friend->

Submitted by
KDan
KDan writes "What could possibly go wrong? It seems like a fool-proof plan: start up with a close friend. You'll get along (obviously), and you'll get to share the exciting, fantastic, scary experience of starting up with someone you care about. It's not a bad idea, but there are a few caveats that you should be aware of before you proceed. When I started my first company with one of my closest friends, I expected things would go very well between us. We understood each other in ways that would take years to build up (and did take 10 years). We knew each other, and we knew we could rely on each other. We were prepared to have many surprises along the way — starting a business is always going to be a scary adventure.

What we weren't prepared for was that the main problem would come from us and the dynamic between us."
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Businesses

Beyond hot desk communism->

Submitted by
KDan
KDan writes "From the article: "What would you say if I told you that from tomorrow onwards, your desk area will be reduced by half? One of the most obvious costs for any businesses is the money it pays to rent space. The traditional way of decreasing this cost has been to decrease personal space, first from individual offices to cubicles, then from cubicles to smaller cubicles, open plan offices, and then finally open plan offices with tiny desks. It doesn't have to be this way. At my workplace, we've experimented with some much better ways to organise our working spaces." This article presents an interesting alternative to hot desking and open plan offices."
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A couple more shots of whiskey, women 'round here start looking good. [something about a 10 being a 4 after a six-pack? Ed.]