Poking through 11+ years of posts I find information that’s as useful now as when it was written.

Golden Oldies is a collection of the most relevant and timeless posts during that time.

Knowing, understanding and accepting yourself is critical to major decisions, such as choosing a spouse/life partner/job. Ignoring or distorting any of the first three practically guarantees blowing the last three. As does ignoring or distorting the info gathered from your due diligence on the last three.

Read other Golden Oldies here.

There’s a very stupid myth that only the very talented are hired by startups and that the very talented only want to work for startups.

The corollary being that those who work for public companies, let alone large ones, probably aren’t all that talented and certainly not innovative/creative.

What a crock.

Another part of that myth is that working for a startup is the road to riches.

An even bigger crock.

The myth also says that the best place to work is a unicorn, such as or AirBnB, GitHub or Palantir,

And that is the biggest crock of all.

If you are looking for new opportunities and are dazzled by the idea of working at a unicorn I strongly suggest you read Scott Belsky’s post on Medium.

A company’s fate is ultimately determined by its people, so talent is everything. But this old adage bumps up against another one: cash is king (or runway is king, for a fast-growing private company). Without runway, talent takes off. So, it is no surprise that bold moves to extend runway (think late-stage financings at technically large valuations with some tricky liquidation preferences underneath) are done even if they could hurt the company (and its people) in the long run. This is especially true when these financings are ego-driven rather than strategic. The problem is, the employees at these companies don’t understand the implications.

But whether startup or Unicorn, this anonymous post on GitHub is a must read.

This is a short write-up on things that I wish I’d known and considered before joining a private company (aka startup, aka unicorn in some cases). I’m not trying to make the case that you should never join a private company, but the power imbalance between founder and employee is extreme, and that potential candidates would do well to consider alternatives.

The right place for you to work is the one that satisfies what you want — whether that’s the opportunity to work on bleeding edge technology, build a network, upgrade your resume or even plain, old curiosity.

The wrong place is the one you join with an eye to getting rich quick or for bragging rights.

Or because somebody says you “should.”

Image credit: Mike Mozart

Have you ever mentored someone in life? How about the reverse where you sought out a mentor? Chances are you have.

Most of us are greater than the sum of our parts and it’s because we have had people in our lives invest in us in one way or another.

We got the chance we didn’t deserve, the role we didn’t qualify for or the lucky break. How did we get to where we are?

Hard work of course, but also a network.

I read an article yesterday that spoke about how college GPA was not as important as the network you build while in school. That network has a greater influence than the A you could make in math class.

I guess I should count myself lucky as I was never going to be a Rhodes Scholar, but I did know how to build a network of folks from different walks of life that I still reach out to years later.

What does this have to do with mentoring? For one thing mentoring is about understanding where someone is and where they want to go.

From there you can offer input on how to achieve that end state. A lot of times in life we have an impact on our network in big and small ways and it’s important to keep that in mind.

Since graduating college 5 years ago I have participated in a mentoring program where I, as an alumni, mentor current business students.

It has been great. I learn what drives an individual and I have a chance to make an impact.

However, I have found that I am the one to benefit from the relationship.

It keeps me grounded, reminds me of where I came from and focuses my gaze on my future.

Mentoring is key to moving forward in life, while also taking someone with you.

Next time you’re in a position to give someone a shot why not say yes?

You might be surprised.

Image credit: Ron Mader

There’s a very stupid myth that only the very talented are hired by startups and that the very talented only want to work for startups.

The corollary being that those who work for public companies, let alone large ones, probably aren’t all that talented and certainly not innovative/creative.

What a crock.

Another part of that myth is that working for a startup is the road to riches.

An even bigger crock.

The myth also says that the best place to work is a unicorn, such as or AirBnB, GitHub or Palantir,

And that is the biggest crock of all.

If you are looking for new opportunities and are dazzled by the idea of working at a unicorn I strongly suggest you read Scott Belsky’s post on Medium.

A company’s fate is ultimately determined by its people, so talent is everything. But this old adage bumps up against another one: cash is king (or runway is king, for a fast-growing private company). Without runway, talent takes off. So, it is no surprise that bold moves to extend runway (think late-stage financings at technically large valuations with some tricky liquidation preferences underneath) are done even if they could hurt the company (and its people) in the long run. This is especially true when these financings are ego-driven rather than strategic. The problem is, the employees at these companies don’t understand the implications.

But whether startup or Unicorn, this anonymous post on GitHub is a must read.

This is a short write-up on things that I wish I’d known and considered before joining a private company (aka startup, aka unicorn in some cases). I’m not trying to make the case that you should never join a private company, but the power imbalance between founder and employee is extreme, and that potential candidates would do well to consider alternatives.

The right place for you to work is the one that satisfies what you want — whether that’s the opportunity to work on bleeding edge technology, build a network, upgrade your resume or even plain, old curiosity.

The wrong place is the one you join with an eye to getting rich quick or for bragging rights.

Image credit: Mike Mozart

For centuries the most important information upon meeting someone new was where were they from and who was their family.

Once that was known the involved parties would be able to figure out how they were connected; crucial information in order to do business or move forward with any kind of relationship.

Then World War II and the post war automobile culture changed our social structure forever.

Strangers met, formed businesses, fell in love and married — all without the introductions and recommendations of family, friends or other associates.

Fifty-plus years later we have reverted to our previous attitudes regarding introductions — now based on professional/personal networks, social media and the crowd-sourced opinions of strangers.

After attending a fintech conference (see his upcoming post Thursday) Ajo Fod, founder of Alpha Sangha, left a comment on KG Charles-Harris’s post regarding the help that entrepreneurs really need.

The most effective resource at this point in my start-up is introductions to the right people. Meeting them directly doesn’t seem to have the same effect as an introduction.

Entrepreneur of not, what can you do to offset a lack of introductions?

Here is what I told Ajo.

You are right in your analysis that the best connections are the result of introductions and this seems especially true when it comes to investors.

Partly it is a function of trust, i.e., I trust you because I trust the person who introduced us, which is ridiculous as I wrote in Who Do You Trust? in 2008 and KG touched on a couple of years ago in If the Shoe Fits: Facing Reality.

Beyond repeating what you already know, such as working your network, finding connections, etc., I suggest that you put part of your focus on developing your peer-and-below network, not just those who can directly help, by reaching out and helping them. One way to accomplish this is by responding on forums like Quora.

Use your expertise to build your visibility, so that even with no intro you will be a more known quantity when they google you.

Not great, but you have to start somewhere.

Image credit: George Tims

This week I attended AO OnDemand 2014—a good conference for understanding how the enterprise SaaS ecosystem and its up-and-coming young companies are developing.  The conference also details market changes that are happening around mergers and acquisitions and the strategic moves that large enterprise software players are making to position themselves.

As usual there was an interesting group of people there, everything from startup executives to representatives from EMC, SAP, Oracle and others, which made for good networking with a variety of people from interesting companies.

What I’d like to highlight today is BeyondCore, a very interesting data analytics company I’ve been following on the Internet for more than a year.  Since I’m in the big data analytics market myself, I spend a lot of time getting to know the environment and make it a point to follow the most interesting new companies. 

I had the pleasure of meeting the newly hired VP Marketing Sandra Peterson and their CEO Arijit Sengupta.  They’ve created a brilliant piece of software that truly solves some of the problems in the data analytics world—especially when directed at the business user.  Not only does it automatically look for what’s interesting in the data and present it to you, but it also provides you with an automated analysis to help you better understand the relevant points in the data. 

These are exactly the types of functionality that Sandra highlighted when I asked her why she joined the company.  She had only come on board three days prior, so of course it was interesting to understand why an experienced senior marketing executive would join a young company (other than the options package and pay, of course…).

What she brought up was the unique combination of personal characteristics of Arijit, the founder.  His tenacity as a technology visionary to struggle with the problems of building a company against all odds and his infectious communication of the advantages in the product he’d created in a way that average people could understand were clear attractions for her beyond the technology itself.  I certainly saw both when he briefly demoed the product for me.

BeyondCore has an impressive product with a good team; I wish them good fortune and will continue to follow their development and successes.

Yesterday was the first day of the SIIA Maximize Conference (Software and Internet Industry Association) and it was fantastic, in spite of starting with an apparent mistake.   Mine, not theirs…

I thought I had registered for Software Pricing’s 4-hour seminar with Jim Geisman, an expert in how to price software products, both SaaS, on-premise, embedded and other models.  Apparently I hadn’t, since I wasn’t on the list, but In spite of that I was allowed to participate.

The session was intimate and excellent and Jim provided a lot of deep information and practical advice for how to think around the price-setting challenge.   The audience was comprised of CEOs, CFOs, VPs of Marketing and Sales from large companies and startups alike.  It was exceedingly interesting to see how pricing is a problem across several different sizes of companies and industry segments.

There is no question that Jim and his partner Chris Mele are the most knowledgeable people with regards to software pricing I’ve come across after more than two decades building software companies.  The importance of pricing optimally—setting the price in a way that entices the highest number of customers without leaving money on the table—is a discipline that I’ll definitely pay more attention to in the future and I’m sure to use Jim’s services to ensure we don’t make any mistakes in this important area as we go to market.

SIIA’s Rhianna Collier and her team from the software division put together tremendous networking opportunities with both arranged meetings and speed dating sessions.  It was some of the best networking I’ve experienced, yielding several additional companies to round out a set of initial test users for the system we’re launching in September.  This is very exciting, as finding initial customers is one of the most challenging parts of releasing an enterprise product. 

When selling to organizations, the challenge is to have managers and executives allocate their and their teams’ time and resources to iron out the wrinkles in a new product.  This is not a trivial challenge for a startup. 

The networking was valuable not only for me, but also for people from companies such as HP, InformationBuilders and SAP, with whom I spoke.

I’ll end with a story that proves once again just how small the world really is.  As I was standing in the first part of the arranged networking I started speaking to Shannon Murray from Totango who was surprised when I knew of the company.  It’s a small series B company that just raised 15.5m and are in an interesting space called Customer Success software. 

I explained that I followed their blog, as probably thousands of others do.  The blog is written by Ellis Luk who, together with their CEO Guy Nirpaz, has created a company blog that is helpful and instructive by enabling their customers to speak about their problems and how they are dealing with the challenges around enabling their customers.  This is crucial for a SaaS business to get right as renewals are completely dependent on this.

The first day was very good and I’m looking forward to the following two.

Have you noticed that many of the hot startups from young founders are relatively shallow—focused on sharing pictures and facilitating casual hookups.

Facebook was originally a way for college students to connect with each other campus by campus and Twitter was more a digital gossip line than a vehicle for the likes of Arab Spring.

There’s a simple reason for that—people tend to create solutions for the problems they find in their own lives.

It’s not so much how old you are but your experiences and how you see the world that makes for great entrepreneurs—but more are older than younger.

“The average age of a successful entrepreneur in high-growth industries such as computers, health care, and aerospace is 40. Twice as many successful entrepreneurs are over 50 as under 25. The vast majority — 75 percent — have more than six years of industry experience and half have more than 10 years when they create their startup,” says Duke University scholar Vivek Wadhwa, who studied 549 successful technology ventures. Meanwhile, data from the Kauffman Foundation indicates the highest rate of entrepreneurship in America has shifted to the 55-64 age group, with people over 55 almost twice as likely to found successful companies than those between 20 and 34.

These are the people who often tackle enterprise and healthcare challenges, because they have been stymied with them in their own work.

Additionally, the larger the worldview the greater the level of empathy leading to substantially more compassion and a stronger desire to “fix it.”

A good example of this is found in Project Daniel.

Project Daniel started in 2012, when Mick Ebeling read a story in Time magazine about Daniel Omar, a then 14-year-old Sudanese boy who lost both his hands from a bomb. It inspired Ebeling to assemble a team capable of creating a low-cost, 3D-printed prosthetic on consumer-grade 3D printers.

Ebeling is the founder of Not Impossible, a company dedicated to “technology for the sake of humanity” which also developed the Eyewriter.

Now you, too, can volunteer with a team, expand your worldview and help change lives, as well as expand your network and have great bragging rights.

YouTube credit: Not Impossible Labs

Hey entrepreneurs, you heard it here from a founder a year before another founder said it in Fast Company.

“It” is the time you waste at so many of the events dedicated to startups and the personalities that populate the entrepreneurial ecosystem.

Networking is presented as the great equalizer; providing situations that are supposed to bridge the chasm faced by new founders and those with well-connected Rolodexes.

But believing that is in the same league as believing in Santa Clause, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy or the Silicon Valley Meritocracy.

There is no way to minimize the intensity and energy—mental, physical and psychical—involved in founding and building a company; the most likely result of adding networking to the schedule is faster burnout and more damage to your other relationships.

One of the most important skills a founder (or anyone) needs is the ability to prioritize.

To that end, skip the networking and at least 70% of the time you spend on social media and spend it on high ROI actions, including time with family and friends.

You’ll be glad you did.

Flickr image credit: David Orban

I’ve always understood that fundraising is a grueling experience, but even though I’ve done it several times, it is like childbirth—one forgets the pain shortly after and does it again…

The difficulty lies within a few areas for those of us who weren’t fortunate enough to join Google or Facebook when they were less than 50 employees resulting in a strong network of people with lots of cash that are happy to invest in their friends and acquaintances.

When raising Seed funding or Series A financing the right contact network is alpha and omega.  But how can we develop one without having been in the aforementioned or similar environments?

First, even though it is intimidating, seek to develop a contact network that has the above characteristics.  This is not a trivial exercise for most people.  Wealthy people are not the norm in most social circles and how to find them and get them to meet with us face-to-face often seems like a mystery, but networking your way to solving that mystery is a must.

Then the challenge is to gain their trust.  What does this mean?  Well, you have to be able to communicate a vision of a technology and market that they likely know very little about in such a way they believe not only that it’s a good market, but also that you are able to create something to that will successfully enter it.

Gaining trust involves a variety of skills such as learning the language of the group you want to communicate with, understanding presentation formats, being able to take criticism and return (after having been rejected) with something better.  Showing resilience is always valued, although no one likes to be unduly bothered.

Once having gained their trust, meaning that you have promulgated a credible message around what you are doing and shown that you have the skills to achieve the vision, it will still be a challenge to get them to part with their money.

At this time they will be listening to you and interacting seriously, but actively seeking a reason to NOT invest.  It is always easier for an investor to avoid investing than making an investment – there are a lot of potential investments and knowledge that only very few will be successful.  As a consequence, it’s almost always easier to not invest.

This avoidance is aggravated by the fact that if you are outside of the investor’s circle of acquaintances, there is a lower level of personal affiliation and higher perceived risk.

In short, what you are attempting to accomplish as an entrepreneur in this phase of your venture is extremely difficult and most fail.

So, in fact, this is the first real test of your innovativeness, tenacity and mettle.

Ultimately, if you are innovative and have tenacity and mettle, you will succeed.

As in sales or dating, it’s a numbers game.  With time you will find the right investor and with that a completely new set of challenges.

Good luck!

KG Charles-Harris is CEO of Emanio and a special contributor to MAPping Company Success.

You’ve all met them (or maybe you are one of them); the person who tracks the room when talking with you instantly dropping the conversation if there’s nothing in it for them.

That attitude instantly classifies them as takers, where as those who bend over backwards to provide assistance are givers.

And in most people’s minds, the takers win and the givers lose

Simple and obvious, but neither as simple nor obvious as you might think according to new research by Wharton management professor Adam Grant.

Oftentimes givers put themselves at risk in the short run. But in the long run, they end up building the kind of social capital that’s really important for success in a very connected world.

I’m not going to summarize the interview, because it’s worth reading and watching—if for no other reason  than to learn about a third category called ‘matchers’, as well as how to be a smart giver.

I will suggest that you take time to take the test to learn which you really are, giver, taker or matcher, along with how others see you. (It’s free, but requires registration.)

Video credit: Knowledge@Wharton