There is a really good book out there on one person startups called the $100 startup by Chris Guillebeau - it gives loads of examples of startups around the world, which were started by one person (http://amzn.to/1Kb63VH)
I would say it kind of depends on where you live. While this would be totally o.k. in the U.S. and pretty much no problem at all in the Silicon Valley, it would look fairly bad to a European employer.
You should check out the Growth Hacking class at onemonth.com - I have taken the class and totally love it. It walks you through a full product launch from building a landing page, writing perfect copy to selling. Lots of great advice in there but it does cost $49 per month (and one month is honestly all you need).
Also check out this startup community: https://startups.blnkk.com
Lots of fellow founders sharing new products and getting feedback from the community.
After these awesome videos, you now know how to start a startup. Next up: grow the startup.
There is lots of good reading on growth (like this post by Paul Graham from 2012, which is still super valid: http://www.paulgraham.com/growth.html).
But since you are looking for videos, you should check out the free video on Growth Hacking by Mattan Griffel on onemonth (also a Y-Combinator company - http://mbsy.co/cs72Z).
This is terrible for anyone who relies on Flash to get any kind of interactivity going inside the FB timeline.
It would have been better if FF would just display a warning and then let the user decide if they want the Flash content blocked or displayed.
Obviously it would be even better yet if FB would finally allow interactive HTML 5 content in its timeline.
I had to do this many times and the advice from steven2012 is gold. Do it personally, do it with dignity. It is important for those who stay as most likely you will be laying off some of their friends. Do everything you can to allow those who need to go to save their face.
I believe any question that relates to your life outside work such as your marital status, your kids or how your relationship would endure a startup job can get you in trouble in the U.S. - but I am not a U.S. HR pro. However, I learned that it is safest to just focus on job related things in the U.S., while in Germany people will put things like their picture, marital status, religious affiliation, age, etc. on their resume - all of which will send a U.S. HR manager into shock :)
I am not sure I understand the reason for doing this? Why not set a calendar reminder, which then pops up at the desired time?
I find mail more and more useless as all the important stuff gets overrun by spam.
Someone figuring out how many customers a bakery needs to survive and then guessing the number of people who live in New York and deducting the number of bakeries from that. Not bad :)
Yes, I had it happen that people are great on paper and in the interview and did not work out. In each case it was a sales hire.
The people in question were excellent sales reps. They knew how to sell themselves as well. However, one of the reasons I hired them for (a big and super relevant rolodex of C-Level contacts in our industry) turned out to be the main reason they totally failed.
These guys valued their contacts overall. They would never hard sell any of their contact if they had even the slightest doubt that the product would work 100% as expected.
Well, we all know how startup products get build and how they often fail before they excel. So these top notch sales guys would keep on setting up all these great meetings with big names but never close. First they tell you that closing a deal with a blue chip company takes forever (true, they often do take forever). So they could ride along for quite some time without getting caught. Then when pushed, they would make up fair excuses, why their contact would not buy our stuff.
This happened to me in my early days as a GM and it took me about a year and a half to see through this.
Now I never hire a sales person based on his rolodex anymore. I find out if the sales person is truly passionate about the product.
Also, on that note, stay away from the sales guy who tells you that he will sell anything to anyone. My best sales hires in the past years have always been people who think that they are not sales people at all :)
I have hired hundreds of people throughout my career - both for startups hiring employee number 2 and also for big corporates. Also, I am normally hiring in Europe. Some of the stuff I mention below may be totally illegal in the U.S.
The questions you ask differ a bit depending on where you are in the company life cycle.
As you mentioned interviewing for start ups above, let's focus on that.
When hiring employee number 2 to 10 I tend to focus on personality and cultural fit. Instead of the typical job interview, I tend to take long lunches, dinners and walks with the people to find out if we would get along. After all, in a startup you tend to spend more time with your co-workers than with your spouse. So hiring at this stage is more like dating. Of course I ask about their past but some common questions I am interest in are:
- why do you want to join a startup? What is your main goal? This is to find out if they have hopes for lots of stock options and to make it big or if they have been frustrated in their old job for not being able to make decisions. Money focus usually is fine but they need at least one more key motivation as most startups will hit a rough patch where money becomes tight. If they join because they want to have big influence, only hire them if you are willing to give up control.
- are you willing to work very long hours and give up weekends if needed? How does your family life fit into this and how will you make sure that your family life does not suffer and in return impact your work performance.
- I tend to throw in a random question to test their problem solving skills like "how many bakeries are in New York". Even though I find these kind of questions pretty common, they throw of most people. If they answer too fast, you know they have faced this kind of question before and you can ignore the answer. If they stall and look at you like you are crazy, then the answer is important. I tend to give them one or two hints and then just watch how they attempt to solve the problem.
- lastly, depending on the role I hire for, I give them some real life examples and ask them to provide answers. For a coder this will be a coding test for a sales guy I will describe a difficult sales situation etc.
what is so great about introducing gadgets like car play into old and outdated technology like cars that need gas? Seriously, the big innovation in the car industry is coming from Tesla and not from Google or Apple.
Tesla's plans to have enough super chargers (solar powered) around the U.S. with instant battery swaps for those in a hurry, to allow you to travel from N.Y. to L.A. without spending a dime - those are the game changers.. not touch screens or the replacement of the suction cup.
Like it. I do think there is a need for a site like eduhunt. Teachers are constantly on the prowl for good new tools (at least good teachers are). If the site becomes as big in its niche as Product Hunt, it will provide a much needed curated list of edu tools.
your post really does not want me to ever upgrade my MacBook Pro from 2012. What I really love about this machine is that a) you almost never need to reboot it (I do it out of habit once per week)
b) it has never slowed down
All the folks that work with me and use Windows have to re-boot at least daily and using a windows machine from 2012 is outright impossible.
If what you say is not a fluke, meaning you got unlucky and got handed a bad machine, then I will keep my 2012 until it falls apart :). Some of the comments fortunately hint to the fact that you just got unlucky.. which sucks obviously..
I think this:
>4. People will just stop using taxis more and more. Who wants to be driven by violent guys, and who already are usually bad drivers that even harass people who are not their clients (saw one cab driver last week yell at a woman who was wearing a summer dress)?
is your strongest argument. Even before the days of Uber, London taxi drivers faced competition by mini cabs. And you know what, there have been a few times where I ordered my mini cab driver to let me out so I could hail a black cab, as the mini cab got totally lost and was just outright incompetent. If the French cab drivers would be even remotely as friendly and competent as a London black cab driver, there would be no need to worry and protest. Good quality always wins in the long run. Having a lobby and a government protect sub par services, does not serve the overall economy at all.
> Yes. Uber is violating the guidelines set out for classifying workers as independent contractors. Based on Uber's requirements, they should be properly categorized as employees, with the taxes paid by employers for their employees properly paid.
I agree. Uber should play fair and hire the drivers, as they have been ordered to do in California. But France is fighting the Uber model to protect and outdated establishment. That in my view is not the job of a government.
I think your view of horrible British food is a bit out of date. British restaurants are among the top in the world and to be honest, even Pub Food beats most casual eateries in may other places in the world by now.