Things bnorton likes Explore more popular stuff on Tumblr →

  1. 1
    blaolao
    Passionate But Lost

    We’re told as children to focus on our passions. With the assumption that being passionate will help us keep moving when hard gets harder. The climax to this line of thought is an overload of passions! Too many things pulling us this way or that. Should I be a writer, a painter, an industrial designer, a chef? I love them all!

    I battled the bombardment of passion throughout my high school years and even into the early years of college. When I was 16, I wanted to be a chef, then when I was 17 I knew I wanted to go into business, but finally at 18 I knew it was Engineering. I was passionate about each of these paths (still am!), but it took something elemental, the essence of a thought to feel what I was supposed to do.

    Now, after having a few more years of wisdom I know that passion is cheap. Passion is everywhere and can be fleeting. I’ve learned that passion is an abstraction for something much stronger. The seed that blossoms into our passions is what deserves our attention. Our passions are just symptoms of our systemic need for purpose.

    When I stripped away the layers of science, math, and art from my passion I discovered I need to build. Build anything, build something, but I must build. I must create. I never thought of myself as a creative individual, but now I know that is who I’ve always been.

      Loading...
    1. 3
      semilshah
      Tim Ferris, Distilled

      Tim Ferris has a lot of knowledge to impart, but I’m trying to distill down his principles, because between all the words, he has deep thoughts about myths I was taught growing up:

      One, relative income is more important than absolute income. The key is that, with your extra time, one has to either be content giving up other things (or trappings) or fill that time with other income-generating activities.

      Two, deferring great things like vacations, dream projects, dream trips, and so forth is a fool’s game because future environments are out of your control and not guaranteed (see: 401k’s after Enron and 2008 crisis) and a better hedge is to spread out these events throughout one’s life rather than batch them all at the end, like one may spread out risk in a portfolio.

      And three, so long as you can offset costs through income-generation fueled by a product, or products — not services — one should seek to be an owner of capital-producing assets rather than a manager of them. This liberates one from having a single income-source and further hedges personal risk.

        Loading...
      1. 14
        michaelkk
        How to run a tech startup

        Running a startup is tremendously hard. When I started out with my first company, I felt that though there was a huge amount of high level advice, such as “focus on building a great product” given to me, there was little tangible advice on how to manage the subtle nitty gritty details of day to day operation. While I failed with my own startup, I would like to pass on some of the learning’s I gathered, so you hopefully can avoid these pitfalls. For those of you familiar with YC, some of my advice overlaps with PG’s advice on how to run a startup.



        How to run a tech startup:

        • Communicate firm, clear, concise (no long emails, no fluffy words or long speeches/meetings, just get to the point and start WORKING on it, rather then talking about it.)
           
        • Have clear roles/responsibilities/expectations within your team and give people the freedom to choose how they make it happen. Example: If you have a UI guy on your team how codes the frontend it is not your job as a CEO to tell him what color the button is supposed to have. Let him decide but measure him by clearly communicated goals (front end conversion, conversion of page view to $, render time etc.). To collaborate not cooperate should be your goal. Have your team leads show their work of the last week for 20 minutes each. Then have the entire team give feedback to them. But remember, the decision on what to change is theirs.
           
        • No meetings, but the daily standup meeting (each person gives a 1 minutes update on what they work on today, what they are stuck with and who they need help from)
           
        • Everyone must help with marketing and distribution! Getting the word out about your new product or company is every bit as hard as building it. Have everyone in the company pitch in. Practice guerrilla marketing through small bloggers, social media, inexpensive ads, guest blogging etc. Avoid the expensive PPC campaigns.
           
        • Work lean and test your hypothesis as early as possible (even if you do not have a complete product - you can test market demand by creating a slide show, a video, a blog post etc.). Avoid building stuff that is not necessary!
           
        • Launch fast/often. If you decide to build a feature (you should say no to most features and only focus on the true hypothesis you are trying to prove), speed is key. Iterate fast! Speed comes from simplicity. Do not over-architect, do not worry about too many edge cases. Do not worry about scalability. You can worry about all these cases once you have proven that your product is desirable.
           
        • Understand your users. Have a fanatical customer support. Email/call/meet/survey them to understand what they want. After asking 100 people you will get 110 opinions, but in this sea of opinions you will see a pattern form. The pattern will lead you to the 2 or 3 core value added propositions that the users want. Implement those and only those.
           
        • Silicon Valley is binary. You are nobody until you are somebody! Fund raising is useless without traction/leverage. So avoid it until you have traction. Get Ramen profitable first.
           
        • Prioritization is saying ‘no’. Have 1-2 goals max. Make what you measure. Plot a chart every day with your key metrics to stay on track.
           
        • Spend little (be resourceful/frugal). You don’t need fancy lunches, a nice office or a launch party. Cut out everything. All you need is good equipment to code with and your EC2 instance to run it on.
           
        • Embrace the uncomfortable. Starting a company is hard. Nothing gets handed to you. You have to fight for every user, convince every investor, hustle for every BD deal. Accept that these things are hard, and that you will get rejected 99% of the time. Do NOT loose perseverance over it.
           
        • Deals fall through. Assume it’s not a deal until the money is in the bank. Do not get demoralized if stuff does not happen.
           
        • Exercise (for better sleep and stress management)

        Last but not least, good luck!

          Loading...
        1. 3
          shanfor7
          Shian Norbes Paleo Meatballs

          image

          So there is not really an exact recipe. But we decided to generate something since people kept asking. This is a meal we have made multiple times and each time was slightly different.

          Ingredients:

          1 lb grass-fed ground beef, lean turkey, or bison.

          Grab whatever fresh veggies you have on hand.

                      Veggies we frequent: spinach, red/yellow pepper, broccoli, cauliflower

          ¼ of an onion, diced

          1 clove of minced garlic

          1 tablespoon Worchester sauce

          ½ teaspoon pepper

          ½ teaspoon sea salt

          1 egg

          Heat oven to 350 degrees. Sauté the veggies (onion and garlic too) in about teaspoon extra virgin olive oil. Once veggies are cooked, put into a big mixing bowl, and place in the fridge or freezer. Remove once the veggies are cool, not cold. The key is to let them cool before you put them in the meat, so the heat from the veggies does not cook the meat/egg. Add meat, worchester, pepper, sea salt and egg. (If you like things saltier, you may want to add more salt, we tend to be on the light side). Mix everything together, form into meatballs and put on cookie sheet. Place in oven for about 20-30 minutes. Check on your meatballs at the 20 minute mark, but it may take longer based on meatball size, amount, and your actual oven. Remove from oven and enjoy!

          If you have any questions, just ask. 

          #paleo #meatballs #meat #yum #beef #bison #turkey #balls in meat are better #caveman diet #eating grains is less fun #yum veggies yum
            Loading...