The Founders Dilemma

"I have all these talented individuals yet I am not able to get them to execute [my vision] as a team." -Lament of a Triangle visionary founder.

Underlying the inner workings of high potential, emerging technology companies is a unique pattern of conditions and issues that can either bolster or block success. Properly managed, these conditions produce extraordinary success. Left unchecked, they result in a debilitating and chronic syndrome that becomes the Founder's Dilemma.

What can founders do to avert and to counter the Founder's Dilemma and thus assure successful execution of their vision?

Startups are fucking hard.

Business Leader | March 2001 | The Founders Dilemma

The future of Alacrity Ventures

Though I've enjoyed some aspects of being an angel investor, I enjoy working with creative people to innovate new products more. I expect to spend most of my time in the next few years continuing to explore social software and collaboration tools, and the new product opportunities that may evolve from them.

Thus I expect that any future angel investments I make will be more along the lines of Gifford's style of investment in Consensus Development: a small investment of money and a large investment of time. Harold and Gifford both feel the same way. Currently we plan to continue monitoring our existing investments, but don't plan any new investments unless we can take a more active role in the firm -- for instance Harold is a board member in Vapore.

I swear to god, its like he's begging to come on board at Industrial Memetics. Rattle, Decius... drop this guy a line.

Life With Alacrity: On Being an Angel

Angel Investors in the Southeast.

Angel Investor Directory

I am convinced that Sun Microsystems is a good buy. Anyone priced servers lately? Their Opteron line of servers is about half the price of a comparably priced Dell, and their servers are also the most energy efficient. Their Opteron servers can run Solaris, Linux and Windows and be fully supported for each. Their standard warranties are some of the best in the industry. And they are winning numerous awards for such innovations as ZFS, Dtrace, etc. And Java isn't going anywhere as a language, and Sun's Ultra servers are the best servers for running Java apps.

SUNW is about $5 a share. Sun is leaking money, so its cheap. But their revenues are enormous. I think we could see a potential buyout from Apple in the next two years. Either way, I think that a 10 bagger return on SUNW in the next 3 years is feasible. They have a new CEO, and I think we'll see a major round of layoffs as part of their restructuring.

The fundamentals of this company are sound: they've turned themselves around in terms of their products, which are now excellent. Sales are going to reflect this, and that is when the analysts will give a buy recommendation. Get in now on the strength of the products and ride SUNW to the top.

http://blogs.sun.com/jonathan/entry/explaining_our_share_gains

That link explains the share gains.

http://blogs.sun.com/jonathan/entry/putting_a_chill_on_the

As does that.

Buy SUNW

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The phrase “The customer is always right” was originally coined by Harry Gordon Selfridge, the founder of Selfridge’s department store in London in 1909, and is typically used by businesses to:

1. Convince customers that they will get good service at this company
2. Convince employees to give customers good service

Fortunately more and more businesses are abandoning this maxim - ironically because it leads to bad customer service.

Here are the top five reasons why “The customer is always right” is wrong.

Positive Sharing » Top 5 reasons why “The Customer Is Always Right” is wrong

Bill Gates and Warren Buffet on the nature of boosom buddies.

Charlie Rose - An Exclusive Hour with Warren Buffett and Bill and Melinda Gates - Google Video

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