daveschappell

It wasn't meant to be an ad -- I wondered about the differences myself, and figured other people may as well. But in reading about the alternatives, it became a little bit more clear why NSNG has worked for me where other 'diets' have been too difficult to stick with. Anyway -- definitely wasn't intentional. I'll try to add more substance to future posts -- this one was just a quicky, trying to share some of what has really worked for me. Onward... PS just noticed your username -- we have a fawn frenchie named stella :-)

Any headline with 'dog' in it grabs my attention. In this case, I couldn't agree more -- had 1 or more dogs at TeachStreet for many years, and I know it kept things more casual and low(er) stress. As one of the key dog-owners, though, I do admit that the need to take them out a few times per day can turn into a bit of a distraction, especially if you finally get in the zone and then have to break it up -- I know everyone says that it's good to walk/relax, but I'm not sure they're the ones who are supposed to be running the show. Anyway, love the article.

This was a fun week's worth of work for Team TeachStreet. Felt good to get everybody working on a single project (we've spent many months working on lots of different areas of the site, and working with different partners). It was really refreshing, and you could almost 'feel' morale climb, as we all had a chance to just have fun for a few days!

you mean, like an Amazon? or a Starbucks? :-)

or, if you want to be cynical that Amazon's a long time ago... how about like an AWS, or a Kindle? The innovation's here -- we just need to get more commingling going on

it's going to happen -- if you're in town, reach out, please -- would love to have you help

No, I don't think that's it (having lived here for 13 years). I think it's just more that people are focused on their own thing, by and large, vs. getting out with a small % of their time and building a community for the greater good.

This 'problem' is so fixable; we just need another catalyst (like what www.GeneralAssemb.ly and New Work City are doing in NYC... and what TechStars did in Boulder, Seattle, Boston and NYC, and many other examples).

We're just a few nudges away, and there's no doubt we'll get there -- we just need to keep focusing on the good stuff, and it's going to happen.

I'm fired up by Mark's idea, to much more deeply engage with our local leaders (Amazon, Microsoft, Starbucks, Costco, etc) -- think every geography has these, and presenting it how Mark does makes it so much more compelling. Everyone benefits from these relationships, and really, the Bay Area has crushed it in this area (think growth of Zynga and others on Facebook... the wave of startup involvement with iPhone/iPad Apps store launches...) -- I look forward to helping make that happen, more quickly

People also forget that in short order there will be other people holding varying % ownership stakes, that makes 'control' much more about persuasion/consensus building.

Plus, you can always start at 50/50 and allocate more to the person bringing more financial support (or work-for-free-ness) to the venture, as that's pretty darn valuable in the earlier days.

This is awesome. When I was in college (1986-1990) internships were a pretty new concept. Then when in MBA (1997-1998) it obviously became a bigger deal. But now, the practice is very much becoming the norm. But, the tools for students and companies to find one another are still archaic (school recruiting systems... and afterthoughts on Monster, etc).

Plus, it's just as important for companies to provide killer internships (to get the best students, year after year) as it is for students to perform.

It's an ideal way to recruit, and find great companies, and a space ripe for innovation and investment.

Very excited to see what the team comes up with (and yes, I'm a fan and advisor -- my enthusiasm runs deep, and is very genuine)

It's been awesome to watch RowFeeder's progress -- nice to see the product(s) going post-beta, in a complete package. Onward...

I think this has huge implications, not just in this space, but in others (which restaurant? which vacation? other facets of favoriting co-workers? ways a person could improve) -- ties in very well with Jon Bischke's article on Reputation Graph:

http://jonbischke.com/2011/01/07/reputation-graph-one-of-the...

This is a great point -- this was originally (and still is) a deck geared to founders. The large issue is to try to find people (as employees) who would prefer less short-term salary for more longer-term equity. Not only because it saves $, but also because it shows the right owner mentality.

i'm so taking this class!

this is an awesome list -- we've been at this for almost 3 years, and while we had most of them, I just realized that we never set up Bing Webmaster Console -- given their continued rise in % (combined with Yahoo), it can't hurt.

other great recommendations as well -- we're also SEOMoz subscribers, so some of this is also just a great reminder about tools we're probably underutilizing

great graph overlay/transpose -- i've found posterous to be much faster in my infrequent use of both tumblr and posterous -- also, i'm not a fan of the commenting mechanism (reblogging) from tumblr -- for folks who use it often, they love it, but i find it to be really nonintuitive. makes me think that the early adopter's love it, but to go mainstream they'll need to shift it, which will turn off the early folks. posterous, by comparison, just does things fast/elegant, which seems more broadly appealing. time will tell.

I think the 'retire' desire is more of something that first-timers or non-wealthy (at some level) most aspire too. I've realized that it's more about getting comfortable to the point of being able to do things that you're passionate about, and being able to say no to the opposite, that's most important.

I'm a big fan of lead-gen of late -- that said, I'm not such a big fan of what many of the higher-ed lead gen providers are focused on, which is volume for volume's sake.

We'll be seeing the fallout of that approach in coming months & years, as the education loan default crisis comes front and center, as graduates of online colleges find that their earning potential doesn't meet their loan payback schedules.

IMO, they should spend more time on how to attract higher quality students for the programs (that is, students who complete the programs and go on to increasing their earning potential), and in the process, they'd build truly sustainable long-term businesses.

I've seen so many "collaborative task managers" -- I doubt that the tool is the problem. More the fact that people don't like to do this type of tracking, reporting, etc.

Yeah, it's a stretch/sketchy campaign, but at least they're taking the gloves off, right? I personally am frustrated by the quirky Tumblr features (after many tries, I still don't get the formatting of reblogging) and miss plain on comments (when they don't have Disqus installed).

Will be interesting to see which of the easy-blog-tools wins out.

Right now, my bet would be on Tumblr.

I've tripled posted this already, but I don't like faces on resumes -- it can be practical (if it shows the person in a manner that resonates with your company culture), but the odds of that happening seem pretty remote, since it can't be a good photo for all involved.

I think I'm starting to show my stodginess because I like resumes looking like they've always looked.

I might be repeating myself too, but go check out who they market themselves to, and how they describe their product:

http://basecamphq.com/buzz

I disagree -- their value proposition on their BasecampHQ homepage says "the leading web-based project collaboration tool". That sounds like it should be pretty generic, and applicable to many different use cases, and definitely to the small web development startup, right?

I've long been a fan of 'Getting Real' and now 'Rework' but I'm pretty sure I'm not their target customer -- I've found all of their products lacking in functionality. And, it just doesn't seem like they're listening to my customer type, or my problems. So, I've just relented and have assumed that I'm not their target, and they they're doing an awesome job with whoever their actual customer target is!

I think the most of the tips apply to price increases as well. Most of your loyal customers will understand that prices go up over time, but if you communicate with them and explain the changes, offer some grandfather'd benefits, etc. etc you'll find that many will make the transition with you, especially if it's gradual.

The problem with teacher paying with free classes is that many of the free classes are just ways to get a first meeting with a customer. And then future transactions between the student and the teacher happen without TeachStreet being part of them. But, we're experimenting with some ideas in this space (helping teachers to offer promotional pricing, with additional featuring on TeachStreet.com itself).

Thanks, Rishi -- and, I just checked out FlyingCart.com (saw you mention it in your HN About Me section). Looks great. Do you white label that for other sites, too?

This post made me think about the other prevailing/popular buzzwords (rock star developer, _____ ninja, etc.)

We're always looking for them, or claiming to have them, but still expect that we're going to be able to find them with a post & a share.

Normally, when I look for someplace great to work, I check with those who know (current employees) and the buzz around the organization -- every job is ultimately 'work' with all the related problems, but some places give you that extra buzz (the 'woo', if you allow me an "Almost Famous" movie reference!)

I don't think it's that binary. There are definitely times where I've been on teams where I knew things were looking grim, but where I felt a bond with my everyone, and it was a fellowship that made us dig in to give our best effort. That can be very sustaining (moreso if you feel good about your future team-finding skills, I suppose).

As I stated in the comments to your blog post, I think your definition of marketing is extremely wrong -- what you're describing is advertising (or, more importantly, performance-driven or metrics-driven advertising).

Continuing to perpetuate the idea that marketing and advertising are the same thing is pretty uninformed.

It's like calling a systems engineer and a front-end web developer the same thing -- they're both engineering, right?

love the post, and the variety of ways for folks to get involved -- seems like they're primarily tech/dev-related opportunities (per the title), but i'm wondering where product folks can/will have the biggest impact...

Once a person has made the decision that they'd like to start a company, I only see one reason to consider an MBA, and that's the networking element. OK, a second could be to have a great support infrastructure during ideation, testing, development, etc.

But, the cost/benefit just isn't there, especially not for people who already have solid professional networks -- for those, they'd be much better off diving in with a good partner.

And, if things don't work out after 1-2 years, there's always the MBA option then, and you'd have so much more knowledge about how businesses work, and what makes you excited.