In my work and personal life, it often seems like we are provided false choices. I am suspicious of people who frame issues as only an either-or proposition. I respect leaders who have the courage and character to speak honestly about the complex challenges facing our world.

Maybe that's why I found Michael Bloomberg's commencement speech at Harvard Business School so timely and refreshing. "Calling on the Harvard Business School Class of 2019 to demonstrate “moral leadership,” and to inv...

Continue reading ...

It is interesting to me how age and perspective that comes with it shapes my view of Life, Careers and Entrepreneurship. Please share your feedback with me on the few slides and diagrams that I hope are helpful to friends who may read this post.  

In my twenties I had a narrow view of each when it would have benefited me most to have had a broad view. My first job in the furniture business I worked in was really not about furniture, but about learning about the scope and complexity of operatin...
Continue reading ...

While I was in graduate school for my MBA, I read for the first time Dr. Martin Luther King's Letter from a Birmingham Jail from April 16, 1963. This letter may seem like unusual reading for MBA students and mostly dedicated capitalists, as Dr. King's letter addressed themes of leadership and social justice.

After reading the view of local clergy, Dr. King wrote his letter in the Birmingham Jail on scraps of paper and completed it on a legal pad provided by his defense attorneys. It is interes...

Continue reading ...

2014 was filled with many experiences, events and articles have stayed with me and continue to make me think about challenges facing the U.S. education system. Here is a summary of major topics and themes that are worth more thought.

During a Young Presidents' Organization luncheon prior to the annual ASU GSV Summit on Education Innovation, I listened to Jeff Selingo (author of College Unbound: The Future of Higher Education and What It Means for Students) lead a panel on the challenges facing...

Continue reading ...

Most of my career has been involved with affinity marketing. Often the focus has been between affinity - what consumers care about, non-profits / universities and financial institutions such as banks, student lenders and insurance companies.

As a result, it is interesting for me to read, the annual CFPB report to Congress on college credit card agreements. The world of alumni collegiate marketing has changed and there may be implications for other affinity markets as well.

• The number of higher ...

Continue reading ...

Seasons are important milestones in our lives.   Back to school is one of those seasons that I find useful to consider how things in the world are changing.  It is easy to consider that the grad students who taught classes 20 years ago are now being replaced by online courses taught by professors.  Is it better or worse - probably hard to tell. 

What is different is the mindset and insights of the students who arrive in any class.
Continue reading ...

My friend and fellow entrepreneur- Dave Balter wrote the following post that I highly recommend to anyone considering an angel investment.  I was an angel investor in BzzAgent which is Dave Balter’s first company.  Dave and I have also co-invested in TheBump and continue to consider early stage ventures.  I have great respect for Dave’s entrepreneurial insight and instincts. So I highly recommend the article he wrote below.

The article appeared on Dharmesh Shahs websi...

Continue reading ...

I have had some experience in trying to build networked businesses.  I have learned many lessons the hard way.   Growing quickly sounds better to investors than to the sponsors and revenue sources who you will depend upon to build your business.  As a result, though VC's tend to love these types of networked businesses - the VC math of generating a high internal rate of return on their investments is not perfectly aligned with the go-it-slow / measured approach of major sponsors. 

I view thes...
Continue reading ...

(Just above this post is a PDF of the Letter from the Birmingham Jail by Dr. Martin Luther King.)

While attending Harvard Business School, I saw many examples of courageous leadership.   Entrepreneurs need courage.  Politicians need courage.  What is interesting to me is that leadership is fundamentally defined by having the courage to express your views - despite opposition, despite fear, despite overwhelming odds.   It is courage that defines leadership. 

One of the best illustrations of exp...
Continue reading ...

Recently I was asked to give a presentation to a class at Arizona State University.   As a result, it gave me an opportunity to think about the fundamentals to building a life, career and entrepreneurship.   There is nothing ground breaking here, but my aim was to share a framework for thinking about modern life and careers and to illustrate this framework from my own experiences. 

There are many topics that surround this framework - the importance of family, of mentors, of networks.  I will ...
Continue reading ...

There are several excellent articles and videos on the importance of Grit to high achieving people.   This relates as much to new ventures, entrepreneurship as it does parents.

The bottom line is that Grit helps us understand why talent alone does not always achieve the most.   Talent is of course diverse, but the ability to persevere, to be industrious, to be diligent and to do so day after day, year after year - is what helps to define Grit.

This video is worth watching as is the story from...
Continue reading ...

The entire budget fiasco and inability for the US Government to deal with the budget debt and required compromises is another illustration of what an empire in decline may look like.

At the end of this video - Steve Wynn's quote from Alexis de Tocqueville  is perfect.   Another quote from de Tocqueville that fits today's climates - is "A democratic government is the only one in which those who vote for a tax can escape the obligation to pay it."

Watch this video and ask yourself where are the s...
Continue reading ...

Sometimes what I try to do with these blog posts are to help compile some of the best thinking that has already been published.    I am a big believer that most new ventures are not a fit for traditional venture capital.  Most new ventures are either not venture ready or not actually a high-potential venture where venture funding makes sense.   That doesn't mean that the venture should not raise capital, only that venture funds may not be the best fit or best use of a Founders time.

This is a ...
Continue reading ...

Holiday weekends are great moments to reflect and think about our lives.  I am not sure where I heard the following quote, but I think it is profound as we try to make sense of the world around us. 

"we live in an era where we enjoy a wealth of information but a poverty of knowledge."

I often say that the first job of a leader is to define reality - not as they might want - but as it is.   Reality may appear different depending on your perspective, but the leaders who have the time to demon...
Continue reading ...

There are many good lists and ideas to consider for entrepreneurs.  The best advice I find come from serial entrepreneurs such as Reid Hoffman, the founder of LinkedIn.

What follows are some of his comments from the 2011 South by Southwest Interactive conference in Austin, he recited a list of 10 rules of entrepreneurship.   Hoffman, who is now a partner at venture firms Greylock Partners, cautioned that he “reserves the right” to change the list later on. But for now, here are his rul...
Continue reading ...

A friend recently suggested Tina Seelig's - What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20 - and I found it to be a terrific collections of the messages I try to frequently share with young-adults and fellow entrepreneurs.   The stories that illustrate the importance of mindset to problem solving, the practical tips about how to build a career and reputation are not just good reminders but the book also contains practical advice about how to do it in life.

My 12 year old son, asked me - why are you reading ...
Continue reading ...

If you are curious about the value of an MBA to becoming an entrepreneur you should first consider the experience of those who participate in the Harvard Business School Business Plan Contest.  

It is an event I co-chaired as a student in 1999 and is an experience I continue to encourage others to support and be involved in.   Listen to this brief overview of the value of the HBS entrepreneurship efforts.
Continue reading ...

I was pleased to participate in a panel at the annual Invest Southwest conference last week in Scottsdale.   The conference was outstanding and included some outstanding companies that are seeking capital.  

Although the Arizona Republic covered the conference, it did not capture the enthusiasm or economic potential of the companies that presented.   See -  http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/business/articles/2010/12/10/20101210financing-remains-tight-ariz-firms-say.html

There are many o...
Continue reading ...

These days we all have friends looking for a job.   The reality is this seems like a job-less recovery.   As a result, my recommendation to friends is to look for work, not a job.

What is the difference you say?   We all have work that needs to be done, but very few companies have jobs to hire.  It is the fulfillment of Free-Agent nation.   

My suggestion to friends is to:

a) name your work - buy a URL and use it for your email.   Don't expect to get work with an AOL, Yahoo or Gmail account.

b) ...
Continue reading ...

A great article appeared in this weekend's NY Times Magazine regarding Gen Y - twenty-somethings.

Read the entire story here or download it here.

Some insights from the article are below.  Marketers beware - serving this market will be more difficult than ever.

"The 20s are a black box, and there is a lot of churning in there. One-third of people in their 20s move to a new residence every year. Forty percent move back home with their parents at least once. They go through an average of seven ...
Continue reading ...

A couple of great messages to consider and think about for leaders of all types and all types of organizations.

What Motivates Us - Daniel Pink and his new book Drive - is great and offers useful insights for entrepreneurs and leaders.  

Watch - http://youtu.be/u6XAPnuFjJc

A second article worth reading is from David Brooks in the NYTimes - which is a summary of  two ways of thinking about life, one that emphasizes the individual and one that emphasizes circumstances.

Read - http://nyti.ms/b9IX...
Continue reading ...

You may already be aware, but one of our companies is NGI Group which has created GradGuard.   The news release below highlights a new product that is of interest to every full-time student attending every college in the nation.  Read on for why all parents should consider insuring the cost of education.

Tuition insurance is now available to any student enrolled in an accredited higher education institution through the first-ever national group policy made available by GradGuard™, a service ...
Continue reading ...

Today's New York Times has a great article - posted below regarding a new model for starting companies.   I am not sure it is a new model or a reminder of adapting to customer focused feedback.  My view is that the real theme captured by the thinking below is to "fail fast".  Which means, most entrepreneurs have a great hypothesis for creating a business - they identify a problem, they have a solution and they choose a medium and price to deliver it at.   The challenge is not to over design t...
Continue reading ...

Continue reading ...

I am keenly interested in innovations in how society approaches learning.  Outstanding content is always the starting point for great learning.   With content as the base assumption there are many  considerations for how which mediums to convey this content to students.   The written word is still very powerful and I believe an integral part of many of the most effective approaches.  Three companies that I have invested in approach learning in different ways.   Flypaper enables content to be ...
Continue reading ...

This is a useful insight by the Koffaman Foundation regarding the real source of new employment. For anyone worried about a jobless economic recovery, we should take the focus off of just small business and look to how our nation supports innovation. Today's WSJ article by Carl Schramm, Robert Litan and Dane Strangler correctly points out the facts behind job growth. "The conventional wisdom is that such businesses account for half of the labor force and are therefore the engine of future...
Continue reading ...

This article by David Koretz posted on MediaPost, struck me as something that would benefit my entrepreneurial friends, so I am passing it along not as a (tweet) but as something that will help make us think about our own companies and the organizations we are involved in building.

Organizations require different types of people at different stages.  Although my business life is mostly spent in the first category, I am thankful to have always had a good team surrounding me that were strong 2s ...
Continue reading ...

This is a useful summary regarding the challenges facing capitalism. The timing of the Catholic Church suggesting a moral framework for market capitalism couldn't be better.  

In my view the recent failures of capitalism are not as much a failure of markets as a failure of morality.  The first place I start in evaluating companies and their potential is to understand the values behind the entrepreneurs.  If the only goal is money, then the purpose of the company will not likely endure or bene...

Continue reading ...

I am not sure if that is really the question or not, however, the purpose of this blog site is to bring readers attention to various articles or perspectives that I find useful when considering private equity investments. 

More of my views can be seen thru my actual operating company - www.nextgenins.com and www.slipstreamlabs.com

Continue reading ...