Learning is about the translation, not the source

Giff Constablemanagement, marketing, startups

I was reading Fred Destin’s post on why entrepreneurs hate VCs, when a quote caught my eye: “Learning from mistakes is far less useful than emulating success.”  It’s a message that 37Signals likes to harp on as well.  I’d argue that you have an equal shot at learning from mistakes or successes, as long as you take the time to …

Motivation and Inspiration – Dan Pink’s TED Talk

Giff Constablemanagement, startups

Thanks to a tumble from Hiten Shah, I just watched and loved Dan Pink’s TED talk on incentive structures and performance. Dan makes a case that monetary performance-based incentives increase productivity for mechanical tasks, but not for complex creative ones. Instead, you need to focus on three things: autonomy mastery purpose This is exceptionally true in software startups.  Yes, people …

Empower your experts

Giff Constablemanagement, startups

I love despair.com’s line “none of us is as dumb as all of us”. A big part of startup success is tied to the quality of people and how well they work together.  That’s why I’m always sad when I see situations where a business has hired someone really good, and then refuses to empower them as an expert.  Occasionally …