The concept of “listening” is thrown around quite frequently in everyday life. Some old greybeard will declare, “It’s all about listening in business,” or, “I’ve been married for 50 years because I learned to listen.” Certainly true; yet, many fail to follow this action up with the most important thing: asking intelligent questions.

Below is a picture where you can view how prefacing your questions statistically indicates smarter questions:

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I can’t even count the number of investing books I’ve read. The problem with most investing books revolves around the fact that they’re, well, books. The stock market can be extremely confusing. It suddenly becomes much more clear when you set aside a certain amount of money and just invest. Of course, you don’t want to go in blind. Thus, if you decide to go all in (with a small pot), check out these nine tips:

1. Don’t invest like a hedge fund manager
2. Don’t quit when you get back to even
3. There’s always a chance for take-overs
4. Don’t let short-term poor performance alter your long-term expectations
5. Invest, don’t trade
6. Trust your instincts, not your friends
7. Love the product, not the stock
8. Your portfolio doesn’t need to replicate the market
9. Avoid technical analysis

Guess where this is from?

Nope you’re wrong, it’s actually from Jim Cramer.

I know, I know. At first I couldn’t believe it. This is actually great advice.

Although Cramer has been getting hammered in the press, I do support the advice above. I just wish he followed it, heh.

A year ago (well, I’ll be honest, 11 months ago), I was one of those people that always had about 60 unread items in my gmail inbox. About every 3-weeks I would empty out all my unread items. This was how I lived. I just accepted my crowded inbox.

However, I changed specific habits that not only helped me clear out lingering items in my inbox, but also lingering items everywhere: my home office, appartment, projects and work-related items. I’ve tried most organization systems, Tim Ferriss’ philosophy, David Allens, online software, SaaS, etc. In the end, the following three items worked best for organizing, getting things done and keeping my inbox clear:

I. Three Options:

You have three options when reading email:

(i) 5-Min Rule: If it takes about 5 minutes, just do it. I used to only do things under two minutes, but more and more things are requiring thought. Just do anything under 5 minutes.

(ii) Add it to your calendar: If you’re too tired, and it’s the end of the day, just defer it. Put it in your calendar. The best add-on feature of the year was Gmail’s Gcal integration. In google labs, enable the Gcal, which sits right under the left-navigation tabs, and above your “Contacts/Gtalk” tab. That set up allows you to quickly defer any non-timely task. If the time comes in a week to do it, sometimes you’ll realize how unimportant the task is, or it’s already solved.

(iii) Don’t do anything [not offensive]: Sometimes non-work-related items just take too long. Especially the requests and items from people that want something for nothing. If something sucks your time, and doesn’t provide any value, you don’t have to do it. It’s optional. Don’t forget that. Don’t get me wrong: I’ll help people out for nothing if I know they need help, they’re a regular reader and/or I know the solution; however, I’m not a charity. If I’m exhausted and I get a question that someone can easily google, I’ll ignore it. Don’t feel bad. Just tell people, “Hey, I’m not a charity.”

II. Quick Responses:

When I first entered corporate America, my emails read like a Tolstoy novel. When I browse through my archives, I’m amazed. How and why would anyone read something that long? I’ve since looked at email as if it’s twitter. I keep my replies and responses short and sometimes sweet. In work-related occasions, with instructions or important items, I’ll write a couple paragraphs–but those make up only 5-10% of my emails. The other ones are around three sentences. Believe it or not, when you see email as quick blasts, you can clear out responses and only focus on tasks and people.

III. To-Do List

I tried out an electronic to-do list for three months, but decided to go back to pen and paper. Simultaneously while clearing out the inbox, I’ll usually write out to-do list items that I can scratch off throughout the day. I use email as the source, and my paper to-do list as a measurement. This also frees me from getting sucked into my inbox. It allows me to focus on items that are in a separate environment than the online world, which has definitely proven to be a time-sucker.

That’s it.

Those three elements are quite simple; however, through trial and error they’ve taken me a long time to learn. Hopefully this helps you out.

I know what you’re thinking: “entrepreneurship” and “school” don’t go together–they never have, never will. While I certainly agree with this, there are interesting schools of thought on the entrepreneurial process, as well as various determinants of success. Below, I’ll outline the entrepreneurial schools of thought, as they can be separated into two main sections:

I. Macro View:

Environmental School of Thought: This school of thoughts asserts that an entrepreneurs’ success is the direct influenced by his or her environment (being located in Palo Alto vs. New Mexico; friends, family i.e. if you’re dad is the President vs. a broken home).

The Financial/Capital School of Thought: This school of thoughts reckons that an entrepreneur can only get somewhere if he or she (i) has capital, (ii) knows how to grow it, and (iii) knows how to manage it.

The Displacement School of Thought: This school of thought, which I think is quite fascinating, revolves around a situation where a person feels “left out,” or displaced. For isntance, if all of their friends are latter-climbers in the corporate world, and the one individual is “displaced,” then that feeling will cause him or her to pursue entrepreneurial ventures to prove their friends wrong. Think of it as the “I’ll show them,” type of people.

II. Micro View:

The micro view of entrepreneurship focuses on the individual–what a person can actually control; as opposed to their macro-environment.

The Entrepreneurial Trait School of Thought: For some reason, this area absolutely fascinates academics. They feel one can uncover specific characteristics that make an entrepreneur an entrepreneur. Honestly, I feel the only thing that drives an entrepreneur is the realization that you only have one shot at life: you might as well try and hit a homerun, make something of yourself; rather than being an insignificant piece of a cash cow.

Venture Opportunity School of Thought: This is almost a hybrid macro/micro school of thought. It simply asserts that an entrepreneurs ability to spot, see and execute on a market pain influences his or her success as an entrepreneur.

Strategic Formulation School of Thought: Ahh, yes. The concept of strategy. Yet another concept academics love. This school holds that an entrepreneurs ability to target unique markets, with a unique strategy is the ultimate deteminant of success.

How Art Plays Into Entrepreneurship:

I don’t believe any of the above fully capture the determinants of success for entrepreneurs. Certainly each school possesses potent elements that affect the rate of an entrepreneurs success; however, I’ve found that the best entrepreneurs are ones that (i) have made mistakes, (ii) have learned from them, (iii) have taken those lessons into their next venture, (iv) have pressed on, (v) have outworked their competition, (vi) understanding that entrepreneurship is not a science, but an art.

To emphasize the last point, in that entrepreneurship is an art, I find that a great example of this centers on watching someone create art. The video below is a depiction of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart creating a masterpiece. In this video you can see entrepreneurship at its roots: sweat, work, passion, creativity and persistence:

While working at a stealth startup this past month, I arose early one morning after crashing on a couch in down-town Palo Alto. Checking Yelp, I strolled over to Cafe del Doge, which seemed like a sensible decision. After quickly adjusting to the fact that I was the only non-regular in the place, I sat down and read the city’s Daily News. I attempted to look interested, and then a certain story struck me. A story that showed maturity, courage and character. It was from a 12-year old boy:

Moments after the man who paralyzed him with an errant bullet was sentenced to at least 60 years in prison, 12-year old, Christopher Rodriguez rolled his wheelchair next to the man and extended his hand. “I forgive you,” he said to Jared Adams, 26, who shot the boy last year while Christopher was taking a piano lesson across the street.

These types of stories seem to continually arise in a periodic fashion that keeps your ego in check. Below this 12-year old’s message sits his understanding of life’s tendency to yield unwarranted situations. Your response reveals your character.

I remember it as if it were yesterday. In fact, I probably will never forget it. It was January 2007 and I was sitting in a business school class titled, “Management 480: Behavioral Organization Management.”

It was the usual academic, qualitative jargon that students just ate up. I did, too, at the time. And my grade showed it. The typical lessons included organization chart structures, conflict management and a-type conflict (affective, emotional conflict) vs. c-type conflict (cognitive, logic-based conflict).

We were in the middle of a lesson that focused on the theoretical findings and statistical analysis of effeciency vs. effectiveness. After a 17-slide powerpoint of graphs I’ll never remember, the professor asked a question:

“What’s the difference between effectiveness and efficiency?”

Me, being hopped up on zig ziglar, immediately raised my hand and shot back:

“Efficiency is doing things right, and effectiveness is doing the right things”

My buddies next to me busted up laughing, of course. One shouted, “He’s like an inspiration book!”

It was hilarious, but it’s true! It’s the only thing I remember from the class, and probably the only lesson that will stick with me from that class for the rest of my life:

“Efficiency is doing things right, and effectiveness is doing the right things”

As you probably know, a wiki is an unusual communication mechanism that enables the organization of contributions to be edited in addition to the content itself. The current VC model is closed and to VC’s, their process cannot be edited. Each VC is running on a different program. To counteract this, I wrote about the idea of a Wiki Fund a while back (link here).

Unlike the current venture capital model, the Wiki Fund proposes to open up these lines of communication. Essentially, creating a Stock Market For Startups.

In the past couple of months, I’m excited to tell you that this idea has become reality. The space is shaking up; the venture capital model is changing. I’m sure you have opinions on this, as well. Is a stock market for startups really safe? Should the vc model change?

Share your thoughts below in the following poll:



Branding.

Ew. Ugh. Gah.

For some reason I’ve never believed in branding. Or, at least the buzz of “branding” that permeates the internet today.

So when I find myself at networking events being lectured by a grey-beard proclaiming that “Personal branding is the future determinant of success,” it saddens me.

Another thing that makes me nautious is “personal branding” blogs. Why make a blog about personal branding? Really, there’s only two things you need to know about branding:

1. Don’t Choose a Dumb Name:

I’ve done this before. It’s not fun. When you choose a name for your company, people better be able to take it seriously (well, if your intention is to be taken seriously) If it’s a stupid name, you’re screwed. Unless it’s funny.

2. Be The Destination:

What do I mean by this?

This is  the most important, and also most forgotten concept in branding and in life:

People are attracted by the brands of the others that they’d like to be, not the type of people they currently are.

Make sure you read that again.

Essentially, your audience will not be attracted to people like them. They will be attracted to people that seem to possess be who they eventually want to become.

Think about it. What blogs do you visit? What books do you read?

Chances are more likely that you’ll read a book on Warren Buffet rather than Charles Manson. Unless, of course, that’s what you’re in to.

Do I believe in personal branding? No. Personal branding is a buzzword.

No, because it’s become a buzzword.

What I do believe in, though, is the importance of names and portraying something better than the ordinary (don’t fake it, though. People are smart and can read between the lines).

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(I used “ruby on rails” as the search term due to ambiguous, and rather interesting search terms that have been used for the single word “rail.”)

The following excerpt is from a special series I’m running on “Ahead of The Curve,” which documents tales and experiences from a two-year journey at the Harvard Business School. Learn more here.

Another visitor of the class was a graduate of the HBS class of 2005 who had gone to work at Morgan Stanley. He had been in the military before HBS and had decided that investment banking, at worst, would facilitate a transition from soldier to businessman. At best, it would be interesting, financially rewarding work. He told us that during his first year, he had once spent 127 hours in the office in a single week. Weeks had gone by when all he saw of his two children were their outlines under their blankets when he left in the morning and when he returned late at night. “I’ve been watching my children grow longer,” he said. His life was the reality for most MBA graduates. The degree enabled them to get jobs that robbed them of their private lives. The consolation was that the experiences and money they accumulated would eventually allow them to live the lives they wanted. But there was no fixed timetable for delaying satisfaction and living the life you wanted. Would there always be one more promotion, one more pay raise, one more bonus? When would be the right time?