Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been categorized as “Uncategorized”
Guess how Mademoiselle Chanel did her market research for the world’s most popular perfume? Dana Thomas’s Deluxe: How Luxury Lost Its Luster is certainly a luscious read on the history of luxury. What caught me by surprise was the number of business issues Dana dives into and the phenomenal job she does discussing them. Coco Chanel: an icon, a visionary, and …
My obsession (investment?) with The Settlers of Catan is paying out triple fold. There is an easier way to learn the basics of building a successful start up without actually starting one – although starting is the best way. Master the strategy game of Catan and look for underlying mechanics of how winning works. Just a few games in and you will …
B2B: Business-to-business. B2C: Business-to-consumer. Startups are not easy ventures. Average exit times range widely from 7 years (for VCs) to 16 (for founders). Coffee consumption, phone bills, stress level, rejections – everything but your bank balance – soars. It is filled with scores of late nights, earlier mornings, personal sacrifices, pain and bouts of self-doubt. And as this uncrunched …
3 words for every artist Rules to live by 997 to lay to rest These to abide by 1. Ikigai: ‘y-KY-gnaay’ is one’s reason in life. Ikigai goes beyond the French raison d’etre because the concept of ikigai includes its discovery. You are not born with it, you don’t chance by it, and definitely no one person or community …
Some mornings I have deep insights about myself. I’m now on a start-up quest – that tingling time when your start-up is an oozing mass of excitement, lives no where but in your head, and the whole universe lights up when you talk about it. To your friends, you sound like a bumbling baboon on PCP. They are trying to …
Although I am not a believer in the inevitability of inventions, dueling technologies certainly make me pause. Consider this: within a week of each other, I came across two articles reporting on developing nanostructures inspired by…butterflies! Two different species, at that, with very similar underlying characteristics. Inspired by these colorful, fluttering creatures, two separate research groups have built nanosensors, sure to …
The traditional energy industry is ripe for change. Oil and gas adorns a century and a half old crown. Electric power has doubled in the last 25 years, driven by an impressive growth in global markets. The cheapest fossil fuel seams have been effectively depleted – there is no such thing as “easy coal/oil/name-your-favorite-fossil-fuel” any more. Sustainability has become the …
Blue LEDs: little bright shiny sources of incoherent 405-nm photons. Back in 2004, if you happened to be a graduate student in nanotechnology, there were few things cooler than a blue LED. When these started invading consumer electronics, even the poorest of consumers (= graduate students) started upgrading to quality toasters just because the new toasters had 3 of these …
Two fashion giants are currently locked in a deadly battle, a regurgitated fight over red. Fashion houses Christian Louboutin and Yves Saint Laurent took to court the issue whether the color red can be trademarked. In fact, Louboutin was granted the trademark in 2008 but YSL is challenging that action. You might laugh, but Louboutin has the clear win on …
Thanks to entrepreneur Richard Kaplan’s savvy in adopting Square, I could walk away from his Farmer’s Market booth with chocolates, a business lesson and… cash. Armed with cash, once more, I came upon my last delightful class of the day: Case Study 3: Maison Burdisso. Lesson: Embrace your customers: recommendations sell more than ads True Parisian macarons at Maison Burdisso’s stall. The story: Jackie …