A Startup Pitch Template
Awesome pitches cut to the chase and typically include only these nine components, in this order.
Being a one-trick pony is awesome
Being confident enough to focus on consistently improving the one thing you sell is hard as shit. But take a look at Dropbox.
A Pretty Awesome List of People Who Can Make Great Things Happen
I’m not accepting new clients these days, but here are some awesome folks who might be.
The #1 UX failure of new products
If your product relies on having a user base in order to be valuable to other users (e.g., people adding content OMG SOCIAL NETWORK?!), then the UX has to cater to a first-time user FIRST.
On doing what you love that matters…
At Brooklyn Beta last week, the “do what you love, do what matters” theme resonated loud and clear. I needed to hear it.
Making Something for 100 Years
Last summer, I got a tour of National Machinery. It’s the place where my dad has worked for 32 years. And now I think it’s a place of wonder. “My dad always told me that the only way to move…
A 4-Minute Backstory
I grew up in Tiffin, Ohio. That’s where American Standard was. Maybe your toilet came from Tiffin. In high school, Mrs. Kizer rejected me from National Honor Society because she hated my oldest brother, Alex. I never even had a…
Dear President Obama + Tax Reformers
Here’s an awesome tax-reform idea that will promote fiscal responsibility. Please do this.
Pitching Me, Pitching 500
You want into 500 Startups and I totally get it. (I have the incredible experience of being both a founder and a mentor in content and UX.) OK! First, read this post by Paul Singh. And assuming you still want…
Copywriting: Conversions or Thought Leadership?
A thread in my inbox: “We have a lot of ideas on topics to write about that are relevant to our industry. But how should we go about producing content? Hire a copywriter?” Two primary follow-up questions I’d ask: Do…
Lean Content
Lately, I’ve been looking at content through the lean lens. For copywriting, this means testing for messages that make users click before writing a ton of content. If we know that a single user clicked because of something she read, then…
UIE Virtual Seminar: Writing Usable Content
Yesterday I gave my first-ever virtual seminar thanks to Adam Churchill, Jared Spool, Sean Carmichael, Brian Christensen, and others on the radass team at UIE. It’s an odd feeling to know you’re talking to an audience of hundreds but you’re…
Amazing Video, “Murmuration,” makes me weep
Murmuration from Islands & Rivers on Vimeo. Hearing someone’s breath be taken away is fairly incredible, no?
FOWD London: Who Cares About Content
I loved presenting “Intrigue Me” at FOWD London, and am thrilled @oh_cat and the @carsonified crew let me be a part of it; they were so welcoming and helpful. I’d only met one person before I arrived and was ultra nervous…
SXSWi: Intrigue Me
As requested by some attendees — thanks again — here are the slides from my talk on March 12, 2011, at SXSWi. You can also download the PDF of slides with my accompanying notes, and you can hear the audio…
How Craiglist could generate more revenue and simultaneously not introduce me to people who waste my time
Here’s my beef with Craigslist. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized that it’s not worth $100 for my old sofa to spend time prepping items, taking pictures, transferring pictures to my computer, creating a new post, adding my photos to…
The power of volunteering
Here’s an article I wrote for FullBleed a few weeks back; after TEDxPotomac inspired so many people yesterday, I felt compelled to capture it in my personal journal here. When I met Patrick Smith of Market Hardware last November at…
