Belated “Hello World” Statement
When people are learning to code, the first actual coding project they do is to display the two words “Hello World” on their laptop or other screen. Since these statements mark beginnings, it’s also the traditional first step for those initiating a blog, Twitter feed or other social stream.
For some reason, I overlooked doing a “Hello World” statement for this blog. I just started to write it without checking off that introductory communication.
Subsequent controversy has led me to correct this oversight and pen this “Hello World” blog post statement.
This controversy stemmed from a blog post I drafted-up two weeks ago. I sent it to a group of readers who are “from the industry”. This cadre of readers are trusted friends, all of whom I’ve known for a long time.
The reaction to that blog post was immediate, strong but bifurcated: “Don’t publish it!” and “You absolutely have to publish it!”. (We’ll leave the provocative content of that post aside for now because I’m reworking it. I do plan on sending out the reworked post at some point in the future.)
Then, two of these readers with polar opposite opinions on publishing it came back to me with the same question: “Why are you writing this blog?” That’s when I realized that I hadn’t done my Hello World missive to address this central question.
Although it’s a tad late, here’s my answer:
I have something to say. In short, I have experiences and perspectives – valuable ones, I believe – to share with the tech community. I gained this wisdom from my many years as a Microsoft employee, as a VC, startup executive, company founder, and board member of various public companies and private startups.
Some startup topics are poorly addressed by industry analysts, VC sources, and other commentators in the blogosphere. These topics do not address the operational side of the equation, nor interdisciplinary situations – like finance, operations, marketing and sales, etc. Many of these blog posts lack a startup executive’s perspective on properly financing a startup, and other don’t put forth practical solutions or specific steps to follow.
I am also writing this blog, in part, to supplement my class lectures at the Laboratory for Innovation Science at Harvard (LISH) and for a new course called the ‘Startup Academy’ within HBS.
One guardrail will guide my efforts here: “Do no harm”. I don’t want to hurt or embarrass anyone, or any company or group. I will also do my level best to not provide advice that is impractical.
Now that we have all that covered, here’s a partial list of the topics I plan on covering in this blog, in no order of priority:
Startups: Early-stage challenges and solutions
Startup leadership
The CEO job
The Board of Directors
Growth-related topics
Advisor/coach/mentor topics
Product/Market fit and Trends
Finance and exit events
Operational, Finance, Sales, Marketing topics
Emerging Companies: Later-stage challenges and solutions
Others (TBD)
This is the initial list I pulled together before I began writing. But I’m open to suggestions. Are there key topics I’ve missed? When I publish a post have I covered the topic thoroughly? Do I have too many negative or positive views? What’s wrong with the picture I painted?
So, it’s up to you, dear reader, to keep me honest and provide feedback. Going forward, please let me know your thoughts on these blog posts.
Thank you in advance for reading them and for your thoughtful feedback.