A little bit of everything

Hiring for startups…

Pedro — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 18:30:46 +0000

A startup is not a regular business and it definitely is not the small equivalent to a big company.
Entrepreneurs get it (sometimes the hard way) but, many times, they face several problems related to hiring and retaining talent.

This happens for several reasons and it’s not easy to solve the problem. From my part, I think that a good first step is to read this article and make sure that everybody you hire for your startup also reads it.
Hope it helps…

Hack it!

Pedro — Sat, 23 Feb 2013 00:38:30 +0000

Zendesk was hacked and announced it in the most straightforward possible way:

We’ve been hacked

No BS, no complicated words, no useless explanations. But more, they also said:

We have an investigation underway and do not have the answer to every question.

And that’s it.

Bluntly…

Pedro — Sat, 23 Feb 2013 00:33:42 +0000

Just to understand how it worked, today I clicked on the button that says “Follow” on the top of my blog.

A model option opened with a field to write the email address. So far, nothing special. Until I read the text over it: “Join 350 followers and receive the new posts on your inbox”. Cool, right?

Wrong. I don’t have 350 followers. Sorry to let you down, but I have a very limited audience…

Still it’s good to understand how WordPress is pimping its blogs…

How do you fake urgency?

Pedro — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 18:00:27 +0000

Urgency boosts productivity. You don’t do it perfectly, but you’ll do it much, much faster. But it is necessary to be in a hurry to be able to do that. And most of the times you can’t do it the same way if there’s no urgency in it. And not even the prospect of an urgency is enough to make you run as you do when you really have to.
There’s a similitude between work and the famous law for gases: gases will use all the space available; work takes all the time you have available. The same task might take you 1 week or 1 month, depending on how much time you have on your lap…
So if you want to make sure you ship… The question remains: how do you fake urgency?

Quote of the day…

Pedro — Sat, 19 Jan 2013 00:30:24 +0000

I don’t have a clue on who said this, but I totally agree. Being someone who talks too much many times, I’ll try to follow this rule in the future:

“If you really think about it, you can make it brief.”

Someone got the “qwerty” wrong…

Pedro — Wed, 05 Dec 2012 18:43:17 +0000

In our experience with Limetree we have come to some conclusions about internet activity, its users, how and when people interact with web-based services, etc.

Some are just confirmations of general rules that were made public in quite a while. Others are more surprising conclusions.

For instance, it was already written over and over again that people use the internet specially on weekdays and particularly during working hours. It is definitely true! On weekends usage divides by 2 or 3. It makes sense… people have more to do on weekends than using the web.

What I never imagined was the most common typing mistake: if we’re talking about the internet, it’s mistyping the “n” for the “m”.

So look out all of you looking for .con domains… that’s going to be fabulous.

Or anyone selling a laptop with a modified “qwerty” keyboard where the positions of the “N” and the “M” are swapped. That would definitely be a winner!

Entrepreneurship with kids

Pedro — Mon, 15 Oct 2012 18:35:09 +0000

Most things you can read on entrepreneurship lead you to believe that it’s an activity for young adults, at their twenties, without kids, or compromises whatsoever.

There’s evidence that’s not always the case (although it often is).

There’s no doubt that it’s easier to commit yourself to a new creation if you don’t have chains holding you, or if there are not “stiff” dinner hours, or diapers to be changed. On top of that, the younger one is, the least he/she has to loose so it’s easier to bet everything… And, usually, as people grow they become more savvy and less prone to jump into the unknown… believe me, when I say being an entrepreneur is pretty much jumping to the unknown, not knowing if the pool will have water once you land.

However, you don’t have to be young, single, with no compromises to begin a start up. Some people might even argue that you’re better at it when you’re not such a “loose guy”, because you do have a lot to loose and that will make you outsmart yourself, push your limits, think twice but think better about your moves. Others would add that if you’re older, you’re wiser (at least you hope so), and therefore your chances to succeed will be enhanced. I’m not sure if that’s the case or not, but I began some neat things at a not so young age, with kids, and compromises…lots of them. And I’m loving it!

God does play dice…

Pedro — Mon, 03 Sep 2012 23:08:06 +0000

Einstein famous words:

God doesn’t play dice

Actually… I couldn’t agree less.

The bonanza after the tempest

Pedro — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 22:20:26 +0000

Some events made me think:

Good things will arise from the turmoil

Is it true? It must be.
Someone made very stupid comments about a very serious matter. I’m not even going to comment on what was said. However, because of some absurd declarations I’ve seen very beautiful things written. I’ve read great posts, great articles and great stories.
Which led me to the conclusion that good things can and do come out of the turmoil… You just have to harvest a little.

Holidays with kids… Heaven and Hell

Pedro — Thu, 16 Aug 2012 23:00:03 +0000

Spending time with your kids is one of the best gifts of all. There’s no doubt about it.

During most of the year, all those who work away from home, strive to come up sooner so that they can spend more time with their kids. This would be a good time to talk about quality time and what to do or not with your kids. Or some chit-chat about the importance of quality time vs just lots of time. At least that’s what all those who can’t have lots of hours per day with their offspring advocate, isn’t it? It’s not how many hours you spend with them, but how good those hours are… both for you and for them. But this post is not about that, so I’ll talk about it some other time…

It’s about that time of year when finally you can spend more than a hour or two per day with those beautiful beings you call your own. Finally you don’t have to go to the office every morning and you wake up with their kisses in the morning and their jumps, up and down, in your bed. When you thought you could sleep in a little, they won’t let you… and that’s marvelous.

And now you can play with them. You have time to be the king in their little games, or play the dwarf as your daughter is the Snow White, or the big bad wolf to the Little Red Riding Hood.

But, as the day goes by, the bed of roses you thought you were in starts showing its thorns. If you’re a stay-at-home dad/mom you’re already used to how confusing and messy parts of the day can be. If your relation with your kids is just 1 or 2 hours each day, you’re not used to it. And like most of the things in life, it depends on how you look at it to define if it’s a bearable moment that will go by or if it will drive your crazy after a while.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m far for perfect and I don’t mean that I can make a messy place become an ethereal house. Nor do I have any magical theory on how to calm down a bunch of super-excited kids, who are on vacation and for whom this is a change in their routine too. But I do think, that something similar to an enchantment happens when one comes to accept things more easily and doesn’t over-stress about kids acting like… kids. And the funny thing is, when you decide to take things more calmly, things actually tend to calm down.