One of the top five issues I’m passionate about is the need to increase the number of women executives, techies, scientists, and entrepreneurs. Why does this subject get so much of my mental energy?
Best practices in lean business operations, technology, and other areas pertinent to success of startups, small, and mid-market businesses.
Time to end the frat house culture! We need more women in our midst.
Difference between “My CEO” and “Our CEO”
Being in operations, I’m usually the right-hand-man for the CEO (and CFO), and have worked with some fantastic ones and a few who should have let someone else pilot the company. Not everyone is cut out to be a CEO and nowhere is this as evident and crucial as in startups. A good CEO can take the company anywhere he/she dreams it to go.
As I search for a head of operations position and talk to employees and founders of startups, one of the key phrase I am listening for is “my CEO [insert the rest of the sentence]”. That is what I want to hear. Yes, many will say “our CEO”, but there is a difference when someone adds emotion to their alliance and proclaims he works for his/her CEO.
Can’t retain talent at your company?
Everywhere you turn, more and more people are talking about the “free-agency” attitude of many professionals. The greater the demand of their skills, the less likely they will be loyal to their employer. I have a number of friends and acquaintances in high demand fields and I keep hearing stories about why they will “only do corp-to-corp” (independent consulting). This free-agency mentality is a direct backlash to poor human capital management (HR, for you old-schoolers) practiced by companies. Even in a bad economy, good talent is always in demand. The multitude of recent layoffs have left people feeling like they are easier to dispose of than corporate jets, and this is only going to make it more expensive and harder for companies to recruit and retain talent once things bounce back.
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About The FOUNDER
Apolinaras is a business operations leader with 12-year track record of building scalable and capital-efficient operations for technology and professional services companies.Read More About Us »Beware of the lemmings!
I was reading “Failure as an event” post on Seth Godin’s blog. After self-deprecating himself talking about 20+ large entrepreneurial failures he was part of, Seth shared some of the lessons he has learned. The biggest one that caught my eye was: “Being the dumbest partner in a room of smart people is exactly where [...]
What can startups learn from MythBusters
My late father used to say that great idea is the one that many people come up with independently.
So as I was watching MythBusters on the Discover Channel (my favorite show), reading David Armano’s blog post about unconventional marketing, and listening to Stephen Shapiro (innovation consultant) talk at our Revolve Nation entrepreneur networking event, I realized something that I have been practicing for a long time. Stephen Shapiro calls it “failing cheaply”.
If you are in a startup and have a title, you are not doing enough work…
Last November I was interviewing with a very stealthy (for a very good reason) startup in Boston. During my conversation with a co-founder Ellen (she is very stealthy too, so I will skip last name), I asked her what her title was. Her answer was something that has stuck with me to this day. She said: “if you are in a startup and have a title, you are not doing enough“!
Evolve your irrelevant corporate website!
While on my vacation in La Jolla, I was able to catch up to some great blog posts I bookmarked in the last month. I follow Jeremiah Owyang via Twitter and I read almost all of his blog posts. One that just caught my eye was How To Evolve Your Irrelevant Corporate Website.
The thought that [...]