Save the Patient. Make Exorbitant Profits. Is This Okay?

By Tim Berry

How do you feel about projecting excessive profitability in a health care business plan? Over the weekend I saw the pitch for a brilliant business plan, with great technology, for developing medical electronics that could significantly reduce some kinds of complications in some kinds of surgeries. “The world needs this,” I thought. “I hope these... Read More »

Sticky Questions on Startup Ownership and Buy-Sell

By Tim Berry

I received this interesting detailed question from the ask me form on my website. I’ve decided to answer it here. I think my answer might be useful for others with similar questions. I’m putting the question in quotes, paragraph by paragraph, and adding my response directly where it comes in the question. It starts like... Read More »

Go Ahead, Search Me … and Give Me Better Info

By Tim Berry

What bothers me isn’t that Orbitz steers Mac users to pricier hotels, as WSJ.com reports; it’s that some people act like that’s somehow illegitimate, unfair, or deceptive. I say, on the contrary, give people what they like.  Not everybody wants the cheapest hotel available. Many people prefer paying a bit more for something better. And... Read More »

Did They Copy Your Idea? Deal With It.

By Tim Berry

This troubles me. App Developer Says Facebook Stole Idea for “Find Friends Nearby”. I don’t know the app, haven’t used it, and I’m not a lawyer, but I hate it when people complain about some big company stealing their ideas. Ideas get copied all the time. Have you seen the web? Have you seen books,... Read More »

Is This Mad Men Then or Silicon Valley Now?

By Tim Berry

A lot has happened during my lifetime to give women more and better choices. What you see in the TV drama Mad Men about how hard the business world was for women, back then, is what I remember from those times. So there has been progress. But damn, let’s not confuse progress towards equality with... Read More »

Slow and Steady Decline of Trust

By Tim Berry

This trend really bothers me. Even after the FCC rules on blogging and disclosure, I still get regular offers like this one that was in my email this morning. It was a nicely worded email, with some flattery, but here’s the meat: I’d love to put together a high-quality article written specifically for the site. There... Read More »

Facebook Needs at Least One Woman on Its Board

By Tim Berry

(Note: I posted this earlier today on the Huffington Post. I’m reposting it here because this is my main blog, and I believe what I wrote, so I want it here too.) Why would a startup as important as Facebook, run by somebody as young as Mark Zuckerberg, whose users are more than 50 percent... Read More »

User Interface Dark Side: When Deception Works

By Tim Berry

No ambiguity with this one: the site is named darkpatterns.org… a pattern library with the specific goal of naming and shaming deceptive user interfaces (aka “dark patterns”) and the companies that use them. … and author Harry Brignull, in his List Apart post Dark Patterns: Deception vs. Honesty in UI Design, calls them “evil web... Read More »