Ugh, this might seem like a sales pitch. No, I don’t sell insurance. I tell stories. This one, about insurance, might be helpful for other people building their own businesses. It was about 10 or 12 years ago. Palo Alto Software was a small but rapidly growing company with 15 (or so) employees. My wife [...]
business stories
About Me
Quick Bio
I'm chairman and founder of Palo Alto Software. Founder of Bplans. Co-founder of Eugene Social. Founder of Free the Numbers. I have more info at timberry.com.
New: The un-spreadsheet!
Lists and tables, instant budgets, no formulas, no functions, no fuss. Just add numbers!
Social Media Business Plans
My latest startup does social media business plans. Concrete, specific, practical recommendations ... Ready to execute ... Aimed at ROI and real business benefit ...Custom-made for your business!
Do-It-Yourself Business Plan
I also blog at...
Small Business Trends, Amex OPEN, Up and Running, Huffington Post
-
Subscribe
to receive new posts by email.
-
Join me in social media
Blog Awards
-
Search This Blog
Most Popular Blog Posts
- 5 Entrepreneurship Basics B-Schools Don't Teach
- Q&A: How Do I Sell My Idea to A Big Company?
- 10 Traits of Successful Entrepreneurs
- 10 Blogging Tips. My 1,000th Post on This Blog
- Entrepreneurs: You do Know You're Unemployable, Right?
- Where to Focus: Passion or Ability?
- 8 Factors that Make a Good Business Plan
- No, 37signals, Planning Is NOT What You Think
- My Recommendation About Your Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn
- 5 Words You Probably Misuse in Business Writing
-
Most Recent Blog Posts
- Millennials Schmillennials and Generation Generalizations
- How to Calculate Hourly Cost of an Employee
- Willamette Angel Conference Invests More than $450K
- Amazing Time-Lapse Videos of Earth Changing
- The Growth is Always Greener in Your Neighbor’s Lawn
- Business Owners: Are Your Ex-Employees Your Enemies?
- Q&A revisited: Really, How Do I Sell My Idea to a Big Company. Part 2.
- Save the Patient. Make Exorbitant Profits. Is This Okay?
- How to Fix the USA: Excellent TED Talk
- Q&A: I Need a Loan to Fill Orders
-
My Favorites
- 10 Blogging Tips. My 1,000th Post on This Blog
- 10 Lessons Learned in 22 Years of Bootstrapping
- 10 Tips to Save Your Life From Your Business
- 5 Entrepreneurship Basics Business Schools Don't Teach
- Zen and Business Planning
- Business Plans are Always Wrong
- Plan-as-you-go Business Planning
- Ideas vs. Opportunities
- My Worst-ever Consulting Engagement
- Passion or Ability
- The Fish Bowl Lesson
- Planning vs. Accounting
- 18-Point Twitter Primer
Blogroll
- A VC
- Annarchy
- Business in General Blog
- Campus Entrepreneurship
- Duct Tape Marketing
- Escape from Cubicle Nation
- Feld's Thoughts
- Huffington Post
- Huffingtonpost
- Klout Blog
- Mark Suster's Both Sides of the Table
- Marketing Profs Daily Fix Blog
- Mashable on Startups
- Mommy CEO
- Part Time Perfectionist
- Paul Kedrosky's Infectious Greed
- Presentation Zen
- Read-Write Web Startups Channel
- SBTV
- Seth's Blog
- Small Biz Labs
- Small Business Technology
- Small Business Trends
- Spin Sucks
- TED
- TheFunded.com
- Thoiught Economics
- Up and Running
- Venture Hacks
- VentureBeat on Entrepreneurship
- VentureBlog
- Work Matters
Top Categories
-
Disclosures
- I'm employed by Palo Alto Software, but opinions expressed on this blog are mine and mine alone.
- I have a very small financial interest in Rebelmouse.com. More important, a personal interest: my son is founder, one of my daughters is a key employee.
- bigstockphoto.com gives me a free account for stock photos. I use them to illustrate this blog.
- I have an affiliate account with amazon.com. That means I get a percentage of sales from links out of this site to amazon.com.
- I occasionally accept free review copies of books I review on this blog.
-
See all categories »
- Advice
- Angel investment
- Baby Boomer
- Back to Fundamentals
- Blogs and blogging
- Books
- Bootstrapping
- Business Education
- Business Ethics
- Business Financing
- Business Ideas
- Business Mistakes
- Business Pitch
- Business Plan Contest
- Business Plan Marathon
- Business Planning
- Business Research
- Business Stories
- Business Strategy
- Consulting
- Creativity
- Crowdfunding
- Current Affairs
- Economics
- Entrepreneurship
- Family Business
- Free the Numbers
- Green Business
- Growing a Business
- Intellectual Property
- Journalism
- Leadership
- Management
- Marketing
- MBA
- Momentum
- Nonprofits
- Overheard
- Personal Productivity
- Plan-as-you-go Planning
- Planning and Consultants
- Planning Fundamentals
- Planning Process
- Presentation skills
- Productivity Software
- Q&A
- Rants
- Reflections
- Self Promotion
- Serendipity Succession
- Social media
- Software
- SRG Curriculum
- Starting a Business
- Teaching Business
- Technology
- Television
- True Stories
- Valuation
- Venture Capital
- Venture Contests
- Web/Tech
- Weblogs
- Work Life Balance
- Writing
- Xclude
Things I Believe
- The best things in life aren't free, but they aren't for sale either. You have to work for them.
- Business ideas have no value.
- Time is the scarcest resource.
- You can only be one person at a time.
- An authentic original is better than a good copy.
- It's the planning, not just the plan, that makes business planning work.
- Truth reflects off mirrored surfaces and splits into specks, rays, and particles. William Blake wrote "anything possible to be believed is an image of truth" (in Proverbs of Heaven and Hell.)
- Writing skills, even -- unfashionable as this may be -- spelling and grammar, matter.
- Good writing is always easy to read.
- There are problems you can make worse, but not better.
- Successful business planning is nine parts implementation for every one part strategy.
- Angry words are not always biodegradable.
Get smart with the Thesis WordPress Theme from DIYthemes.