Looking For the Rest of this Patent Story
By Tim Berry
What a shame. Although we all like neatly packaged stories — heroes and villains, good vs. evil, David vs. Goliath — it’s rarely that simple. For example, late last year there was what seemed to be a great David vs. Goliath story about this inventor guy who teaches at Yale getting $625 million from Apple... Read More »
Entrepreneurs: You do Know You’re Unemployable, Right?
By Tim Berry
Are you an entrepreneur, starting a business? Or a single-shingle intellectual gunslinger-type expert working as business consultant, planner, coach, or something similar? Are you making it on your own? If so, you do know you’re unemployable now, right? I don’t want to be the bearer of bad news, but I think you should know. I’m... Read More »
True Story: Dollars vs. Eyeballs in Business Valuation
By Tim Berry
It was a warm late-spring day in 1999. I sat in my office with a venture capitalist, my lawyer, and my son. The sun beamed in the patio outside my office. We talked about Palo Alto Software and its web subsidiary bplans.com. At one point the VC said: You wouldn’t be an attractive investment for... Read More »
Good News, Bad News, And True Story on Blogging and Editors
By Tim Berry
The good news and bad news about blogging is editing and editors. Good news: anybody can blog without going through an editor as a gatekeeper. Back in the old days we used to strive to “get published.” Now we just publish. Hooray, we’re free. Bad news: nobody is so good that good professional editing doesn’t... Read More »
Water: A Real Problem Getting Worse
By Tim Berry
This is from Guardian.co.uk, from just two months ago. Presumably it’s fact, not opinion: When the 1948 universal declaration on human rights was written, no one could foresee a day when water would be a contested area. But in 2010, it is not an exaggeration to say that the lack of access to clean water... Read More »
True Story: Do Entrepreneurs Like Risk?
By Tim Berry
The answer to that question is: no. Not any more than the next person. They just like their business better. They took risks because they saw the goal. It was the dark side of building the company. They had to. But when it comes to savings and investment, no. Well, actually, the most correct answer... Read More »
Is Your Business Either Growing or Dying?
By Tim Berry
True story: there were six of us at lunch together on a beautiful late spring day in 1996. We sat on an outside table in the shade and discussed the next big growth spurt. Would we take this marketing-on-steroids proposal, at a high cost? Would it work? Could we afford not to? I’m not sure... Read More »
Can Stories be True When They’re False?
By Tim Berry
So it turns out that Jenny whiteboard quitting was a hoax. The Jet Blue guy with the chute exit and the beer wasn’t. I posted about both of them here Wednesday. You can read in that post that I suspected Jenny was fiction. I said so then, and I hedged my bets. The two brothers... Read More »
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