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The Lean Stack – Part 1

The Lean Stack – Part 1

The Lean Stack – Part 2 18 Flares07506--×18 Flares x Access to videos, talks, and worksheetsInvitation to private Google Plus CommunityJoin in on live Q&A webinars and fireside chats How We Build Features x Access to videos, talks, and worksheetsInvitation to private Google Plus CommunityJoin in on live Q&A webinars and fireside chats Why Lean Canvas? 456 Flares242066045121--×456 Flares x Access to videos, talks, and worksheetsInvitation to private Google Plus CommunityJoin in on live Q&A webinars and fireside chats 3 Rules for Building Features in a Lean Startup 20 Flares370010--×20 Flares x Access to videos, talks, and worksheetsInvitation to private Google Plus CommunityJoin in on live Q&A webinars and fireside chats Habits Are The New Viral: Why Startups Must Be Behavior Experts Editor’s Note: This guest post is written by Nir Eyal, a founder of two startups and an advisor to several Bay Area incubators. Nir blogs about technology and behavior design at nirandfar.com. Face it; you’re hooked. It’s your uncontrollable urge to check for email notifications on your phone. It’s your compulsion to visit Facebook or Twitter for just a few minutes, but somehow find yourself still scrolling after an hour. It’s the fact that if I recommended a book to purchase, your mind would flash “Amazon” like a gaudy neon sign. In an online world of ever-increasing distractions, habits matter. Turning Habits Into Cash Ever since the creation of the first online media companies at the dawn of Web 1.0, businesses have made money from their users’ behaviors. Such self-assurance left them vulnerable to attack from social media companies, which plundered their user base as the web evolved. Viral Is Nice, But Habits Are Required Relying too heavily on viral growth is also bad for business.

Fringe Benefits: Why startups mustn’t appeal to the masses by In a two-party political system like we have in America, the fight is always over the middle. The hard-lefts vote Democratic, the hard-rights Republican, even if they don’t know the candidate, even if they don’t like the candidate, because it can’t be as bad as that other guy who is even further removed from their ideology. No sense in either party trying to battle over those extremes. But fighting for the middle is murky — without a strong affiliation and a consistent set of beliefs, how do you convince all of the centrists you’re the best candidate? The answer is political safe-talk: saying the right thing to the crowd in front of you while leaving enough wiggle room to say something different to the next. Of course this sort of behavior is why we distrust and dislike politicians, and why most Americans prefer voting for “none of the above.” A startup must be the opposite of a politician. After all, wouldn’t you be happy with 40,000 zealous fans, each contributing $10/mo to your cause?

Eric Stromberg — How to Make an Impact During the First Month of Your Startup Job A lot has been written on the process of joining a startup, and I’ve written a bit on the topic. Less is written about what to do once you join. Truth is, that’s when the fun starts, and it’s important to optimize your experience from day one. 1. 2. New employee: "Hey, have you guys ever thought about adding rainbows to the confirmation page? Generally the next part of this conversation involves the manager turning it back on the employee: Manager: "That’s an interesting idea. Most startups give their employees a lot of power to trust their instincts and quickly take action to test something out, so take advantage of this luxury from the beginning. 3. 4. 5. "The main unit of progress at a startup is learning." Take advantage of that progress. 6. After your first week, take the time to write down your initial thoughts on the direction of the company, the product, and your role within the organization. Final Note: Working in a startup environment can be a bit startling.

The Golden Age of the Animated GIF | Good 100 on GOOD We are in the golden age of the animated .GIF. What was once a MySpace eyesore has become part of the internet lexicon, a delightful way to convey memes, punchlines, and sometimes even art. The animated .GIF (Graphics Interchange Format) has been around since the early 1990s, when Netscape created a code to allow for the display of successive images within a single frame. The emoticon was once our best method of conveying feelings in a digital space where facial expressions and inflection weren’t possible. Human memory is intimately tied to isolated moments in time. So get GIFing.

Quick Practical, Tactical Tips for Presentations In the past I’ve given some tips for handling meetings effectively, covering topics like: - How not to let your meeting go down a rat hole; - Dealing with the elephant in the room; - Dealing with skeletons in your closet; - How to make meetings discussions, not “pitches” - A tale of two pitches (I eventually invested in the first company that pitched) Today’s post is a subtle one about positioning yourself in a presentation. This might be a VC meeting but also might just be a sales or biz dev meeting. It’s any meeting where you are in a small room and are being called on to present on some form of overhead slides 1. Sit closest to the projection screen – Many times a week I have entrepreneurs who do presentations for me and often I’m with some or all of my colleagues. If you look at Diagram A above you’ll see that the presenters are sitting at the opposite end of the table from where the screen is. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. So, there you have it.

Human Memory: Atkinson-Shiffrin Model Atkinson-Shiffrin Model In 1968 Atkinson and Shiffrin proposed a model of human memory which posited two distinct memory stores: short-term memory, and long-term memory. Later a third memory store (actually the first in sequence) was added: sensory memory. In this paper I describe this augmented three-store model and indicate some of the characteristics of each memory system. Sensory Memory Information enters the human information processing system via a variety of channels associated with the different senses. Sensory memory is really many sensory memory systems, one associated with each sense. Iconic Memory (vision) Capacity: Essentially that of the visual system (Sperling) Duration: About 0.5 to 1.0 seconds (Sperling) Processing: None additional beyond raw perceptual processing Echoic Memory (hearing} Capacity: ???? Short-term Memory (STM) or "Working Memory" Information that is attended to arrives in another temporary store called short-term or working memory. Long-term Memory (LTM)

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