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Colorado cool stuff: Amazing rake, Robin’s chocolates, trucker hats, Frisk jewelry
AMAZING RAKELyle Ethington came up with the idea for the Amazing Rake while raking up his barn. “I thought, ‘There’s gotta be a better way, without bending over,'” he says.” He came up with a clamshell design strong enough to pick up a bowling ball, had it made by a Fort Collins contract manufacturer, and […]
On management: Where do you go after you blow through your startup money?
Out of work, a 45-year-old consultant (read: engineer without a job), in the beginning funnel of what would become a deep recession, with something like $3,000 in the bank, three kids in college and a keen desire to be in my own business. Sounds like the conditions of today. But this was me in 1981 when […]
Tech startup: Sympoz Inc.
INITIAL LIGHT BULB After working together at Web companies in California (eBay) and Colorado (ServiceMagic.com), John Levisay and Josh Scott launched their own Internet startup with ServiceMagic.com veterans Andrew Rogers, Todd Tobin and Bret Hanna in Sympoz, aiming to bring a classroom experience...
The Economist: The deficit/debt fiasco
As I expected, Congress dealt with the debt ceiling crisis at the ninth hour by raising the ceiling and appointing a committee (the third), leaving the basic problem unaddressed. The market for U.S. Treasury securities yawned – there is still no safer place for your money – while the stock market swooned, then bounced back. […]
Rundles wrap-up: Space cadets
I was in the supermarket the other day and ran into a friend who had her 2-year-old in her shopping cart. Only this wasn’t just a shopping cart, but rather a newfangled one, shaped like some kind of race car that was equipped with an in-car entertainment system. The kid was in there watching television […]
Living in the age of hyper-awareness
It’s amazing how a single newscast can set the world on fire. The very second Standard & Poor’s announced they had downgraded the US Credit rating, communications systems around the world began to boil. Reaction time was critical and those who could react the quickest were able to position the negative news into something less […]
How many laws are enough? Part 2
(Editor’s note: This is the second of two parts. Read the first part.) We currently have no check-and-balance system for impeding the excessive law-writing, rule enforcement, and prison-building currently taking place. Simply adding friction to the process will slow it down. For this reason I would like to offer the following four-step approach to solving […]
The answers to my FAQs
Since August is drawing to a close, and I don’t have a topic for this week at the top of my head, I thought I’d take this post to answer some questions I’ve been frequently. I figure if some readers are asking, a few others might be curious. So, here goes. 1). When do you […]
Six great ways to make networking work
There have been many articles written about networking – especially during this economic downturn. In recent weeks, I’ve read that you should join an executive golf networking group, connect with anyone who asks on LinkedIn, you shouldn’t spend time with the same people, etc. Brad Feld recently wrote about the disturbing trend to transactional encounters […]
A bladder in cardboard = blech?
So a pal of mine – a perfectly sophisticated, highly educated man with a seasoned palate who knows a thing or two – admits this: Every evening after work, he goes home to his refrigerator, turns the spigot on a box of rose wine to “on,” and lets it slosh into a glass. “I love […]
How many laws are enough?
Driving across America we find ourselves constantly driving through invisible barriers where new laws come into play and old ones fade away. We have no clue as to what laws they are, or even how many, but these laws have the potential to ruin our lives. In a country that claims to be the land […]
