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Lazy Friday Reading Assignments

  • There’s a lot of discussion going on about how patent’s don’t really make sense in the IT world like they do in other industries (such as medicine). The post Microsoft Patent Trolls Salesforce from the guys at 37Signals really does show the absurdity of the world of patents in the IT world.
  • In the post No Plan Survives First Contact With Customers, Steve Blank explains why a business plan isn’t the end all be all. He explains why it’s important to initiate the contact with your customers early on, even before you start building your product if you can. It’s even more important than creating your business plan, which I agree.
  • I’ve been a fan of Balsamiq for some time for quick prototyping, however Google just released a new Rapid Wireframe Sketching feature in Google Docs that looks pretty powerful. And as far as I can tell it appears to be free. Should be interesting to see how that market develops.
  • The world of VC is very froth with peril, and often the founders are taken for granted. Steve Blank tells an interesting story of how he was treated poorly because, as he puts it, You’re Just the Founder. As you can tell I’m not a big fan of VC, and this is just another reason why.
  • Anthony Feint has written How to Suck at Branding, and this is exactly how you can suck. Very simple and very straightforward. My favorite his is last item: Outsource it. I especially liked the last lines, “Did I mention you’re busy.  Let some PR company handle your branding.  They’ll get a nice generic logo designed for you, and they’ll take some nice profile shots of your uber cool founder. Then they’ll launch a “social viral interactive marketing experience” (youtube video), to help spread the word.   You don’t have to do anything.  In fact, why not retire to an island and be a recluse.”
  • Sometimes when you sign up for a new credit card or a new bank account you’re offered a signup bonus, which can be in the form of a cash, an item of value, and so on. The problem is that you need to be careful because signup bonus from banks are usually taxable whereas those from credit cards aren’t. Not only that, but the taxes are calculated on the retail value and not the actual market price, which means that in some cases the bonus signup item may cost you as much, if not more, than if you bought it yourself!
  • And the last reading assignment for this week comes from The Oatmeal, 8 Websites You Need to Stop Building. My personal favorite is #6, The Next Facebook: “All I need is someone who can design, code, host, launch, manage, and market it”. “Okay what’s your budget?” “Well I don’t actually have any money right now. But I’ll pay you in equity, which according to my projections will be worth eight hundred million dollars within 6 months.”


 
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  •     Stock Reports
    · May 25th, 2010  · 12:49 am  · Permalink

    Excellent site, keep up the good work. I read a lot of blogs on a daily basis and for the most part, people lack substance but, I just wanted to make a quick comment to say I’m glad I found your blog. Thanks.
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    Stock Reports

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