I’m born and raised L.A. and have been driving since I was 14. And yes, illegally, but growing up in the 70s, if you wanted to go anywhere in the Los Angeles area, you had to drive there. There was no Metro Rail back then, and the buses weren’t safe for young girls, or anyone … Continue reading Most Everything I Know About People I Learned from Driving
Do you believe in God and Jesus? Why? Likely because your mother taught you to — marketing to you throughout your formative years the benefits of belief: Community Solace Salvation Your beliefs were marketed to you through holiday celebrations, and maybe Sunday school and prayer. Even if mom, and/or your dad, didn’t directly push their … Continue reading Marketing to Believers
Why Tech WON'T Fix Your Business A while back, a friend asked me what I thought about him taking a job offer at MIX. “They’re the reboot of StumbledUpon,” he’d told me. “They want me to improve their recommendation engine, to keep the users they have with better recs, and to get new users by … Continue reading What Happened at MIX
The Competitive Analysis process, step-by-step… I want to find competitors for my fantastic AI SaaS application. Well, let me be clear. I don’t want to find competitors already producing my brilliant offering, but I know it’s smart to look for them before investing a lot of time (and time is money in business), in developing … Continue reading How to Find Startup Competitors
Need an IDEA [that will likely SELL] to Startup? Many want to be entrepreneurs, but most people lack product ideas, or can’t think of a service (or app) that isn’t already available. For over a decade, I taught entrepreneurship at Stanford and Cal Berkeley/Haas. I designed a course to teach the process of turning an IDEA (or … Continue reading How to Generate Product IDEAS
What motivates people to RESPOND (click, like, share, comment), and CONVERT (buy, try, sign-up, subscribe) from your marketing efforts? This is a very important question, because the point of marketing is to get people to [think or] do what our campaigns [suggest or] direct them to do. At the foundation of all marketing is Psychology. … Continue reading Marketing Data Science
Your phone is a tool you're using, or a tool that's using you... I’m watching The Politician on Netflix while working out. The scene is on a teen and mom in their kitchen, arguing about which state senator to vote for in the upcoming New York election. Teen is a first-time voter, just 18. She’s … Continue reading R.I.P. Information Hwy
IMAGINE working your ass off all through high school, studying instead of partying, volunteering with school and community groups so you can get into a good college. You send out your applications, to Stanford, Harvard, Princeton, as you have a 4.8 GPA, and all the right clubs on your resume. Your mom kisses each envelope before … Continue reading The TRUTH about Mark Zuckerberg
Marketing 101: How to motivate people to DO what you want them to do… An entrepreneur recently asked me: “What specific skills or knowledge do you believe will be most crucial for aspiring entrepreneurs in 2025 to navigate this complex and dynamic environment?” My response: “The greater understanding one has of what motivates people, individually … Continue reading Engage in Learning About People
My daughter, a college senior, told me yesterday that she joined the Palestinian protest on campus. “I believe that genocide is wrong, Mom. So, I stood up for what I believe.” I think she expected me to be proud of her, but her words made my skin crawl. My daughter knows nothing of the history … Continue reading The Fallacy of Palestinian Protests
