Jonathan Moore
I am a designer who lives in code, entrepreneur, and an idea incubator driven to make our world a better place.
I am a designer who lives in code, entrepreneur, and an idea incubator driven to make our world a better place.
Profit is an enabler. It’s usually (not always) an indicator that you’re doing something that your customers really need, at a price point that makes sense. Profit gives an organization the ability to iterate faster, reach more people and beat subpar competitors. And most importantly, stay in business.
Entrepreneurs: Don’t listen to the “must be not-for-profit if you want to change the World” bullshit. The folks who figure out how to build a truly profitable and lasting company will be the ones that really change the World.
“It’s really important to view your life as an entrepreneur as a long journey that consists of many short-term cycles.”
Brad Feld, On Not Mourning Your Failures & Overcoming Burn-Out
If I’m really honest I have to admit to being a habitual new book starter. My iPad is full of books that I start—and plan on finishing someday—only to find another one to read three chapters in. On a recent flight back from Dallas, I downloaded It Will Be Exhilarating by Studio Neat and read the whole thing from forward to acknowledgements during the short flight.
Although it is a fairly short book, it might be one of my recent favorites covering design, indie entrepreneurship, passion, and process.
“Make something because you feel invigorated when you work on it, and anxious when you don’t.”
“The biggest myth ever perpetuated in the design field is that good design sells itself.”
First, second or serial entrepreneurs should take the time to read this article by Paul Stamatiou of Picplum. To often our entire process gets tripped up by focusing on the wrong things, letting our mood dictate our plans, or allowing indecisiveness creep in.
You can be so bad at so many things… and as long as you stay focused on how you’re providing value to your users and customers, and you have something that is unique and valuable… you get through all that stuff.- Mark Zuckerberg
“Moving fast enables us to build more things and learn faster. However, as most companies grow, they slow down too much because they’re more afraid of making mistakes than they are of losing opportunities by moving too slowly. We have a saying: “Move fast and break things.” The idea is that if you never break anything, you’re probably not moving fast enough.”
from Mark Zuckerberg’s founder letter in Facebook’s S-1 to IPO
“My advice for entrepreneurs: Wake up terrified every morning. If that intimidates you, consider working for somebody.”
Dan Benjamin
Again, if you build an application that solves a problem you are having chances are that it will also help other people. You are the customer, you are the person with the problem and you know exactly what is needed to solve it or make your life less painful using technology. One of the main reasons I see people wanting to become entrepreneurs is to be able to make their own decisions and to be in control, my advice is do what you want, do what your gut tells you!
Fantastic advice! Following this reasoning we started ‘scratching our own itch’ a few weeks ago and are just now kicking our new project into high gear. When you’re building it for yourself there’s no question whether or not your product meets a specific need.
Jason Fried talks Basecamp, 37signals, and taking a product to the next level at @Chicago_CM.
Tattly is a temporary tattoo store for design-minded kids and kids-at-heart. After applying many bad-clip-art tattoos on her daughter, swissmiss decided to stop complaining and take matters into her own hands. Tattly was born. Now, let’s rock the tattoo world together. Which one do you like the best?
Brilliant idea! I can see this taking off. The image above is from Frank Chimero’s Knuckles tattoo available for $5.
“Do what you think is right and apologize later.”
Excellent quote from Scott Wilson’s, founder of MINIMAL and creator of the LunaTik, boss Ed Boyd while working at Nike. Go to The 99 Percent and read the full article—Scott Wilson: Do What You Think Is Right & Apologize Later on design, entrepreneurship and taking risks—in fact I think I should read it again.
My boss at Nike, Ed Boyd, told me: “Do what you think is right and apologize later.” That really gave me free rein. And I fell in love with that culture and way of doing things. It’s very entrepreneurially focused. There’s a lot of people at Nike, they go under the radar, and they incubate something, and then they spring it on you.
Nike really opened my eyes about how you actually talk to a consumer, and how you craft a story.
Here is a summary of the five pieces of advice, but make sure you click through to get all the nuggets of wisdom.
Co-Founder of Tumblr and the one-man-force behind Instapaper.
The 26 year-old serial entrepreneurs Spencer Fry—creator of Carbonmade—shares his thoughts on focusing on one idea at a time and fighting off entrepreneur A.D.D.
Thankfully, there is a cure for “Entrepreneur’s A.D.D.” and that’s to fall in love with a single idea, what I like to call an “I’m in Love Idea”. You’ll know it when it happens.
Over the summer I have been actively turning down client work in an effort to focus on my “I’m in Love Idea”. During this shift from running a consulting and service based digital studio to creating and selling digital goods I will be sharing my ideas and thoughts about the process—tag: shift.
