A lot of startups come into existence when the founders work to solve their own problems. They “scratch their own itch&# and (hopefully!) find that lots of other people are itchy too. But there are significant risks as well. These days a lot of startups are launched quickly with a couple of technical co-founders. And does anyone really care? MORE >>

I’m not much of a prognosticator, but recently Sarah Needleman from the Wall Street Journal called me to ask my thoughts about startup accelerators. She had found a blog post I had written ( How to Maximize the Value of Mentors in Startup Accelerators ), and wanted my input on a story she was writing. Accelerators have to make money. MORE >>

I did a quick presentation at the Montreal.rb meeting about startup to-dos — things you should really think about before starting companies. It’s great to see more and more developers and tech folks interested in starting companies. In places like Silicon Valley it’s often tech people who launch startups. The presentation is below. MORE >>

You spend enough time with enough startups and you genuinely come to appreciate the importance of The Hustler. The Hustler plays a few levels above where he * should, but gets away with it because of sheer willpower, ego and perceptivity. Tweet. The Hustler also gets into the nitty-gritty. The Hustler does not network for the sake of networking. MORE >>

Tweet. Crafting good hypotheses for your startup is hard. Most people focus on solutions rather than problems. That leads to a ton of products getting launched with zero traction.; the all-to-common “solutions looking for problems.&# A good hypothesis is important because it leads to good experimental design. Just do it. based investors.&# MORE >>