December 2012
2 posts
12 tags
What Are The Magical Ingredients Of Your...
This was the question posed to me recently on Quora (Answer here). Of course the first instinct is to list the obvious: team, vision, product, network, etc. None of which happen to be “magical”. So it would seem there is no magic, well with a possible exception of one very special ingredient - You.
To which you might say “duh”. But this “you” is not just any...
10 tags
Why are there so many useless start-ups?
The other day we were talking with Tina Aspiala, creator of eat.fi, about the state of the world start-up ecosystem. One thing that we discussed was the fact that increasingly, start-ups are “solving a problem” of doing something in a cool and new way as opposed to real world changing problems.
Now before I go on, don’t get me wrong, I enjoy and even use products from start-ups such as...
November 2012
1 post
10 tags
October 2012
5 posts
5 tags
Should we learn from the best or the worst?
Biographies of successful people, stories about their companies, their traits and paths they have chosen in life (From the mundane habits to very specific actions). Many of us try to follow it all, from structuring our companies exactly as they did to keeping the same diet in our attempt to become “rich and famous”. The question that I have, should we? Does learning from success actually increase...
8 tags
Covering the Garage48 Live Over At ArcticStartup →
11 tags
Can You Completely Democratize Your Startup?
For the longest time, I have been toying with the idea that the current management and political systems are grossly outdated. Seriously, in the past 50 or so years everything has changed, but the way we manage and structure companies is virtually the same across the board. Organizational structures were always used in order to fight the problem of inability to quickly gather, distribute and...
“You can now ask me any question on Ask.fm”
– ask.fm/DSarle
9 tags
9 cool companies popped up over the weekend. My... →
Garage48 is a hackathon aimed at getting an idea into a prototype in 48 hours. I was there as a mentor and sponsor on behalf of ArcticStartup. It was an amazing experience and it was great to see so many talented people under one roof.
July 2012
5 posts
7 tags
Startling startup idea up for grabs and reasons to...
The startling part is why on earth would anyone want to give away a business idea? Aren’t you supposed to cherish them, work on them and eventually sell them in order to get rich and famous?
Yes, but that route is the one less travelled by. Most ideas find their homes in the minds of very clever people (And some in not so clever minds) and they settle there for good. Which does nothing good...
4 tags
“Do not be afraid of moving slowly but of standing still.” - Chinese...”
9 tags
$5000 Too much or too little for a start-up?
This blog post is in part inspired by a question on Quora that I replied to recently.
For a lot of startups $5000 seems like a drop in a bucket that will not be enough to get anything done. Some believe that it is only enough to get a user interface design or a part-time developer or a product video, but according to my experience you can get all of the above and much more for much less.
...
8 tags
4 Martial Arts principles to boost your startup....
Sifu Dmitry Stashevich / Meihua Club
© 2011 Dmitri Sarle Very often businesses, especially start-ups focus entirely on the knowledge of their specific industries and practices in order to form strategies for success. Reading blogs from experts in the industry, books from “gurus” and case studies of successful businesses (By the way, I would recommend reading those of the failed ones instead).
...
4 tags
“If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favorable.”
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca 