I was at ITS2011 in Tampa last week watching Carlos Dominguez give a presentation about innovation and how the best companies approach it. After giving a handful of examples he asked the crowd “How many of you take time out of your week to actively envision what the future will look like?” Out of the…
Author: SeanDavis
Thought Rut.
For reasons I can’t get into, I’ve been struggling with the decision to pivot my business model over the past week. I’ve had three alternate product concepts in reserve just in case the situation developed and I needed to use them. But when the time came I found myself asking “What does this product do…
Inner Workings of DEMO Day
This video was taken leading up to Boulder’s DEMO Day in the summer of 2010. What does it mean to the companies that are participating? As you’ll hear David Cohen state that you’ll base your success on the number of meetings that you get. I don’t think it gets any simpler than that as all…
Here’s What Sucks About Being An Entrepreneur…
It’s not the long hours, development dead ends or the faint hint that you may need to pivot your business model sooner rather than later. No. What sucks is that a very small number of people, the small minded, short sighted sycophant with neither vision nor the barest wisp of a good idea, will take…
Idea Defending.
Be careful who you put your ideas in front of. If you can find people that are genuinely in your corner and want you to succeed, show ’em everything. Because these people are rare. I know of maybe five people that will look at what I’m doing and give me their blunt opinion. And I…
Handling Seed Stage Funding
Here’s how I’m dealing with it. First, take a look at Brad Feld’s Finance Friday article from 8/12. Next, if you want more investment money, show what you did and how much you accomplished with the last money you got. This is just common sense. If you turned it into a working prototype, used it…
Red Hawk Interactive Accepted to Gazelle Lab
Today I’m pleased to announce that my company, Red Hawk Interactive, has been accepted to participate in Gazelle Lab. When I left my previous role in April it was to get more involved with the growing entrepreneurial and start-up communities that are developing in and around the Tampa Bay area. I also left to start…
Edit Yourself.
It’s easy to think of a great concept and then start adding to it. Adding things that really don’t matter to consumers. Adding things that you think make your product cool. Adding things that your competitors have and you think you need to have them too. The real results? You’re wasting time and polluting your…
BarCamp Tampa Bay 2011
BarCamp Tampa Bay is returning on Sept 24th to Kforce in Ybor. This year we’ve gone with just a single day and are limiting the sessions to 30 minutes each. Topics will include Social Media, PHP, Ruby, mobile development and much more. Hopefully we’ll see some sys admins and DBA’s presenting as well this year….
Getting Your Idea Across… To Your Dad.
On purpose I had not told my dad I left my day job until just recently. He’s 84 so he leans toward the “stick with your job and save your money” train of thought. I figured I’d break it to him over lunch, that way if he was going to explode he would have to…