Breaking Free
Experiments in tech entrepreneurship
Archive for the ‘Advice’ Category
Simple Trumps Complete
22 Dec 2010Three articles I’ve read in the past month. All with the same lesson about what makes a web application “catch on”. 1. Wayne Ting, a guy who started a Facebook-like app at Columbia University around the same time as Facebook explains how they lost to Facebook: they had too many features. “A good website should have [...]
Tonight I went to go see Peter Thiel speak at Stanford University. He co-founded Paypal, was an early investor in a bunch of companies (Facebook, LinkedIn, etc), and is a billionaire. I jotted down some notes from the talk which I thought were interesting. Intensive vs. Extensive He spent a bunch of time comparing these [...]
Punishing Nigerian Scammers
8 Nov 2010I started getting complaints recently from some tutors on UniversityTutor.com that they were receiving scam emails. I looked into it and the scam is the same one you commonly see on Craigslist and numerous other sites. It usually goes like this: Someone contacts you pretending to be interested in your services (tutoring in this case) [...]
Shutting Down FeedmailPro.com
24 Oct 2010Had a bit of a sad moment today as I finally shut down FeedmailPro (or at least began the transition process to do so). I’d been contemplating this move for a while, and finally bit the bullet. Why? Well the short answer is that I don’t have enough time to work on it, and it [...]
Mark Andreessen talks about the 3 criteria to judge a new business idea, including the idea that it has to be a major improvement over existing solutions. If it’s not a 10x improvement, is it really worth doing? I tend to agree.
Insights After Touring Zappos.com Headquarters
24 May 2010This past week I made it over to Henderson, Nevada and took a tour of Zappos Headquarters. I went with all the folks in the startup I’m working for, just because we thought it would be fun and we liked their approach to business. I also ended up reading the new book by Zappos CEO, [...]
So you just built the next great web app, the launch day has finally come and …. silence. Crickets chirping. You anxiously check your Google Analytics stats and see that despite having the coolest new website ever, nobody seems to care. More precisely, nobody knows about it yet. This is one of the toughest moments [...]
I recently stumbled on the writings of Paul Graham and I have to say I’ve been incredibly impressed. It’s not often that I find myself finding such insight and experience in what I read. Most people out there are hawking versions of the same story, but Paul Graham seems to have a unique perspective on [...]
Stop Talking About It And Just Build It
In: Advice|Productivity
22 Jul 2009Saw this great video about Facebook’s development team today. Got me thinking…more companies need to think like this. Focused, uninterrupted work is the greatest gift you have…but how often do we really do it? Generally speaking, if you are answering your phone, opening snail mail, chatting, emailing, even talking with other people at all…you are [...]
From time to time I get in touch with various readers of this blog who are “Breaking Free” in their own way. Please take a minute to check out their respective sites below and give them a look! It’s always pays to get around like minded people and see what you can learn. Gordie Rogers [...]
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About this blog
Breaking Free is a collection of articles on tech entrepreneurship, business, and life written by Brian Armstrong. You can read more here »
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