I first heard the term "Young Man's Disease" from an older pool player named Charles in San Diego. He was describing how myself and some of my buddies would play pool. Feeling the adrenaline and testosterone mixing in our veins, we'd charge into a game like a bull; we thought brawn was more important than brains. More often than not this would get the best of us and Charles' calm and collected game would prevail.

A similar principal applies to other endeavors in life where any competition is involved.

It has taken a lot of first-hand experience and self-realization to fully understand my own entrepreneurial naevitè. The core of the problem is an "all or nothing" attitude which is derived from the idea that: unless a business idea has near-guarantees of becoming hugely successful it is not worth pursuing. Being in the "tech world" doesn't help either, when a company like Instagram can be bought for $1 billion and has not generated any revenue (as far as I know).

In a world of synthetic businesses all trying to be bought out by the behemoths, I think the much smarter approach (smarter meaning more fulfilling) is to identify problems you can solve immediately, that generate revenue, and that might have the potential to scale. An important lesson I've learned and one that I think will help anyone who wants to run their own business is this: you must start somewhere, no matter how small. The core lesson that has to be learned for anyone on this path is that no victory is too small.

Big ideas are great, but if you cannot prove that you are capable of solving small problems then on the next round you will not have a better understanding of where to focus your efforts.

Ask any investor (whether it be an angel or an institution) and they will tell you that in order for an investment to be sound, it must be scalable. To determine whether an investment is scalable or not is an exercise in identifying the expected growth of key parts of the business. For most internet companies, the key growth metric is in number of users/viewers/clicks and so on.

As the number of users increases, the sum of the whole becomes drastically more valuable at key points of critical mass. If you are starting a social network the number of users you need in order to reach your first point of critical mass is a whole lot higher than say for a SaaS or product-based business that can potentially make a sale with its first user. These are just two examples of many ways to structure a business model, but it illustrates just how different one must view a potential venture and its ability to scale.

If a business can vary in its need and ability to scale, can a person also find optimal scalability?

This is a question that I've been pondering for months and truly gets to the core of capitalism. The unspoken assumption is that people with specialized skills can exchange their time for money and can make more money the harder they work. Doctors, lawyers, engineers, and other skilled people generally have a clear cap on the amount of time they can work and thus the amount of money they can make.

Most people probably haven't thought about this at all or perhaps not in mechanical terms. What I can say for certain is that all businesspeople understand this intrinsically. Anyone who wants to be an entrepreneur needs to understand that their fundamental role is as the gatekeeper between capital and labor.

A further distinction should be made between the role of an entrepreneur and the role of an investor. Whereas the role of the entrepreneur is to make decisions about how capital can create maximum value through labor, the job of the investor is to maximize value through return on their investments. This can be done simply by investing in as many disparate companies as possible (diversification), by investing in two or more competitors (hedging), and many other strategies.

An interesting trend in tech investment is the increased emergence of incubators. These operations are popping up wherever innovation or rampant greed is happening. The corporate mechanism by which these operate is pretty simple: they are simply holding companies. A holding company is one that owns (controlling or non-controlling) shares in other companies.

These incubators are essentially a group of angel and institutional investors who buy shares in (and are then part owners of) the holding company, which provides the holding company with cash. The holding company then turns around and invests that money (small amounts, usually $5,000 - $50,000) into as many tech startups as they can, in exchange for equity in each of the newly formed companies. In other words, they want to create a diverse portfolio of early-stage investments.

Whether it is a good idea to take the incubator bait is something I am not entirely sure about. On one hand, it is nice to be able to eat food while you write software, but on the other hand, it is solving a short-term financial issue with a potentially long-term shareholder arrangement. Is $5,000, $10,000, or even $50,000 worth 10% of your incredible idea?

Besides the issue of equity, I have two other bones to pick with the incubator phenomenon. First of all, it is an artificial environment. Steve Jobs started Apple in a garage, not a lavish Santa Monica office with free red bull. Secondly, the line between entrepreneur and investor becomes very blurry when the investors are actively involved in the decisions of the rookie entrepreneurs.

It is my belief that once you take on the title of investor, you must relinquish the title of entrepreneur. If you drive a Porsche to your incubator where a bunch of 20-somethings are working for $5 an hour, you no longer get to call yourself an entrepreneur. Or have I just uncovered the grand ploy?

This might sound like an affirmation (because it is), but I really do believe this. Not to mention that I think the positive vibes you put out into the universe just might come back and help you later on. If you've ever been out of your comfort zone for long enough to the point where you feel like giving up, you might actually be closer to your goal than you think.

There is a quote by Gandhi (though there is not an official record of him saying this, it is often attributed to him) that embodies a struggle against odds which goes like this: "First they ignore you. Then they ridicule you. Then they fight you. Then you win."

When you set out to do something new, something you are fully committing to for the first time, at first no one is going to pay attention.

If you stick with it long enough, hopefully some people will start to pay attention and some of them are going to ridicule you. This is probably where most people start to feel like giving up, but I think it is absolutely the most important time to double down on your effort.

What you really want though is for some people to try and fight you. You know you are here because you are well past mere ridicule. When people want to fight you, then you know you're doing something meaningful.

At the same time, you want a strong force of people who love what you're doing. The worst place to be is in the middle, where no one hates you and no one really loves you. It means no one is paying attention and you should go back to the drawing board altogether.

If you have both sides of this, then it is up to you to stay positive and stick with the ones that love you, because love tends to be contagious. And as they say, love always wins.

It's interesting when you have always had a set of principles about how you think things should be done and then discover there is a name or even an entire movement for that set of beliefs. This happened to me recently when I was discussing a business model with some startup founders who asked if I had ever heard about the Lean Startup principles. The idea I had was to give startups the feedback they needed from real people who they assumed would be their customers; this feedback would give them extremely valuable information about whether these people were using the product in the way they had assumed they would and if they had a positive emotional response while using it.

In a sense, it is about getting to the truth of a product's relevance in a perceived market. All startup companies want to have a pristine vision (a set of assumptions) and begin building that vision as quickly as possible. They generally do some marketing and gather some beta emails, build fast, and eventually launch their vision into the world. This is a flawed model.

One of the key tenants of the Lean Startup is to build, measure, and learn. I agree with this, but I believe the steps should be reversed. In fact, Eric Ries (the author of the book Lean Startup) has mentioned in some interviews that your first step should be to learn as well. So if the first step is to learn, what is it you should be learning?

Let's start by identifying what we should not waste time learning about as our first step. Here is a list of things you should NOT focus on as your first step:

• What are the best features to include in our minimal viable product?
• What technologies will allow us to build our minimal viable product fastest?
• How can we make sure we are able to scale fast enough when we launch to the public?
• How are we going to make sure our product is able to be shared across the net the fastest?

A lot of you probably read that list and either exclaimed "bullshit!" or just "well shit." If that's the case, you've probably done exactly what so many entrepreneurs have done (including myself): you built as fast as possible with your initial set of assumptions and then found out no one gives a shit about your product. If that's the case, don't lose hope, there is a solution; but you are going to need to remove your head from your ass.

The problem is that by focusing on product first, you've got nothing but a product. The key is to focus on customers first. Here is a list of things you SHOULD focus on as your first step:

• Why will people have a reason to be proud to share your product with their friends and family or co-workers?
• Why will my product be unique within the market I find?
• Who am I assuming will find my product relevant?
• Who is going to become a lasting evangelist of my product immediately upon using it?

First of all, notice that in the list of things to not focus on, we are addressing the what's and the how's of the solution we envision. Contrary to this, in the list of things we should be focusing on, we are talking about the who's and the why's. When you start at this level, you begin to see how you can build an identity and a culture that is fundamentally unique and totally grounded at its core.

Once you have some questions regarding the who and why, then you've learned about a market within which you can identify pain-points and problems. Your next step is to test the assumptions you started out with. This is the part where you measure. The way to do this is to get your initial assumptions out there, in front of the people you want to help, and you do this before you have spent any time building!

In order for this to be effective and convincing, you'll need to employ some novel techniques. Put together a landing site with a video showing your concept, get some text up describing how you believe your product will improve people's lives, and then figure out a clever way to see if people are responding positively. One idea I have is to do split (A/B) testing on the beta signup form, where you ask various questions when they signup. You can then contact the people that signup and find out who they are and ask why your solution might solve some of their problems.

Now you have something you can accurately measure! Real feedback from people and how that feedback plays into or changes your assumptions. It is a lot better to do this before you've expended resources on building something that could be irrelevant from the beginning.

This concept is truly brilliant and has given me a framework upon which I am building my business. Much of this has always been instinctive to me, but it validates and enriches much of what I've felt for a long time. I hope this article can help you to be more efficient and spend your time doing what is most important!

This is the first blog post in a week. Some might think this is due to a lack of focus, but that would be the farthest thing from the truth. The blogging has slowed down because I'm busy building the first product/company that will come out of the BetaThrust collective.

Throughout human history, there have been accords of men who decided that in order to get what they want out of life, they simply had to face and forget all fears and pursue that dream with intense focus. The commitment it takes to see it through means setting a standard and consistently meeting that standard every single day. For the past few weeks, that is the ritual I have set up for myself.

You are probably wondering what "Burn the ships, take the island" means. This is an idiom that comes from actual history. Greek armies, when attacking a rival via sea would burn their ships as soon as they arrived. Why you ask?

Once you've eliminated any possibility of retreat for yourself, then the only way is forward. Steady onward!

We’ve all heard the idiom “burning the candle at both ends” in relation to people who stay up late and get up early. Basically, it means you’re burning the candle during the day and during the night. Most entrepreneurs and other hard working people know exactly what this means.

While developing a business model, I realized that a business that grows fastest is one that also burns the candle at both ends. “The double-ended candle factory” is a powerful metaphor to describe a business model to achieve this goal. Let’s break it down.

The candle wick.

Imagine a candle with a wick at both ends. The wick inside represents a possible business deal; meaning the assemblage of a good or service (product) and the sale of that product. Fast growing businesses are ones that generate the most wicks in the shortest amount of time.

Creating wicks is only the first step. Generating lots of possible business is clearly great, but the second step is closing the deal. This means our business must be exceptionally good at burning wicks as well.

Whatever your business does should know exactly what you’re producing and who you’re selling to. This will tell you exactly what your particular wick looks like, how fast it burns, and how quickly new ones can be generated.

The candle wax.

If our goal is to generate lots of candle wicks and to burn them, then it is imperative that we also have a precise amount of wax to cover each wick, thus having a finished product: our double-ended candle. The way I see it, the wax represents people: after the wick is burned and gone, the wax is still there.

On one end of the candle you have the people representing demand (buyers) and on the other end you have all the people that produce what you’re selling (suppliers). Each candle is going to have a different balance of people on each end, but for any deal to close, it has to be the right number each time.

How your business collects the wax after a deal is closed and is able to re-assemble it into a candle again is just as important as generating new wicks.

The factory.

Let’s recap. Your business needs to know exactly how to construct a deal and what its exact structure is; this is your wick. Your business also needs to know exactly who can produce what you are selling and who it is selling it to; this is your wax.

As a company, the key is to be providing something of value to everyone involved. Every time your factory turns out a new candle and burns the wick, make sure you are able to retain as much wax as possible. People are the most important part of business!

One of the key observations I’ve made of my industry (web and mobile technology) over the past few years is the pervasive belief that in order to be a real player one must raise large sums of capital before having a product, a marketing strategy, or even an idea of how to make money. There is a widespread mentality in our industry that says, “there is so much capital out there and I have a good idea, so I should do what everyone else does and take some of that cash.”

On the flip-side, there are examples of startup companies that have taken no outside funding and instead focused on a high level business strategy long before (if ever) taking outside funding. In other words, they have bootstrapped the formation of the company. People are still doing it, but in our industry, it is rare to see.

Human nature can be pretty predictable with a large enough sample size. So, why are founders taking cash long before a viable business model? I think I know why and I have two examples:

The first example is the company that has a good technical team with an idea that can be brought to market when that particular market segment is trending. Growth is the goal, but behind that, a popular strategy is to exit (flip the business or sell the team). The initial investors and founders are payed and the bigger fish gets their lunch.

The second example is similar, but with a different end goal. The company doesn’t want an immediate exit and has determined that in order to penetrate the market, their biggest competitive advantage is to have more capital than the competition. Of the two examples, this seems to be the more logical one, because some form of marketing and sales must have been determined.

How can I be different and what is the alternative?

If raising capital is the main competitive advantage most startups are using in my industry, then it stands to reason that without the capital, some other form of competitive advantage must be derived.

What is an alternative competitive advantage?

Staying on the topic of capital, perhaps one competitive advantage could simply be: not having the burden of owing someone else money. Bootstrapping an idea means that if it fails, the risk is almost nothing! You can move on to the next idea.

Some of the most successful companies in the tech world (Apple, Google, Facebook, etc.) started in garages, basements, and college dorm rooms. All of them were a couple of smart guys building things that may or may not take off. Their hard work and innovation payed off and with minimal risk.

Every business is different and has different needs at the beginning, but for me, the one that succeeds or fails the fastest with the least risk, is the one to start.

Someone recently told me that, “finding the right co-founder is twice as important as building the prototype.” At first I wasn’t sure I agreed with this statement. I immediately thought and subsequently said out loud, “isn’t the entire goal of a startup to build the actual product!?”

As it turns out, we are both right. Finding the right co-founder means the responsibilities can be distributed more evenly from day one. Net result: the prototype will not only be developed faster, it will be done with more precision and focus.

Who is the right co-founder for my company?

I posed this same question to the person who initially told me how imperative it is to find the right co-founder. His response was, “find someone that is twice as smart as you.” OK, I am not hyper-intelligent by any means, but I am a smart guy, so I feel like this is going to be a challenge. Perhaps by narrowing down certain attributes to look for, this might limit the pool of people quite a bit.

What are my strengths and what strengths are complimentary to mine?

The strengths I bring to a startup are mainly where technology meets business goals: product vision, product development, and working with engineers (since this is my area of expertise). The compliment to each of these (as I currently see it) would be: selling the vision, business development, and working with non-technical people. Seeing as this is my first rodeo, these may or may not be spot on.

Where to go from here.

What I would like more than anything is to get a conversation going with people who have more experience than I do. I am dedicating myself to networking. This means going to meetups, talking with other entrepreneurs, and getting in front of investors for real feedback.

My challenge to you.

If you are reading this and have made it this far, I am guessing you have at least some interest in startups, entrepreneurship, or business in general. If that’s the case, I have a challenge for you: If you or someone you know is super smart and is passionate about creating something big, then please get in contact!

Your reward.

If you get in contact about this in any way, I will buy you a beer.

Yesterday was officially my first day as a CEO. That may sound pretty arbitrary and you're probably saying to yourself "OK, now what?" I don't blame you for thinking that, but bear with me.

The title "CEO" itself is not the important part. What is important is the experiences that led up to making the statement. What I am about to say is not just a true account of things from my life, it is also meant to inspire others out there to realize who they really are.

Back in the winter of 2001, when I was 16 years old, all I wanted to do was program computers so that I could go to California and build an Internet company. There weren't any resources (within my reach) to learn this from someone else, so I had to figure out how to teach myself. I can remember the exact moment I completely committed to learning how to program. I went to my step-dad and asked, "can I get a couple of books so that I can teach myself how to program computers?" He was smart enough to see this as a productive use of my time, so he bought the books. He was my first investor.

That simple act was one of the most pivotal points in my life. I had a dream of being able to create amazing things and a vision of how to get there. At that point, the hard work of training my brain to think like a programmer began. From my Mom's basement on a Mac G3 tower, I spent months tearing through Programming Perl by O'Reilly Publishers. At the end of that winter, I was a proficient programmer.

On the surface, I was learning to program, but below the surface I was learning to trust my instincts. The simple but challenging act of deciding to do something based on instinct and following through with it is trans-formative. This was an empowering period.

Fast forward ten years from those cold winter days in Montana. The last ten years have provided the experience needed to become a successful engineer. Having the ability to build abstract ideas into prototypes very rapidly is an invaluable skill.

The question to ask now is: "Are you living the life you envisioned for yourself?" You can program computers, you made it to California, but have you built the Internet company you want to build?

This is precisely the question I began asking myself subconsciously months ago and fully consciously more recently. Worse than not living the life we envisioned is dwelling on it instead of doing something about it. What is the solution?

Chutzpah. Yiddish words seem to have this amazing quality of sounding like their definition. Chutzpah as you may know means to have audacity or courage or quite simply: balls.

To have chutzpah means that we greet the world with our true self at every possible moment. This is the first step in living the life you may have envisioned for yourself. The amazing thing is, when you do this for long enough, the idea of where your life should be and where you are begins to look more and more similar.

Start with being authentic.