The Pragmatic Strategist

It’s Not a Career Path, It’s a Career Highway

As a career management advocate turned Entrepreneur Evangelist, I recently had an epiphany that clarified some of the change I’ve experienced over the past two years, as I’ve moved from my old life to my new one. I’ve been lacking an effective metaphor to describe both the process and my present (and potentially future) state. [...]

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Business Mentors

For any entrepreneur, the value of a mentor can almost never be overstated.  Whether it’s building your business plan, defining your market, figuring out a product strategy, or trying to sell your spouse on the idea that giving up a steady paycheck from someone else is a sane thing to do, a mentor is one [...]

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We Never Called it "Cyber Monday"

I’ve been feeling nostalgic this week. After so many years in ecommerce, supporting catalogers and retailers whose year entirely revolved around the Christmas season, I am almost at a loss for what to do if I’m not running around putting out fires from Thanksgiving weekend up until the week before Christmas. Strange as it seems [...]

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Interactive Austin Conference Overview

This week was the second annual Interactive Austin Conference. Focusing on the value of social media for business, AI09 convened a broad spectrum of experts, locals and practitioners to share, debate, network and learn about how to take advantage of social media for the benefit of business. Keynotes Starting off the day was industry leading [...]

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20/20 Hindsight – Transitioning a Services Company to a Product Company

This is something I’ve been thinking about more and more recently. The fact that we started off as a services company is what allowed us to get started and to avoid having to rely on outside funding. But it was transitioning to a product company that allowed us to grow and scale, and to ultimately [...]

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20/20 Hindsight – Being Pioneers in a New Space

Ask anyone who got into an internet-based business prior to 2000, and you’ll hear nostalgic “good old days” stories, the way my grandparents talk about ‘when Kennedy was President.’ It’s hysterical to hear, and it saddens me endlessly to think about how long ago that was, but it really was an exciting time — and [...]

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20/20 Hindsight – Getting Your Start in a Startup

People who did not meet me until at or around my 25th birthday would never believe it, but in school, I was the Queen of Slackers. Truly. School was too easy, too routine and I spent too long doing it to be able to breath new life into the experience. I could dodge classes, do [...]

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