This is the current top review of Mule Radio app:

Reskinned 5by5 App ★☆☆☆☆
by TokuNJT

Like two of the shows you can listen to with this app - “Let’s Make Mistakes” and now “The Talk Show” - it is essentially a re-skinned version of the 5by5 app previously produced by developer Black Pixel for 5by5 before the project was shelved. The app payload even includes a 5by5 Broadcasting logo, for crying out loud.

Yep, still using Clear from @realmacsoftware. Here is my minimalist GTD setup.

Grouped: How Small Groups of Friends Are the Key to Influence on the Social Web by Paul Adams
My rating: ★★★★★

Great little book giving an overview of a wide array of research on social networks and how information passes through them. Though near the end it gets a little too evangelical for permission marketing IMHO, I think it is a great starting point for learning about the social aspects of building web products today. Many of the cases in the book might be familiar to you if you read a lot of new business books, or books on decision-making and/or popular psychology. Adams does a good job highlighting these cases and tying them together for the web entrepreneur.

I listened to the audiobook which was a quick and easy listen. I am going to pick up a text version so I can explore the footnotes.

View all my reviews

Today at #LeanCoffeeKL we had a great discussion about how to acquire customers when your target market is the Enterprise, rather than the general public like a more traditional startup. During the discussion I came up with three models that I would like to propose for discussion:

1. Traditional B2C startup: You make your product, and distribute directly to Users, some or all of which are paying. This direct-to-market model is quite new due to the internet as the ultimate software distribution mechanism.

2. Traditional B2B: The people who will use your software are not necessarily the ones doing the purchasing. Adoption of software in the enterprise is traditionally top down, decreed by a complex interaction between various internal stakeholders like IT departments, management, purchasing, etc. It is up to the developer to suss out the right person(s) to talk to in order to even get their software in the hands of Users. Furthermore, this inhibits Lean methodologies for incremental innovation based on an MVP.

3. Consumerization of Enterprise: This is a recent trend in enterprise, a bottom up model where workers on the front lines discover and use their own solutions. Users then convince the hierarchy above them to adopt a technology either by asking their managers and IT depts for it, or by those upper levels noticing the improvement of efficiency. This is another kind of adoption first strategy.

Off the shelf technology is becoming more prevalent in the enterprise, and forward-thinking organizations are taking advantage of this. Depending on what kind of company your B2B startup is trying to sell to, doing an end run around traditional organizational barriers to gain internal adoption might be a good (if long term) strategy. The next question is: how do we achieve this end run?

If you like thinking about this kind of stuff and are in the Okanagan area, I highly recommend checking out the #LeanCoffee group in Kelowna.

diggydivision:

hashtagsinning:

OH CANADA

well played

The Japanese Friendship Gate （友情の門） in Salmon Arm.

On our cruise around the Shuswap region today we spotted this Japanese-style gate from the road and had to take some pictures. It is located in MacGuire Park in Salmon Arm, BC and was built in 1997, the year I went to Japan. Here are a few more pics on Flickr.

Chad on www.flickr.com

Yahoo’s lack of innovation is one thing, but what really drives me bonkers about Flickr is the terrible video support. Maybe 1 in 10 of my video uploads are successful. I take a lot of short vids on my iPhone and even on my 60D I think they should be viewed within context, alongside the still photos that were taken at the same time. Isn’t that the whole point of having video capability on your digital camera? To enhance the still photo viewing experience with sound and motion? The video problem became so frustrating that I have begun the hunt for a Flickr replacement. My ideal photo/video sharing site would have the following features:

• upload videos
• marking of photos as private
• uploading from iOS devices
• activity stream (see below)
• BONUS: custom domain name

I do not use Flickr as a portfolio site. Flickr fills two roles for me:

1. Photoblogging: Anytime I attend an event, or even see something interesting while walking around, I shoot and post it to Flickr, oftentimes straight from my iPhone. This is why I like Flickr’s default view of all photos in descending order. It is an activity stream, like a blog. I do enough of this that I don’t want to flood my blog with photos.
2. Private photo sharing for friends and family: I use the heck out of Flickr Guest Passes. They are great because you don’t have to ask someone to join Flickr to view the private photos, plus they get to see the private photos in context alongside the non-private ones. The only negative for using Flickr to share pics privately is that it sucks for downloading photos, something that MobileMe made quite easy.

I used to use MobileMe for private sharing and Flickr for public sharing, but once I discovered Guest Passes I was able to consolidate my photo uploading. Any replacement should not require me to significantly increase the number of steps in my workflow. Furthermore, splitting off my private photo sharing to another service also is a step backward since I want my friends and family to be able to see my public photos as well.

Over the past three weeks I have spent time with SmugMug, Zenfolio, 500px, ZangZing and Google+. Below are my judgements of each.

SmugMug

The 799lbs gorilla in the photo sharing space. More directed towards pros than casual sharers like myself, SM seems to be eating a lot of Flickr’s lunch lately. Uploading video is smooth and their iOS app is serviceable. Using a custom domain is dead easy and SmugMug offers extensive customization. However, it has an overly complex organization scheme (eg. categories > galleries) and is too dependent on albums. This impacts their privacy options as you cannot mark individual photos for friends/family and have to do so at the album level. It also means that there is no general Activity Stream equivalent. I was able to figure out a workaround using their brilliant Smart Albums to simulate an activity stream. If only their Recent Updates module could filter out photos based on keywords, then things would be simpler. Two other complaints I have are the terrible URL schemes and of course the terrible UI. If I am going to use a tool nearly every day, I want to enjoy using it. That said, SmugMug is a strong contender to replace Flickr.

Zenfolio

Zenfolio has been eating a bit of SmugMug’s lunch recently, mostly due to its relative simplicity. It has a much better UI, but still feels like Windows XP. Zenfolio also offers custom domains. Customization isn’t as extensive, but you can get sites to look decent. It just takes some work to make sure your site doesn’t look like it has been hit with the ugly stick. Like SmugMug, Zenfolio is dependent on folder structure. The Collections feature is nice though, and I might be able to leverage that to make a public Activity Stream. Zenfolio does have an iOS app, but I didn’t bother trying it. Zenfolio is definitely less of a pain to setup than SmugMug, but I think it would be too much of a pain on a day to day basis, at least in the way that I want to use it.

500px

The main thing 500px has got going for it is UX. It is beautiful. And the Stories feature combined with Flow allows me to photoblog and flexibly create albums as necessary. However, with no privacy features, video uploads or way to upload from my iPhone, 500px is out of the running. Excellent for a straight portfolio site though.

ZangZing

Here is another site with a beautiful interface. I really enjoy using this product, but once again, no video sharing and no iPhone app make it a non-starter for me. Also, the uploader requires Flash, which is a major #WTF in this day and age.

Google+

I actually thought I might give Google Plus a try. Here is a product that is optimized for sharing to specific individuals, groups, or the public at large. They do have an iOS app, crappy as it is. The Activity Stream functionality is there. Videos are no problem; and it is being hyped as a new community for Flickr refugees and photogs at large. Maybe I am doing it wrong, and need to spend more time with it, but Plus doesn’t seem satisfying. I think the issue is accessibility. Flickr and other services have a gallery or RSS or other ways to passively view photos. Plus is very album centric. And since most of the people I am sharing with are not on Plus, it seems I am forced to email everyone for each photo I upload. Moreover, like I’ve mentioned above, I don’t really want to flood Google Plus stream with photos. Even though I update my Flickr feed all the time, I don’t expect people to look at it every day. It should be accessible to the period browse though. Google Plus deserves more exploring I think.

And the winner is…

The result is I think overall, indecision. There is no clear winner. Photo sharing is obviously an area with tons of opportunity for innovation judging by all the alternatives out there. If I was of a mind, I would try and tackle this problem myself. Anyone out there want to tackle this problem with me? ;-)

After looking at the competition, overall it seems that Flickr satisfies most of my needs. Despite Flickr’s shortcomings, I am already well invested into it. Furthermore, the Flickr Community (something that I have not talked about) still has a ton of inertia. It is not worth abandoning just yet. It has been 4 years since Flickr introduced video. Is my hope that they will fix it futile? Rather than searching for an alternative to jump to, maybe I should put my energy into petitioning Flickr to solve their video problems.

If you have any suggestions or recommendations for photo/video sharing that you think I should look at, please get in touch.

Tawara-ya: Famous ryokan in Kyoto.

As it was our last day in Japan, we spent the day running around town. My wife got a massage at a place right near Tawara-ya, the ryokan that Steve used to stay at as mentioned in the Isaacson biography. I had a few minutes and a camera so I thought I would do a bit of light stalking. Can’t believe it took til my last day to stop by this place.

This is where it all started. Above is my completed family of four, standing in front of the college dorm where I met my wife in 1999. As we only have a couple days left in Japan, we decided to take a photo. Unfortunately the weather didn’t cooperate and it was pouring down, so we weren’t exactly able to pose a bunch and take lots of shots. In fact, we only took one. The result is less than perfect, but it is a pretty good representation of family life: haphazard, slap-dash, but smiling the whole time.

In two days the four of us will be boarding three planes and landing in Canada’s Okanagan Valley next Tuesday. My wife and first daughter have been in Japan for six months. I have been here for three months. My second daughter has been with us for two and a half. Needless to say, it has been eventful. Soon new chapter will begin.

Over the past twelve years my wife and I have moved back and forth between Canada and Japan on average once every two years. As we have now completed our family, this next chapter of our lives will be focused on building a foundation. That means trying to stay in the same place, building a community, creating a healthy and loving environment for our kids to grow up in. So, for the next while, it is goodbye to Japan.

I still have a few months left on my paternity leave, and am looking forward to getting a few things done after returning to Canada. For example:

• continuing Lining Things Up
• building some more Rails apps
• rethinking my wardrobe
• improving my career
• getting a vasectomy (・・；)

Helping my wife and daughters re-integrate themselves into a Canadian lifestyle tops the list though. Also, getting healthy. I gained about 10 kilos during this pregnancy and am going to try and lose it by dieting, running and training. I got a Wi-Fi Body Scale for Xmas, and a Nike Fuel Band is in my future. My wife wants to do yoga together, which I am all for.

As always, there is lots to do. But my view on life is different than it was in the past. My new keywords are “long view” and “life-editing”. I know I can’t do everything I want to on a whim. But I am perfectly satisfied with that. Enjoying my time with my family is the cake. Everything else is icing.

Next month an article of mine will be published in an Osaka-based newsletter. The article is based on a blog post from a few years ago: End of paternity leave and a lesson on negative support. It is all in Japanese (edited by my lovely wife), but for those interested, click on the more link below:

父親育児休業の最も大きな学び

コホリック・チャド

　1997年に、武道を勉強するため、初めてカナダから日本に来ました。わずか数か月の旅でしたが、絶対に日本に戻りたいという強い願望ができました。二年後、大学の短期留学生として再来日できました。留学中の一年間に、妻と知りあい、それから長い愛情のある関係を築くことができました。2008年に妻から衝撃的なニュースを言われました。妊娠だ！

　初めての娘が生まれて、新米パパになった時は幸せな瞬間でした。産後二か月になったら妻が仕事に戻るため、私が半年の育児休業をとりました。はじめは育児休業をとるつもりはありませんでしたが、妻が三年間の有期雇用の職場で働いていて、三年目に妊娠したので育児休業の権利がなく、産休のみで仕事に復帰しなければならなかったため、妻が産後も仕事を続けるために夫婦で話し合って、私が育児休業をとることにしました。

　予想しなかった育児休業という経験によって赤ちゃんについてたくさんのことと、また同じくらい自分のことや妻との関係について学ぶことができました。

　育児休業をとったと話すと、職場の反応を日本ではよく聞かれました。半年間、取得したことも驚かれました。職場では上司に二歳半の子どもがいたことから、羨ましがられたぐらいで問題はありませんでした。同僚からは「男性でもそんなに長く育児休業をとれることを知らなかった。自分も考えてみる」とか「ちゃんと育児休業がとれるなんて、この会社はさすがいい会社だ」と言われました。そのため育児休業は会社によって保証されている権利ではなくて、国の制度であることを説明しないといけませんでした。肯定的に受け止められていたようですが、知られていないことがたくさんあると思いました。日本は北米に比べて、育児休業の制度が進んでいないと聞いたりしますが、カナダの制度より日本の方がだいぶ進んでいる感じがしました。

日本とカナダの育児休業制度の違い

　実は国々の育児休業制度を比較するのは大変難しいと思います。ほとんどの国は育児休業制度がありますが、その内容は様々です。例えば休業中に支給されるお金。長い期間の休みを提供しても、お金を支給するかしないかで、育児休業に参加する人口は変わるでしょう。

　カナダの場合は父親は子どもが生まれたら、三七週間の休業をとる権利があります。育児休業は子どもが一歳になるまでに開始しないといけません。その間の生活費用は国の雇用保険のシステムから支給されます。だいたい収入の50％となります。

　日本で育児休業を取得できる期間は「子が一歳に達するまで」。つまり、父親でも産後すぐに申請すれば、最大一年間とれます。（カナダはわずか九か月）。その上、日本は「パパ・ママ育休プラス」という二度目の育児休業をとれる便利な機能もあります。例えば、出産後の八週間以内を妻と一緒に育児をして、その後、夫は仕事に戻る。妻が仕事に復帰する大変な時期に、夫が二度目の育児休業がとれる制度です。カナダでは一人の子どもに対して、育児休業は一回しか申し込めません。日本のように分けたりすることができません。

　日本はカナダに比べて、こんなにすばらしい制度があるのに育児休業を利用している男性はわずか 1.23％です。（「平成二〇年度雇用均等基本調査」）

　私はカナダの制度にいろいろな不満を感じるのに、2010年のカナダにおける男性の育児休業利用率はなんと30％（Labour Force Survey. 2010. Statistics Canada.）でした。だが、これには事情があります。ケベック州が独自に2006年に育児休業の特別制度をつくりました。この育児休業制度は父親専用で母親は参加できません。 五週間、完全に有給で父親は育児休業がとれます。それでケベック州における育児休業男性利用率が爆発的に増加しました、現在はなんと77.6％です。ケベック州外でも、育児休業男性利用率は増加しています。2001年で全国的に育児休業を利用している父親はわずか3％でしたが、現在はケベック州外でも11％となりました。

しかし上記の利用率だけでは、一つの大事なデーターが見えないと思います。それは男性育児休業利用者の平均利用期間です。所得できる期間がカナダでは九か月、日本では一年あっても、実際に男性は育児休業をどれくらいとれているのかが解りません。カナダと日本の統計調査を見つけることができませんでした。日本の男性育児休業利用者、1.23％の中で、一年間いっぱいをとっている父親は何人いるでしょうか？私も半年間しかとることができませんでした。

　次に育児休業をとって感じたことを紹介したいと思います。専業主夫の経験のお陰で理解できたことがたくさんあります。この学びを他の新米パパと共有したいと思っています。それは育児休業がとれるかどうかに関わらずです。具体的には以下に書いた、expectation management（期待値管理）についてですが、夫婦のチームワーク、コミュニケーション、プランニング、持久力とサポートにも深くつながっている話だと思います。

育児のお口伝、其の一

（「くでん」武道用語・秘伝のこと）

育児は短距離競走ではなく、マラソンである

娘が生まれてから二か月間は、妻が家で回復と育児をして、私がフルタイムで仕事をしていました。妻をできるだけサポートをしたいという気持ちがあって、仕事が終わるとすぐに家に帰って育児を引き継ぎました。週末は私が家にいて、妻に外出を勧めました。買い物やマッサージなど。充電するために気分転換をしてほしかった。新生児の育児は難しいとイメージして、私の役割はできるだけサポートすることだと思いました。新米パパの本を読んでそう思いました。

　しかし専業主夫になり、新生児育児の「お口伝」が解りました。実は、短時間なら新生児の面倒を見るのはそんなに難しくはない。走ることと同じように長時間は挑戦です。マラソンのように大量のメンタルと持久力が必要となります。例えば、賃金労働の仕事は週五日の八時間に集中できます。しかし育児労働は二四時間、週七日。さらに賃金労働の場合は、職場と暮らしの場が違いますが、育児労働の場合は職場に住んでいるのと同じ。これはストレスレベルが上がります。

　テレビでマラソンを見ると選手はそんなに早く走っているように見えない。自分はそれより早く走れるだろうと思うかもしれません。でも42キロの長距離をそのスピードでずっと走れると思いますか？専業主婦（主夫）という仕事は、綱渡りをしながらマラソンを走っているようなものです。しかも育児以外の家事など、山ほどある仕事も考えないといけない。だからパートナーのサポートが大変必要となります。

　サーカスで見る綱渡り芸人が練習するときはいろいろ準備します。まずは低い縄、それに長い棒を持ったヘルパーもいます。バランスを崩して、倒れそうな時はヘルパーが棒を出して、手をかけるところを提供する。抱っこ、掃除、皿洗い、赤ちゃんを風呂に入れたり食事を手伝うのは綱渡り芸人に「手すり棒」を出すのと同じ。パートナーが一息ついて、バランスを立て直すことができる。ここに単純な学んだこと：このレース＝育児では「サポートし過ぎ」ということはない！それでも、私は綱渡り人になった時、もっと精神的に微妙なことを学びました。

育児のお口伝　其の二

「肯定サポート」より「否定サポート」のコストが高い

expectation management（期待値管理）

　どういう事かをサポートをポイント制にして説明してみます。パートナーにサポートを提供すると＋10サポートポイントを取得。これは「肯定サポート」と考えてください。サポートすればするほど、ポイントが貯まる。しかし「約束したサポートをしなかった」ら（お皿を洗うと約束したがしなかったなど）一回で100サポートポイント減点。これが「否定サポート」。損失の大きさをよく解ってください。

注意：「否定サポート」とサポートの欠如は違います。「無サポート」の値はゼロで始まりますが、「無サポート」の期間が長く続くと、サポート減点となっていきます。

　またマラソンを走るルートもよく考えないといけません。上がり坂、下り坂、人混みになる折り返しのカーブ、給水所。ランナーの持久力は限られているので、道しるべをよくプランニングしないといけない。予定していた給水所に着いて水がないと言われたら非常に困るでしょう。

　専業主婦（主夫）のパートナーにアドバイスできることがあるとしたら、サポートする約束を直前にキャンセルしたり変更することは禁止。パートナーが毎日の道しるべを計画できるように、よく自分の予定について伝えてください。持久力は限られているけれど、情報があればうまく管理することが可能です。やる事を言う。言ったことはやる。良好なコミュニケーションは夫婦関係の基礎ですが、赤ちゃんがいるとこれが倍、大事になってくると思いました。

最後に

　育児休業は素晴らしい経験でした。伝統的に父親が子どもを支える方法は財政手段によるサポートでした。正直、新生児にお金はそんなに掛からない。赤ちゃんを育てる経験は短期的な収入カットがあっても、価値がありました。私にとって育児休業経験は感動的、でも孤独な、素晴らしい、でもストレスの多い複雑な気持ちの時期でした。子育てはユニコーンと戯れて、虹がでている日ばかりではない。でも今年一月に次女が生まれて、現在、育児休業中です。今回はカナダで父親がとれる育児休業の最大限九か月間とりました。ところで職場の反応ですが、同時期に同僚の三人の父親が長期休業をとって子育てをしています。

After posting my Google+ rant on Google+ I thought more about what kinds of social networking services I use, and how many I have abandoned in the past. I put them all together in the graphic above, separated into three groups (from top to bottom): Currently using (frequency from Left to Right); Infrastructure and Deadpool.

Current

Twitter is my most used network. Tumblr powers my blog. I upload to Flickr often, where I share private photos & vids of my babies with friends and family. I use Zite for social news (I used Summify before it got acquired, Percolate and News.Me never worked out). I keep up with a lot of stuff through Twitter or podcasts. The next set of SNSs are for tracking: books, movies, music, bookmarks and locations/food/meetings (Path). Then there are a couple for pure entertainment. Finally, there are the functional networks (and Google+).

Infrastructure

These are basically the services that I use without really knowing it. Flavors powers my site. I do upload the occasional video to Vimeo, but mostly it is used for viewing vids that people share to me. YouTube is exclusively for watching. IMDB is now used just for reference (I log all the films I watch with Letterboxd). Gravatar and Disqus are useful social utilities.

Deadpool

Some of these I tried and disliked, some lost out to competitors higher up in the graphic, and the rest are great but I trimmed to simplify my social networking life. As you can see, a number of services have fallen by the wayside.

Believe it or not, I have been trying to cut down on my digital attention deficit disorder. I have been pretty successful with iPhone apps. One obvious way to cut down on the number of SNSs I use is to use Facebook with a number of apps. But… still too creepy for me.

Two networks on which I have accounts but remain undecided are 500px and Diaspora. I have flirted with the former simply out of frustration with Yahoo’s lack of vision for Flickr; the latter I joined during the whole Facebook revolution of 2010. I shelved it when Google+ came out, but I am thinking about taking a look at it again. It looks like they have come a long way.

It is a valuable exercise to periodically audit different aspects of your life, and simplify where you can. Obviously “simplification” is a relative term, but it is something we can all strive for, and can lead to more happiness. To make this blog post even more pretentious, I will end with a video from an inspiring TED talk entitled Less stuff, more happiness.

Game of Thrones Themed Opening to The Simpsons

Anil Dash in a conversation about How do blogs need to evolve?.

This is such as great analogy for — ahem — certain free Internet services.

For the past four months I have been doing periodic interviews with people involved in the tech industry in Vancouver and BC on my podcast Lining Things Up. So far it has been great, and I have learned a lot about local entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship in general. The show (usually) is released every second Thursday.

As I am on an extended stay in Japan, I decided to continue doing the main show but thought it would be interesting to intersperse releases with interviews of tech people based here in Japan. I reached out to a few prominent (English-speaking) members of the tech community and have begun the process. Thus, I am excited to present LTU in Japan.

LTU in Japan will be a short run show and included in the main LTU feed. If you are interested in technology in Japan, have a listen. You will be inspired by the personal stories of the interviewees, and how they got to Japan. You will get some insight on how the tech community works in other parts of the world, and hopefully you will gain some perspective on your own community.

As always, if you have feedback or questions, get in touch via Twitter or email me: chad [at] liningthingsup

A few production notes

For those interested, I have a few comments about producing the new show. First, I conducted the theme music entirely with GarageBand for iPad. It is pretty simple, but amazingly fun. Secondly, the site. I designed the main LTU site to be minimalistic, bright, and mobile friendly. It is a long, single column design that I did in one day. LTUJ is the same but different. Simple, but inverted colors and a wide design. You’ll notice, however, when you resize your browser the interviewee “cards” sort themselves to fit your screen. The ultimate result is that on an iPhone, LTUJ is a long design similar to the regular site. Once again, I whipped this up in a day, by hand using Espresso so forgive any irregularities.

I often talk about all the podcasts I listen to. I thought I would share them for those that are interested.

You can click on the image to enbiggen it. The app I use is Pocket Casts by Shifty Jelly. You can download my OPML file from here.

I grouped all the shows as follows: 5by5 shows; other tech shows; media and geek shows (I still hold out hope for a return); philosophy; “ahem”; football. Within those groups they are somewhat organized by priority. I don’t listen to every single show every week, but the ones at the beginning of each group are a guaranteed listen. I endorse them whole-heartedly.

Altogether I listen to an average of 15-20 hours a week plus or minus what audiobooks I am listening to at the time.

Now that you know what kinds of shows I like, if you have any suggestions let me know!

Mobile operating system market share, Feb 2012 from iCrossing. For comparison, see 2011’s numbers. Some standout numbers:

Japan 2011 > 2012

• iPhone 58% > 48%
• Android 23% > 46%
• WAP 12% > 2%
• Other 7% > 4%

China 2011 > 2012

• Nokia 59% > 40%
• iPhone 11% > 12%
• Android 3% > 22%
• Other 27% > 26%

Anecdotal, but per my experience I would think that “Other” in Brazil is eaten up by grey market iPhones.

Clayton Christensen and Michael Raynor’s The Innovator’s Solution: Creating and Sustaining Successful Growth was recommended by Horace Dediu on his show The Critical Path.

On the show Horace often talks about “Jobs to be Done Theory”, or the idea that customers hire a product to do specific job. It is a very useful way of thinking about products and is fleshed out more in this book. Some other particularly interesting topics (to me) covered in the book include:

• jobs to be done theory
• the innovator’s dilemma
• innovation: sustaining vs. disruptive
• integration vs. modularity (and the transition between the two)
• commoditization
• RPV framework: resources, processes, values
• good money vs. bad money
• be patient for growth, impatient for profitability

Although the book seems to be directed towards large organizations, there is much in here for startups as well. In fact, Chapter 8’s “Discovery-driven Planning” is basically Eric Ries’s Lean Startup Methodology of experimentation. One bit of advice that seems counter to the current trend of “growth now, business model later” is “be patient for growth, impatient for profit”. This is especially important inside of an organization because your funding can be cut as soon as the parent organization (investors) need to put out fires elsewhere, thereby losing patience with your venture. If you are profitable from early stages, your master’s might be more amenable to let you continue even when they must focus on something else.

I listened to the audiobook, which was a bit of a slog. You might find the text version a little less… sleep inducing. If you haven’t the time and want to read the Cole’s Notes version, I highly recommend Derek Sivers’s chapter-by-chapter writeup.