Strategy

Crowdsourcing: a 7+7 Primer (Pt. 1)

Mike | January 16th, 2012

We write often about small businesses and startups and lean approaches to marketing and other business functions. Mid- to large-size companies can also benefit from the lean methodology and one way to do so is by actively leveraging crowds of workers: designers, software engineers, testers, writers, customer support people, customers, market researchers, and dozens of [...]

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Small Business and Startups: End-of-Year Mishegoss, 2011 Version

Mike | December 12th, 2011

For those of you unfamiliar with Yiddish, the word ‘mishegoss’ is defined as craziness or senseless activity, and as small business-people we can certainly relate to that concept, particularly as the holidays loom and the year comes to an end. Of course, every small business is unique and every business owner has their own priorities for [...]

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10 Habits of Highly Successful Freelancers

Ross | June 15th, 2011

The most successful freelancers are excellent communicators. Is it enough to have great communication skills to succeed as a freelancer? No. However, it’s nearly impossible to succeed as a freelancer without effective communication skills. We’ve seen many talented designers on crowdSPRING and elsewhere fail to grow successful freelance businesses because they were poor communicators. We’ve [...]

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Book Review: Rework (by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson)

Ross | June 15th, 2010

I admire 37signals because they make simple, easy to use web applications and because of their unique perspective on business. Rework is a collection of short essays by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson, focusing on doing less and embracing constraints. Jason Fried co-founded 37signals and David Heinemeier Hansson later joined the company as a [...]

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Book Review: Delivering Happiness by Zappos’ CEO Tony Hsieh

Ross | June 9th, 2010

Over the past year, I’ve been fortunate to talk with Tony Hsieh (Zappos CEO) and Alfred Lin (Zappos COO/CFO), about ways that Zappos grew its culture and its phenomenal customer service. Most people don’t know that Zappos had a very turbulent history when it was founded, or about the many personal sacrifices that Tony Hsieh [...]

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Start-Up Tip: Leadership Is Not Management

Ross | August 24th, 2009

In the book Tribes by Seth Godin, Godin suggests that anyone, anywhere can be a leader. The one thing holding most people back is the fear of failure. Tribes is about making a choice – to lead or not to lead a group of people. Using real world examples, Godin tells stories about how famous [...]

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