Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.

  • The Pros and Cons to Being a Green Business

    Recently I’ve met with a couple of green businesses, at opposite ends of the spectrum. The first one is a manufacturing company making all-natural chemical cleaning products for commercial use.  For the past several years they have had an annual sales growth of over 100%.  This year it looks like they will far surpass that…

  • 8 Components For Great Business Partnerships

    Monday was a tough day.  After the team of my newest company worked our tails off for six months with another startup, I had to inform the other company we were “out”. The reason was easy:  they had still not signed our contract agreement between our two companies.  The implication was hard:  the fallout, bad-will…

  • NYC Green Finance Interns … for Free!

    The New York City Economic Development Corp. and SUNY’s Levin Institute are launching another round of their successful JumpStartNYC program.  This successful program is bringing terrific, “hit-the-ground-running” talent from the Financial Services industry into entrepreneurial firms like yours – and it’s making a real difference! A key part of the program matches participants with firms…

  • The Five Principles to Achieving the UnReasonable

    In the most sweeping legislation passed since Medicare in 1965, and on an issue that has eluded American presidents for about 100 years, the health care reform bill was signed into law this week by President Obama. Now whether you are for or against the bill, let’s examine how this was achieved. The following five…

  • Have to Make a Really Tough Decision? Here’s What to Do

    I was speaking to a client earlier this week.  Her business has been growing rapidly, but she is out of cash to finance its growth.  She has been working on raising capital for about a year and of the $3MM she is looking for, has been able to raise about $450K. Good, but not enough. …

  • How to Manage Your Fear

    As the phone rang yesterday, I was hoping they were calling to cancel.  I had my reasons:  wasn’t ready yet, a serious list of projects to catch up on, and didn’t want to spend 2 hours traveling. My appointment was to be with the Entrepreneur in Residence (EIR) at Columbia University, and the call was…

  • Want a Job? Create It!

    Recently I’ve met with three different people looking for jobs.  They’ve come to me somewhat frustrated and out of options, or so they feel. The first,a clothing designer, was laid off from a major clothing design company.  Since she was fairly high up in the company finding a similar job had slim pickings.  After some…

  • How to Get the BIG Things Done… First

    This past weekend I found myself very near Palo Alto, CA, where I grew up.  My aunt died suddenly and my family flew out for the memorial. On the way from the Bay Area to my aunt’s, I could not help but remember this story that happened to me in 1975.  To this day I…

  • The Importance of Being Your Word

    The Importance of Being Your Word

    Last night I found myself in an intense conversation a networking event held by my friend and colleague, Michael Margolis from Get Storied. I just met David and we were discussing what the following four organizations all had in common:  BP, Goldman Sachs, Toyota, and the Obama Administration. David and I agreed each had recently…

  • As CEO, Where Do You Spend Most of Your Time?

    On Monday I had a room of 30+ entrepreneurs glaring at me.  They had just been told that where they should be spending most of their over-worked and overwhelmed working lives wasn’t even close to what they have been doing. It started when I asked them how much time they spend in the following three…