The Entrepreneur's Essentials

2022 New Year’s Eve Letter

Dear family and friends,

As we have in prior years, we are sending this end-of-year letter instead of mailing holiday cards.  Instead, we’ve made a large donation in your honor to the Anti-Defamation League (unfortunately antisemitism continues to be on the rise).  If you haven’t read my newest friend Noa Tishby’s book on Israel, it is a real treasure.  It isn’t just about Israel (although that would be enough given its title and importance), it is also about Western values and the value of democracy itself.

2022 was an incredible year in so many ways but it was also a rollercoaster (if you let it be).  From a market that was at a peak at the end of 2021 to rising inflation, a rising Fed funds rate to try to combat it, the shocking Russian attack of Ukraine, but also with many truly amazing technological breakthroughs, including at data.world, and beautiful moments of humanity (including Ukraine’s improbably successful resistance) - wow, what a year it was!

On Amazon Prime: The second, expanded edition of "The Entrepreneur's Essentials"

I'm very proud to announce that my book, "The Entrepreneur's Essentials", is now available on Amazon, including Prime. All proceeds from my book will be donated to support and strengthen the next generation of courageous, creative female leaders.

Through an investment in The University of Texas at Austin's Kendra Scott Women's Entrepreneurial Leadership Institute, proceeds will support the curricular and co-curricular programs that empower and equip thousands of female students annually. I hope this makes a big impact in the lives and entrepreneurial careers of women & people of color.

This has been a true labor of love. I've really put my heart and soul into this, and collaborating alongside of David Judson for over 13 months and weekends, with the amazing editing skills of Clarissa Fuselier (formerly of my prior startup, Bazaarvoice), made it all possible.

Netflix vs. Blockbuster and bad profits (reflections from my Bazaarvoice days)

In honor of Netflix’s big beat today in the very unfortunate age of COVID-19, I decided to revisit my four-part Bazaarblog series while I was CEO of Bazaarvoice (from our inception in 2005 to our IPO in 2012). The name of the last part? “Netflix vs. Blockbuster: Round Four (Lights Out?)”

First, just to provide a foundation here, Bazaarvoice was named after Chapter 4 of “The Cluetrain Manifesto” (available for free online), “Markets Are Conversations”. I still think it is the best chapter of any book on marketing that I’ve ever read. Bazaarvoice, literally translated, means “the voice of the marketplace”. I told the story about how Brant Barton, my Bazaarvoice co-founder, and I picked the name in Chapter 7 of my book “The Entrepreneur’s Essentials” (also available for free online). Do yourself a favor and read “Markets Are Conversations” if you never have - it was amazingly prescient.

TED Connect rises in the era of COVID-19, and Ray Dalio offers much wisdom

In the spirit of living an Always Be Learning life (read Chapter 4 in “The Entrepreneurs Essentials”, which is available for free online at Medium), TED Connect has been a terrific series during this very challenging global crisis due to the rapid spread of COVID-19. On Wednesday, TED interviewed Ray Dalio and it didn’t disappoint. I went to school on this like I would if my best professor in finance was presenting while I was at The Wharton School. What follows are my notes from his talk.

Four big learnings on health (Part One)

In the past year, I’ve been asked about health more than any other topic outside of tech and data. I’ve decided to consolidate my responses to those questions in a series of four Lucky7 posts.

Specifically, I’ll cover:
1. Nutrition (and my vegan power breakfast smoothie recipe)
2. The Cooper Clinic
3. OsteoStrong
4. Exercise and X3

First, let’s start with nutrition. It is becoming increasingly clear that a vegan diet is your key to longevity and vitality. I’ve covered my transition to a mostly vegan (and sometimes vegetarian) diet over a three-part blog series, beginning in 2014. I pose that you will be more spiritually pure on a diet like this because of its benefits to our planet, your body, your mindfulness, animal welfare, and your fellow human beings. I cover what I’ve learned from reading many books and watching many movies. The most recent part, Part Three, covers the evolution of this movement to plant-based meats as well as clean meat (also known as cellular agriculture).

"The Entrepreneur's Essentials", my free ebook, is in progress

I’ve been writing a lot lately, just not here on Lucky7. I finally decided to compile and refresh some of my best posts over the years into a free ebook named “The Entrepreneur’s Essentials”. In this article, the Austin Business Journal interviewed me about doing so. It is really fun to reflect on what I wrote years ago and have been applying to data.world for the past three years. If you would like to check it out, head on over to Medium. Here are the four lessons I’ve written so far:

  1. The Entrepreneur’s Essentials #1: How to leverage advisors and investors as your extended team

  2. The Entrepreneur’s Essentials #2: What’s in a name?

  3. The Entrepreneur’s Essentials #3: The five critical ingredients to build a big company

  4. The Entrepreneur’s Essentials #4: Seven lessons learned on the journey from founder to CEO