On June 30th, 2015, Naira Musallam and her climbing partner, Tim Lawton successfully summited Denali (Mount McKinley). They made history as The First Arab-American Team to ever do so. Naira also became the first Arab woman to stand on the summit of Denali. Standing at 20,320 feet, Denali is one of the “Seven Summits” because […]
Startups
Recap: My 3 Days at #PowerMoves.NOLA 2015
I rarely like to travel; I hate having to go through security. I hate going to conferences. Most of the time I come away feeling I did not accomplish what I set out to accomplish. On Wednesday morning I left NYC on a JetBlue flight. I was heading to New Orleans for the 2nd annual […]
6 Things I Have Learned About Building High-Performing Teams
I spend a lot of time thinking about teamwork; how teams function, how they operate, how they fail or succeed, and how the most successful teams make their success repeatable in the face of changing conditions. This post is my attempt to synthesize what I have learned so far. ((Let me know if you feel […]
Notes On Early Stage Technology Investing; Art, Science, or Both?
Often when I have asked other people this question I get a response that leaves me feeling dissatisfied. It seems most investors are compelled to take one side over the other, and, at least as far as the admittedly small sample of investors I have asked this question are concerned, insufficient thought is given to […]
A Note on Developing and Testing Hypotheses
This post is a continuation of the discussion I started in A Note On Startup Business Model Hypotheses. In this post I will describe how one might go about developing and testing a hypothesis about any aspect of a startup’s business model. ((Let me know if you feel I have failed to attribute something appropriately. Tell […]
A Note on Startup Business Model Hypotheses
One of the observations I have arrived at over the course of meeting founders of early stage startups is that often it is not clear during our conversations if they have spent time examining the hypotheses that underlie the business model for the startup they are building. This post ((Any mistakes in quoting from my […]