My friend Jeremy suggested that people take his blog post titles and write their own story. Considering I just finished drawing pictures and diagrams on a whiteboard for 4 hours, I thought this title was most appropriate. And the fact that I’m writing this post at 3am on a subway should add a little more color to just how much mental lubrication white boards can account for.

Truth is, ideas come and go. I know this because I have an ongoing ideas spreadsheet that has many, many ideas but I also know 98% of them will never see the light of day. At least not because of me. And this simple truth is really the difference between an idea and something that is tangible. It’s being able to take the lofty, grandiose idea and turn it into reality. And doing that is … Read More »

A family friend of mine owns a large men’s clothing store and for the purpose of this story, we’ll call this store TuxMan. For years, TuxMan would sell suits, ties, shoes, belts, tuxedos and the like to hundreds of customers. He had great products, great customer service, and great tailors. In fact, his service was so good that customers wanted to bring in their own non-TuxMan clothes to get tailored, but he said no. His store policy was that TuxMan would only tailor clothes that were purchased in the TuxMan store. This logic made complete sense and it worked for years. After all, why would he want to do some tailoring for someone else’s product?

Well in the midst of the financial crisis his sales were on a decline. All of a sudden, businessmen no longer wanted to buy new suits. There were fewer customers … Read More »

Image by Stuck in Customs via Flickr

As of today, I’ll be leaving the Lotame family to pursue a new endeavor called Spinback.com.

Like all hard decisions, this one was not easy but here’s the story:

When I first started Lotame I was in the midst of building a business called TheCampusAtlas.com with three of my engineering buddies from school. But through a coincidental encounter at Mount Snow I met Andy Monfried who was also in the midst of starting a new business called Lotame. At the time I wasn’t quite sure what to do. We had already launched on 5 schools and had about 10 more on deck. So the question was, do I pick up the dice on Campus Atlas and join Andy’s new business? Or do I ride out the true startup wave with my friends and see where the … Read More »