May 2012
4 posts
People are Shortcuts
Have you ever had the experience of meeting one incredible person and that meeting leading to other incredible people or opportunities? I’ve certainly had many of these, but it took me a while to get here.
Until a year and half ago, the concept of spending time on optional meetings with people didn’t actually make sense to me. I was living in LA, running a UX agency and iterating...
WatchIn part 2 of my FounderLY interview, I talk about what users think about Wanelo, the challenge of managing yourself as an entrepreneur, not giving up on your idea, deciding to be good at lots of stuff, minimalism and simplicity in design, dealing with failure, creating your future and creating conditions for success.
WatchMatt Wise interviewed me for FounderLY.com. In Part 1 I talk about growing up in Siberia, looking for my passion in college (and not finding it), stumbling upon my first startup idea, launching my UX agency, and eventually starting Wanelo. I also cover why I’m excited about Wanelo and social shopping.
Storytelling for entrepreneurs
Last week I met with a friend who’s a founder of a pre-IPO company. Two things we discussed struck me as fascinating:
(1) just like every other person (myself included) who’s obsessed with success, my friend, although insanely accomplished by most people’s standards, was comparing himself upwards. He was looking at companies that have achieved rare world-class success and...
March 2012
1 post
Wanelo: The Big Picture →
from buildwanelo.tumblr.com
We want Wanelo to become the next way people shop, a social Amazon, if you will. Same as it no longer makes sense that media would talk AT us (one way communication which is representative of old media) and we prefer Facebook and Twitter where we own the content, interact and do whatever we want with it, shopping will stop being one way (stores marketing at you) and...
February 2012
1 post
Living at Peak Experience
I recently attended the Summit Series event near Lake Tahoe. The event had about 600 people, rich content around entrepreneurship, science, and art and music/dancing at night - a pretty solid mix. I had an amazing time, was inspired from the moment I got there and met the most incredible people. All throughout the event I was interested in understanding what makes this event work and what makes it...
January 2012
1 post
What to do with fear
Because we regard fear as something that we have to deal with, we do not just let it be and it becomes empowered to stop us. The appropriate way to deal with fear is to be with it, to choose to experience it, and to be afraid. You let fear be and it lets you be. In the context of skydiving, you are afraid and you jump. Fear goeswith skydiving.
...
December 2011
1 post
Wanelo is hiring! Engineers, designers
We are putting together a world-class team of front/back end engineers + visual/UX designers in San Francisco to continue building Wanelo into a product users want, need and love.
See details here: http://buildwanelo.tumblr.com/
Email deenav@wanelo.com to meet.
November 2011
1 post
Startup founders should eat Paleo
A few months ago I switched to the Paleo diet. My main reason for doing so was curiosity and the fact that I kept coming across smart interesting people who had concluded that Paleo was the best thing for their health and energy.
The basic idea of Paleo eating is that our bodies are adopted to eating what our cave ancestors ate 10k years ago and that agriculture is a relatively recent phenomenon...
September 2011
2 posts
The Cult of Done
My favorite part is that this was written in only 20 min! That’s just too great.
via http://www.brepettis.com/blog/2009/3/3/the-cult-of-done-manifesto.html
I present to you a manifesto of done. This was written in collaboration with Kio Stark in 20 minutes because we only had 20 minutes to get it done.
The Cult of Done Manifesto
There are three states of being. Not knowing, action...
Favorite tip for contacting busy people
My favorite technique for contacting really busy people is to message them simultaneously via multiple mediums. For example, email and Twitter make a great combo. Linkedin is good re-enforcement as well.
The content of your messages doesn’t need to be the same, so you can send a core message by email and follow with unrelated reply on Twitter. They key is recognition via closely-spaced...
July 2011
3 posts
1 tag
How to choose advisors, mentors and co-founders
We’ve already established that startups are nothing but endless uncertainty. It’s natural for us to try to reduce the amounts of uncertainty we deal with by working with or talking to other people.
It’s also no secret that you will get conflicting thoughts and advice any time you talk to someone about your startup. So what is a poor confused entrepreneur to do? How do you know...
2 tags
Stop Reading Startup Advice
Startup culture encourages startup advice. Entrepreneurs want to write it. Other entrepreneurs want to read it. You can read all sorts of things from people who know exactly what they are talking about. Don’t raise funding. Raise as much as you can. Build an amazing product and they will come. NO, don’t worry about your product, just figure out your distribution - it’s the only...
June 2011
1 post
Watchrrhoover:
Last night I joined 25 others in a 90’s themed Silent Dance Party in San Francisco. We started at Delores Park and finished two hours later at the Embarcadero. BEST NIGHT EVER.
Here’s a quick shot of us waiting for the BART to arrive.
May 2011
1 post
2 tags
You Choose What You are Good At
We constantly assess our own abilities against those of others. I know I do. What strikes me as incredible is how freaking random, self-created and only supported by facts after-the-fact these assessments are.
Here’s what I mean. For the second time in my life, I’ve started working with a life coach, this time on a much bigger commitment.
(As a side note, read about Mark...
February 2011
2 posts
2 tags
8 Lessons for Making the Most of Your Facebook Ads
We have been successfully using Facebook as the main user acquisition tool for my startup Wanelo.com. I’ve been finding myself in frequent conversations with entrepreneurs about how to get the most out of Facebook ads and fan pages, so I thought it was time to summarize my experience and advice.
Note that I’ve decided to not share the specific numbers behind our ads, such as the...
January 2011
2 posts
You will never feel 100% ready when an opportunity...
I came across this great little passage from this blog post that strikes a chord:
The number one thing I persistently see holding smart people back is their own reluctance to accept an opportunity simply because they don’t think they’re ready. In other words, they believe they require additional knowledge, skill, experience, etc. before they can aptly partake in the opportunity. Sadly,...
2 tags
The Big Secret Of Behavior Change Is...
… that it’s all about the little things!
A friend shared this really simple, but awesome presentation that points out our misconceptions about what’s involved in changing a behavior. Intuitively, we think that behavior change is all about big radical informed decisions. In reality, it’s all about starting small, setting small short-term goals and ensuring that the triggers...
December 2010
6 posts
1 tag
Why do people share?
Sharing is a basic unit of socializing. Humans are social animals and socializing is at the foundation of who we are. When people approve, appreciate or relate to something we do or say, we feel good. This can be explained in evolutionary terms. Social validation means reduced risk and uncertainty. Life is all about managing risk and one way to reduce it is to do things the same way as other...
1 tag
3 tags
My new Twitter strategy
I’ve gone back and forth with Twitter, and a couple of weeks ago I decided to revamp my Twitter strategy entirely to take complete control of using Twitter as a tool. My strategy is three-fold:
1. I’ve unfollowed most of my friends, acquaintances, and other legacy accounts I’ve accumulated over time. This brought me down to about 40 people. The reason I did this was that I...
1 tag
The TED Commandments
This morning I came across the TED Commandments for TED speakers. I was impressed with these as a sophisticated guide for any kind of social media strategy. These tips can be largely applied to blogging, tweeting etc. (with a couple of exceptions, of course).
I adore the first five tips. So great and dead on.
The TED Commandments
These 10 tips are given to all TED Conference speakers as...
Just spent an hour choosing a theme for my new Tumblr blog.
1 tag
Startups and the Art of Managing Extreme...
[reposting this from my old Wordpress blog]
Uncertainty is at the core of human existence. We all deal with it. Most people take the route of minimizing the uncertainty of their lives as much as they can. Get a good college degree, get a secure job, pick your mate, settle down in a house, get your cars, save wisely, and you’re good to go. Entrepreneurs, on the other hand, create more...
August 2010
1 post
Why it’s hard to keep up with innovation
[reposting this from my old Wordpress blog]
Farmville, Foursquare, Groupon – we are bombarded with the new “it” services regularly. I design internet products for a living, so it seems a no brainer that I should be on top of all of the new services, and it should be really an easy thing to do for someone like myself.
On the contrary, I find that I don’t want to let any new service into my...
February 2010
1 post
1 tag
The importance of bad music
[reposting this from my old Wordpress blog]
Following my previous post on NOT writing definitively and not preaching, I present you with my first definite and preaching post. Good luck.
* * *
No matter how much big-picture perspective we have on our lives, as “human machines” we cannot help but periodically get caught up in the dynamics and stress of the human life.
For example, I do what I...
January 2010
1 post
1 tag
In Vietnam
[reposting this from my old Wordpress blog]
This is my second day in Vietnam. After passing out like it’s my last chance to sleep early last night, I was up at 5am this morning and decided to get up and take advantage of the amazing connectivity we have in our hotel.
Day 1 was a fun experience. Hanoi is a somewhat small, but crazy hectic city. I have enjoyed walking the streets quite a bit....
December 2009
1 post
1 tag
To Travel or Not to Travel?
[reposting this from my old Wordpress blog]
Here’s a tally of my travel for 2009 (some locations are repeat trips):
Domestic:
San Diego, CA
Big Sur/Carmel, CA
Zion National Park, UT
New York City
Big Bear Lake, CA
Portland, OR
San Francisco, CA
Kauai, HI
Miami/West Palm Beach, FL
Santa Barbara, CA
Chicago, IL
Joshua Tree Park, CA
International:
Costa Rica
London
Prague
...
November 2009
1 post
Write a blog to provoke, not to preach
[reposting this from my old Wordpress blog]
I’m a discerning blog reader. I actively read many blogs (saved and new) and manage my blogs in Google Reader. Every so often a blog makes it into my “favorites” folder. Yesterday, I came across a new instant favorite – “A Smart Bear,” a blog by Jason Cohen.
I was immediately impressed not only with the quality of posts, but with the quality of the...