My son, a member of the optimization generation, where pretty much every aspect of his life will be tracked, measured, and ultimately ruled by the Alg, posed a fascinating question to me the other day. He simply asked, “How much should I work?” Now, the context for the question is that he’s undoubtedly a Type … Continue reading “How Much Should I Work?”
Author: Joe Chung
Joe Chung is Managing Director at Redstar Ventures, a company that creates companies, taking them from the earliest stages of ideation and growing them through their first institutional funding rounds and beyond. Prior to Redstar he was co-founder and Chairman of Allurent and co-founder, Chairman and CTO of Art Technology Group (NASDAQ:ARTG). Along with co-founder Jeet Singh, he led the growth of ATG from a two-person consultancy to a publicly traded enterprise software company with over 1,200 employees and annual revenues exceeding $160 million. He holds BS and MS degrees in Computer Science from MIT and conducted his graduate work at the MIT Media Lab.
Joe tweets from @joechung.
High Hanging Fruit
Let’s face it. There are tens of thousands of super smart, tech-savvy, funded teams out there chasing the next Massively Viral consumer Internet phenomenon. Think of it like an incredibly parallel search algorithm where every conceivable customer acquisition twist and hook is being explored with effectively infinite resources of fine young minds backed by the … Continue reading “High Hanging Fruit”
My Best Mistake
[Editor’s note: To tap the wisdom of our distinguished group of Xconomists, we asked a few of them to answer this question heading into 2013: “What was your best mistake?”] Hmmm—I know what my worst one was. Best one was probably pushing Jascha Franklin-Hodge to go to MIT instead of keeping him full time at … Continue reading “My Best Mistake”
Fishy Founding
I have a confession to make. Much to my profound personal surprise, I have become seriously addicted to fishing. Mind you, not the idyllic fly casting on the Scottish Weirs clad in tweed over waders sort of fishing. We’re talking big tuna fish into the hundreds of pounds trolled up from the depths of the … Continue reading “Fishy Founding”
Dead Reckoning: No Smooth Sailing for Startups
Prior to the mid 1700s (and long before the advent of GPS receivers in every smartphone), mariners at sea calculated their position by Dead Reckoning, a process in which you simply assume that whatever course and speed you are on can be straight-lined ahead with a ruler and pencil, day after day, regardless of wind, … Continue reading “Dead Reckoning: No Smooth Sailing for Startups”
How Not to Start a Startup
Startups can be a lot like first girlfriends (or boyfriends). You fall madly, passionately in love, think of them 24/7, talk, walk, eat, drink, breathe them, put everything into them and beyond, but sometimes, despite the passion, it just doesn’t work out. And, actually if you’re willing be to be brutally honest, in retrospect the … Continue reading “How Not to Start a Startup”
Four Kinds of Startups
Since part of my job at Redstar Ventures is to meet as many entrepreneurs as possible who might want to co-found a startup with us, I’ve swilled plenty of coffee at Voltage and Peet’s swapping ideas with many a bright, passionate, and inventive entrepreneur. Somewhere into my second gallon of cappuccino, I began to notice … Continue reading “Four Kinds of Startups”
How to Hire an Entrepreneur
As Erin Kutz wrote about a few weeks ago, my fellow ATG co-founder Jeet Singh and I have recently launched Redstar, a “company that builds other companies.” Unlike most incubators and angel funds, which invest in companies that are already formed or at least well along in the process, Redstar’s goal is to create a … Continue reading “How to Hire an Entrepreneur”
Shopping 3.0: The New Face of e-Commerce
I fully realized that the third generation of shopping was upon us when Sharon Jester Turney, CEO of Limited Brands Direct, turned to me and said something along the lines of how she needed something to add the sex to the new Victoria’s Secret website. That one utterance, delivered without irony, wove together several threads … Continue reading “Shopping 3.0: The New Face of e-Commerce”