Curt Doolittle

Author: Curt Doolittle

  • Startup Skills Vs Startup Ideas?

    I’ve started eight companies, invested in about an equal number, and pitched more times than I can remember or count.

    The idea only matters if other investors are following it.  Investors are sheep. They follow trends in business ideas because trends mean over-investment that they can participate in.  Instead of ideas, they care about the returns on the idea. And most entrepreneurs spend too much time on their idea and not enough on  how they will market, sell, distribute and create their product and service, and who they can exit to if they succeed.

    Ideas are cheap, and plentiful. They are everywhere. The problem is not coming up with an idea. it’s coming up with an idea that customers will pay for and which provides an exit strategy.

    After you have that idea, the next problem is execution. Can your team demonstrate an ability to execute by getting customers, and producing results. The most common problem I come across is confusing learning with producing results.  No one will pay for learning. That’s just a cost. They pay for products and services. For “deliverables.” Customers and investors included.

    And then there is  the problem of cost.  Can you execute and create enough profit that an investor can see a way out, by tripling their money in three years?Or do you not expect to need an investor?

    I’ve probably answered this question a thousand times in my career, but people keep asking it in the futile hope that someone will provide them with an alternative answer.  But that won’t happen. 

    And, using facebook is an interesting analogy.  They started by making a dating tool for exclusive universities, and ended with one of the worse IPO scams in recent history.It’s an outlier.  Outliers don’t teach us anything. It’s the thousand companies that follow a fairly standard path that we learn from.

    https://www.quora.com/Startup-skills-vs-startup-ideas

  • FROM A POST ON QUORA – THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF MAJORITY RULE OVER HETEROGENEOUS VAL

    FROM A POST ON QUORA – THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF MAJORITY RULE OVER HETEROGENEOUS VALUE SYSTEMS

    Small homogenous cultures tend to be redistributive. One of the sillly myths, is that 350M americans of various value systems can be governed as are 10M northern european protestant germanics. Majority rule assists us in selecting fiscal priorities when our interests and values are the same. But as the values of a country become heterogeneous through immigration, or the breakdown of the nuclear family that allows women to return to their communal state of bearing children but asking others to pay for them, we render majority rule impossible. Because now we are not selecting priorities for the use of scarce resources, and generating laws to prevent privatization of those investment ‘commons’, but we are instead, generating laws to advance one system of moral codes at the expense of another, and using money from one group to achieve what is amoral to them. This is why democratic government is limited to homogenous cultural entities. And why the market serves us across heterogeneous entities. Our institutions of majority rule are not competent to solve this problem of heterogeneous values.

    Source date (UTC): 2012-09-22 13:11:00 UTC

  • How Sound Is The Process Of Providing Government Stimulus Based On Keynesian Economics In A Country With A Large Fiscal Deficit?

    Bertil Hatt answers the question correctly. But I think I”ll try to add an answer to WHY that trust is necessary.

    I tend to criticize Keynesian advocates daily, Krugman included, for arguing under the pretense that people do not understand the Keynesian model and the value of Keynesian stimulus.  It’s not that they don’t understand.  Its that the act of providing such a stimulus rewards and expands the government and its influence.  And the citizens have become polarized, into the the masculine hierarchcal model (conservative aristocracy) and the feminine communal model (social democracy), and no longer trust the government to spend in favor of all, but in favor of their cultural constituency.

    Small homogenous cultures tend to be redistributive.  One of the sillly myths, is that 350M americans of various value systems can be governed as are 10M northern european protestant germanics.  Majority rule assists us in selecting fiscal priorities when our interests and values are the same.  But as the values of a country become heterogeneous through immigration, or the breakdown of the nuclear family that allows women to return to their communal state of bearing children but asking others to pay for them, we render majority rule impossible. Because now we are not selecting priorities for the use of scarce resources, and generating laws to prevent privatization of those investment ‘commons’, but we are instead, generating laws to advance one system of moral codes at the expense of another, and using money from one group to achieve what is amoral to them.

    This is why democratic government is limited to homogenous cultural entities.  And why the market serves us across heterogeneous entities.  Our institutions of majority rule are not competent to solve this problem of heterogeneous values.

    So in a heterogeneous state, the Keynesian stimulus only works if the government can spend on investments that do not favor one constituency or another. And that is impossible.

    https://www.quora.com/How-sound-is-the-process-of-providing-government-stimulus-based-on-Keynesian-economics-in-a-country-with-a-large-fiscal-deficit

  • Is There Any Independent, Third-party Research On The Fiscal Grievance Of Catalonia With Spain?

    Joe: that’s not what the numbers mean.
    Catalonia represents 14% of the population and pays 22% of the taxes.  The tax rate is both unfair, and harmful, since it is the one region of spain that might form an innovative industrial heartland, in southern Europe. Furthermore,  Catalonias speak a slightly different language and have a distinct culture and have tried repeatedly to gain independence from spain, only succeeding for a brief period.

    Federalism only works if a culture is homogenous.  That is the problem for the US, and for Europe,

    https://www.quora.com/Is-there-any-independent-third-party-research-on-the-fiscal-grievance-of-Catalonia-with-Spain

  • Caplan tipped us off on this, So I had to share. 🙂

    http://www.forbes.com/sites/markfidelman/2012/09/20/the-state-of-social-media-at-work-in-one-quick-infographic/Mike Caplan tipped us off on this, So I had to share. 🙂

    Source date (UTC): 2012-09-21 23:04:00 UTC

  • (MSG or something in the soup from Whole Foods. Sleeping for the past four hours

    (MSG or something in the soup from Whole Foods. Sleeping for the past four hours.)

    Source date (UTC): 2012-09-21 20:45:00 UTC

  • I did NOT need to know more about this car. I was perfectly happy knowing that E

    I did NOT need to know more about this car. I was perfectly happy knowing that E Types and Cobras were antiquated technology. So I didn’t have to long for one. And, well, Morgans are one thing. But this is purely modern car. And it’s gorgeous. 🙂

    A used one is 75K euros. 100K US.

    Source date (UTC): 2012-09-21 13:18:00 UTC

  • HOW A NERD THINKS ABOUT A WARDROBE I’ve lost something like 40 lbs, although I f

    HOW A NERD THINKS ABOUT A WARDROBE

    I’ve lost something like 40 lbs, although I feel like I’ve gained a bit back staying here in Bellevue, typing all day. So I’ve had to slowly rebuild my wardrobe over the summer so that I’m not swimming in sacks like Alice after she imbibes the Drink Me potion.

    I didn’t change the style at all. Still stayed with the jeans/jacket theme that I’ve always had, and the pretty stock Ralph Lauren for casual.

    — WARDROBE UPGRADES —

    2 Suits (Charcoal, Navy Pinstripe)

    3 Sports Jackets (2 blk, 1 blk/grn)

    12 Dress Shirts (8 white, 4 black)

    4 Smart Casual Dress Shirts (3 Blues, 1 rust)

    2 Ties (Robert Talbot) Yellow, Charcoal (Short 4)

    3 Pocket squares (short one)

    1 RL Long sleeve cotton shirt (pink)

    3 RL Polos (Black, Grey, Blue)

    1 RL Long Sleeve Polo Heavy (Green and Blue with leather)

    1 RL Long Sleeve ‘Sweatshirt’ (red)

    1 RL Long Sleeve ‘hoodie’ (Brown)

    6 Jeans (Seven for All Mankind – 4 blue, 2 grey, 1 brown)

    1 Black Dress Shoes (cole haan)

    3 Driving Shoes blk ( 2 cole haan, 1 Diesel)

    1 Running Shoes (nike free)

    1 Sweats (grey, eddie bauer)

    1 RL cargo shorts

    — HOLD OVERS —

    3 sports jackets – retailored (Abboud, RL, Custom Made)

    5 Belts 2 blk/br, 3 blk decorated, 1 RL braided Br.

    1 blk loafers (cole haan)

    1 brown loafers (santoni)

    2 smart casual city shoes (Geoxx)

    1 driving shoes (cole haan)

    1 RL heavy winter hoodie

    1 Jones NY Black Car Coat

    1 North Face ‘Fleece’

    1 (?) Rain Jacket

    2 Grey Seven jeans (really need to go)

    1 RL Swim (white)

    2 RL Shorts (cargo, white)

    2 Watches (Baum Mercier, Hamilton) (can’t find the Raymond Weil)

    3 sets cufflinks

    — STILL NEEDED —

    1 Narrow Lapel Tux

    2 pleated tux shirts

    2 watch bands (br/blk)

    1 proper raincoat

    — LOSSES —

    4 RL polos (xl/custom fit)

    20 various shirts

    15 various jeans, mostly Seven brand.

    2 Abboud tuxes (wide lapel, narrow lapel)

    6 sports jackets

    4 suits

    6 shoes

    TIPS:

    – Wash your expensive jeans inside out. That’s where most of the wear comes from.

    – Wash your clothes in cold water using Woolite or some other mild detergent unless you work with dirt and sweat for a living. Hang dry your shirts on plastic hangers. They’ll last longer. (The water at the cabin ruined my clothes. Its one of the reasons I didn’t want to live there any longer.)

    – The cleaners damage your clothes. Especially the seams. You are better off doing them at home. I see all these guys with freshly pressed clothes that are falling apart.

    – Learn how to iron. Iron in front of the TV in the morning with your coffee. I do it before the shower, and lay my clothes out for the day on the bed. I love ironing. Because it’s become part of my ritual. And because my grandmother taught me how. And it reminds me of her.

    Source date (UTC): 2012-09-21 07:18:00 UTC

  • WORD OF THE DAY: NONCE 1. Nonce, time being: the present occasion; “for the nonc

    WORD OF THE DAY: NONCE

    1. Nonce, time being: the present occasion; “for the nonce”

    2. Cryptographic nonce, a number or bit string used only once, in security engineering

    Until today, I always thought ‘nonce’ was some sort of abbreviation for “nonsense”. Because I’ve always seen it used to refer to a one-time key in software.

    You learn something new every day. 🙂

    Source date (UTC): 2012-09-21 01:02:00 UTC

  • ANYONE ELSE TIRED OF EURO-BLOWHARDS restating the patently obvious? The northern

    http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2012/09/europes-crisisIS ANYONE ELSE TIRED OF EURO-BLOWHARDS

    restating the patently obvious? The northern and southern cultures are incompatible. Or better stated, the Protestant german speaking cultures are incompatible with the catholic countries. Is that difficult to understand?

    The euro was doomed from the start. Either the germanic peoples leave and save the south, or the south leaves and dies by suicide. Although some of our south american friends have proven even that is survivable if you have a parent currency to leverage.

    The Economist for some reason feels the need to print toilet tissue on the subject. But this is not a question of economic efficiency. It’s a question of cultures.

    Source date (UTC): 2012-09-21 00:01:00 UTC