The End of Smart OES

Last year Smart OES was acquired by Ingenero, one of our corporate strategic investors! I’ve been meaning to blog about this momentous event but the acquisition itself and then major moves in other areas of my life (More on that soon!) have kept me busy. Finally I have a chance to reflect back on SmartContinue reading “The End of Smart OES”

My Entrepreneurship Principles: Leadership

In my first piece on Mindful Entrepreneurship, I laid out several principles to optimize the entrepreneurial process.  In my second piece, I argued that culture is extremely important to startups. In this final (?) piece I will now examine how leadership can create an optimal startup culture and execute the entrepreneurial process. Entrepreneurial Leadership CultureContinue reading “My Entrepreneurship Principles: Leadership”

My Entrepreneurship Principles: Culture

While I was hunkered down surviving Hurricane Florence, I had further opportunity to reflect on my principles as an entrepreneur. In the first part of this brief series on Mindful Entrepreneurship, I laid out my keys to the entrepreneurial process. In this second part, I will focus on culture. Entrepreneurship Culture Culture matters a lot.Continue reading “My Entrepreneurship Principles: Culture”

My Entrepreneurship Principles: Process

I have recently been reflecting on the principles that I believe make entrepreneurial ventures successful. Today, the 56th anniversary of JFK’s famous moon speech, a speech that inspired a nation to accomplish an impossible goal, seems like a good day to try to distill those principles down into a succinct post. I won’t claim toContinue reading “My Entrepreneurship Principles: Process”

Entrepreneurial Leadership

Last week I was invited to give a talk on a topic of my choice to the team of a high-growth startup in Durham. Because leadership challenges often cause friction during times of high growth, I chose to address the topic of entrepreneurial leadership. Check out my video below and let me know what youContinue reading “Entrepreneurial Leadership”

The First Follower Principle in Action

Anyone who has seen the famous TED talk on “first followers” knows the speaker’s argument that movements aren’t just started by leaders; the first follower is just as – and possibly even more – crucial to the spread of a movement than is the originator of the idea. The first follower shows everyone else A.Continue reading “The First Follower Principle in Action”

IMD HPL

I’ve just returned from a transformational week back at IMD for their top-ranked High Performance Leadership program! This time five years ago, I was organizing my move to Lausanne, completing pre-work assignments, and preparing for a life-changing experience. As I flew across the Atlantic last week, completing preparatory work for this IMD program, I couldn’tContinue reading “IMD HPL”