To a happy and prosperous 2012.
Posted in My musings
In the last two days, a tidal wave of SOPA opponents have come out of the woodwork and found their targets: the companies officially supporting the act.
Ever since Congress released a list of corporations supporting the legislation, the Internet has been in a frenzy. GoDaddy has taken the brunt of the criticism. It started with ICanHazCheeseburger’s Ben Huh declaring that they would transfer their domains from GoDaddy if it didn’t withdraw its support of SOPA, but hundreds — if not thousands — of people are now transferring their domains (update: GoDaddy has withdrawn its support of SOPA).
That’s not all. Y Combinator will no longer allow SOPA-supporting companies to attend YC Demo Day (say goodbye to Comcast Ventures) and thousands of people are attacking the long list of companies supporting SOPA.
Focusing our attention on these companies is a waste a time, though. We are wasting our precious energy and resources on these corporations when we really should be doubling down our efforts on getting people to call, email and snail mail their Congressman.
The Stop Online Piracy Act (and its sister Senate legislation PIPA) have good intentions, but it is a flawed bill that inadvertently goes against the foundations of an open and free Internet. (The Verge has a great summary of SOPA if you are not up-to-speed.)
There are far better ways to fight piracy than SOPA.
Our goal is simple: to stop SOPA and PIPA from reaching the President’s desk. To that end, let’s put some real pressure on the congressional leaders trying to push this bill through.
You may think that contacting your Congressman doesn’t work, but trust me: it does. I used to work for the House of Representatives. I know first-hand what impact jamming the phone lines has on a Congressman looking to get re-elected.
On Wednesday, January 18, when Congress is back in session, we the people shall send a massive wave of emails, phone calls and letters to the following people:
Clog their phone lines. Fill their inboxes. Make your voices heard.
We are setting up a website now to facilitate this effort and drum up much-needed attention against this bill. We need your help, though. Please send an email to me at ben[at]benparr[dot]com if you want to volunteer to help run the site.
Together, we can stop SOPA. Together, we can protect free speech and the open web.
~ Ben
Image courtesy of Law Blog Law
Finding investors for your startup is tough business, but choosing the ones that will enable your company and your product to change the world is a far greater challenge.
There are lots of reasons for choosing investors. Perhaps they have large reach and influence. Perhaps they have a great track record. Perhaps they are brilliant when it comes to product. Perhaps they’re known for their founder mentorship.
There is one rule you should never deviate from when choosing investors, though. It’s one that too many entrepreneurs break in their quest for the next round of funding.
The #1 rule of choosing investors for your startup: Only work with investors you’d grab a beer with. Some people call this the “don’t work with assholes” rule, but I prefer to call it the Beer Rule.
Investors are just as much a part of your team as your co-founders or employees. You’re going to have to work with (and answer to) these people. You better respect the shit out of them if you’re going to take their money. You better be comfortable enough to challenge them and still be friends after a screaming match if you’re going to take their money.
One other piece of advice: the worst reason for taking an investor’s money is for the money. Always work with investors that have skills, connections, knowledge and insight that you don’t have. Always work with investors you respect and can trust. Life is too short to work with people you don’t like.
P.S.: Replace “Beer Rule” with “Tea Rule” if you aren’t much of a beer drinker.
Image courtesy of Flickr, shaggy359
Posted in Entrepreneurship, My musings
This is what happens when you are partying in Paris — random people give you tours of the city on their scooters.
(Actually, it’s my friend Michelle Chmielewski tailing our Uber cab across the city.)
Enjoy the video!
Posted in My musings
One of the things I’ve found myself carrying around these days is a sketchpad.
The reason is simple: I have a lot of ideas, for both the companies I advise and for my own startup ideas. I’m a visual person when it comes to developing products, so I’ve always found a sketchpad to be immensely useful for drawing out the product and user engagement flows for my ideas.
When ideas get more structured, I bust out OmniGraffle, one of my favorite apps for Mac and iPad. Most product people already know about OmniGrafflie: it’s a great way to build visual product roadmaps and mockups. If you aren’t using it, I highly suggest it.
The point I’m trying to make isn’t that you should carry a sketchpad around with you. My point is that you need to have a way to immediately record and expand the ideas in your head. You can write out a story, record a voice note, start a Wiki, call your co-founder, or mock something up in photoshop. Use the medium that suits how your mind works.
In my case, I use sketchpads and whiteboards. They are my canvas. Make sure you find yours.
Posted in Entrepreneurship, My musings
Women are still paid far less than men on average. Women make approximately 0.77 cents to every dollar a man makes, according to Time Magazine.
There are a lot of contributing factors to this problem, but one that a lot of people don’t focus on is how most women are losing out during the salary negotiation.
I ran across an extraordinarily interesting thread on Reddit today. The thread is by a person who performs the salary negotiations for a large multinational technology company.
“I regularly hire women for 65% to 75% of what males make,” the anonymous Redditor says. “I am sick of it.”
More from the thread:
“Our process, despite the pay gap, is identical for men and women. We start with phone interviews, and move into a personal and technical interview. Once a candidate passes both of those, we start salary negotiations. This is where the women seem to come in last.
The reason they don’t keep up, from where I sit, is simple. Often, a woman will enter the salary negotiation phase and I’ll tell them a number will be sent to them in a couple days. Usually we start around $45k for an entry level position. 50% to 60% of the women I interview simply take this offer. It’s insane, I already know I can get authorization for more if you simply refuse. Inversely, almost 90% of the men I interview immediately ask for more upon getting the offer.”
This problem continues to the counteroffer. Men will simply put out a higher number, while many women in this person’s experience don’t even put out a number, so the negotiator continues to lowball it.
You may say that this type of salary negotiation is unfair, but this is how markets work — two sides haggling over perceived value. The fundamental issue here is how women perceive and carry themselves during these negotiations and how often they ask for a raise.
This is an issue that Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, a woman I deeply admire, has continually noticed. “Women systematically underestimate their own abilities,” Sandberg told an audience during her famous TED Women talk. 57% of men negotiate a higher salary for their first job out of college, while only 7% of women do the same.
Fighting this issue is not just about laws and regulations, but awareness and mindset. Tell that young college senior niece or daughter of yours that she is worth more and that she should be confident in demanding more. If a company doesn’t accept her terms, it’s their loss and not hers.
I’ve embedded Sheryl’s TED talk for good measure. Let me know what you think of the male-female salary gap issue in the comments.
Image courtesy of Flickr, GS+
Posted in Entrepreneurship, Innovation, My musings
As some of you may know, I’m an advisor to Tracks.by, a startup founded by my longtime friends Matt Schlicht and Mazy Kazerooni. They’re building an awesome social platform for artists to launch their content and reach millions of fans.
One of the biggest artists using their platform is Lil Wayne (you can see Tracks.by live on Lil Wayne’s Facebook page). And yesterday, they took him out skating at a skate park in Silicon Valley.
To say I’m jealous is an understatement. Their pictures with them are simply badass.
Tracks.by has quietly become one of the top 200 apps on the Facebook platform. It has more than 1.6 million monthly active users after launching in private beta a month and a half ago.
Posted in Entrepreneurship, My musings
After my announcement this week, I received a flood emails. It was a humbling experience having so many people reach out to me with well wishes and support. Thank you, all.
One email stood out amongst the pile, though. I was stunned when I read it… speechless. I asked its author if I could share it with all of you, anonymously, and she graciously agreed.
I hope her email will inspire you as much as it has inspired me:
Ben,
I stumbled onto an article about you today. I am not tech savvy nor am I an entrepreneur. I read your article and I wanted to say I am glad you have taken your great abilities and are trying to as you put it ” make a dent in the Universe”. By the sounds of it – you have already made a dent. For some reason your comments and story hit me in such a way that I wanted to reach out in support and say “Keep going”!
I have never in my life commented on-line or reached out in such a manner but today I felt so inclined. It must have been something that you said that made me believe there is hope in the Universe when people like yourself have the ability to change it and will change it.
Thank you,
[Redacted]
I’m thankful that I have the opportunity to make this type of impact. This is why I work so hard, both as a writer and as an entrepreneur.
This is why I do what I do.
Image courtesy of Flickr, Babichasingrainbows
Dear friends, family, colleagues and supporters,
Friday, November 18, was my last day at Mashable. I want to thank the Mashable team for 3+ amazing years. They truly have been the best years of my life.
I also want to thank everybody who has been part of my journey. Your help and kindness have been constant sources of strength. I don’t know what I would have done without you.
During my time at Mashable, I wrote 2,446 articles, explored the technology world through my column and interviewed everyone from Ashton Kutcher to Mark Zuckerberg.
But most of all, I learned so much from the thousands of entrepreneurs that I have met. I will not forget their struggles, their triumphs and their ideas. I wish I could have written more of their stories. It was a true honor.
As for what’s next: I am considering several opportunities right now and will definitely keep you all posted as to my future plans. I want to leverage the national platform that I have built and use it to help, empower and reach as many people as I can. I’m exploring options in the media world, the entertainment world, the startup world, the venture capital world and elsewhere. But as always, I’m open to suggestions.
I do intend to continue writing and commentating about the technology and entrepreneurial world, though. Therefore, I will continue my Social Analyst column on BenParr.com for now.
I remain an advisor to NerdsUnite Productions, Tracks.by, Code Academy, Women 2.0 and a few other startups. And I am always interested in working with other brilliant entrepreneurs with ambitious business ideas.
As I’ve told many people, the driving philosophy in my life is this: I have the ability and thus the responsibility to change the world for the better. I want to find a way to empower every person on the planet, so they can pursue their dreams. Today begins the next stage of my journey to fulfill that purpose.
If you want to chat, I can be reached at ben[at]benparr[dot]com. My Gchat is also ben[at]benparr[dot]com, and you can find me on Skype as ben_parr. And of course, I can be found on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+.
Thank you all. I know we will have the opportunity to work together to make a dent in the universe.
Cheers,
~ Ben
Image courtesy of Flickr, Altus
Posted in Announcements, Innovation, My musings, Social Media, Tech
I get several hundred pitches in the course of a typical day. It’s part of the job — startups, PR agencies and big tech companies pitch us on their products, and we decide which ones are the best fit for our readers.
But going through hundreds of pitches every single day is rough. We (journalists) can’t possibly go through every email, so we look for signals that help us sort out the stories we want to follow up on and the stories we need to trash.
One of the signals that can get your email trashed is the use of buzzwords. While not every pitch with a buzzword in the subject is a bad pitch, most of them turn out to be for crappy products that don’t stand on their own merits. There’s a strong correlation.
In the interest of killing the overuse of buzzwords, I have collected a short list of the worst buzzwords to use in a pitch. These are the worst of the worst. They are overused and add little to no value to a pitch.
(In the interest of being helpful and not just preachy, next week I’ll post some tips for what you SHOULD do to get your pitch noticed.)
Check out the list below. This is a living list — I intend to update it regularly, so let me know what words you’d like me to add the list in the comments.
In no particular order…
Image courtesy of ThinkGeek. Also, I really need to buy that stamp.
Posted in My musings
