Why you should tackle the most epic problems you can find

I am excited to announce that I have joined the product team at Flatiron Health.  I recently decided to make a change and pursue one of my passions in either health or education. After exploring opportunities, I came away deeply inspired by the people and mission at Flatiron. The team is tackling one of the most epic problems in healthcare: helping oncologists and researchers provide better care for cancer patients.

As I thought about my career and my decision, I wanted to share a few thoughts about why it's important to tackle the most epic problems.

It maximizes your impact

Choosing important problems can be viewed in the absolute sense (cancer) or in the relative sense (the most important problem that your team, division, or company faces right now).  Look for roles at companies that are doing things that matter to you. Then consider it part of your job to get yourself on high impact projects, even though it's not directly in your control. This means being transparent about your career goals, seeking visibility from executives, and asking to join projects that will help you grow.

When times are hot, you can still recruit

Regardless of your role, you will hit a point in your career where your ability to attract top performers will be critical to your success. In crazy markets it is hard to attract talent.  Top candidates will have four or five offers and will always have an option that pays more.  If your pitch is not focused solely on compensation, but on the potential to make an impact, you can still win.

When times get tough, it's still worth it

Let's be real.  Things will get hard.  You will have days when everything goes wrong and you want to throw in the towel.  When you're working on something meaningful, it's easier to muster up a second wind and power through.  It's important to work on something that helps you keep your chin up during stressful times.

There is nothing more satisfying

Working on big, hairy challenges is simply fun and exciting. When you turn 80 years old, will you regret the decisions that you're making today? We can't predict the future. But working on important problems paves the way for a satisfying career.

"Work on something so important that even if you fail the world is better off for you having tried."

-Tim O'Reilly

Will an MBA help you become a successful product manager?

This post was originally an answer I wrote on quora to What's the difference between a pre-MBA and post-MBA product management role? As context, I have an MBA myself and have worked as a product manager across multiple companies (Twitter, LinkedIn, and essentially head PM as Founder/CEO of Seamless Receipts). My personal take, specific to the software/web/tech world, is that the MBA itself as a credential is irrelevant. So pretend you don't have that stamp on your resume. But the two years you spend in business school are not irrelevant. What you are capable of before and after business school may be different, but it's because of what you gained (internship experience, knowledge in a specific industry, analytical skills, etc.). It's not because you now have a "credential" that makes you more valuable in and of itself.

I suggest thinking of this in 2 different ways. First of all, there is what determines seniority in a PM role:

PM Seniority

1. How big of a product are you in charge of (opportunity to make an impact)?

2. How much are you compensated (income/bonus/equity)?

3. What is your title?

4. Do you have direct reports or an org reporting to you?

#1 and #2 are by far the most important factors here.

Separately, there are the skills required to be an effective PM:

PM Skills

1. Know your industry inside and out

2. Know and love your user (whether you are serving CIO's or teenagers sharing photos, know and love your user, their behaviors, and the problems they face)

3. Know your product (technical acumen)

4. Lead your team (ability to build relationships, set a direction and get buy in)

5. Blend art and science (the art to understand good design and make decisions w/o all the info, the science to be data-driven when it's appropriate, and the art to know the difference)

6. Have a bias towards action

7. Take calculated risks

You might boost your skill level, and therefore the seniority of PM role you are qualified for, by getting an MBA.  But the MBA itself is not the point.  It's the skills.

How to write the perfect cover letter for a product manager job

Product management is a blend of art and science and ultimately requires you to master 4 subjects: your industry, your user, your product, and your team. It also requires you to apply skills at storytelling, engineering, design, analysis, project management, and leadership. Your intro will send key signals about whether or not you have these core skills. So make it tight and succinct! Here are some notes about how to make your cover letter pop (and by cover letter, I mean the body of an email):

Start with an executive summary

The first thing every hiring manager wants to know is “who is this person?” They want a few quick bullets that explain where you went to school, where you have worked, what job you’re applying to, and why you will be awesome at it. You need to make sure that they know each of these things within 10 seconds.

Specify exactly what you’re looking for

It’s amazing how many cover letters describe the applicant but not the target job. You can either tell the hiring manager exactly what jobs you are interested in, or you can expect the hiring manager to figure out where you might be a good fit. Guess what? If you expect them to do the homework, there is a 95% chance that they won’t.

Describe what you love doing

Every great product manager has general skills in many areas and really deep skills in one or two functions. For example, Steve Jobs excelled at design and storytelling, Bill Gates excels at engineering and business strategy, and Marc Benioff excels at talking to customers. Having a specific strong suit helps you build your reputation. So come right out and say it. This increases your chances of getting hired and guides you to projects that will make you happy. The product manager who thrives building a mobile site for AllRecipes is different from the product manager who wants to launch the next Amazon Web Services API for developers. Be honest about which camp you think you fall into, commit to it, and find something that excites you. Optimize for long-term success.

Tell a compelling story about something you have built

Taking something ambiguous, bringing definition to it, creating a plan of attack, and pulling together a team to build something is the essence of product management. So you want to tell a story about a project where you have built something meaningful. That could mean you built something on the job as a product manager at another company, that you built something as a side project on nights and weekends, or you did something amazing as a school project. The key is that the story needs to be compelling. For example, let’s say a candidate wants to play baseball and says “Well, I’ve never played baseball before but I am fast and strong and I am pretty sure I could play short stop.” That’s not very compelling. An alternate intro would be “I’ve never played baseball exactly, but I grew up playing cricket which requires very similar skills. I have been training 5 days a week, I have been watching and studying the game of baseball, and I have put in 200 hours at the batting cages. Here is a video of my swing.” That could be the same exact person with a different intro. Storytelling matters.

Make yourself stand out

Having the right pre-requisites does not get you the job. It simply gets you into the pool of competition. Now you need to stand out from the competitors. You can do that either by showing proof points (graduated very high in your class, won a serious competition, competed in D1 sports, shipped an important product, etc.), or by making yourself interesting. Reading resumes and cover letters is BORING work after you’ve read through 50 of them, so make the person curious to learn more. I have gotten more questions on my resume about the bullets that say “Drove across the country 6 times in a pickup truck” and “Love gourmet barbecue” than anything else.

Keep it short

Brevity matters. The hiring manager only needs one takeaway - this person is interesting and I should talk to them. That is all you want. They do NOT need to know every place you have ever worked and and every class you took in school. This is a movie trailer, not the feature film.

How to build a successful career AND a successful family

With busy schedules, technology that keeps us on 24/7, and long commutes, being a working parent is a constant struggle. I am intimately familiar with the problems and tradeoffs. My career is important to me. But so are my wife, my kids, my dog, and the rest of my family. I frequently have to choose between finishing a project and seeing my kids before bed. I don't have a silver bullet for you. But I do have seven strategies to help you tackle the challenge.

Be honest and specific

I am constantly making trade offs between family and work. But when there is something critical, I know that my family comes first and I am upfront about that. No, I am not afraid that my boss will read this post. I actually told him that before accepting my role. It helps to be specific. I ask to see my son before bed 4 out of 5 weeknights and to travel less than 20% (1 week out of 5). Sometimes it's uncomfortable to have that conversation. But focus, honesty, and strong principles also make you a valuable employee. Don't forget that.

Be flexible

If you ask your boss to be flexible, then be flexible in return. It must go both ways. For example, if I want to leave at 6pm to see my kids I may need to work at home from 9-11pm. If I don't want to fly on Sunday, then I may need to leave at 4:30am on Monday. I do not ask to contribute less to the team (hell no), but I ask for flexibility in when and how I work. There is a critical difference.

Outsource the little things

You need to be pragmatic about getting help. There are three truly key activities: making an impact at work, spending quality time with your family, and taking care of yourself personally (exercise, reading, social outlets, etc.). Everything else, like laundry, dishes, and grocery shopping, just needs to get done. As long as you can afford it, outsource the $hit out of the little things. I am frugal and I take pride in doing things myself. But I recently switched from grocery shopping on Saturday to using Fresh Direct. The dollar trade off was marginal and it gives me an extra hour with my family on the weekend. Easy decision. Show your kids that you work hard and don't take anything for granted, but outsource the little things when you can.

Draw a pie chart of how you want to spend your time

Make a pie chart and see how hard it is to fit things in. I didn’t even list commuting, making dinner, cleaning, or projects 4-99. Thinking about life this way will teach you to be ruthless about saying no. With lists, it’s free to add things to the end. With a pie chart, you can visually see the tradeoffs every time you change something.

Lose your phone during family time

It’s hard to do because we’re addicted. So trade phones with your spouse, turn your phone off, toss it in a drawer, do whatever it to takes to have uninterrupted moments with your loved ones. The quality of your time together is so important. Make it count. Every year is ~2% of the time you will spend working, but 5% of the time you will spend living with your kids.

Stop watching television every day

People say you can’t have it all. Well, if you define “all” as a successful career, a great family life, 3 hours to watch movies every night, 2 hours to hit the gym in the morning, and an extensive travel schedule, no - you can’t have it “all.” But you can have a successful career and a successful family life. What you can’t have is 20 other things that also take up your time. So start deleting things that are less important to you. Television sucks up more time than it’s worth. If TV is truly important to you, then save the shows that you love, but don’t watch them every single day. As an experiment, drop television for 7 days and see what you get done. I dare you. Pursuing greatness at home and at work is not for the faint of heart, so make intelligent sacrifices.

Treat your family commitments like a meeting with the CEO

Seriously, pretend you have a meeting with the CEO. Let's say your last meeting ends at 6:30 and you need to leave at 6:30 sharp or you'll miss the train. It's easy to get squirmy, stare at the clock, and miss your train because the meeting ran late. Now let's say you had a meeting at 6:30 with the CEO. What would you do? You would say, "Folks, I have a meeting with the CEO at 6:30 so I need to leave 5 minutes early." Then at 6:25 you would stand up, stick your chest out and leave. Your coworkers would understand and they might even hold the door for you. So treat your family commitments the same way. "Folks, I have to leave at 6:25 or I will miss my train home to see my kids, let's be efficient and wrap this up early." At 6:25 you remind people about your commitment, stick your chest out and head to the train, offering to handle follow ups after bedtime.

Building a successful career and a successful family is hard. Really. Really. Hard. Honest, flexible, and disciplined leadership is required at all levels in order to make it work. But done right, there is nothing in the world that's more satisfying.

This post was inspired by my grandmother, Mary Jane Grasty, who passed away after 91 years. She was one of the smartest, toughest, and kindest people I have ever met, all at once. She did physics research with a Nobel-prize winning physicist during World War II and later stayed home with her family. She lived in a time when men chose careers and women chose families. I believe in a world where we can choose both. However, that means embracing a whole new set of challenges. I am happy to embrace those challenges and I am optimistic about the world that my one-year-old daughter will see during her lifetime.

9 ways to be more productive this year

These 9 tips will help you focus on your priorities, dominate your email, and take control of your schedule.

1. Have a digital inbox for “things to read"

People send you interesting links all the time. But if you read them when they arrive, you cede control of your schedule. So flag them to read later and do your reading in batches (on your couch, on a train, or waiting in line at Starbucks). I use Pocket and highly suggest it.

2. Have a searchable dumping ground for notes

You can save hours every week by having a single place to dump notes and a quick way to retrieve them. I use Evernote. The most important thing is that it’s searchable from any device.

3. Create a simple system for tracking goals, projects, and tasks

My current tool of choice (after LOTS of testing) is Asana. The most impressive thing is that I actually use it, unlike most tools I’ve tried. Keep it open during the day and get your tasks out of your inbox and into here.

4. Number your priorities

You would be amazed how much value you get from writing down the priorities in your life and literally ranking them. It gives you a simple framework for managing your time and makes decision-making much easier. Here are my top 6. I spend a lot less time on items after 4, and that's how it should be.

1 - Family

2 - Work

3 - Health/Fitness

4 - Education (learning, teaching)

5 - Cooking (playing chef and BBQ pitmaster)

6 - Watching football (the only TV I watch these days)

5. Dominate your email before it dominates you

There are 3 components to properly managing your email:

• Don't check your email, process it (Long live GTD)

For every message, you should either deal it with immediately, archive it for future reference, flag articles for future reading (Pocket), schedule something on your calendar, or create a new task (Asana). Easier said than done? Yes, but aspire to one touch per email and hold yourself to it as frequently as possible.

• Choose your email SLA and block time to deal with it

I like Tony Hsieh's method: create a goal every morning to clearing out yesterday's email. This means you have a 24 hour SLA (I modify his approach by also checking for urgent items throughout the day). This does something important - it gets you off the endless treadmill. If you’re processing today’s email, then as soon as you clear out 4 messages, 4 more come in. It’s a constant mind fu$k. But yesterday's emails are finite and only decrease. You can track progress to the end and it feels great when you get there.

• Send less email.

Priceless tip from Jeff Weiner of LinkedIn - the less email you send, the less you will receive.

6. Take advantage of commuting time

Commuting sucks. It just does. But many of us do it every day, so use your time productively. I highly suggest using this time to learn by listening to audiobooks (Audible) and podcasts (Stitcher). You can also do work if you ride on a train and get to sit.  In that case, email tends to become the default behavior.  But I find it's better to focus on one critical task that involves writing and doesn't require Internet access (project plans, blog posts, code, important communications...).  I'm writing this post on a train right now.

7. March 20 miles every day

In The 4 Disciplines of Execution, Sean Covey tells the stories of two explorers. One holes up with his crew when it’s raining or snowing, then pushes hard when the weather’s nice (sometimes going 50+ miles per day). This ends in failure and sometimes death. The successful explorer goes 20 miles every single day, no more, no less. Rainy, cold, disgusting? Get your butt up and go 20 miles. Beautiful day? Get your butt up and go 20 miles but don’t go 50, use the nice day to refresh and get ready for tomorrow.  You don't know what tomorrow will bring, but you know you’re going 20 miles again. Consistency over time is 10X better than pockets of brilliance riddled with stagnation.  Make incremental, but visible progress every single day.

8. Exercise, eat, and sleep

You’ve heard this so many times, but it's 100% true. Prioritize these things so that you feel good today and have 20 miles in your tank for tomorrow.

9. Adopt mentally intense hobbies

I’ve noticed that successful executives tend to have intense hobbies: ultra-marathons, rock climbing, competitive cycling, etc. The point is not that they’re physically intense but that they’re mentally intense. If you are skiing down a slope at 80 mph, you can’t think about anything else. If you’re “unwinding” by sitting on the couch and watching television, your mind can torture you with thoughts about work. Your body may be resting, but your mind is NOT. It's counterintuitive, but more intense hobbies are better at rejuvenating you.  They don't have to be crazy, they could be swimming, chess, painting, or playing the guitar.  But choose something that requires mental focus. Marching 20 miles every day means finding ways to fully distract your mind so you can come back fresh.

The 2 sentences that will get you hired

If you are looking for a job and a recruiter or hiring manager says "tell me about yourself," there are two sentences that you should always lead with.

In order to craft those sentences, you need to first realize that hiring managers fundamentally care about two things:

1. Your commitment to a specific industry and function

2. Proof points that show you will succeed

Your first sentence should succinctly describe the focus of your job search. Let's run through some examples.

The Ugly: "I'm looking for work"

This doesn’t specify an industry or a function, assumption -> you have no skills or direction.

The Bad: "I'm looking for work in the tech industry"

This is a very broad industry and does not specify a function, which means that you care where you work but don't care what you do. Assumption -> you have no passion.

The Good: "I'm looking for a business development role at a consumer web company."

If you’re looking for a job that is very similar to the one you already have, you can simply describe yourself: “I do product marketing for enterprise software.”

Your second challenge is to prove that you will succeed (better than all other candidates). Here are some ways you can do that:

Describe the impact that you personally had on an important project: “I launched a new product that increased our company’s revenue by 5%.”

Name-drop reputable companies you've worked at: “I have spent the past 5 years as a marketer at Google and Apple.”

Describe vertical progress in your career: “I have been promoted twice in the past 3 years.”

Describe specific skills you have learned (a decent backup until you can describe meaningful impact): “I have learned a lot about how to optimize marketing campaigns across different social media channels.”

When all else fails, simply rely on your passion for the role: “I have been building high-performance bicycles for the past decade and absolutely love it. I can't imagine doing anything else."

One final note - the shorter the better. True ballers do it with only a few words. Here are some you can aspire to:

Steve Jobs: “I am a product designer. I created Apple."

Walt Disney: “I am a storyteller. I invented Mickey."

Abraham Lincoln: “I am an honest and tenacious leader. I helped abolish slavery in the United States."

Neil Armstrong: “First man on the moon.”
'Nuff said, he doesn’t need a 2 page bio to describe his impact and results. He has plenty of stories to dig into when probed, but the intro line is what gets everything rolling.

Leadership is forged on the field, not in the film room

I'm a football junkie and a lifelong student of leadership in business. So I make a lot of analogies between the two.

One great comparison starts with a football team's film room. During the season, a team goes to the film room after every game to watch the game tape and evaluate what worked, what didn’t, and what adjustments need to be made. Top teams develop an intense and productive rhythm. Film room, game plan, practice, game. They improve in some finite way every single week.

In business, it's important to have something that acts like a film room. It's a place for immediate and honest feedback. It's important to have objective measures (precise metrics) and an outside view whenever possible. But it’s also critical to never mistake “performance” in the film room for performance on the field.

In business school, for example, 80% of your time is spent in the equivalent of a film room (discussing a case study and commenting on what a CEO should do in a given situation). You’re drawing up game plans, but you are never executing a single play. The film is the feedback loop. It is the homework and the coaching - not the test. You don't actually forge your leadership skills until you get on the field. Making reasonably intelligent comments in a discussion about strategy is interesting. But executing on strategy is everything - that’s what builds careers.

Here are a few points to keep in mind:

Film room

• A scheduled time and place to to perform honest critiques

• A feedback loop to drive small, continuous adjustments

• Best applied in a cyclic rhythm (film room, game plan, practice, game, repeat)

On the field

• Where you test and develop your toughness

• Where you test and develop your decision making

• Where you forge your leadership and others decide if they believe in you

• Where the game tape becomes your resume (true success is measured by results)

9 reasons why cell phones are the new cigarettes

1. The level of brand loyalty is obscene

2. They represent standard social behavior in bars

3. They're prohibited in some public places

4. They're the last thing you spend time with before bed

5. Sometimes you have to bum a light

6. They are a marketer’s dream

7. We stuff them in our clothes

8. They drive some people crazy

9. You just can’t put them down

So how do we manage our addiction?

I love my phone, I use it constantly, and I have no desire to give it up. But maybe tonight we should all turn off our phones for 3 hours. We could spend un-interrupted time talking face-to-face with other humans. Don’t worry, our phones will be on our nightstands in the morning.

Land your dream job with or without an MBA

Too many MBA programs are built around 80% talk and 20% action. The best leaders acquire their skills through the reverse, 80% action and 20% talk. Spending time in the film room is part of the puzzle (like preparing for a Monday Night Football game) - but you cut your teeth when you’re actually on the field.

So in the spirit of taking action, I have summarized 7 steps you can take today to help you land your dream job. I have found them to be true whether you’re in business school, considering business school, or skipping the MBA all together.

1. Define your end game

“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?"

"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to."

"I don't much care where –"

"Then it doesn't matter which way you go.”

― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

It's important to start every career decision with introspection about what you truly want in the future. Debating options is pointless if you haven't defined your end game. Once you decide where you are going, you can determine the best path to get there.

It's OK if you don't have a specific career calling yet. You can still define the characteristics of your perfect role. I suggest writing down the 3-5 things that would make a job rock your world. That will help you frame career decisions and measure your progress.

2. Find your edge

The NFL draft is coming up and you hear a lot of sound bites about the prospects. Jadeveon Clowney is a ridiculous pass rusher. Johnny Manziel is agile and elusive. Sammy Watkins is a speed demon with good hands. What you will never hear is a player described in more than 2 sentences. Every player that's drafted high has an edge that can be described in simple terms.

The same is true for business careers. If you can't describe your edge in two sentences - nobody will remember why you're great. So practice describing your edge (even if it's aspirational for now). Everything else (your resume, your LinkedIn profile, your projects, etc.) should simply provide supporting evidence for that reputation. For example, Steve Jobs was a genius product designer. Alan Mulally is a great leader and crisis manager. Jamie Dimon is a shrewd deal maker.

Keep it simple, memorable and authentic. If I was writing Neil Armstrong's resume it would only have 5 words: "First man on the moon." Figure out exactly where you have an edge, or where you stand a fighting chance to develop an edge, and put 80% of your career effort into making it deeper.

3. Become a storyteller

Human beings hate boring lists and bullets, but we love narratives. So turn your resume and background from a textbook into a story. Then tell your story.

I'll use myself as an example

Take 1

I grew up in New Hampshire. I studied Electrical and Computer engineering at Cornell, then I worked as a Product Marketing Engineer at Cypress Semiconductor, and also spent time at Lockheed Martin and Goldman Sachs. I went to business school and focused on entrepreneurship, I...STOP...nobody cares. They just don't. You would fall asleep if I continued.

Take 2

I'm a tech geek and I love building things. After business school I started a company and in 2 years of running a business I learned 10x what I learned in business school. So I became passionate about driving change in business and career education, which brought me to LinkedIn.

Take 2 isn't perfect, but it is a narrative with a beginning, a middle, and an end. It is also authentic and easy to remember.

4. Build relationships

One of the most valuable things you get out of business school is the opportunity to build relationships. The evil word networking is tossed around a lot, but there is one key point that is overlooked. The value in relationships usually comes from deep relationships with a small but valuable group of people. It's quality over quantity.

Was Zuckerberg better off shaking hands with hundreds of people across the industry, MBA-style, or building meaningful relationships with Sean Parker, Peter Thiel, and Reid Hoffman, who could then open any single door in Silicon Valley?

Think about exactly who you want to build relationships with (probably people who have the edge you’re trying to build). Also think about how you build relationships. I've found that cocktails and intros are pleasant, but deep bonds are only built when you go to war together (think military units, sports teams, projects where you stayed up all night, etc.). Working together to make something happen is the best way to build a relationship.

Also, don't be selfish. Be a mensch and you will end up building good relationships with good people. That yields huge dividends.

5. Build proof points

When hiring managers look at you, they will immediately ask themselves four questions:

Do you know the industry?

Do you know how to perform the role?

Are you a high performer?

Do you fit the company’s culture?

If you can show (not tell) that the answer to each of these questions is yes - then you are in the game. So how do you show it? Well, business school is one path. If you go to Harvard Business School simply getting in is a huge gold star in terms of performance. Then informational interviews let you display your industry knowledge. A successful internship seals the deal by showing that you fit the company’s culture and can execute in the role. By the time you get a full-time offer you have systematically checked off the four questions above. Getting an MBA is one way to prove that you can take on a new role.

But business school is not the only way. For example, I have a friend who is transitioning into consulting (he was originally an engineer with a PhD doing technical research). He performed well in school and in his job, then started taking on client engagements. He wasn’t a consultant yet, but he could demonstrate his ability to work in a consultative role with demanding clients. Then he started his own consulting firm (bingo) and started securing gigs. He started out slow with unpaid work from local startups and then quickly accelerated his work and experience. Now he’s interviewing at prestigious management consulting firms and is ready to make the jump.

The same opportunity is available in other industries. If you want to be a marketer - simply start marketing. You can create a blog, write an eBook, and do all kinds of meaningful activities on the web for very low cost (and ultimately for a profit if you’re good at it). If you want to be an entrepreneur or run a tech company - then start building a company. Starting something will show (not tell) future managers that you’re able to succeed in your dream job. In today’s world anybody with the proper hustle can make this happen.

6. Tune out the noise

If you want to be a player in the financial world it’s important to live in one of the world’s power centers, like Manhattan, London, or Tokyo. But the funny thing is, the most successful investor in the world is Warren Buffett. He lives in Omaha, Nebraska and it’s not a coincidence. Buffett’s mantra is to be fearful when others are greedy and be greedy when others are fearful. It’s very hard to pull that off when you live in the middle of the noise, seeing traders on the train, at lunch, on the golf course, and at neighborhood parties. Herd mentality is something that’s very very hard to turn off. It’s actually a primal human instinct to crave acceptance. In caveman days people had to band together to survive. If you became an outcast you’d die - so it was a life or death matter to be accepted.

But if you can turn off the herd mentality - the benefits are phenomenal. For Warren Buffett, living in Omaha makes it easier for him to ignore the noise and trust his own decision-making. A lot of the activity in our world is pure noise with no signal. If you watch CNBC or read TechCrunch or follow the headlines in your industry you will see many stories that attract your attention but focus on the wrong things (random stock market variations, stories about people raising funding instead of building true businesses, etc.). It’s sooooo easy to listen to the noise.

WhatsApp raised almost $60M from Sequoia and chose not to announce most of their funding (noise), present at dozens of conferences (distraction) or focus on the “hot” things that were driving Silicon Valley. They just kept their heads down and built a great product. In retrospect, their outcome was not a coincidence either.

Tune out the noise as best as you possibly can and you will be happier and more successful.

7. Rock your rhythm

There is a concept in physics called resonant frequency. If you rock or vibrate something with just the right frequency - your inputs will add up exponentially and crazy things will happen. Take a look at this video of the Tacoma Narrows bridge in Washington. A simple wind hit the resonant frequency and turned a steel and concrete structure into a piece of rubber.

Before I had kids, I used to live parts of my life “in debt.” I would work late knowing that I could catch up on on everything else over the weekend. But with kids in the house that safety blanket is gone. I can either build everything I want to accomplish into a sustainable rhythm or not do it. I can’t insert more hours or catch up, I have to focus just on the highest priority stuff. But that focus has made me more in-tune with my priorities and my personal rhythm. Just like the bridge, if you rev something just right - you can get results that are exponentially bigger than your inputs.

So I highly suggest you work on your rhythm and optimize your life around it, from what and when you eat, to how much you sleep, to when you get to work, to your routines at home, to how frequently you socialize. Everybody has a different rhythm and it takes you awhile to learn yours. But once you nail it - it feels amazing.

***This post isn’t pro-MBA or anti-MBA, but it’s about understanding the precise things you need to accomplish your goals. Only then can you can properly analyze options in your life and make decisions that will lead to happiness and success.This post was originally published on LinkedIn and is part of a project I started called MBA Madness.

How do I get a job as a product manager?

I talk to a lot of people who want to become product managers. What it takes to become a product manager depends on your background and the specific team you're interested in joining. But there are some very clear patterns that show up consistently. From my experience, these are the key actions you need to take to set yourself up for success:

1. Build and ship something.

Show, don't tell. Being a product manager is ultimately about results. You need to create something that didn't exist before and then maniacally refine it. The process that you go through to take an idea, turn it into a plan, put something out into the world, get feedback, and make updates, is the essence of being a product manager. The only way to truly learn it is by doing it. I don't care if the product you built was wildly complicated or wildly successful, I care that you learned from it and that you saw it through the entire lifecycle. I care about the process you used to analyze the results and make decisions. I care about the expertise you built in your field. Telling NFL coaches that you're a great quarterback is a waste of time. Showing them game tape of you leading a team to victory will get you hired. So give me something that's as close to game tape as you can get. Having plans for a product doesn't cut it because a lot of product management happens post-launch, when you review data and make decisions. Getting experience in that means actually launching and iterating. The "product" can be as simple as an eBook you wrote and marketed or a blog you started, but it has to be something you've actually put out into the world. If you haven't built anything yet - you are not ready to be a product manager. But there's great news, it has never been cheaper or easier to build something. So get started. Never tell. Always show.

2. Polish your communication skills.

Communicating is just as important as shipping product. You need to communicate with your sales and marketing colleagues, with engineers, with your boss, with clients, with investors, etc. You should feel responsible for the entire package - how the product is defined, built, marketed, and sold. I suggest thinking about communication skills in 3 pieces. The first is written communication. The best way to refine your skills is by starting a blog. If you are looking for a job, the only reasons not to start a blog are if you cannot write succinctly, you have nothing meaningful to say, or marketing yourself is not a priority (hint: it should be). The second is in-person communication with small groups, which enables you to run effective meetings. Breaking down the 500 things in your head into meaningful information that you can quickly communicate is a skill that you build over time. Boosting your skills in this area will radically change people's perceptions of you. The third is presenting in front of an audience. Your ability to influence a crowd can have larger effects on your career than your ability to manage technical details. If you are looking for a job as a PM, find every opportunity to practice these three modes of communication and put them on display to the outside world (through presentations on Slideshare, speeches on YouTube, blog posts, etc.). You'll be surprised how many interesting people will notice.

3. Become an expert.

Great product managers are always experts in 3 things: their market, their product, and their users. If you want to build collaboration tools for small businesses then spend your time getting to know small businesses. Read about them, visit them, talk to them, study them. Your understanding of the ins and outs of their daily lives will make the difference between flat-lining charts and hockey stick growth. This is why it's important to pick an industry that you fundamentally find exciting. Everybody talks about product market fit - you should also make sure you have product manager market fit. When I started my first company, Seamless Receipts, I overlooked the importance of this issue. My end users were brick-and-mortar retailers and while there were some brands I loved working with, I ultimately wasn't inspired by brick-and-mortar retail. I love e-commerce and I don't like shopping at malls. So I never had product manager market fit. Now I always make sure that products I work on serve markets that I'm truly passionate about.

4. Blend art and science.

Making data-driven decisions is critical. If you want a good lens into how to think about data-driven decisions, read this post: Saas Metrics 2.0. The specific metrics that are critical to your business are probably different. But the post helps you picture how imperative it is that you understand the key drivers behind your business model, how they're trending, and how the updates you're making are affecting them. That's what sets you up to run a successful product over the long-term. You don't need a technical background, but you need to be able to think in a highly analytical fashion. Then you have to take science, blend it with art, and use your gut when necessary. Data will tell you part of the story but you need to have your finger on the pulse of your users to make the tough calls. That's why it's important to spend a lot of time talking to customers.

5. Define your edge.

Product managers have to be effective in a variety of areas, including design, engineering, finance, marketing, and sales. It's the combination of these functions that creates your holistic approach to the market. However, you don't have to be the world's best at everything. What you need is competence in all of those areas and deep expertise in one or two. Steve Jobs built Apple based on his world-class skills in design and marketing. Bill Gates built Microsoft based on his skills in software and strategy. Marc Benioff built Salesforce.com based on his skills in sales. They all have general competence but world-class talents in one or two areas. Being a "general manager" can work. Yet true greatness comes from people who have sweet spots where they are simply unstoppable. So understand where you have that edge or where you stand a fighting chance to gain that edge - then go deep and go hard. Brand yourself that way and be consistent with it - that's how you get people to remember you. That's also how you build things that truly matter.

6. Show your entrepreneurial spirit.

Being an entrepreneur and being a product manager are very very similar. The best product managers, like entrepreneurs, contain this innate skill to "Make it Happen." That means dealing with ambiguity and paving your own path. It means having the hustle and grit to get stuff done against all odds. Your boss (if you have one) should not need to baby you or show you the way. You should be defining the way and asking for support and help - but not answers. You should be out there making it happen. There are a number of ways to prove that you have this grit. Starting a company is one way. Playing competitive sports (D1 college teams) is another. Find a way to show that regardless of the blood, sweat, and tears required - you are the kind of person who pushes relentlessly and at the end of the day will "Make it Happen."Being a product manager (or an entrepreneur) is tough and frustrating. But damn is it gratifying. I wouldn't spend my career doing anything else. So I encourage you to take these actions and build things that will have a true impact on the world. Feel free to ask me questions or add ideas in the comments.

The most undervalued skill in business

From Inside Delta Force:

Eric Haney was a special ops warrior boarding an extraction plane. Once boarded, he had no action to take - so he was trained to sleep. The plane was shot and he awoke amidst a burst of flames with no parachute. He had to make a quick decision - so he lept out of the plane, went into a full skydiving arch, and quickly hit the runway below. The plane had never taken off. Later on his friend joked with him - "If you were at 30K feet with no parachute what the hell were you going to do?" Eric replied briefly: "One problem at a time Sergeant."

His ability to act decisively saved his life. Eric was demonstrating his command of the most undervalued skill in business - focus. There was a problem that needed to be solved immediately and everything else could wait. This happens to be a cornerstone of special ops training, but it applies to personal and business contexts as well. Below are 4 specific ways that learning to focus will greatly improve your career.

Boost your charisma

Improving your focus directly increases your level of charisma. Think about a strong, charismatic leader you know. Did she check her phone during conversations? Did she write emails while pretending to listen, or nod and say "mm hmm" while her eyes drifted elsewhere? Or was she dialed-in and focused 100% on the conversation? The people who can do the latter exude a much stronger sense of charisma and become more effective leaders.

Solve the most important problems

You have 100 things you could spend your time doing today. Focus enables you to keep your eye on the 3 that will have the biggest impact on your goals - everything else is a distraction. Truly focusing your energy makes the difference between participating and dominating. Before his keynotes, Steve Jobs was famous for spending entire days rehearsing. He was ridiculously busy and had thousands of emails waiting for him. Yet he turned it all off and focused on the single most important thing in front of him...and he delivered.

Conquer the details

Conquering the details is what made the difference between Friendster and Facebook. Anybody can get the idea right, but a maniacal attention to detail paves the way to greatness. You cannot conquer the details unless you minimize distractions as much as humanly possible. First filter out the noise. Then focus on what's important.

Close things out

Neuroscientists have proven that the human brain is incapable of multi-tasking. Your mind simply performs task-switching. Switching back and forth between tasks is akin to an athlete training without nutrition - lots of input, crappy output. Too many people live their lives like this. Tackling one problem at a time lets you close things out instead of piling them up in your head. It not only generates better outcomes, it lets you enjoy your life more.My advice is simple: "One problem at a time Sergeant."

Keep score because you will play harder

In The 4 Disciplines of Execution, the authors discuss watching kids play basketball in a park. You can immediately tell when they start keeping score. They run faster, double the intensity, and start playing defense. Everybody knows that you play harder when you're keeping score. There is an old management axiom that you get what you measure. I deeply believe this and I think it applies not only to companies but to your personal career as well. By finding the key drivers in your career, measuring them, and putting them on a simple scoreboard - you will play harder and reach a higher level of success.

The 4 Disciplines of Execution (yes, I think this book is worth reading) also describes a manufacturing company where a facility in Canada was seriously underperforming. The proposed solution was to erect a scoreboard for everybody to see, showing each team's key metrics and clearly identifying the lowest and highest performers (all with a playful hockey theme). The facility VERY QUICKLY went from being a laggard to being one of the top performers in the whole company.

It's simple to say that you get what you measure and it's simple to say that you should apply this to your career. What's difficult is finding the right things to measure and finding a sustainable set of habits to actually measure them. So here are three keys to consider.

1. Differentiate results from inputs

It is important to measure the results of an initiative. If you're exercising you want to track fat loss or muscle gain. If you're looking for a job you want to track how many interviews you get at your target companies, etc. But there is a lot of luck, timing, and external factors that affect those results as well. So your day-to-day scoreboard should focus on inputs, which are things you control. For example, inputs for your fitness regime might be the number of times you go to the gym or make a healthy dinner each week. For a job search, you might track the number of hiring managers you reach out to or the hours you put into an impressive side project.

2. Choose inputs that are highly correlated with the end results

You want to choose inputs that are heavy factors in determining the end results. Measuring the times you hit the gym per week is highly correlated with your fitness results. Measuring the number of hiring managers you reach out to is highly correlated with the number of interviews you get. Those are good inputs to measure.

3. Identify metrics that are easy to quantify

The only way this will be effective is if your inputs are easy to quantify and measure. Otherwise the habit of measuring them every week is simply not sustainable. When I was making a change in my career I decided that writing a blog would be a key way to differentiate myself and spark interesting conversations (that turned out to be extremely true). So I measured the number of posts I wrote per month. It was a metric that was under my control, it was a key driver of the results I wanted, and it was easy to measure. I set up a report once and it emailed me each week to show me how I was doing. Simplicity rules here.

I highly encourage anyone looking to make a change in their career to think deeply about the key drivers that will result in success and find a way to measure them. If you keep score, you will be more focused and play harder, and I guarantee you will see better results.

The biggest misconception about risk that's holding back your career

The ability to take calculated risks is one of the most critical skills required to build a highly successful career. However, there is a common misconception that holds people back. It's easy to think that risk-taking is the key part of the equation (the ability to jump off a cliff and not look back). While some people do take extraordinary risks, leverage their lives, and "put it all on black" hoping to win, the people who are consistently successful over time have a completely different approach.

There are three consistent behaviors that extremely successful people exhibit. First, they work hard to generate a solid base case. This means that no matter what, the "failure scenario" is acceptable (and probably better than average). It may not be the desired outcome, but it's not disastrous personally or professionally. Second, they work their tails off to generate opportunities that have increasingly large upsides, while maintaining the acceptable fallback scenario. Third, they take lots of micro risks over time. None of these mini decisions are high risk nor extraordinarily difficult, but they add up to put these people in a totally different league from those around them.

Let's look at an example. Mark Zuckerberg (temporarily putting aside complaints about his style, Facebook's latest stock price, etc.) is one of the most successful technologists and business people of the last 10 years. In order to achieve that success he had to take a wild risk - dropping out of school to start Facebook. Damn good thing it worked or he would have been screwed, right? Well, let's take a look at that. Mark never actually took a giant risk. First he decided to build a website in his spare time (no risk, maybe he gave up a couple beers and half a letter grade in one of his classes). Then he incrementally went deeper, devoting more time to his project, getting others involved, pulling together scrappy funding to pay for servers, etc. Each step was a micro risk with a perfectly acceptable fallback. Then he moved to Silicon Valley for the summer. He didn't drop out of school. He didn't dive into some unknown project. He took something that was already working and devoted a summer to scaling it. At the end of the summer he had great traction, a clear view of the opportunity in front of him, an experienced partner (Sean Parker), and a chance to raise $500K from Peter Thiel and Reid Hoffman. He then made a very calculated decision to take a leave of absence and continue working on Facebook.

He worked his tail off generating an upside opportunity that drastically outweighed the downside. The worst case was a delay in graduating from Harvard (he could always go back) with experience under his belt that would make him more employable than any of his classmates (even if Facebook failed). He could make a salary from the initial funding, save on tuition, and chase the phenomenal upside that was right in front of him, all while preserving his ability to get a job (the point of going to Harvard in the first place). The decision to take that "risk" was actually a no brainer. Working his butt off to create the opportunity - that's what separates the doers from the dreamers.

Mark is clearly an outlier, in terms of natural talent, dedicated execution, and luck. Luck plays a major role in the magnitude of the outcome. However, people who are wildly successful put themselves in situations where they are going to succeed no matter what. The only question is when and how big. They do this by taking constant micro risks and working diligently to create opportunities that other people don't have. Anybody can bet on black and get lucky. But consistent success comes from stacking the deck so that no matter what you're guaranteed to move forward and succeed. From the outside, it looks like luck and risk-taking. But behind the scenes there are rarely overnight successes. It's not risk-taking that's important. It's the mindset to put yourself in a situation where the "risks" are actually not very risky - but the upside is phenomenal.

If you want to make a change in your career, take a micro risk today. Devote 20 minutes and a little bit of planning to whatever it is you want to pursue. Do that for 3 weeks straight and you'll be amazed how far you can get, without risking anything. So many people point to the "high risks" associated with ventures, changes in your career, etc., as an excuse to not make progress. Get rid of that excuse, take tiny steps and tiny risks, and over time create opportunities for yourself where you can chase upside without jumping off a cliff.

If you think your situation is different and you can't make incremental progress towards your dream without jumping off a cliff, I challenge you to email me with a description and I bet I can find a lightweight, low risk way for you to start moving in the right direction.

Further reading: The Startup of You by Reid Hoffman.

What 3 to 5 things would make a job rock your world?

There is a simple exercise I suggest for anybody thinking about their career. Take a few moments and a notepad and find somewhere you won't be interrupted. It can be on a plane, in a cafe, or wherever you can focus your mind without interruption. Then write down what you would want in your absolute perfect job. Force yourself to prioritize only 3-5 key items but be brutally honest with yourself. This list isn't for anybody but you. Do not write what a career services office, your friends and family, or your colleagues would tell you. Write what that voice deep inside says you truly want. If the single most important thing to you is getting 2:00-3:30pm off so you can take a boxing class - write it down. If working with a team of world-class biochemists is what matters to you - write it down. Some Travel? Lots of travel? No travel? What would make your job absolutely ideal if you were a sculptor building it from scratch.

I actually find this exercise to be therapeutic. It's not often that you can back away from the daily noise and think about what you want out of your career (and life). Most of the items on your list will be expected. But there are frequently thoughts that will surprise you, either because you didn't realize how important they are vs what you actually look for in a job, or because they're fairly simple to make happen in your current role. This list will naturally ebb and flow over time so practice it once a year (or whenever you want to make a change).

Below is the list I put together in a hotel room in Silicon Valley in the summer of 2012. I had just sold my startup, was looking for something new, and had a final round interview with LinkedIn the next day. Things happened quickly and I wanted to make sure I was making a good long-term decision. It's raw and messy, but shows you what was most important to me at that juncture in my career. The most surprising thing to me was that salary didn't show up. I love money and the sweet things it can buy, but assuming my compensation is fair and helps me reach a few specific financial goals - it's not the biggest driver of what makes my life fulfilling.

The 4 things you get out of business school

I have a lot of thoughts about business school and think that the traditional 2-year MBA is ripe for disruption. My goal here is to help prospective MBA applicants weigh the pros and cons of going to business school, make the appropriate decisions for their personal situations, and if appropriate - choose the right schools. I'll start the series by discussing the 4 key things you get out of business school.

Knowledge

The first and simplest thing you'll get out of an MBA is knowledge. This could be deeper knowledge in one specific area (investment banking, investment management, consumer marketing, etc.), broader knowledge across a variety of subjects, or most likely a combination of the two. Most people will enjoy surface-level exposure to a bunch of subjects and then go deep in one field they wish to pursue. In terms of objectively weighing the return on your investment, I would say that broadening your knowledge is valuable if you don't have a basic understanding of business concepts already (mergers and acquisitions, financial statement analysis, core aspects of consumer marketing, operations, etc.). If you do have a core understanding of businesses and different types of financial transactions, this aspect of an MBA wil be nice (reinforcement of things you already know) but not a killer investment.

If you don't have a lot of business and financial knowledge already, the broad exposure and training is a big plus. But realize that you can get a lot of the surface-level knowledge for cheap these days through Wikipedia, ebooks, Udemy, MIT OpenCourseware, etc. It's almost always deep knowledge in an area of specialization that will matter down the road. If you want to go to business school to get a "general education" I would quote a line from Good Will Hunting: "You just dropped a hundred and fifty grand on a f'ing education you could have gotten for a dollar fifty in late charges at the public library." Focus on your specialization and how that will accelerate your career growth.

Analytical Skills

We need to be honest and realize that the value of knowledge has dropped exponentially over the last 20 years. There used to be a giant disparity between the highly educated and the less educated in terms of access to information and knowledge. If you went to a top business school in the 1980's you literally gained access to an inner circle of knowledge and power that was inaccessible to those on the outside. Now with the vast array of rich resources on the web, information has become ubiquitous. The cost to search a meaningful percentage of human knowledge has dropped to zero. What has not dropped to zero is the ability to take large quantities of data, analyze it, extract key insights, develop a point of view, present your arguments, and drive progress forward. Those analytical skills are highly valuable and will not be forgotten. So think about skills over knowledge. World-class skills have not been commoditized. Every field is different so you should focus on the exact skills you need for your desired career.

There are various ways to develop skills. An MBA is one way, but not necessarily the best. It highly depends on what you want to do. Make sure to look at this deeply and analyze business schools based on their likelihood to materially advance your skills in your desired field of expertise. Going to Haas to get into Wall Street or going to Wharton to get into marketing in Silicon Valley are probably not the best decisions. Business schools focus on core competencies, just like you should. Remember that.

Networking

Networking is probably the most differentiable aspect of full-time business school. Networking is an annoying word, but I would look at it in two ways. The first is developing natural relationships with classmates that will give you ties to various leaders in the future (breadth of your network). The value of this depends on how many of your classmates become leaders in their fields and on how much you enjoy spending time with them (finding a cultural fit with the school and your classmates should not be overlooked). In day-to-day life you develop a lot of respectful acquaintances, but the best way to develop deep friendships is by going through hell together. If you look at tight bonds between people, they're developed when soldiers go to war, when sports teams practice their hearts out in pursuit of a championship, when co-founders start a company against all odds, when classmates stay up all night to finish a brutal project and surpass their peers, etc. I found the stress of business school to be far lower than many people make it out to be (particularly after going through engineering school as an undergrad), but I actually think that a certain amount of heat is positive in terms of the bonds it builds. When the pressure is on and you're trying to get a project done, while searching for a job, and holding down personal commitments, that's when you develop real relationships with your classmates. I don't think many deep bonds are built during easy and boring times.

The other side of networking is building relationships with people who are already in the field you're pursuing, be they alumni of your business school or just successful professionals you want to impress and get guidance from. I think of this as launching yourself into the field. Create a hit-list of top people you'd like to talk to or meet. Introduce yourself. Be very respectful and diligent about the way you reach out to people (more on this in a later post, as I think it's very important). But be somewhat shameless. Get yourself out of the building and into the industry. Go to events. Start side projects to show people you can do the work. Showing is always more powerful than telling, and generating a discussion around a project you're passionate about is much more interesting than "You're awesome and I want to be just like you." I would argue that today, in almost any field, there are really effective ways to start side projects outside of your classwork or day job that teach you the business, show others that you're willing to take initiative, and differentiate you from everyone else. Don't just be another MBA grad. Be the best at what you do and show it. Think of it less as "networking over cocktails" and more as diving into a field and enjoying the ride. Business school is great for this because there are lots of guest speakers (some schools have a tremendous advantage in this category), you can devote time to getting out and meeting people, and you don't have a boss breathing down your neck every day (you're the master of your own priorities).

Leadership

Last, but definitely not least, is leadership. Developing the skills to become a leader is the most critical part that will determine how far you get in your career. Being great at everything else, but sucking at leadership - will distinctly limit your growth. Developing yourself as an effective leader will drive your ultimate career success. However, when it comes to business school, this is the area where MBA programs are the absolute weakest. The reason is simple. Becoming a leader is 80% action and 20% analysis and discussion. Business school is the opposite - it's 80% analysis and discussion and 20% action. You can talk in a group about what a CEO should do in a given situation until you're blue in the face. It won't help you a bit when you have to actually execute a strategic decision that affects an entire team, convince a top producer to work for you, or execute a layoff for the first time. Everything I learned in business school meant nothing compared to going through the human experience of starting and building a company. You learn quickly in the real world that strategy is 10% (at most!) and execution is 90%. Business school is not effective at teaching you execution because that's not what you do on a daily basis while you're there. You can only learn how to execute in a leadership role within a company by doing it. A quarterback goes to the film room as part of his prep, but 90% of his growth as a leader is earned on the field. Think about it. Do you want a quarterback who spent the last two years leading a team on the field, has played under the lights on Monday Night Football, and has dealt with the ups and downs of a human organization? Or do you want a quarterback who spent the last two years in a prestigious film room (business school)? The film room is nice for developing knowledge, analytical skills, and networking, but it does not teach you leadership. Business school has some proxies for leadership and can prep you to take on leadership roles, but when you graduate and hit the field is when you'll truly develop your leadership abilities. Watching film and reading case studies is studying the past. Throwing passes under pressure with a game on the line - that's defining the future.

I don't want anybody to read my critiques as pro-MBA or anti-MBA, because ultimately they're neither. But what they are is my attempt to very honestly and objectively provide a framework for you to measure the potential return on your investment if you want to go to business school. It's a highly personal decision that is different for everybody. I actually think it's inappropriate to even ask the question - "Should I get an MBA?" The real questions are "What do I want to do with my career? What do I not have now that I would like to have in order to get there? What are the different options and paths I can take to cross the gap between where I am now and where I want to be? Is an MBA one of those effective paths? If so, does it make more sense for me than any of the other paths, weighing all pros and cons?"

Job Searches: Focus on the Company, Team, and Vision, not the Daily Duties

I talk to a lot of people who are thinking about their career and are considering going to grad school or changing jobs (or looking for their first job). Entrepreneurs are highly opinionated people, so everything I say has to be taken in the context that it's my particular view of the world. But I strongly believe in one key piece of advice: always focus on the long-term happiness factors. The company, its market, its financial health, its culture, the opportunities to progress, etc., are extremely important to your happiness and success. Your salary and daily duties (i.e. your core job description) are short-term factors that can change and absolutely will change if you perform well.

If you're choosing a job with a long-term view (hopefully you are), you will quickly accelerate your career if you work with smart, successful people.  You'll learn from them.  You'll grow.  You'll help build the future of the industry you're in.  Having the ideal job description should be a far distant priority. If you prove yourself, you can move into new roles at a good company, but you can't quickly change a weak company into a great one.

I would rather take out the trash for Reid Hoffman or mop floors for Larry and Sergey than be an  SVP at a meaningless company with a mediocre team. In my first job out of college (I worked for Cypress Semicoductor in Silicon Valley) I ended up moving back to the east coast for personal reasons.  One of the directors gave me a powerful piece of advice: "always surround yourself with the most clever people you can find."  I didn't completely understand the power of that statement at the time, but it is extremely true.  I like the use of the word "clever" vs. smart because it's not rocket science intelligence that always leads you to the next big thing, but rather the cleverness to quickly adapt in changing situations.  So when you're looking at a job, find a place with clever people where you'll be happy for the long-term.  Then figure out what you'll actually do on a daily basis and use it as a launching point for bigger and better things.  If you were an engineer at Google during the early days or a product manager at PayPal during its hyper growth, do you think you'd be whining about the job description you had at the time, regardless of what they asked you to do?

Open Source Case Studies

Most business schools rely heavily on the case study method. This was pioneered by Harvard Business School and in my opinion HBS cases tend to be the best (I didn't go to Harvard, but read plenty of HBS cases while going to business school at Cornell). Case studies provide a detailed setup to a particular business problem, put you in the shoes of the protagonist, and give you just enough info to craft an approach but not enough to make a perfect decision. It's a good way to learn and tackle interesting problems. However, there are some serious drawbacks to typical case studies and I have to wonder if there is room for "open source case studies" that could improve the learning experience.

People used to pay thousands of dollars for the Encyclopaedia Brittanica. Then they paid $50 for Microsoft Encarta, which included rich media and easy navigation. Now Wikipedia is free, updates itself in real-time and (although imperfect) has made those before it completely obsolete. Perhaps the future of case studies is free, open source material that is routinely updated and built with a natural layer of social interaction.

I went to business school in the fall of 2008 (aka the financial apocalypse). The entire world was changing so some of our case studies were literally rooted in ideas that no longer held true. If case studies were open source, collaborative works, they could be updated in real-time and adjusted as necessary. It would also enable more current events to be modeled as case studies. Studying history is interesting and we should all do it, but understanding the present and thinking about the future is what will ultimately generate success in your career. The time required to write, publish, and distribute case studies limits the number of case studies about business problems that are happening right now. Open source case studies could provide much fresher content, while reducing the cost of education.

MIT started a movement that's shifting in this direction via Open Courseware. Sebastian Thrun is pushing a disruptive model with Udacity and Fred Wilson is using MBA Mondays to provide free learning experiences to a large community of followers. Creating high-quality content takes time, energy, and expertise, but the momentum is already visible. If Wikipedia can become what it is today, then it's entirely possible that some day we'll have a rich resource of case studies that are powerful learning tools and are completely free.

How to Make Your LinkedIn Profile a Magnet for Hiring Managers

Throughout the process of starting and building a company, I have become a fanatical user of LinkedIn. I use it heavily when seeking investors, clients, employees, and partners. It's also a great way to answer the question "Who is this person and what have they accomplished in their career?" This post addresses that question, which is what I try to answer every time somebody emails me about a job.

I think that a resume should be a slightly more detailed version of your LinkedIn profile, but LinkedIn should tell people 90% of what they need to know to judge initial interest. There are four core aspects to deciding if you are a good fit: your general background (school, jobs, etc.), what you have specifically accomplished (products built, sales generated, rankings in school, promotions), what you are capable of (extrapolating past success to future endeavors), and your personality (fitting the culture of the hiring company). Below are my guidelines for making these four points come across strongly. Remember, succinctness is key. Your goal is not to list as many jobs and responsibilities as possible. Your goal is to make a strong impression that defines why somebody should hire you. The fewer words you use to make that impression the better. "First man on the moon" doesn't take 3 pages, but says an awful lot. Get as close to that as you can come.

Include a Picture

Managers don't hire resumes or credentials, they hire people. If they see a picture you become a person instead of a resume. Make sure it's professional and one of your better shots, but the point is not how you look (though it's funny how much personality can come through in a picture). The point is to make it slightly personal. Studies have shown that people are more drawn to blogs where the writer includes a head shot of themselves. You start to feel connected with the person even though you've never met (just like you feel connected to your favorite TV characters when you know they're not real). Seeing faces matters.

Include a Little Personality

You have to work with your colleagues every day, most weeks you see them more than you see your family. Personality matters. Share it. Own it. Just don't overdo it. This is a balancing act where you want to describe what makes you tick (aka be interesting) without posting too much information. You want a career where you're being compensated well, doing something that you excel at, AND doing something that you love. If you state what you love doing there is a much greater chance that you'll find gratifying roles throughout your career. If you don't know what you love doing, then you should focus on that, experiment, and figure it out. People change over time so this will be a moving target and that's natural.

Describe Your Differentiation and Value

At the surface level, there are lots of people just like you. So if you're an engineer, what specifically sets you apart? If you're in sales, what aspect of your career gives you a slightly unique angle? Think about this carefully. You can get jobs with just the base requirements, but breakout careers are built on differentiation. There's a reason why LeBron James is worth more, he's different from the rest of the pack. Companies don't have game tape to see how you're differentiated, so you need to explicitly tell them. Do it in 2 sentences or less.  Put this front and center in the summary section.  Literally tell them why they should hire you.

Make Frequent Updates

You can set LinkedIn to not notify your connections every time you edit your profile. This gives you the freedom to make frequent, small updates, without flooding people's feeds. Then you can change the setting if you switch jobs and want to broadcast your move. By keeping your profile updated and edited over time, you're always putting your best foot forward. You'll be ready when that breakout opportunity comes your way. The biggest moments are frequently unexpected, so always be armed and dangerous. Let everybody know what you've accomplished and what sets you apart.

Make it Authentic

Don't be an "energetic, go getter who leverages synergies to deliver value." Use real words to describe who you are, what you do, and where you'd like to go. Being honest with yourself is where it all starts. Honesty makes a powerful statement and will help put you in the right place. The corporate world is compared to a rat race because so many people act like lemmings and follow a herd mentality. Here's the great thing, you don't have to follow. You can lead your career down the path that brings the most success and happiness to you. Reid Hoffman's book The Startup of You does a great job illustrating how to think like an entrepreneur during your career. This mindset can help you generate opportunities that build and take advantage of your abilities and experience, while being mindful of market realities. Just remember, success without happiness isn't really success, is it?

10 Things Your Toddler Can Teach You About Running a Business

As a proud member of the crazy ones (entrepreneurs who run businesses and have families), I have seen my share of chaos. Yet raising a family comes with a sense of purpose different from anything else I have experienced. While I try to teach my son, he teaches me just as much in return. Here are ten things a toddler can teach you about running a business.

1. Communicate with short, clear messages

When a toddler learns to talk, you don't teach them long, complicated sentences. You start with the basics. The funny thing is, you can communicate most critical messages with very few words. You don't have a five page reason for why you buy Apple products (they're simple and beautiful), eat at McDonald's (it's cheap and convenient), or shop at Zappos (they have great customer service). So don't give a five page answer for why somebody should buy your product, work at your company, or invest in you. Keep your messages short and clear, that's what makes them powerful.

2. Create a fun environment

Kids quickly take on the vibe around them. If you're mad and stressed, they'll be mad and stressed. If you're happy and excited about life, they'll have high spirits and everything becomes easier. I can't claim that they'll want to sleep when you want to sleep (parents only wish), but you absolutely set the tone. The same thing goes at the office. Too many companies seem intent on creating workplaces where people are miserable. Make things fun, lighten up the mood, and take care of your team. Everybody will be happier AND more productive.

3. Repeat yourself ad nauseam

Repeating yourself as a parent gets old, but if you're ridiculously consistent you'll generate the right habits over time. BMW is "the ultimate driving machine" and I don't know that because they told me once, twice, or three times, I have seen it and heard it everywhere for years. Now I can't forget it (notice that the message is short and clear). It sounds silly, but repeating your messages constantly, everywhere, is what ingrains your branding in people's minds so that you become unmistakable.

4. Reward people frequently

Wall Street bonuses are probably the worst way to reward performance. They are giant, unpredictable lump sums paid at the end of the year. There is little transparency, lots of politics, and no loyalty to stay the day after the deposit clears. Would I reward my son after 3 weeks of good behavior? Goodness no. He should be rewarded right away. Adults really aren't any different. Here's the secret, the rewards don't have to big! Take your team to an awesome lunch, buy them iPads, congratulate them in front of their peers. Sometimes it's simply the act of rewarding people that matters, not the dollars that change hands.

5. Have a plan for everything

After having a kid, I became a lot less capable of flying by the seat of my pants. I used to wake up 20 minutes before leaving the house and as long as I showered, dressed and grabbed my wallet everything else would fall into place. With kids, you plan ahead for everything, coordinate schedules, and make contingency plans. That mindset holds well for running a business. Identify what you need to accomplish every day, week, and quarter. Discuss the opportunities and potential road blocks and plan for all of them. If you practice audibles with your team then you simply need to call the right play during the game and everybody knows what to do.

6. Understand that nothing will go as planned

Plans are wonderful and you should make them. But...life's never that simple. There's a balance between making plans and quickly adjusting when everything changes. Successful stock traders win not because they make better bets, but because they recognize their mistakes quicker and minimize losses. Top football teams win because they have a solid game plan and then make the right in-game adjustments. Treat your business as a game in progress. Your work is never done and you're always ready to adjust when necessary.

7. Practice what you preach

Don't feed somebody grilled chicken every day and talk about a nutritious diet while you eat french fries. It's simple and extremely easy to see. Lead or don't lead. But if you choose to lead, lead with your actions first.

8. Be authentic

Faking it doesn't work. Kids are very perceptive and remind you to stick with your true personality. This should carry over into your professional life as well. Forge a career that you are truly passionate about and work at a company where you fit the culture. Otherwise you're stuck faking it and that never leads to long-term success or happiness.

9. Build true loyalty and it will not be broken

Few bonds are as strong as a parent and a child. People will do anything for the family members they love. Build that relationship stronger and stronger over time and nothing will break it. The same is true for building teams. If your team is full of people who think of themselves first and have no loyalty, you're setting yourself up for failure. It's the tightly knit teams that stand up for each other and win the tough battles. Loyalty isn't built overnight and it doesn't come free - you have to earn it. So earn it.

10. Remember that shi$ happens

That's right, it happens. As a matter of fact, it happens all the time! Sometimes you have to clean up after a mess and move on without letting things bother you. Don't take yourself too seriously. That's one of the secrets to life.

Learn in Your 20's, Earn in Your 30's

"Learn in your 20's, earn in your 30's" is a simple mantra that I love. The specific ages are not important, but the message is. By focusing on learning now you can exponentially change your ability to earn down the road.

Picture two college classmates, let's call them Bob and Sally. Bob is making $150K/year by the time he is 35. Sally is making $1.5M/year by the time she is 35. What was the difference in their career trajectories? It did not matter that Bob made a 20% higher salary out of school. Sally sacrificed on starting salary to learn, grow, and find the place where she could succeed over the long haul. This happens all the time. Being on the best long-term track is soooooo much more important than the size of your current paycheck, especially when you are young.

Why do most career services offices have this backward? I have nothing against career services offices or the people that work there, but they are stuck in a bind. It is very difficult to measure the long-term happiness and success of your graduates. It is easy to measure your graduates' employment rate and first-year compensation. So that is what people measure and it is the key metric used in magazine rankings every year. Students are naturally pushed to take jobs when they are available and to think about pay in a stronger way than they should.

To maximize your long-term success, you need to identify what you truly want and then pursue it with a vengeance regardless of what people tell you. Sometimes you have to accept advice from various sources and then draw your own conclusions and pave your own path.

Entering my second year of business school, I turned down a job offer at a consulting firm where I interned during the summer. I wanted to start my own company and decided there was no time to look back. I not only turned down the job offer, but took one of their employees with me. A manager from the firm ended up quitting his job to join my startup. I then proceeded to graduate and make $25K/year as we got the business off the ground and searched for funding. Let's just say I didn't earn a gold star in the recruiting category for that move. But I am exponentially more prepared to succeed now that I have experienced the adventure of launching a business. I have learned how to build a team, how to hunt down customers and earn credibility, how to raise funding, how to build a scalable product, how to deal with tricky management issues, how to work in a rapidly changing market, how to build successful partnerships, and ultimately how to create and run an organization.

Regardless of my personal financial outcome as a result of Seamless Receipts, I am confident that this experience will pay huge dividends throughout the rest of my career. But it was tough at the beginning. I had to think different and resist outside pressures. I encourage you to do the same. Don't suffice for a good career. Shoot for greatness. Throw your starting salary out the window and do something awesome regardless of the compensation. You'll be better off for it no matter what happens in the short-term. You may not make it on your first shot, but in my opinion subscribing yourself to a lifetime of mediocrity is the biggest risk you can take. Pursuing a passion on the other hand, I don't see much true risk in that.