The Matthew Goldman Blog (Page 2)

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Decision-Making Speed in Startups

Decision-Making Speed in Startups

Startups are constrained by many factors. These include financial capital, team size, and speed. The ability to hire great people is constrained by both competition and by financial capital. The ability to raise financial capital can be constrained by market conditions and experience with fundraising. Speed, specifically, decision-making speed, is

Startups and the Death of Expertise

Startups and the Death of Expertise

There are many startup-related myths out there. These myths occur when the rare and exceptional events become assumed to be the mundane and normal. This is to be expected; if an event were mundane it would not be reported in the media or shared among people. Mundane events are ignored.

Obligatory Why I Left My Job Post (Second Edition)

Obligatory Why I Left My Job Post (Second Edition)

More than six years ago, I penned my first Obligatory Why I Left My Job to Start a Blog Post [https://matthewgoldman.com/obligatory-why-i-left-my-job-to-start-a-blog-post/]. It was short and a bit confusing, upon reading it again now. Last month I left Red Ventures, which had acquired Bankrate, which had acquired Wallaby

Perils and Powers of Pride

Perils and Powers of Pride

Pride makes most of us do stupid things. I don't know the true origin of the quote, but in the context of the current discussion around harassment and assault someone said that women are afraid men will rape and kill them, while men are afraid that women will

Unintended Consequences

Unintended Consequences

I tend to believe that some government regulation is a good thing overall. Especially in today's economic situation, where fewer large companies dominate that landscape, and learning from the 2008 financial crisis, I believe there is value in the government setting reasonable guardrails. Coming out of the Dodd-Frank

Levels and Title

Levels and Title

Most startups want you to believe that they have a fundamentally unique culture. This makes each company special. The reality is that most startups subscribe to the same types of standard cultural norms for the workplace. They are just trying to sell you on it so that you will work

Announcing Departures

Announcing Departures

Over the past few months there have been quite a few departures at my place of work. It's a combination of things. Some people have been terminated, some people have left for other jobs (or no job), some people were laid-off when the company was acquired. I'

Year End Reviews

Year End Reviews

Year end reviews are usually terrible. It's a long complicated form from Human Resources that seems designed to be a complete CYA move. My last form had "demonstrates ethical behavior" on a scale of 1 to 10. I mean come on, can you be only partially

Delegation and Verification

Delegation and Verification

One of the fundamental challenges of management is understanding the key balance between autonomy and micromanagement. At the root of it, this is about trust. I was just reading Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage by Haruki Murakami. A side character in this novel sells a business training

Take Charge, Hiring Managers

Take Charge, Hiring Managers

I've written a lot about hiring. Hiring the right people is one of the most important things a leader can do in business. (Closely related: firing the wrong people and coaching people.) Yet, when I speak with corporate recruiters I discover that many (most?) hiring managers outsource this

The Daunting Odds of Venture Capital Startups

The Daunting Odds of Venture Capital Startups

The first truly massive startup win for Los Angeles: Snap, Inc. For at least my part, I hadn't expected a social network from our media- and business services-centric community. Although, to be fair, Snap doesn't consider themselves a social network. The coverage of Snap's

Five Things About Fundraising

Five Things About Fundraising

I've been asked a lot about my fundraising experience. With the latest e-mail, I figured a blog post would be a productive answer, by making it available to all. In no particular order, here are five quick thoughts about fundraising I usually share: One. Self-Confidence No one will,

The Perils of the Counter Offer

The Perils of the Counter Offer

This year has been a year of hiring. In April, we completed a reorganization fully integrating Wallaby Financial into Bankrate, Inc's Credit Card Division. When you sell your startup you know that day will eventually come, but you don't always know when. The result of this

High Standards, Difficult Feedback, and Letting People Go

High Standards, Difficult Feedback, and Letting People Go

I'm way behind on my Instapaper [http://www.instapaper.com] queue, so on this week's flight I finally made it to an article from April about Donald Trump that spurred some interesting thoughts on how managers do and do not provide feedback. "Democracies end when

Hiring is Job #1

Hiring is Job #1

Ford used to say that "Quality is Job #1" It's a good approach, despite your viewpoint on Ford's quality control (which, even as a Ford fan, probably wasn't ranked #1). As a company leader, recruiting quality is job #1. Your success is

Water Usage in The Drought

Water Usage in The Drought

As a New Mexican, water conservation has been a part of my life since well before California's recent drought. Yet, despite best efforts, I have had a hard time decreasing usage, until recently. Although my records don't last the entire time I've lived in

Why I Pay Interns and You Should, Too

Why I Pay Interns and You Should, Too

While it seems that summer internship season is far away, recruiting events are just around the corner. Every year, around this time, I have a discussion with other CEOs about paying interns: why I do and so should you. There is a common misconception that it's OK not

My Zero-Turnover Team

My Zero-Turnover Team

Originally posted at Innovate Pasadena [http://www.innovatepasadena.org/10-lessons-from-a-zero-turnover-team/] A lot has been written about company culture. Many entrepreneurs love to coin sayings, write a mission, value statements, and the like and post it on the walls of their freshly minted offices. If we had a saying at Wallaby

How to stay semi-independent after selling your startup

How to stay semi-independent after selling your startup

Note: Venture Beat [http://venturebeat.com/2015/08/18/how-to-stay-semi-independent-after-selling-your-startup/] first published this piece of mine. Last December, my cofounder Todd Zino [http://twitter.com/toddzino]and I sold our startup, Wallaby Financial [https://www.walla.by], to Bankrate [http://www.bankrate.com]. We immediately went from being a team

Ghosting

A few thoughts on switching everything over to Ghost. My first personal website was built by hand, probably in Notepad, in 1996 and existed as part of the website of the Los Alamos Youth Commission. I found it in the Wayback Machine and it is ridiculous and terrible. Over the

Product Simplicity

Product Simplicity

A lot has been read about simplicity in product development. Go ahead, Google it. My lesson in simplicity is the outcome of my experience at Wallaby. I founded Wallaby to produce the Wallaby Card. The Wallaby Card was to be one card to rule them all. It would be a

No, Notes, No

Lots of good discussion on the interwebs this week about yet another problem with Convertible Notes as an early stage financing tool. See Mark Suster’s [http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2015/05/30/one-simple-paragraph-every-entrepreneur-should-add-to-their-convertible-notes/] and Brad Feld’s [http://www.feld.com/archives/2015/06/pre-money-vs-post-money-confusion-convertible-notes.html] posts. When I

Dell P2415Q and MacBook Pro (Retina)

Dell P2415Q and MacBook Pro (Retina)

A quick post for others who may be look at this. Yes, the Dell P2415Q [http://accessories.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?c=us&cs=19&l=en&sku=860-BBFF] does work in full Retina display mode with your late model MacBook Pro with Retina graphics. Ever

The Negative Side of Negative Advertising

The Negative Side of Negative Advertising

As a startup, you are engaged in a competitive battle for investments, customers, revenues, employees, and more. You have to decide how to go to the competition and what tactics you will use. Negative is not a good answer. With the launch of Apple’s latest iPhone 6/6 Plus,

Apple's pitch for replacing the wallet...

Apple's pitch for replacing the wallet...

> Apple’s pitch for replacing the wallet is basically a Telebrands-style “Aren’t debit cards such a PAIN?” video. Not pictured in the Apple Pay demo is the process of taking out your phone, unlocking it, opening up the Passbook app, explaining how Apple Pay works to the cashier,