I’m excited to post that Signal earned the #108 spot on 2011 Inc 500 list of the fastest growing companies in US. This is a huge achievement for any company, and one that is incredibly rewarding to me personally as I’ve been reading Inc. cover to cover for over 15 years now. I posted a few pictures over at the Signal blog.
I’m excited to welcome our son Caelin James Judge into the world. Caelin was born on Monday, January 17th at 8:31 AM, weighing in at 7 lbs, 11 oz and measuring 20 inches long. Here he is:
Chicago received it's first snow of the season over the weekend - this is my son Jack running around in it
The Apple TV has been a game changer at home
Great analysis from Leon Chism on why there is no “Orbitz mafia” (Google “Paypal mafia” to understand that term). Simply put, the early employees didn’t make the kind of money from the initial Orbitz IPO and subsequent sale transactions to create this type of reinvestment cycle in Chicago. Orbitz was never a startup, it was a heavily backed (100M) investment on behalf of the airlines and such the airlines took the returns.
Here’s a great New York Times article about the upcoming content battle for your TV between companies like Google and Apple vs the cable companies.
That’s what I told my dentist’s wife today when she asked me how my son is doing. It’s true, he’s running around and making all sorts of noise. For example - he loves to hum along to nursery rhymes that he’s heard at daycare while playing his toys and chasing the dogs around the house.
I turned 35 today (well, technically yesterday since it’s 12:23 AM right now). It was a pretty ordinary day for the most part, except that Erin came down with something at the end of the day and had to go to bed early, plus Jack and our two dogs were extra surly tonight after she went to bed. I was pretty wiped out by 8 PM and actually a little annoyed since I didn’t get to grab anything tasty to eat on my birthday. I even tried to pick up a slice of Cafe Selmarie’s bread pudding while walking the dogs with Jack, but they were all sold out. As I walked back into the house I noticed a birthday card from Jack sitting on the table and an internal mental switch instantly flipped inside of me. I was just so happy to see that card with Jack’s scribbles all over it that I couldn’t help but smile and laugh at how foolish I was being.
I’ve been reading How To Outnegotiate Anyone and read a paragraph in particular that made me laugh:
The "off the record" comment
In negotiations, whether you are making an offer or not, there is no such thing as an "off the record" comment. If the other side hears it, you might as well write it in your own blood or, perhaps more appropriately, have it engraved in your tombstone. As with the informal proposal, the simple rule here is to never say anything that you haven't thought about carefully. In other words, don't open your mouth before you engage your brain. This is a common problem with American negotiators. We love to talk talk. In fact, we can't shut up. As such, we tend to easily overstate or understate our case, or otherwise miscommunicate our position to the other side.
So true - I’ve seen this first hand many times.
Startups are hard. Here are some lessons learned.