Business
Up To The Minute: The Latest Thought Leadership On AI, IBM, Business Strategy, And More
What Is: Up To The Minute? A thought leadership showcase. A wealth of knowledge. Your new weekly go-to source of insight from voices big and small across a wide range of industries.
This week’s featured topics include how to approach founding a startup with a close friend; a potentially fatal flaw in Google’s innovation strategy; a founder Q&A; and more.
Check it out:
1. Tomer Dicturel, co-founder of Epic.AI, an AI and blockchain software development company: “Startup founders need to wear a lot of different hats, which is why it’s helpful to have two or three co-founders at one time.”
When you make the leap into founder life, will you be all on your own? Or will you have a co-founder or two by your side? Here, Dicturel helps you weigh the risk-reward scenario every founder faces when deciding to lead a startup solo or with a right-hand man or woman.
Read: How Many Founders — What is the Right Number? 1, 2 or 3?
2. Lexie Komisar, IBM’s Global Head of Strategic Partnerships & Startup Ecosystems: “It’s important to have goals and big dreams, but I would encourage people to allow themselves to see new opportunity.”
In a three-and-a-half minute video interview, the Forbes 2017 30 Under 30 in Tech listee crushes through her philosophy and approach to a handful of topics including embracing change and innovation, defining your career path, and how IBM is creating opportunities for young women in the notoriously male-dominated tech industry.
Watch and read: ‘Embrace change’: Advice from IBM’s Lexie Komisar
3. Maulik Shah, CEO of Invonto, an award-winning app design and development company: “Your business is no one else’s business. You have to establish rules of engagement as the most affected party, so whether signing up a new client or hiring an employee, you need to make sure that you work with people that are a good fit for your cause.”
For a solid founder Q&A featuring all the staples, look no further. Shah details his own startup’s path to success and offers two quick-hits advice lists for those considering a similar journey here.
4. Eric N. Shapiro, co-founder and CEO of ArcTouch, a San Francisco-based app developer: “Conventional wisdom suggests you can’t run a business with co-founders who have equal managerial control over the business. I’m proud of the fact that [my co-founder] and I have proved this wrong.”
Here, Shapiro offers five valuable lessons for anyone considering launching a startup with a close friend. The numbers suggest you shouldn’t—but Shapiro calls partnering with his best friend of 33 years “the best decision he’s ever made.”
Valuable insight from an odds-beating startup success story can be found here: How to start a company with your best friend (and survive to tell about it)
5. Enrique Dans, innovation professor, writer, and consultant: “[Google] systematically disappoints users who have invested time and effort in many of its products, telling them basically to find themselves a substitute.”
Google has no fear of failure. That’s great for innovation, right? Internally, yes. But with that strategy comes a pitfall, says Dans: growing numbers of leery, frustrated users of abandoned products. Google’s graveyard containing 158 defunct services and hardwares (the plug was pulled on its once-hyped social media network Google+ earlier this week) signify countless wasted user hours spent learning and using them. And if the trend continues, Dans warns that people will begin to turn their backs to Google’s next (potentially short-lived) innovation.
