This is the last in a series of 11 videos produced by the Smeal College of Business at The Pennsylvania State University. This one focuses on the challenges of keeping a work/life balance in the startup world.

This is the tenth in a series of 11 videos produced by the Smeal College of Business at The Pennsylvania State University. This one focuses on startups versus established players.

This is the ninth in a series of 11 videos produced by the Smeal College of Business at The Pennsylvania State University. This one focuses on the IPO run-up.

This is the eighth in a series of 11 videos produced by the Smeal College of Business at The Pennsylvania State University. This one focuses on managing growth.

This is the seventh in a series of 11 videos produced by the Smeal College of Business at The Pennsylvania State University. This one focuses on team recruiting, growth, and culture.

​This is the sixth in a series of 11 videos produced by the Smeal College of Business at The Pennsylvania State University. This one focuses on creating and maintaining a productive corporate culture.

​This is the fifth in a series of 11 videos produced by the Smeal College of Business at The Pennsylvania State University. This one focuses on the dynamics of founder partnerships.

This is the fourth in a series of 11 videos produced by the Smeal College of Business at The Pennsylvania State University. This one focuses on the value provided by angel investors.

This is the third in a series of 11 videos produced by the Smeal College of Business at The Pennsylvania State University. This one focuses on the pros and cons of bootstrapping.

This is the first in a series of eleven videos produced by the Smeal College of Business at The Pennsylvania State University. Under the direction of Dr. Anthony Warren, characters from Starting Something were interviewed in 2006. These professionally produced videos were packaged into a comprehensive entrepreneurship program. 

The interviewees were not coached. I asked them to be as truthful as possible and speak from their own perspective. Ouch.

Note: You may notice that my interview sections are heavily edited. The day of the shoot, I had a once-in-a-decade flu, with a 103 degree temp. I was barely able to remain upright... and kept forgetting what I was saying... even worse than usual. Sorry 'bout that.

I just finished listening to a podcast by Entrepreneur On Fire. A core premise of their work is the importance of learning from failure.

That got me thinking about... well... failure... and success...

When I finished the first draft of Starting Something, the book was too long. Going into the process, I had thought that I would struggle to come up with enough words to fill a book, so this was quite a surprise. Thanks to two great editors, most of the pruning was quite painless, making the book better with each omission. However, there was one overlong chapter that I was very reluctant to trim.

The Casting chapter is about hiring. The book’s core message is that a company’s ultimate product is its culture. How could I exclude some of our most important experiences – successes and failures? But this chapter was contrary to my objective to keep each chapter as short as possible. So I ripped the following section out of that chapter, telling myself that I’d likely release it separately at some point.

Over the years, many people have asked me to expand upon my hiring process. After much procrastination, here goes. 

This section covers a period in 1998, just after our first large funding round. The market for talent was very hot, making it essential to work with recruiters. This picks up near the end of the Casting chapter. As it was extracted from the book, this prose is told in the past tense, but I still apply the same principals and practices today…