I often get questions about how I take my killer panos.  Here’s my secret: I take the pano on my iPhone with an app named, appropriately, Pano.  Although there are other pano apps out there, this is my favorite by far. Then, I import it into Camera+.  I apply the clarity exposure filter, then the diana overlay filter and use the cross-process border. Here’s the result!  You can also see my full...

A few years ago I saw some amazing videos of ‘Where the hell is Matt,’ who danced all over the world. Today I stumbled across another mind numbing performer and internet sensation, Marquese Scott. They both do amazing things with dance, in two completely different ways.  So I put the question to you for the comments:  Who’s more amazing, and why? Marquese: Matt, 2006: Matt,...

Today I learned about the Startup Genome Report from the Startup Genome, as well as the Startup Genome Compass. This amazing project by Max Marmer, Bjoern Lasse Herrmann, Ron Berman and Ertan Dogrultan compares over 3,200 startups to find parallels between them that are predictors for success or failure. the Startup Genome Compass is a ~30 minute form you can fill out to find how your startup compares to others. Here are a few excerpts...

It’s hard to over hype the significance of the interest graph, once you really understand its magnitude.  On the flipside, it can be confusing to hear people talk about the interest graph without knowing what all the fuss is about.  (As background to this blog post, you can learn about the origins of the interest graph in this slideshare document and this Quora Q&A post). I’m going to lay out an argument for the...

I was recently invited to a Napa retreat along with others in the mobile app space by Trevor Cornwell & crew from AppBackr.  It was a great, intimate event with about 35 people total. The panel I was on was: What challenges do developers face?  How do apps get to market effectively?  How does a developer get noticed and build sales?  What strategies work?  What do developers really need?  The core question is:  What is the...

My wife and I have been making an effort to eat unprocessed foods as a part of a healthier lifestyle.  Simply told, that means if there’s a label on the food (or if it’s in a box), we try not to eat it.  I’ll write a more comprehensive blog soon about the thinking behind this approach. Part of this initiative is to buy organic fruits and vegetables (Rainbow grocery in San Francisco is just amazing) and consume them...

Jonathanscard — a geeky 2.0 take on the “give a penny, leave a penny” concept — has been all over the news recently (if you haven’t heard the backstory, this is a good place to start). I’m surprised at all the harsh words over my brother Sam’s hacking of the social experiment. For example, one HackerNews commentator wrote, “Did Sam Odio’s blog get hacked? Because I refuse to believe...

I recently met Shane, the CEO of Joyride.com.  Six weeks ago, he found my blog about our SOMAcentral office and inquired about space there.  That inquiry kicked off a camaraderie that led me to ask him today if he’d let me follow his progress as he worked to launch his business.  He agreed, so here’s the setup: I am surrounded by San Francisco based startups every day.  And one of the things I forget about is how...

If you’re fundraising, buy this book. If you’re fundraising, or thinking about it, there are a lot of places to turn.  This blog post is a great place to begin for advice on an angel or Series A raise. While many entrepreneurs are ‘too busy to blog,’ others take the time to share the knowledge they’ve amassed.  I’ve created a “bundle” of the top RSS feeds of entrepreneurs who blog, as...

Anyone who knows me knows I really stress being able to play a computer like an instrument (and if you think you can, then prove it).  Us geeky types are in front of our computers for 12+ (often 16+) hours per day, so every loss of efficiency translates into a huge cost in time — and time is the most precious asset of any hardcore entrepreneur. One thing I’ve done is to really customize my Google Apps email pane, with...