I recently had the pleasure of meeting two MBA students with big ambitions: they want to redefine online shopping. I sat back in my chair and listened closely as they pitched their ideas for an entirely new online shopping experience. 3D this, interactive that, Web 2.0 the other thing. As they laid out the extensive feature set [...]

Good interfaces should be designed around an economy of clicks. Or in the case of the iPhone, an economy of taps. Put simply: apps should allow users to achieve key goals with as few finger taps as possible. Exit Strategy NYC’s extremely simple interface asks only three key pieces of information: 1) What subway line [...]

Every week the New York Times seems to run an article about Foursquare, the redhot mobile game. Most has been technology press, but one NY/Region piece stood out as especially interesting. Beyond Twitter: An App That Lets You Truly See City is written by a non-technology columnist and describes how the ‘tips’ feature of foursquare opened the writer’s [...]

(This is the second in a two part post.  You should probably start at part one which contains a framework for thought.  Part two contains recommendations and my philosophy for first-time entrepreneurship). The most basic principle of business is that profit is revenue minus costs.  Try considering all fixed costs as a rate — especially [...]

(This is the first in a two part post. Part one contains a framework for viewing the world.  Part two contains resulting recommendations). Apple’s app store taught me that living in New York City is expensive.  How expensive? $1.25 an hour. Consider that the rent for my (rather modest) Brooklyn apartment is roughly $900 a [...]