Journey of a Serial Entrepreneur

Radical Openess

Usman Sheikh — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 04:49:41 +0000

This video by Jason Silva is brilliantly made. He talks about the birth of an idea and how it evolves over time. Anyone involved in creative pursuits knows the transformative power of a single ‘idea’. The ability for it to transform as we iterate to refine it further. To create something of value where there was nothing before. This video does a great job of encapsulating these ideas into a 2 minute video masterpiece.

The Ultimate Guide to Hiring as a Small Business

Usman Sheikh — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 08:50:28 +0000

As someone who has been in the HR space for over 5 years, I have helped many companies of varying sizes with their recruiting function, from large organizations like Standard Chartered to 2 person startups. Regardless of your size, recruiting well is a very challenging job. Unfortunately, it gets harder as the size of the company becomes smaller. I wrote a very comprehensive article detailing some key steps for your Small Business to get a leg up on out recruiting competition.

I look forward to getting your feedback and thoughts on the piece.

The Ultimate Guide to Hiring as a Small Business

The Secret of Life

Usman Sheikh — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 07:01:49 +0000

This great video was shared on my wall over the weekend. It definitely encapsulates the drive behind most entrepreneurs, which is to make a dent in the universe.

Great Leaders

Usman Sheikh — Sat, 09 Feb 2013 20:00:15 +0000

Leaders aren’t born, they are made. And they are made just like anything else, through hard work. And that’s the price we have to pay to achieve that goal, or any goal. —Vince Lombardi

Finding Simple Solutions

Usman Sheikh — Sat, 09 Feb 2013 07:51:47 +0000

Steve Blank has one of the best definitions of what is a startup:

“a startup is an organization formed to search for a repeatable and scalable business model.”

To ensure that a business is scalable, the problem the startup builds a solution for should have a large addressable market.

An important aspect of it being a repeatable process is a function of how simple the solution is.

Thus the harder the problem and the simpler the solution, tends to make for businesses that achieve scale much faster. This does generalize other factors such as network efforts and available distribution platforms etc.

However at it’s crux I do believe simplifying your business to benchmarking how difficult the problem you are solving for is compared to the simplicity of the solution is a great way to quickly evaluate the viability of your startup.