The Dark Side of Customer Development and Lean Startups

Update: Clarification added at the end of the post
Version 1 of Backupify was built with less than $10,000. A friend of mine had suggested that an automated Flickr backup tool might be useful, and a few others agreed. But rather than raise a bunch of money and waste it on something that [...]

The Path Dependence of Startups Part 2: Sugarscape

How do economies begin? That was something that Joshua Epstein and Robert Axtell wanted to know. So they built a simulation of an economy that they called Sugarscape. They built a virtual landscape that was overlaid with a 50×50 grid. The landscape was endowed with sugar in various locations, and with [...]

Frozen Accidents And The Path Dependence of Startups: Part 1

“Shallow men believe in luck. Strong men believe in cause and effect.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

One of the things I have struggled with for years is the role of luck in business. I have seen plenty of smart entrepreneurs fail because of seemingly random events. But like most others, I want to believe [...]

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  Rob is co-founder of Backupify.com. He likes value investing, the Rolling Stones, college basketball, artificial intelligence, economic history and people who think independently.