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Posts by Rand Fishkin:

Moz Psychology Startups Team

Generosity & Entitlement

Rand FishkinBy Rand Fishkin
I’ve been trying something new at Moz. I schedule 90 minutes every week or two for “office hours,” and invite anyone from any team at the company to come visit and chat about whatever’s on their mind. So far, attendance has been sparse (only 1 person the first week, ~10 the 2nd week, and 4 each of the last two…
Moz Startups Team

Well, He’s Not Going to Get Very Far

Rand FishkinBy Rand Fishkin
Company culture is incredibly fragile. It’s hard for founders/CEOs/execs to understand how little faith and trust people have in us when we stand up at a meeting and say “we believe in our culture” or “we put values first.” That skepticisim has often been built up over years or decades of being let down. People joined companies that claimed to…
Startups

So Why Do I Have the Platform & the Recognition?

Rand FishkinBy Rand Fishkin
Louis C.K. is one of the most entrepreneurial and authentic self-marketers in the entertainment world. I want to write loads about his email campaigns, his online ticket-sales, and the consistency of his persona, but tonight, it’s very late, I’ve just spent 22 hours on planes and in airports, and so this will have to do. From the NYTimes’ interview with…
Events Marketing

11 Tips I Gave to Marketers this Morning

Rand FishkinBy Rand Fishkin
Today finds me blogging from Australia, where I had the privilege of keynoting SMX Sydney and participating in a site clinic (wearing an SMX lab coat, which is always fun). While looking through the show’s program guide, I discovered that I was also supposed to be on a panel today! The description read something like this: Bill Hunt and Rand…
Startups Team

Scaling Teams and the Fight Against Human Nature

Rand FishkinBy Rand Fishkin
I’ve talked to a lot of founders about their startup experiences and one of the more consistent topics we eventually get to is that, somewhere around 80-100 people, the team dynamics get really hard. So hard, in fact, that many founders opt to leave their companies at around this size and bring in more “professional” management. (via Ana Teresa on…
Startups

Why I Never Want to Have a “For-Profit” Business

Rand FishkinBy Rand Fishkin
Making money is an excellent side-effect of successful businesses. But, it’s a terrible core purpose. Last week, Fred Wilson wrote one of my favorite posts in a while on Short-Term Thinking vs. Long-Term Thinking. Here’s an excerpt: …Sure Samsung is making a killing on handset sales right now. So is Apple. That goes to their bottom line and then onto…

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