Ross Mayfield
CEO and co-founder of Pingpad, making social productivity as instant, simple and social as messaging. Previously VP at SlideShare (acquired by LinkedIn), Co-Founder, CEO at Socialtext (the enterprise social software pioneer) and RateXchange (a B2B bandwidth exchange)
A lesson on how not to innovate
Great post on entrepreneur lessons learned by Tod Sacerdoti of BrightRoll. And I completely agree with the lesson “Don’t Innovate.” Perhaps it’s in our blood as entrepreneurs to see a problem we have to solve and try to experiment with it. Let me share a big mistake I made. In short, only innovate when you […]
“Practices for Effective Distributed Teams” in Social Productivity
Practices for Effective Distributed Teams I’ve worked with distributed teams with my last three startups. I find that with the right practices distributed teams can be more efficient and effective, so long as you over-invest in certain things to make up for distance. To share best practices, I’d like to begin by exploring how time and […]
Unicorrection
We’ve had a correction in Unicorn financing that has trickled throughout venture capital. A lot of people lost jobs, opportunity and wealth. You could say this began with the creation of a the secondary market for private equity, and the dust on Chris Sacca’s spurs. But the correction began with Fidelity’s very public markdown […]
“Where Goes Consumer Freemium Business Models?” in Social Productivity
Where Goes Consumer Freemium Business Models? A reporter asked me some very good blunt questions about Pingpad’s business model. To ask a bold question — why do you think there’s a market in consumer freemium any more? Evernote, Dropbox … it’s a trail of tears, man. Good question. I don’t think you can fault the business model for […]
“Pingpad for Social Tasks” in Social Productivity
Pingpad for Social Tasks Pingpad is the Social Productivity App to get things done, together. It combines messaging, notes and tasks, and let’s you move effortlessly across them in one app that works all your devices. With the latest update, you can manage your personal Todo list, and social tasks. Tasks flow from Todo to […]
Tech in 2016 is Beyond Boring
It’s Destroying Humanity Direct-to-the-Retina A lot of things are boringly hot in technology now. Downtown Palo Alto is full of people in cafes and restaurants with competing startup T-shirts. But the people are doing delivery for Doordashes. The few real people on the streets are glued to their phones, and this year VR promises a […]
Momentum
Last year I came to realize that startups are an exercise in momentum. Momentum takes many internal and external forms. And is the greatest asset you can have in absence of resources. Inside a company it could be a team’s ability to produce and innovate predictably, adaptively, rapidly, and/or with quality. It could be the […]
Social Productivity
In the days where there is an Uber-for-everything, if you can’t dial up someone to do it for you, it’s hard to get things done. Have you noticed that the hard things really are, still, hard? I found this myself when planning and organizing my wedding. We decided to do it ourselves and do it […]
Telepresence to Moscow
When I ran for student body President at Foothill College (where I’m giving this year’s commencement speech), they had each candidate record a video pitch. Even back then I was a pretty good speaker. But in a room with just…
The Next Chapter of Socialtext
Today I’m pleased to share that Socialtext has gained a strategic investment by Bedford Funding ($1.4B PE firm) and will integrate with Peoplefluent. They are all gassed up and stepping on the accelerator. There is a strong strategic fit with…
