Garrick, Hi! I’ve heard about you for a few years now (originally from Richard Fink), and have enjoyed reading your blog posts. As a web designer who’s striking out on his own to learn programming and build his own business, do you have any advice? Cheers! – Josh For the past decade, I’ve been working […]
Category: Featured Articles
Your Minimum Viable Product is Processing Credit Cards
If you’re building any sort of web service or mobile app and you can’t yet receive money from people – stop. Right now. Stop. For all that is right in the world – stop. If you can’t process credit cards right now – you don’t have a product and you barely have a business. Your […]
How Kubb Saved My Life
In the summer of 2011, my third child had just turned a year old. I was just beginning to feel reconnected with the world and something approximating normal. My business was having one of its best years, in no small part to my part-time assistant. Yet, despite the optimistic signs all around me – I […]
Know Where Your Towel Is
Perhaps like me, your high school years were some of your most trying. Perhaps like me, your parent’s divorce only compounded the instability and uncertainty of growing up. In the midst of this, I was introduced to The Fountainhead. As a teenager watching the world of my childhood crumble The Fountainhead promised stability. Stability based […]
Apple is no longer a premium brand
For decades, Apple was perceived a premium brand with premium products. Products that just worked – with price tags fanatics aspired to. Ironically, Apple’s most successful products – the iPhone and iPad – have completely removed the brand cache. At a glance – I can tell if a laptop is the latest MacBook Air. There’s […]
The Runway Extends Beyond the Horizon
Once or twice a semester, I’m invited to speak to a group of students at one of the many universities in this area. Sometimes I’m asked to talk about a project like Kernest, sometimes I’m asked about web design / information architecture / etc. Tonight, I was asked to talk about my business – not […]
Mental Exercise: Price Free Retail Stores
This past summer, I entertained the idea of purchasing a couple tables at the community garage sale and loading them up with my basement full of stuff-in-need-of-a-better-home. And price everything at $0. Primarily, because I can’t imagine spending the time determining a price for each and every thing, labeling it, handling money, and risk justifying […]
Web Fonts – Identifying a New Species
“…the design of typefaces had existed for centuries as an exclusive discipline reserved for specialists, who had access to proprietary tools. Today the personal computer provides the opportunity to create custom type designs with an increased potential for personalization and expression…Our design of custom fonts for Emigre magazine grew out of our need for unique […]
Verizon Droid Hands-On Review
The Verizon / Motorola / Google Droid, released later this week, is a solid, tactilely satisfying handset. I suspect it’ll be Motorola’s most well-received handset since the RAZR. Verizon’s marketing is correct – the Droid is the first real peer to the iPhone. More importantly – the Droid is the first significant competitor to the […]
For the Future of Radio – Tune to 802.11
Yesterday, at the Village gym, tired of my normal workout playlist, I brought up JungleTrain on the iPod Touch. My favorite, niche internet radio station, streaming from somewhere in Europe, picked up by a device in my pocket, on a random treadmill in Minnesota. Exactly the audio I was looking for. No ads, no data […]