mattward

There are two ways to interpret that: outrage and intrigue. The best headlines do both. The world is a game of selling, especially in business. VCs sell money to founders, founders sell dreams to investors,

Profits accrue to people on top. That’s the way most markets work, especially those with strong network effects (for more on 5 types of network effects and how to hack them, see this post). As an angel

Source: IqbalPost Uber’s the most successful pre-IPO startup in history. Google is insanely profitable as the operating system of the internet. Both these tech giants overcame huge odds to get to today.

Source: The Elevator Pitch (Sundance) Those words terrify entrepreneurs. You get one chance to make a first impression. And fear of failure often ruins that. Overconfidence is equally harmful though. And

Source: FanArt Get rich or die trying — that’s a common mantra among entrepreneurs, gangsters and drug dealers. I know that was my mindset. How can I hustle my way to a million bucks? That was the question

So you are raising money for your startup. You have a product and a little traction — now you need to grow. Who do you talk to? How do you get the round closed as quickly as possible without screwing your

“If you’ve got a dream and your dream doesn’t require a team, you need to dream bigger.” — Unknown When working with startups (both as an investor and advisor), I like to focus on incentivizes. The more

Both professionally and personally, 2017 has been an amazing year. I set the goal of becoming a full time angel investor and startup advisor after transitioning out of my last business I sold. After

If you haven’t heard, Amazon won ecommerce. Bezos’ juggernaut is the most powerful marketplace and brand the Western world has ever seen (get my analysis here as an ex 7 figure Amazon seller). But it isn’t

Apple and Google are two of the strongest, most profitable tech giants today. But both are in for a kick in the ass, here is why. Disruption is the name of the game. Great businesses die from one of two

With great power comes great profit, and then even the innovative get fat and lazy. This was the paradigm pre 2000s. Rome rose and fell. Microsoft’s monopoly was cracked.Kodakcreated the digital camera

Jeff Bezos is the Terminator… and he is killing competition and ecommerce faster than Arnold can say “I’ll be back” Hope you are hooked. Let’s go for a ride. My background is ecommerce. Before starting

How to Build a Powerful, Profitable Platform from Scratch Bezos builds businesses like no one else — and arguably better than anyone. Each of Amazon’s 5 major divisions would be multi-multi billion dollar

Lessons from Blue Apron, Uber, Amazon, and Facebook Remember the beach? It was always a battle to build the best sandcastle. But inevitably the tides turned and waves washed away your creation… you were

The internet is filled with spammy top 10 lists. Unfortunately clickbait seems to be all anyone is interested in publishing. I decided to dig deeper. Information is power and while “influencers” everywhere

We are entering into an era of unparalleled tech dominance. Companies like Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple control more and more of our everyday lives — owning our data and everything around it. The

I have been writing extensively on the topics of tech innovation, monopolization and aggregation theory (ala Ben Thompson) and realized I had to write a book. cover.jpg Today’s tech monopolies are unlike

Today Amazon feels unstoppable. The company Bezos built to sell books online is now arguably the most dominant and diversified company on earth, and the odds on favorite to crack the $1T market cap first.

Why Digital Gold Won’t be a Thing Prior to August 15th, 1971, a US dollar was worth 1/35th of an ounce of gold — known as the gold standard (actually the Gold Window, FDR had started the process of removing

Recently, I had the opportunity to attend a debate on the future of AI at ETH university here in Zurich, Switzerland. It was a fascinating discussion between Robin Hanson, author of The Age of Em and Max