Starting and running a company is not a marathon or a sprint. It is a decathlon. Sometimes you have to sprint. Sometimes you have to pace yourself. Sometimes you have to throw the javelin. Sometimes it’s heavy lifting like the shot put.
– Paul van Zyl
This article in the New York Times captured an insight I’ve always felt is right but had never been able to consciously formulate: that, whether you are managing your waistline or a company’s bottom line, you will be far more successful if you focus on the intrinsic behavior and culture of your eating and of your company’s spending behavior.
As the article states:
In fact, the best strategy is not to think about it as budgeting at all. Instead, set up broad goals and automate all savings and other priorities where you can.
It is far more effective to create a culture in your company that prizes resourcefulness and educates your team to invest only on all that is necessary, and at the best terms, than to set rules for each line item. Of course as you grow, budgets are necessary. But team leaders should know how to evaluate and seize opportunities in an entrepreneurial fashion, even if they don’t necessarily fit in a “budget”, so long as they actually show they can pay off. And vice-versa, just because you have a budget, you should not spend funds without ensuring that the particular expense is cost-effective, advisable, and procured on the best possible terms.
Dieting is similarly artificial. You can endure it for a while but then regress to your habits. Learning how to eat healthful food whose ingredients you can see and pronounce is far more effective in the long run. Here is a blog entry that provides some basic guidelines.
Today, Daniel was interviewed by Fox Business News in a segment depicting how influential the private sector can be in America’s fight against obesity. Daniel’s interview was part of the ongoing debate on whether the Government should police healthy eating, and this segment reinforces how influential entrepreneurial solutions can be. Even though Daniel admitted to having a sweet tooth (keep any and all funnel cake sticks away!) it is clear from this segment that KIND’s unbounded devotion to health and deliciousness will be key ingredients in helping American’s maintain healthy lifestyles.
by Adeena Schlussel
This video, launched by Entrepreneur Magazine encapsulates some of the attributes that made KIND’s Daniel Lubetzky win the 2010 Entrepreneur of the Year Award, and carries new meaning since the Award was announced. Among the key lessons: build a supportive environment for a super-star team, and use technology to simplify life, and food, rather than to complicate it.
Innovator – Kind Snacks from OC Creative Media on Vimeo.
by Adeena Schlussel
Bloomberg featured an article yesterday, illustrating the benefits that Egypt has incurred from trading with Israel. The article states that Israeli buttons on Egyptian clothing has boosted employment and benefitted the economy, despite some civilian backlash.
Spotted by Daniel Lubetzky, redacted by Adeena Schlussel
This awesome article in INC. Magazine, titled, “The Way I Work,” features Daniel and captures exactly how our CEO works! We are super proud that Daniel was featured in INC. and are even prouder that he is the fast paced, driven, successful worker that the article describes!
by Adeena Schlussel
Israeli entrepreneur, Amit Goffer just invented an incredible device to benefit the disabled population: robotic pants that use sensors to allow paralyzed patients to walk and stand. The Washington Post reported on the product called “ReWalk,” which will hopefully be for sale after the next coming years of trials and tests. While there are bound to be many obstacles for the inventors and the early adapters, this looks like a truly incredible opportunity for anyone who is paralyzed and I am excited to see this brilliance at work.
Spotted by Daniel Lubetzky, redacted by Adeena Schlussel
A friend forwarded me an article that Malcolm Gladwell had written in New Yorker Magazine about entrepreneurs. Like many of his pieces, it had provocative insights that were quite interesting as headlines (Entrepreneurs are "predators", not "risk-takers") till you realized that they were not very well thought out and that his own article contradicts itself numerous times along the way.
Here is what I wrote back to my friend:
I finally got a chance to red this Gladwell article. As I suspected, while I enjoy Gladwell’s writing, he is prone to simplify everything into a caricature and overlook the true essence of the issue in the process. Entrepreneurs are neither predators nor brave dummies. They of course have the capacity to see an opportunity in the marketplace that may have eluded others (that is part of the DEFINITION of what is an entrepreneur – not sure how Gladwell turns this simple truism into an epiphany). But they also possess the guts and determination to stay with it, and there are NEVER any guarantees that their analysis will prove right, certainly not without excellent execution – and often additional outside factors that the entrepreneur hopefully has taken into account but which can change course.
Gladwell’s piece works because he analyzes some of the most successful entrepreneurs, who in retrospect seem almost wily. He gratuitously says that failed entrepreneurs are the risk-takers but successful entrepreneurs are just predators who take no "risk." What a dumb simplification – one that you can only make in hindsight. Had Gladwell been by their side when they started on their journey, when they were sweating along the way, it is not as clear as he makes it out to be that they were guaranteed greatness from the outset. There are too many entrepreneurs who are not dumber or smarter than me or you whose circumstances get the best of them, and vice versa. Sheer analytical firepower may be a valuable ingredient in the composition of an entrepreneur. Guts, work ethic and determination are certainly another. Vision and a good sense of where things are going in society is probably another. But LUCK, just hard cold luck, is part of the mix too.
Setting up a home phone with Verizon has been a series of frustrations and disappointments, but the most recent ridiculousness is that we need to pay to keep our home phone number private from solicitors. Why do we have to pay for Verizon to NOT do something? Does Google give out your email address to solicitors if you don’t opt out? Nope. Verizon’s behavior is not unlike the mafia. I wish I could tell them this but I am stuck on hold.