Andrew Hargadon

Where innovation comes from...

A recent Kauffman report offers new and valuable insights into where venture-driven growth comes from. Literally. Not from what attributes of social media founders or which San Francisco coffee shops, but rather which sectors of the economy and which regions of the country. The findings are surprising and important for entrepreneurs thinking of starting a business, and policymakers thinking of helping them.

Nothing like a good fight over ideas

I'm not a big fan of ideas. Sure, ideas are great — some of my best friends are ideas. But managers tend to let our national obsession about having new ideas distract them from the hard work of building good products and successful ventures around what are almost always old ideas. So it was fun to see the great design OXO have at a competitor who claimed to "own" an idea that both had built products around.

The Nightingale Ratio

Submitted for your consideration: the Nightingale Ratio as the number of people helping others do something to the number of people actually doing that thing. In this case, the number of people helping entrepreneurs start something relative to the number of entrepreneurs actually starting something.