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Pardees Safizadeh: Starting in the Startup World

Submitted by pardees on Thu, 09/02/2010 - 8:08am

{Ed. Note -The Greenhorn Connect team is growing! We're pleased to announce that Pardees Safizadeh is our new Director of Social Media.  She'll be helping us improve and grow our communication and outreach so we can more effectively interact with and help the Boston entrepreneur community. So please give a warm welcome to @Pardees.  
 
We are always interested in how we can help young people get integrated in the community, so we asked Pardees to share her story of getting into the community, getting excited and finding Greenhorn Connect!}
 
Rewind life back two months—it’s June, and I have no interest in joining the start up community. To be fair, I had no idea a start up community existed in Boston. I had no idea there were so many start up companies in Boston, and frankly, I didn’t care. I was interning in Boston and enjoying my life like a normal person. I wasn’t a business major in college and I didn’t intend on starting anything now.
 
So right now you’re probably thinking why am I (the reader) reading this? Why do I (the reader) care about this random girl and her lack of involvement in the start up community? Why? Because I did get involved.
 

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5 Reasons You Need a CoFounder

Submitted by Jason Evanish on Wed, 09/01/2010 - 8:00am

We all know how hard it is to find a cofounder (especially if you're looking for a technical one).  So what if you think you might be able to go it alone? Maybe you have the technical skills to get your idea off the ground or are willing to bite the bullet and pay someone to build your idea.   It may seem like a great idea, and in some cases may work out, but I'd like to caution against not having a co-founder.  Here's why:

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Dan Croak: Agile Principles in Practice - Part 3: Decide as Late as Possible

Submitted by Jason Evanish on Tue, 08/31/2010 - 12:58am

This post on "Agile" continues a mini-series on misunderstood terms in technology. Previous terms were the cloud and NoSQL.

Why Agile?

We want to make software that is valuable for people cheaply and efficiently. Ideally, the process is also pleasant for the participants.

 
Agile development achieves that goal. Agile teams build stuff customers want. They do it faster with fewer wasted cycles. Developers have more fun and write cleaner code. They do it at a constant pace that can be sustained forever.

Principles

The Agile Manifesto kicked off the movement with some lofty phrases like "people over processes". It proposes that we value "working software", "customer collaboration", and "responding to change" over some other stuff.
 
Sounds good, if a little vague. Getting a little more specific, the following subset of principles offered by the Poppendiecks in Lean Software Development are a helpful grouping:

  1. Eliminate waste (click to read)
  2. Deliver as fast as possible (click to read)
  3. Decide as late as possible (Today)

Principles are meant to be universal. The above list should apply to the software team of any entrepreneur reading this. (Editor’s Note: this is the 3rd and final part of Dan Croak's series on Agile)

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