Why I Unplug On Vacation Every Year
11 Nov
Posted in Miscellany No comments

Why I Unplug On Vacation Every Year

In early 2012, I was tired. I had been pushing 80+ hour weeks at work for a while. I found myself unable to be civil to clients or my coworkers. My boss at the time asked me “John, do you need a vacation?”

I did. I took 5 days (a “long weekend”) and went to Colorado with one of my good buddies to go to MountainFilm in Telluride. For those five days, I removed my email clients, Twitter, and Facebook from my phone. Instead, I watched interesting movies about outdoors issues I care about, met some intriguing people, drank awesome beer at the Telluride brewery, and spent time in the mountains hiking and rock climbing. Read more about Why I Unplug On Vacation Every Year …

Does A Startup Really Need The .Com Of Their Brand Name?
17 Aug
Posted in Marketing 17 comments

Does A Startup Really Need The .Com Of Their Brand Name?

Recently Paul Graham, a VC and entrepreneur whom I very much respect, wrote a post called Change Your Name in which he argued that a startup should seriously think about changing their name if they are not able to get the “.com” TLD for their brand name. Graham also stated some statistics that are meant to make us think that his position is mostly irrefutable. He said:

100% of the top 20 YC companies by valuation have the .com of their name. 94% of the top 50 do. But only 66% of companies in the current batch have the .com of their name. Which suggests there are lessons ahead for most of the rest, one way or another.

I’d argue that having the .com domain is not the most important thing (and I don’t think that’s what Graham was saying). What’s more important, in my opinion, is consistency. In fact, I’d even argue that not having the .com is missing the forest for the trees. Let’s dig in. Read more about Does A Startup Really Need The .Com Of Their Brand Name? …

The Full Stack Marketer’s Valley Of Sorrow
10 Aug
Posted in Search Engine Optimization 4 comments

The Full Stack Marketer’s Valley Of Sorrow

I recently read this post entitled The Curse of the Full Stack Marketer. I tweeted a few brief thoughts (a brief rant really) around this post, but now I think it needs a longer treatment. I also realize that there have been a few posts written as follow-ons but I’ve purposefully not read them so as to make this my own thoughts.

I think that there are a few elements at play that make this an interesting and tough topic (especially as someone who feels the tension very personally). Those include:

  1. The rockstar problem
  2. The meritocracy problem
  3. The individual vs manager dilemma
  4. The small vs big company challenges and differences

Let’s unpack each.
Read more about The Full Stack Marketer’s Valley Of Sorrow …

When Do I Use a Canonical Vs a 301 Redirect Vs a 302 Redirect?
02 Jul
Posted in Technical SEO 7 comments

When Do I Use a Canonical Vs a 301 Redirect Vs a 302 Redirect?

I don’t often write about technical SEO issues anymore on this site, but I have over time often come across questions about when it is best to use a 301 vs a 302 vs a canonical tag on duplicate content. I thought I’d take the opportunity to talk about each in depth with the pros and cons of each, as well as a few examples of when to use them. Read more about When Do I Use a Canonical Vs a 301 Redirect Vs a 302 Redirect? …