Author: jaredcohe

10 Ways to Keep Your Data Safe

Here’s a list of 10 ways to help keep your company and personal data safe. 1. Use a password manager. A password manager is software that you use to store your passwords (in addition to other convenient features, such as auto-completing forms, including entering your credit card information). Two of the many options are 1Password … Continue reading 10 Ways to Keep Your Data Safe →

Dear Founders, Stop Trying to Innovate on Everything

If you’re founding an innovative company, you have a long, difficult road ahead of you. To achieve your goal, you need to focus your time, money, and energy on that goal. Because of the personality of many great founders, they need to question everything, do everything better, optimize everything, innovate on everything. “That’s how it’s … Continue reading Dear Founders, Stop Trying to Innovate on Everything →

How To Get Current Crypto Prices into a Google Sheet Using Google Scripts and the CoinMarketCap API

1. Sign up for an account with CoinMarketCap at coinmarketcap.com. 2. Get an API key: Go to Settings > Products > Crypto API, or just click here. 3. Create a Google Sheet where you want the prices to update, like this one. You can actually make a copy of that one and use it as … Continue reading How To Get Current Crypto Prices into a Google Sheet Using Google Scripts and the CoinMarketCap API →

How Can DAOs Achieve Their Mission? Be A Platform.

You DAOn’t Say What’s the best use case for a DAO? What will the best DAOs accomplish? Is there anything a DAO can’t do? I don’t know. Nobody really knows, not yet at least. What even is a DAO aka Decentralized Autonomous Organization? Also unclear. Maybe somewhat Decentralized. Probably not very Autonomous. Often appears to … Continue reading How Can DAOs Achieve Their Mission? Be A Platform. →

Smart Contract Coding Learning Resources

Here are some really simple examples of code that actually creates the foundation for everything you need to know. Try these in remix as you go:https://solidity-by-example.org/ All of Patrick Collins's videos are great. Here are a few:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M576WGiDBdQhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBc3lBrXEBohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdXJmWajZRY Buildspace has some really good, hands-on courses:https://buildspace.so/ A few videos I've made:https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLA1j0xIg3Mt9DIDBPl49XBirGUnZ--_kx And if you want to start … Continue reading Smart Contract Coding Learning Resources →

Job Versus DAO

In the transition from a job to a DAO, the question changes from: “Who will let you?” to “Who will stop you?”

Your DAO Still Needs An Operating System

By definition, a DAO reduces the need, in part, for that People OS. But, unless your DAO is completely autonomous on the blockchain and requires no human intervention ever, your DAO still needs some version of an old-fashioned, people Operating System.

Crypto DAO: The World’s Best Manager?

Not every organization can or should be a DAO, but every organization can learn from them.

Career Discovery Course: Discover and Design Your Career Path

Can’t figure out what to do with your life? Unhappy in your current job? I made every career mistake possible. I put this course together to share what I learned in that process.

Operating Principles (with Example)

Your Operating Principles are the most practical part of your Foundational Materials. Your goals are the WHAT to do. Your Operating Principles are the HOW to do.

How To Be A Great Employee

There are countless courses, coaches, and materials on management. But, what about the other half of that relationship? How do you learn to be a great employee?

How To Design An Onboarding Process for New Hires (with Templates)

Your new hire onboarding process will impact the likelihood, timeline, and level of success for every new hire, so you want to get it right.

A “Performance Review” System (with Templates)

This OpsMBA resource is a “Performance Review” system and template. We call it a “Results and Development Review” because it’s less focused on MEASURING the PERSON and more focused on MEASURING the RESULTS and DEVELOPING the PERSON.

People Management and Development System (with Templates)

Build your company’s People Management System to get the most out of your managers.

File and Folder Naming and Hierarchy System (with Examples)

Business Operations Fundamentals: Create a file and folder naming and hierarchy system to save hours of time when looking for files. Here are some tips and samples.

5 Guidelines On How To Design Your Organization

The product you sell will be a reflection of the organization you design.

Feedback for Management: Give More Off-Cycle Raises

There are few better ways to show you care about and value your employees, and to retain your best people, than the unrequested, unexpected, unscheduled, off-cycle raise.

9 Tips for Building a Communication System (with Templates)

Good communication is vital to your company's success. Build the right system for your company with these tips and templates.

6 Steps for Creating Better Managers (with Tools and Templates)

How to create a better management system and better managers, and incidentally achieve your company goals

How to Build a Project Management System (with Templates)

Project management is a skill. And it’s vital to your success. Get good at it.

Introduction to Execution

Everyone has ideas. Few can execute. You’re better off having great execution and the wrong idea because with great execution you can learn and iterate on your vision as part of the execution. On the other hand, a great vision without execution will get you nowhere.

How to Plan and Set Goals (with Templates and Examples)

Planning is how you turn your foundational materials into measurable goals, a prioritized to do list, and project plans, to maximize your likelihood of success.

Foundational Materials

Everything your organization does starts with and builds on your foundational materials. This resource has definitions of a vision, mission, strategy, values, and culture, with some of the best examples out there.

Your Startup Needs An Operating System

Your company has an Operating System whether or not you consciously build and nurture one. It will happen by default. And a default Operating System is highly unlikely to function well and get the long-term results you’re looking for.

Everyone Needs A User Manual

What if you had a user manual for your manager, the members of your team, or the people who work for you? You could, without years of working together first, learn how they like to communicate, how they like to manage or be managed, how they like to give and receive feedback, what their pet … Continue reading Everyone Needs A User Manual →

Ten Tips on How to Hire Better (With Templates)

Hiring well is hard. Really hard. If you’ve hired people, you’ve probably made hiring mistakes. No matter how many interviews or what your process is, nothing can ensure you’ll do it right, especially if you want to hire without it taking many months. Before getting into how to make better hiring decisions, let’s start with … Continue reading Ten Tips on How to Hire Better (With Templates) →

Wow, That Was a Great Meeting!

Said almost no one ever. Much more common is: “I’d do anything get that hour back!” Meetings are important. And also a good way to waste time. Ten wasted minutes in a six person meeting = a wasted hour for the organization. That adds up fast to wasted days and weeks and a frustrated, less … Continue reading Wow, That Was a Great Meeting! →

The Best Thing About Teaching Myself to Code Wasn’t that I Can Code

I love learning but never liked school. School told me that the time to learn math was 12:55 to 1:50. School made me read pages 142–175 and answer problem set 7 on page 176. School gave me a quiz the next day. School often made me sit quietly in a chair while someone talked at me. … Continue reading The Best Thing About Teaching Myself to Code Wasn’t that I Can Code →

How to automate filling out Google Doc templates

Lawyers, operations teams, many of us perform repetitive, time-consuming, error-prone tasks, including filling out templates for NDAs, offer letters, employment agreements, consulting agreements, and more. Save yourself time and reduce errors by automating those tasks. Here’s a relatively simple way to take data from a form or spreadsheet and use that data to perform one … Continue reading How to automate filling out Google Doc templates →

What will the taxes be if I exercise my startup options?

This post walks step-by-step through a case study that estimates the tax impact of exercising startup stock options. I made this for myself, so I figured I’d share. It’s long and boring, but also possibly helpful. Lawyer warning: Before you do anything, talk to a professional! This is a high-level summary to give you an … Continue reading What will the taxes be if I exercise my startup options? →

Four Reasons Why Your Company Needs An “Always Be Learning” Program

At each of my last few startups, I instituted a program where employees teach each other stuff. It’s called Always Be Learning or #ABL (because everything needs a mysterious hashtag). At Kickstarter, it started informally with a few people on the operations team teaching each other topics ranging from SQL to egg cookery, and grew … Continue reading Four Reasons Why Your Company Needs An “Always Be Learning” Program →

How To Value Your Startup Stock Options— Discount Value

In the last several years at Kickstarter and advising startups, I’ve spent a lot of time trying to build models for awarding stock options in the fairest ways possible, talking to startups about the models they use, and thinking about the different ways to value companies and options. This post explains one simple way to … Continue reading How To Value Your Startup Stock Options— Discount Value →

From Lawyer to Deploy

I’ve learned a ton of great stuff in the last year and I’ve had a lot of fun learning all of it. Most of it is not easy to just throw onto a webpage, but some of it is exactly that. So, I’m working on a website to display a lot of what I’ve learned … Continue reading From Lawyer to Deploy →

The wrong question: “I want to learn to code, what should I do?”

If you want to learn to code and build stuff and you’re starting by asking someone else what you should do, you’re already thinking about it the wrong way. Immediately, right now, with no preparation, in the blink of an eye, you can take a huge step toward your goal by realizing that you don’t … Continue reading The wrong question: “I want to learn to code, what should I do?” →

Learn the Basics of Computer Science and Web Development

Two and a half years ago, I started doing every computer science and web development tutorial I could find. If I were starting again today, knowing what I now know, I’d do it something like this. Start with the basics of computer science and programming. Introduction to Computer Science I, David Malan, Harvard Extension School … Continue reading Learn the Basics of Computer Science and Web Development →

The common goal in compensation negotiations should be fairness

When negotiating compensation, the common goal most likely to lead to a successful, long-term employment relationship is fairness, not maximization by the employee or minimization by the employer. The compensation negotiation can set the tone for the relationship and is an early impression of company culture. Both sides want the relationship to be successful. Both … Continue reading The common goal in compensation negotiations should be fairness →

From Lawyer to Startups

My Poorly Executed But Successful Career Change How’d you get that job? That’s a question I’ve wanted to ask hundreds of people over the last twenty years. I would’ve loved to have heard their stories to help me make better decisions when managing my own career. In the last several years, for the first time, many … Continue reading From Lawyer to Startups →