How could you go from almost no traction and running out of money, to getting millions of visitors to your website. You could do like Crew accidentally did with Unsplash: Creating an open source side project that directs millions of visitors to your paid product. At their beginnings, when they were starting a marketplace for freelancers, they couldn’t find a …
Want to create a thriving social business? Stop promoting it’s social benefits
We all know that the world faces several environmental and social crisis. Isn’t it crazy that, even if it’s public knowledge, it’s so hard to collectively create positive alternatives to the society we have? Why it’s so hard to make social / open source / circular economy businesses work when we need them so much ? Why is money still …
How Adafruit grew over 700% for 3 years in a row making open source hardware
Do you wonder how to make money with Open Source Hardware, without any Venture Capital Funding? Today I’m going to show you exactly how Adafruit became one of the fastest growing hardware manufacturers in the US for 3 years in a row so you can copy this EXACT strategy to make money with open source hardware and create a community …
The Success Habit That Doesn’t Give Up On Ethics
When talking about business and ethics, someone always replies: “That’s nice, but I have to pay for <rent, bills, loans, a lifestyle I’ve grown used to…>” This idea comes from the very loud and over-represented examples of unethical behavior we see in the Media. People who keep behaving unethically, but do pretty well for themselves: Travis Kalanick who has created …
What Change Making Hippies Could Learn From Nike Athletes
How can collaborative organisations “outrun” and perform better than the competitive society we live in? How can collaborative and cooperative startups, organisations or political ideas spread faster than the Ubers, Walmarts or Trumps of the world? This is something that I’ve been looking up to as a collaborative hippy wanting to make change happen. And for this I’ve always been …
The 5 steps to turn a Collaborative Business into a Unicorn like Red Hat
Sounds pretty impossible, right? Creating a traditional business is a great struggle. Finding clients, polishing your product, making payroll, finding the right employees, automating processes… Since there are so many moving parts, you’re always wondering, “Where do I focus now? Am I doing the right things? What should I be doing next?” And if you are trying to build a …
How to stop the 1%, solve inequality and grow rich
There is an ancient Chinese myth that helps illuminate what happens with increasing inequality where fewer rich people concentrate more and more wealth, while other people are being deprived of resources: There was a monster, it is said, called the Taotie, which was possessed of an insatiable appetite. It consumed every creature around it, even the earth itself, yet it …
Exponential growth: Why it’s distracting you from your real needs
We are all obsessed with all kinds of growth. When we are children, we want to grow and become adults. When we are adults we want our wealth to grow to quit that job we don’t like, to have the security that we’ll have enough to provide for shelter and food. And when we have enough wealth, we want to …
How to create a best-selling product without encouraging consumerism
How can you create a best-selling product or service if you can’t put as many invasive ads in front of their eye-balls, spend as much money as you want in PR stunts and must be sustainably successful? Easy. Make your users successful by growing their skill set, by helping them broadcast their message or by helping them make money. Most …
The #1 thing open source projects miss to survive
An open source project is not a business. Or at least not on its own. If there’s one thing I had to learn the hard way when I started my first open source business, it was this lesson. Since letting go that business a few months ago, I’ve seen the same story played out time and again in the open …