PROFIT HOT 50
It's with great honour that I can say the company I'm part of, Magnet Forensics, has achieved the 7th place in the Profit Hot 50 rankings for 2013. Last year Magnet Forensics was also on the list ranked at number 16th, but we've shown ourselves up by moving a full 9 positions! Our ranking in the Profit Hot 50 is even more impressive considering we're the only company from Kitchener-Waterloo region in Ontario--Known for it's incredible startup community and success stories--that made the list. We're excited and tremendously proud of our accomplishments, but it's certainly going to be quite the challenge for us to move up in rank next year. It's a challenge we're all ready to take on though. You can check out the ranking over here or at the official Profit Guide posting.
Articles
I'll put the horn-tooting aside... even though it's an incredible accomplishment (not sure that I mentioned that already).
- Don’t Be A Perfectionist: Ilya Pozin discusses the downsides to being a perfectionist. Often, people call themselves perfectionists when they can't think of some other weakness they might have (you see it a lot in interviews) and because they think it's a loop-hole in the question. I mean, if your weakness is that you're perfect... how can that be a weakness, right?! Well in reality, aside form being a cheesy way to answer an otherwise good interview question, perfectionism can certainly be a problem. Especially in a fast-paced startup environment, we're often not hunting for perfect. We're hunting for 80% perfect with 20% of the effort. It's the only way we can keep moving fast and get products or services to our customers. Besides, we don't know what "perfect" actually is... Our customers do. And if we never get anything to them, how the heck can we ever know what perfect is?
- How Goofing Off Can Make You More Successful: In this article, Adam Rifkin discusses over work. It's a great tie in to the articles I shared last week about burnout. Adam talks about why we often find ourselves in situations where we feel like we're forced to over work to be successful and shared a handful of suggestions for how to avoid it. His top 3: Doing nothing. Socializing. Helping others. Sound counter-intuitive to your poor overworked soul? Well kick back, relax, and have a good read through his post :)
- The New Rules for Career Success: In Dave Kerpen's article, he shares some answers from Dan Schawbel about what it means to have a successful career. Among the top points, Dan suggests looking inside your current company before looking for opportunities elsewhere. This is a a key point because instead of becoming a chronic company hopper you can actually look for other great opportunities in the company you've already invested yourself in. Additionally, Dan suggests acting like an entrepreneur at your current job. If you've already proven yourself successful at your role, look for side projects that can benefit your company.
- The Part They Don’t Tell You About Startup Team Building: The end result of becoming a good leader is often that you obsolete yourself in your current job. It's a strange truth about the position: You start off taking on a large workload and then lead others so that they can effectively take on your portion and more. Where does that put you as a leader though? Tomasz Tunguz discusses this leadership role evolution in his article.
- Raspberry Pi + WordPress => PiPress: This is a bit of a shameless plug, but I thought it might be cool for any tech-savvy bloggers out there who are looking for a bit of a DIY. After reading all over The Internet for how I can use my Raspberry Pi, I discovered I could use it to host a blog. So, for what it's worth, the text you're reading right now is coming from a little computer just a tad bigger than a credit card.
- The 7 Things That Will Stop You Getting Things Done: Do you find there are a lot of things throughout your day that cut into you working efficiently? Bernard Marr has a nice list of things that are likely chewing up your time and a handful of solutions for how you can minimize the effect they have on your life.
- Business is Over: My New Post-Workday Transition Routine: Jeanine O’Donnell uses a BBB acronym for helping her transition from work-mode to home-mode. How do you handle separating your work-life from your home-life? Is there even a separation for you?
- The Business World Can Tear You Apart – If You Let It: Even after achieving financial success and success in your career, sometimes there's just something missing. Joel Peterson shares some tips for how you can keep your career focus from taking away from the finer things in life.
- 6 Ways to Put the Good (Bad and Ugly) in Goodbye—Part II: Last week I shared a post about a great example of how to say to goodbye to your employees when they're leaving for other opportunities. This post by Chester Elton builds on that with more positive examples, but he also shares some downright terrible ways that people have been "let go" by their employers.
- Adventures in Cat (and Dog) Sitting: What I Learned about Managing People: If you don't know what your pets have in common with your employees, Whitney Johnson can help you out with that. Why is this comparison necessary? Well if you think about how some people treat their pets (letting them out for walks, feeding them when they need it, belly rubs, petting, etc...) there are a lot of parallels with your employees... Well, there should be. Your employees deserve a good environment to work in, being acknowledged for their hard work, and having engaging work.
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