Upand$tarting

For a while I’ve been reading Steve Blank’s fantastic Start-Up blog and yesterday he announced a new book consisting of the past year’s posts, collated by subject.  You can find his new book, Not All Those Who Wander Are Lost, at Amazon.

I wanted to touch on two of his excellent posts about Start-Up culture, partly because my current company has faced both of these issues lately and come through it OK.

In the first, The Curse of a New Building, Steve talks about the inherent company culture change in moving from a crowded, run down, first office to a new palatial corporate estate.

The second is the excellently titled, The Elves Leave Middle Earth – Sodas Are No Longer Free.  Aside from the title fitting into my Tolkien obsession (I’ve decided to re-watch all three movies, once for each additional commentary track in conjunction with reading the books), this brings up a real turning point for most start-ups and shows that all companies can be penny-wise and pound-foolish.