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Archives For November 30, 1999

We lead.. with our thoughts.
Just kidding, but we do have some thoughts we’d love to share with you.

CEO Friday: Genuine Conversation is the Best Social Media Strategy

David Barrett —  January 31, 2014 — 4 Comments

Imagine you ran a coffee shop with great coffee, a cool vibe, comfortable seating… and no customers.  Not an uncommon problem, and the classic solution promoted by social media experts would be something like:

“Create a Twitter handle and offer discounts to customers who follow. Broadcast weekly events and promotions via Twitter and engage with your audience to encourage them to come and bring their friends.  More discounts to people who get their friends to follow.  Create a mailing list; Tumblr; Facebook page; etc, etc.”

Continue Reading…

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[CEO Friday] 5 Important Questions to Ask Before Joining a Startup

David Barrett —  January 24, 2014 — 1 Comment

A modern interview sessionBased on the sudden spike in applications we’ve seen, there are a lot of people out there with New Year’s resolutions to make the jump.  Before you do, I’d recommend asking your employer-to-be the following questions:  Continue Reading…

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4 Expensify Tax Tips you should know in 2024

Ryan Schaffer —  January 6, 2014 — 2 Comments

I know I’m not alone when I say taxes can be confusing. So confusing that the annual changes to the laws and rates has given birth to a 7.7 BILLION dollar tax preparation industry. Whether you have someone do your taxes, or you do them yourself, here’s a couple tips for using Expensify in 2014. Continue Reading…

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[CEO Friday] Prime Time TV Isn’t As Valuable As You Think

David Barrett —  January 3, 2014 — 1 Comment

You might recall that we added the option to reimburse Expensify reports using Bitcoin.  (It’s not widely used, but it’s no gimmick — Bitcoin is a great option for reimbursing international contractors without the expense or hassle of a wire transfer or PayPal.)  Literally the next day, Bitcoin exploded in popularity.  Whether or not those two events are related is unclear.  But what is clear is that the timing made Expensify the mainstream media face of Bitcoin.  Continue Reading…

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[CEO Friday] 4 Specific Tips for Stress-Free Public Speaking

David Barrett —  December 20, 2013 — 1 Comment
Speaking live on nationwide TV is about the most chaotic, stressful, underwhelming, and anti-climactic thing I've ever done

Speaking live on nationwide TV is about the most chaotic, stressful, underwhelming, and anti-climactic thing I’ve ever done

When I started Expensify, I had no idea being a CEO involved talking so much, to so many people, on such a wide array of topics.  Whether it’s a chance encounter in a hallway, keynoting a conference, or being woken up by CNBC with an offer to debate Howard Dean about whether the FEC should accept Bitcoin (answer: yes), you never know what opportunity will come up — and it’ll pass you by if you aren’t ready to jump on it without notice or preparation.

Prior to Expensify, I don’t think I’d ever been on stage or spoken to more than two people at the same time, but here are some tips I’ve come to swear by:  Continue Reading…

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[CEO Friday] 3 Reasons Why ROI Analysis Doesn’t Work for Freemium

David Barrett —  December 13, 2013 — Leave a comment

Most VC pitches hinge on a key number:

Return On Investment (ROI) = LifeTime Value (LTV) / Cost to Acquire a Customer (CAC)

And I can’t blame them: VCs are in the business of selling money.  They want to know that if they sell you their money (paid for with equity), it’ll be put to good use.   This is more true today than ever because startups are so cheap to run anymore, meaning the only realistic way you can spend millions of dollars is on customer acquisition.

But the open secret that has taken me years to learn is this: it’s all bullshit.   Continue Reading…

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[CEO Friday] Use Data to Confirm Decisions, Not Make Them

David Barrett —  December 6, 2013 — 2 Comments

It’s very fashionable to quantify every aspect of your business to the N-th degree.  It sounds great in cocktail conversations to rattle off CAC, LTV, retention rates, magic numbers, and a host of other variables — and to extol the virtues of A/B testing every single thing from day one (or even before).  But beware getting too reliant on data, because when it comes to your most important and difficult decisions, it won’t be there to save you.  This is because startups are trapped between a rock and a hard place:  Continue Reading…

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[CEO Friday] (Not So?) Terrible Advice for “Managing From Below”

David Barrett —  November 29, 2013 — Leave a comment

masterapprenticeI gave a talk this week at DreamForce called “The Entrepreneurial Instinct” (they picked the title) largely about the importance of trusting yourself and doing your own thing, and expanding on the ideas in this TechCrunch guest post.  One of the attendees wrote me with this question:

One thing I wanted to ask you was if I work in a company where I am not a senior level exec, capable of making the decision to experiment on ways to get our product to rapid adoption, how do I go about convincing them to just try something out?

Here’s how I responded:  Continue Reading…

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[CEO Friday] How to take your whole company overseas, and live to tell the tale.

David Barrett —  October 25, 2013 — 15 Comments

Expensify is unusual in many ways.  But one of our most well documented oddities is our habit of taking the whole company overseas for a month.  There are a huge range of reasons to do this: to work, to play, to finish off the year before, and to get inspired for the year ahead.  But regardless of your reason, here are some hard-learned tips for making the habit work for you:  Continue Reading…

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[CEO Friday] Premature Engineering and Questioning the Road Not Taken

David Barrett —  September 27, 2013 — Leave a comment

The Road Not TakenThomas turned me on to a great article from Tim O’Reilly about things he’d do differently had he the chance to do it over.  I sent the response below to Thomas, and forwarded a copy to Tim — who encouraged me to share them with the world.  So, here we are:  Continue Reading…

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