Author Archives: thanpolas

About thanpolas

Software Engineer http://thanpol.as

The Importance of Founders Staying Focused

Posted on December 19, 2012 by thanpolas

The more this topic has been discussed the more founders i find making this grave mistake. As a founder of a company, you have one and only mission, to make your venture work. Everything else is noise… hackernews, funding, techcrunch, … Continue reading →

Posted in Entrepreneurship, Funding, Lessons Learned, Rants, Startups | Tagged focus, founders, product market fit, startup life, startups | Comments Off

The Seven Deadly Sins of a Startup

Posted on March 15, 2012 by thanpolas

There are so many things that can kill your startup, from pure chance down to very specific mistakes. Through my course i have done all conceivable mistakes one could do. I have learned from this experience and after some pondering i have summarized my gravest fails down to seven major areas. These are the kind of fails that can single handedly bring down your efforts, i did them all and enjoyed them fully. Continue reading →

Posted in Entrepreneurship, Lessons Learned, Startup Communities, Startup Funding, Startups | Tagged advice, entrepreneurs, entrepreneurship, funding, lean startup model, mistakes, silicon valley, startups, team | 1 Comment

My US Visa Got Denied

Posted on March 6, 2012 by thanpolas

As i mentioned in my previous post, i had a US visa application going, which didn’t go so well. Continue reading →

Posted in About Me, Enter Silicon Valley, US Visa | Tagged E-2, immigration, startup visa, us visa | 7 Comments

Are You Building a Website or a Startup?

Posted on September 6, 2011 by thanpolas

We have an idea, we discuss it with a few close friends and start working on it. We are building for months and when somebody asks us what we do, we fondly reply “I have a startup”. But do you?… There’s a hidden word after “Startup”, and that word is “Company”, doing a website and building a Company is like comparing apples with oranges. Continue reading →

Posted in Entrepreneurship, Lessons Learned, Startups | Tagged advice, entrepreneurship, lean startup model, revenue model, startup budget, sustainable business model, viable growth | 2 Comments

How To Startup In America

Posted on April 26, 2011 by thanpolas

There is much frustration, confusion and disappointment about foreign entrepreneurs finding a legal way to start a company in the United States. For many this issue is considered so hard that freezes them from making the leap and venture in the US. In this post i will try to put things in perspective and shed some light on how to handle this issue. Continue reading →

Posted in Enter Silicon Valley, Entrepreneurship, Startups | 4 Comments

You Need To Be In San Francisco

Posted on April 6, 2011 by thanpolas

In my efforts to find the right place to found my company i traveled to all the major High Tech Hubs, New York, Boulder CO and of course San Francisco. In this post i describe my experiences and why i believe San Francisco is the place to be if you are in the high tech internet industry. Continue reading →

Posted in Enter Silicon Valley, Startup Communities, Startups | Tagged boulder, funding, high tech, new york, san francisco, silicon valley | 5 Comments

How Lean Startup Forced Me To Leave My Country

Posted on March 20, 2011 by thanpolas

Working in an isolated environment without any external interaction can be a really dangerous thing. I developed my product in such an environment believing i knew everything, creating the equivalent to a Vogon spaceship for my startup. When i realized how wrong i was, not talking to people about it, i went on the other side, over-extroverting, hitting a wall and deciding to leave my country. This is my lean startup story. Continue reading →

Posted in Entrepreneurship, Self Improvement, Startups | Tagged lean startup, lean startup model, mistakes | 22 Comments

Enter Silicon Valley – Final Preparations

Posted on March 19, 2011 by thanpolas

So, in our path to enter silicon valley we discussed how to get started, create your first presentation and what was the process of taking the final decision to make the leap. In this post we will explore how to make the final preparations for that leap, winning time, cutting corners and raising awareness for your effort. Continue reading →

Posted in Enter Silicon Valley, Startups | 2 Comments

Enter Silicon Valley – Making The Leap

Posted on February 19, 2011 by thanpolas

A month has passed since i started getting educated about options for growing my startup. I had formed a gross view of the startup world locally, in Europe and globally. Now i had to think about what would my next steps be. Continue reading →

Posted in Enter Silicon Valley, Entrepreneurship, Startup Funding, Startups | Tagged decisions, funding, seed funding, startups, three F's | 6 Comments

How To Learn Anything Faster

Posted on February 15, 2011 by thanpolas

It is a common trait for geeks to catch up with new stuff fast. A new programming language, a new technology, a social skill (!)… Whatever that maybe as long as they are interested in it, they get pretty good pretty quick, within months if not weeks. Observing that cool feature on myself i realized there are some principles that are common during this process. Continue reading →

Posted in Entrepreneurship, Self Improvement | Tagged advice, entrepreneurs, entrepreneurship | Leave a comment