[photo] Mark Jeftovic

easyDNS CEO, Career Contrarian & AntiGuru

Guerrilla Capitalism

Lately I am doing most of my blogging from my new site Guerrilla-Capitalism.com

The core mission of GuerrillaCap is to explore how small  & medium sized, independent businesses can compete in an age of increasing consolidation and disruption. You’re not only competing against Google, Amazon, Facebook you’re also competing against the phenomenons of  AI, automation, economies of scale and large-scale financial repression.

How do you do it? That’s what we talk about on Guerrilla Capitalism (or my Medium feed).

(Because of their pivotal role in this tension between centralization and decentralization, we also talk a lot about the crypto-currency Read the rest

Multi-Media World

My band, The Parkdale Hookers, just released this video off our new record Echo Bubble Overdrive.

BoingBoing called it “A great punk anthem”. If I get hit by a bus tomorrow I won’t have to worry about “dying with my music inside me”, as this song and the video pretty much says all I have to say. On everything
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Canada: Political fat-cats thrive while Small Business dies

We all know that most small businesses fail. It’s one of the toughest things to attempt: create a small company out of nothing that competes with 800lb gorillas who have all the advantages: economies of scale, cosy access to the corridors of power, and if the worst happens for Big Business, they get bailed out with our tax dollars.

If the worst happens for a small business, it’s game over.

The role of small business in Canada’s economy

According to Industry Canada’s 2016 report “Key Small Business Statistics”

Small businesses in Canada, defined as companies that have up to 99 … Read the rest

The Cultural Purge Will Not Be Televised

“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, and our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of…. It is they who pull the wires that control the public mind.”
– Edward Bernays, Public Relations
  I’ve been trying not to write this post, because really, who needs a bunch of shrill, hysterical snowflakes… Read the rest

Customer Feedback Surveys Considered Harmful

 
  Customer satisfaction surveys are hot. Every time you go to the bank, open a support ticket with an online vendor, go on a trip or hire a freelancer for any task, you will subsequently be dogged relentlessly with email requests to rate your experience. On the surface, this is good idea. Given the near ubiquity of the internet and email combined with the low cost of sending these emails and the valuable insight your firm can garner from your customers, what’s not to love? The shop/hire -> rate -> reward feedback loop has become baked-in to some… Read the rest

Hub Nation: The Scandal of Money

I just finished reading Dan Lyon's "Disrupted". I devoured it in a little over 2 days and took frequent breaks to email various friends and colleagues (many of them tech CEOs of non-unicorns, go figure) that they had to read it. disrupted_coverThe story of Lyon's tumultuous ride at Hubspot, a tech unicorn which has never shown a profit, and will probably never show a profit didn't tell me anything I didn't already know. It didn't say anything I haven't been pounding the table myself about for over a decade, but the storytelling is brilliant and it's encouraging that the former… Read the rest
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