Our Next Bold Move
It is a very exciting day for us at Don’t Panic Labs. Today, we are announcing that we have completed the purchase of investment fund Nebraska Global’s interest in the company. I’m not sure how to put this other than saying that this is a big deal. Perhaps it’s as significant as the steps taken…
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The Mechanical Turk (The Love Test for Entrepreneurs)
For the last couple of years, I have spent a significant amount of time talking to innovators both independent (entrepreneurs) and inside of organizations (intrapreneurs?). The conversations generally focus on a variation of these familiar themes: Uber for … Ebay for … Facebook for … Computer vision to … Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning to…
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Reflecting on the First Inside/Outside Innovation Summit
Last week, entrepreneurs, business owners, startups, and corporate innovators experienced the first Inside/Outside Innovation Summit at Pinnacle Bank Arena. The event was put on by the team at Econic (especially Brian Ardinger and Josh Berry) with the mission to bring together startups and corporate innovators. A few of members of our team were on hand…
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Removing Friction
Since the day I started with Nebraska Global, Doug Durham has always advocated that Cleverness = Complexity. Thus, we always strive for the simplest code, the simplest solution. This is one of our core software development principles, but it seems to also expand to organizational aspects. When we reach the business level, I might suggest…
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Just Roll With It: An Unconventional Intern Story
I have been an intern at Nebraska Global/Don’t Panic Labs since January of 2016. I work part time during the school year, and I worked full time at Nebraska Global last summer. I have been part of several different departments, and I am not even sure how to describe my job further than “intern”. I…
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Don’t Be So Business
“Business is business and business must grow…” – The Lorax (Dr. Seuss) We all take business so serious. We focus on little numbers. We get all obtuse over odd details. People often want to take the fun out of work. In this blog post I am going to argue that by focusing on just three…
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Helpful Sales & Marketing That’s Actually Helpful
It’s easy to have a negative reaction when we hear the words “marketing” and “sales”. But why does this happen? We’ve all bought a product that didn’t live up to the hype or our expectations; were annoyed by the pushy sales-guy trying to earn a commission; or were perplexed by the maddening string of “sales”,…
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How to “CATCH” an MVP
I was recently asked to participate as a panelist for a startup week event to share my experience developing MVPs (Minimum Viable Products). Ahead of the panel discussion, our organizer shared potential questions so each panelist could reflect and create our responses for the audience. Perhaps because I was focused on the MVP acronym, I…
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An Innovator’s Reading List
Two years ago, I suggested a series of books helpful to innovators in both startups and corporate settings. Since that time, I’ve continued to see a flood of recommended reading lists (many with great recommended books) focused on the innovation process. It occurred to me this last week that many of these lists, including mine,…
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Top 3 Blog Posts from Nebraska Global
Not only was 2015 our biggest year for the Don’t Panic Labs blog, it also saw the launch of the Nebraska Global blog. Tom Chapman and Adam Hunke have been publishing some great content from the investment and entrepreneurship standpoints during the past few months, and we look forward to what they have store for…
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