“Think outside the box.” That advice is about as helpful under time pressure as telling a three year old to “calm down!” in the middle of a tantrum. We all want to be creative when we face tricky problems, but how? Many creativity experts advise opening your mind to wacky ideas, and creating a sense of [...]

You’ve probably heard that my home town of Los Angeles has startup fever. There is no doubt that the LA tech scene is heating up. But is high-tech a trend, or can “Silicon Beach” really make a dent in the culture of a town where “the industry” refers to entertainment and not technology? Silicon Beach has a [...]

What do top universities, international airlines, and the California DMV have in common? Answer: Terrible websites, with so much hierarchy in their navigation scheme that accomplishing a basic task requires a black belt in enterprise bureaucracy.  Why do companies with so many resources at their disposal have such a hard time producing good design? Simple, [...]

There’s been lots of hype lately about growth and growth hacking. I’ve even heard such nonsense as “we can turn on virality whenever we want to.” (Um, if it were that easy….. never mind.) The truth about user acquisition is that while there are some fundamental principles at work, there is no substitute for having [...]

At Britely we aim to follow a lean startup approach of talking to users before, during, and after building every part of our product. A common challenge in startups though is that everybody is so busy building that very few people actually “get out of the building” and talk to users. So how can you get your [...]