Decentralized Decision Making
> Like I Fucked Up [https://www.fredperrotta.com/i-fucked-up/], this post is the actual text of an email that I sent to the Tortuga team recently. I'm sharing it publicly because this is an important part of how Tortuga works and, in my view, most companies get
The Remote Work Buyer's Guide
Last Updated: 1/13/20 Before the pandemic, most people's image of remote work was someone sitting on the couch in their pajamas with a laptop on their lap. When the pandemic forced office workers to work from home, they learned that just because you aren't
Why the Turtle is Our Spirit Animal
🐢 Jeremy and I were inspired to start Tortuga [http://www.tortugabackpacks.com] on a backpacking trip to Eastern Europe. We talked about our dream luggage on long train rides from Frankfurt to Prague to Budapest to Split and back. By the end of the trip, we were already thinking of
The Magnifying Glass
The highest leverage work a leader can do is to focus the efforts of his/her team on a single goal or priority. The usual analogy is of a boat where the leader's job is to get the right people in the right seats and all rowing in
How to Fund Your Bootstrapped Business
Bootstrapping any business is hard. Bootstrapping a physical product business is really hard. Today, money is cheap. You can get favorable interest rates from banks... if you have two years of profit to show. If you're making money, you can get more. The hard part is making first
Perception (of Success) Isn't Reality
This graphic from a recent CB Insights [https://www.cbinsights.com] newsletter shows the numbers behind three online mattress companies. Can you guess which is which? Casper (#1), which seems omnipresent, is losing money and "is a fundamentally inferior company to two of its competitors." Only 11% of
Forget Creating Jobs; Create Entrepreneurs
The focus on jobs during the election [https://www.fredperrotta.com/remote-work-small-towns/] was woefully misguided. The discussion reflected an industrial-era mindset, which isn't surprising since both Democratic finalists and the Republican nominee were all over 65. Talking about creating jobs as a goal is wrong. Jobs are an
You Lit Your Own Hair on Fire
Startups love to run around with their hair on fire. They love urgent urgent urgent emergencies and, of course, hustle. The problem is that this is not a healthy or productive way to work. You may get a lot of stuff done, but you'll never have time to
Why Silicon Valley Hates Remote Work
Yahoo was the first big name to go against the remote work trend [http://www.businessinsider.com/marissa-mayer-defends-her-work-from-home-ban-2013-4] and bring employees back to the office in 2013. Earlier this year, IBM, formerly a leader in telecommuting, announced that their 2,600-person marketing team would be "co-located" in a
Incomplete Information
> Most decisions should probably be made with somewhere around 70% of the information you wish you had. -Jeff Bezos [http://www.businessinsider.com/jeff-bezos-explains-the-perfect-way-to-make-risky-business-decisions-2017-4] I love that line. As an entrepreneur, I'm always making decisions without certainty. Making a decision and moving forward can be valuable. If