Author Archives: Brian Alvey

When a big freight train is standing still, even a small block of wood in front of it’s wheel will keep it from moving forward. Once it gets some speed though, that same train can be very hard to stop. I’ve always struggled with this. It is way easier to make incremental changes — evenContinue reading “Momentum”

It’s crazy. I’ve told people this for years: If you build something for everyone, it works for no one. Fully aware of my own good advice, I still dreamed up something that was too broad. Crowd Fusion was an unproductized platform that could do anything the web could do, while Ceros is a laser-focused SaaS designContinue reading “If you build something for everyone, it works for no one.”

I had lunch with a friend a few weeks ago. He’s running his third startup. The first I’ve never heard of, the second one had potential but didn’t make it and his third is on the cusp of sustainability. He told me that this one has to work, because the hours are a strain on his marriage.Continue reading “Because you can’t, you won’t and you don’t stop.”

My favorite songs from Carousel are If I Loved You, which we used to sing a lot when I was a kid, and Soliloquy, where Billy Bigelow realizes that his child might be a girl and freaks out because he doesn’t know how to be a father to a girl. June is Bustin’ Out All Over is a good song,Continue reading “September is Bustin’ Out All Over”

More often than not, I wear a Life is Good t-shirt. I got one a long time ago and realized that when you wear it you aren’t allowed to complain. If someone asks you how you’re doing and you start complaining, they can point to your shirt and say, “Really? But your shirt says LifeContinue reading “Life is Good”

I love puns. It’s one of the skills listed on my LinkedIn profile. What could be more fun than blending together all the Spider-Man characters and U2 songs you can think of? For a few years, I’ve had two ZZ Top songs about philosophy stuck in my brain. “I Woke Up With Would” and “She’s Got Legs, ThereforeContinue reading “ZZ Top Philosophy”

I love when brands have bold taglines, ones that can be used against them. I gave a talk at Showtime a while back and had to praise them for their tagline “Brace Yourself,” which was way better than earlier taglines like “No Limits” and “Hollywood Hits No One Else Has.” I told them that having a taglineContinue reading “Adventures of a Startup CEO”

Years ago, I saw Sam Rockwell play Chuck Barris in Confessions of a Dangerous Mind. It was the incredible story of the Gong Show host and his actual secret life as a CIA assassin. (Or was it all a fantasy? No one really knows.) Years later, I saw Sam Rockwell again as Justin Hammer in Iron Man 2. IContinue reading “Concessions and a dangerous slide”

Maybe I’m going deaf.Maybe I’m going blind.Maybe I’m out of my mind. We were eating lunch during our Cape Cod vacation last week when my eyes started going nuts. The whole room looked like someone had dragged a paintbrush up and down through a painting, making zig zag lines. I blinked and rubbed my eyes,Continue reading “Aura without migraine”