Mercedes Bent

  • Validating Your Startup Idea: Sell Reduced Risk, Solve a Real Need

    I was reading Amy Hoy’s Unicorn Free newsletter the other day and was struck by a point she highlighted: every successful business is in the business of selling reduced risk to their clients. If you’re not doing that, you’re not selling the right product. 37 Signals commented on how this thought relates to people working at startups back in…

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  • Make a Positivity Toolkit

    A few months ago I sat down and quickly hashed out a list of tools I use to stay positive and stay on track. These are the little decisions I make to “course correct” at any time. I think its pretty beneficial for any 20-something year old to try this as you navigate what you want…

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  • Writing a Book with the Product Management Hat On

    A friend of mine is about to embark on writing a book. He has a really unique story and set of qualifications that make this a no-brainer. It’s going to be a non-fictional health-related PSA that brings medical research and the patient experience together to help people cope with an illness. Besides thinking it is…

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  • UX Designers Might Make Great Negotiators

    I recently started taking a class in user experience design at General Assembly as part of my quest to understand  different types of technological disciplines and the mental frameworks people use in these disciplines. At the end of the first class, I started thinking… UX designers might make the best negotiators in the tech world. And…

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  • Fail Fast and Gracefully

    At the beginning of every Web Dev Immersive program we tell incoming students about our freedom to fail mantra. We tell students that they will fail often, and we want them to fail FAST. This is because in a program that moves as quickly as WDI we don’t want a student to struggle for days…

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