Like many entrepreneurs and business people I enjoy reading books about business, self improvement, organization, and finance in the search of incorporating thoughts from other successful people and companies into my own experiences.

Good to Great by Jim Collins is a very well researched book that profiles large companies as they transform from good to greatness. He and his team present five key insights they found while interviewing a set of companies. They are Level 5 Management (great management team), First Who Then What (get great people and then figure out what to do), Confront the Brutal Facts (be honest with how the business is performing), The Hedge Hog Concept (Find what you can be the best in the world at, even if it requires change to be your core business), A Culture of Discipline (great people stay focused, require less controls, and lead to great performance), and Technology Accelerators (carefully selected technology to complement the business).

Often internet startup companies are a few people with a business plan, executing against an idea that transforms overtime. Some succeed, but a lot fail. The path to success is not always immediate, but more likely it's the company that can adapt the quickest to offer people what they want better than anyone else that will succeed. Once at critical mass in the online space, the possibilities and the ability to launch new products and businesses dramatically increase.

As the CEO of a small venture funded internet company it starts with the team. Like any small team there are wholes to fill and people to hire (Level 5 Management and First Who than What). My view is this is the most critical part of starting a company. It's these early great people that will offer the creativity and sweat to figure out the "What" part of the equation. I'd say this is where HubPages is today. We now have a nucleus of five people with the talent to figure out what to do. As we test new things and build new features "Confronting the Brutal Facts" will be a core part of how we run the business. As we progress, we will focus our development efforts on what users want and where we can be the best in the world at running the service. The only thing I know is this is probably different than our original business plan. The key with a startup is finding the "Hedge Hog Concept" as quickly as possible and haveing the discipline to continue to execute against it. The great thing about the internet space is "Technology Accelerators" are built in from the beginning. There will be features to add and refine, but this is still core. The real issue here is focus and nailing the right features to build.