Startup – Page 16

Golden Braeburn: get unscrewed.

Wil Shipley is planning to start something new. Golden Braeburn is an attempt by Wil to change the way that Mac ISVs (Independent Software Vendors) work. In essence, you get screwed by shopping cart hosting companies, you get screwed by merchant account holders, you get screwed by card processing companies, you get screwed when you … Continue reading “Golden Braeburn: get unscrewed.”

Wil Shipley is planning to start something new.

Golden Braeburn is an attempt by Wil to change the way that Mac ISVs (Independent Software Vendors) work. In essence, you get screwed by shopping cart hosting companies, you get screwed by merchant account holders, you get screwed by card processing companies, you get screwed when you try to build your own shopping cart and trying to keep current.

In essence, you get screwed.

So, Golden Braeburn is about unscrewing you.

Cool. Let’s see what happens.

[I so have to create a company with an breed of Apple in the name. I’m such a fanboy.]

Pushing for a Tech-Hub in Belfast

DavidJRice expresses some polite frustration at the number of potentially misguided approaches to government (central and local) funding of creative and technology industries. He’s right, of course. There is a disconnect between what is happening and what the “gubmint” thinks is happening. When you see people organising themselves for events because there’s a dearth of … Continue reading “Pushing for a Tech-Hub in Belfast”

DavidJRice expresses some polite frustration at the number of potentially misguided approaches to government (central and local) funding of creative and technology industries.

He’s right, of course. There is a disconnect between what is happening and what the “gubmint” thinks is happening. When you see people organising themselves for events because there’s a dearth of adequate direction from our governmental overseers, then you know there’s money being wasted. I was told categorically by InvestNI that the technology investment model they were pursuing was to invite large technology and creative companies over here to presumably fill the large empty warehouses they built a few years ago. That’s also effectively sounding a death knell to any SMALL companies that are looking for funding. This somewhat mirrors the experience I had with InvestNI the first time round where they told me they weren’t investing in IT-style companies at all, nomatter the service or business model. Ouch.

So, David, what do we need? We need a building or a room at least. We need broadband. We need light, heat, power. I’m less concerned on the creative industries because, frankly, they get enough help. I know one company funded entirely by the Arts Council. They’re unlikely to give an IT company anything 🙂

Let’s get a list, check it twice and see how much it costs. My company will pledge a percentage of the costs of a co-working space assuming we get that far!

Remove your assumptions

Jens Alfke’s latest blog post rambles about a couple of things but finishes on something that I really empathised with: Apple engineer: â€¦and the layout needs to take into account ligatures and contextual forms, where adjacent letters change glyphs depending on neighboring characters, or even merge into a single glyph. Sun engineer: Câ€™mon, is this … Continue reading “Remove your assumptions”

Jens Alfke’s latest blog post rambles about a couple of things but finishes on something that I really empathised with:

Apple engineer: â€¦and the layout needs to take into account ligatures and contextual forms, where adjacent letters change glyphs depending on neighboring characters, or even merge into a single glyph.

Sun engineer: Câ€™mon, is this important? How many people need advanced typographic features like that, anyway?

Apple engineer: [after a pause] Well, there are over 900 million of them in India alone, and another 200 million or so in the Arabic world.

Sometimes it feels like I’ve been bashing my head off a brick wall for, well, years. Motivating people to not do ‘half-a-job’ is actually hard.

Yesterday I almost had a stand up argument with a guy in my team in $BIG_COMPANY on the definition of ‘complete documentation’. I want documentation that can be read and understood by novices and managers. He wants it to be opaque enough so that you require understanding in order to work with it. In the end we sat down and he demonstrated it to me and I tried it. Within about 5 minutes we hit the first stumbling block in his documentation. He asked if I had the database interfaces set up. I replied “The what, the who and the where?”. So we need to add a piece about database interfaces. Then we needed to add another piece about how to log into the server. Then how to run an update. Then how to publish the updates. Then how to check the updates have been completed. In all, the additional bits were more than twice the original document and spawned two more wiki pages. In the end he agreed with me, the documentation was half done but the journey was a lot harder than it should have been.

Writing technical documentation is not an art. Writing it for non-technical users in order to help them learn is not an art. It just requires removing assumptions.

When building my second office in Mac-Sys, we had a square room to modify and the original assumption was to put a single wall, parallel to one of the other walls, in. By questioning the assumptions (that a single wall, parallel to another wall was the only way to go) we put in a ‘shaped’ wall which provided us with nearly 50% more wall space in a room where wall space was a premium (for shelving, storage, desks, etc).

If you’re in a job you don’t like and your choices are (or seem to be)
a. leave
b. suffer
Then you really should be looking for c.. I can’t tell you what c. is for you but when I was in Nortel it was as a simple as bringing in a laptop to work with me and increasing my productivity (and reducing my frustration with Windows NT). There may be ways you can change your work day in order to improve your work life. Would working part time from home make a difference? Would time-shifting your work day by an hour help? (I much prefer working from 07:30-16:00 as it removes a LOT of traffic from my commute).

Remove your assumptions and consider new ways.

There is always a c.

17/100 After the Event – Carrying the Conversation Forward

I may be a tad old-fashioned but if someone gives me their number or their email address, even in the form of a business card, then I assume they want me to use it. The Business Card is an amalgam of the Visiting Card and the Trade Card. Wikipedia provides: Visiting cards included refined engraved … Continue reading “17/100 After the Event – Carrying the Conversation Forward”

I may be a tad old-fashioned but if someone gives me their number or their email address, even in the form of a business card, then I assume they want me to use it.

The Business Card is an amalgam of the Visiting Card and the Trade Card.

Wikipedia provides:

Visiting cards included refined engraved ornaments and fantastic coats of arms. The visiting cards served as tangible evidence of the meeting of social obligations. The stack of cards in the card tray in the hall was a handy catalog of exactly who had called and whose calls one should reciprocate. They also provided a streamlined letter of introduction.

With the passage of time, visiting cards became an essential accessory to any 19th-century upper or middle class lady or gentleman. Visiting cards were not generally used among country folk or the working classes.

Trade cards first became popular at the beginning of the 17th century in London. These functioned as advertising and also as maps, directing the public to merchants’ stores, as no formal street address numbering system existed at the time.

When I started out, I was a lot less comfortable with making these lukewarm calls. It’s not the same as a cold call because there’s been some contact but it’s certainly got a chill about it.

If you’re not sure about the call, then attempt another way to remind the contactee. Using services like LinkedIn or FaceBook can be a good way, even if they don’t accept you as a contact or friend. You’ve made contact. Just pipe an email to them through the built-in invitation features and wait and see. The problem with this is that you have to have your LinkedIn or FaceBook presence updated. That’s easy enough on LinkedIn but be aware what “friends” can see. It’s not just that a potential contact may be offended by the photos of you in your gallery bench-pressing barmaids with the tagline “Absolutely shitfaced on the company tab and loving it” which might be career suicide in many cases, but also what people write on your Walls. Remember also that your friends can see your friends which means that a lot of the content produced by the eejits who shared your trip to the Canary Islands will be on show as well. I’m not telling you who to have as friends or to edit out friends who might be embarrassing, but if they are likely to be putting up photos of you dressed as Freddie Mercury with a racoon in your boxer shorts, then you might want to reconsider using FaceBook or any of the non-professional-oriented web sites. There’s always LinkedIn which is a lot more no-nonsense!

The old cliches are true, of course.

Women can smell desperation, and so can Venture Capitalists and other business operators. It’s not about getting the money or the business, it’s about doing the right thing for your business. Treat it like a child. You want to nurture it, not raise it to literacy and sell it into slavery.
The one about the chickens and the hatching? Conversations are just words. Just because you start off a conversation with someone, it doesn’t mean that you have to see it through. Business is about taking a few eggs and keeping them warm. Depending on the heat you apply, some of them will hatch. Some of them will burn. And some of them are really nice with toast and a little salt.
You’ll wait for an age for a bus, then three will come at once. Remember that you don’t have to get on any of them. You can be choosy with your business deals and I’d recommend that if you are sensible you can avoid picking up business partners that will, in the long run, bugger things up.
Any landing you can walk away from is a good one. So it failed, so it bollocksed up. You’ve still got your health, right? There’s always tomorrow? The rule I live with is that it’s okay to make mistakes, as long as they’re not fatal mistakes.

The point being, don’t be afraid to take the next step. The next person you meet might be the person who changes your life. And maybe it won’t be today, it might be in a years time when you’re in a different place.

But if you don’t make that callback. If you don’t make that first step, then you’ll never know.

[Chris Brogan’s 100 topics]

You’re an impostor!!!!

Today we had a conversation about barriers to success, especially those which we place in front of ourselves; irrational fears, impostor syndrome. I personally suffer from the latter. An article at Inc.com explains more about Impostor Syndrome: The public assumes CEOs will be knowledgeable about every aspect of their businesses, and business is getting more … Continue reading “You’re an impostor!!!!”

The public assumes CEOs will be knowledgeable about every aspect of their businesses, and business is getting more complex. In this respect, those with scant education are especially vulnerable. “It’s like the skills I have are just commonsense skills, like being able to relate to people,” says Stockwell. “They don’t feel as valid as knowledge-based skills.” Myhill-Jones, for his part, is the founder of a software company who knows very little about technology. “To this day I can’t do the work we do,” he says. “I can make a comment on the user interface or something. But I don’t understand the underlying technology.”

I guess this goes along with the idea that a manager of a business should always hire people smarter than him. It depends on the work to a degree, but in a business where productivity on a creative or intellectual level is important, why wouldn’t you hire the smartest and brightest people you can afford.

Impostor Syndrome isn’t crippling in itself – it manifests in people who have already attained a degree of success – but it brings on other symptoms which can be debilitating in other areas.

In extreme cases, desperate efforts to shore up foundations perceived as weak can bring down the whole structure, says Kets de Vries. He recalls treating one entrepreneur who felt himself wholly inadequate to run a company, as though nothing he did was ever good enough. “So he kept pushing and pushing,” says Kets de Vries. “His company was falling apart, his wife had left him, his children didn’t like him anymore. He had physical symptoms.”

That would suck! I think my kids like me 🙂

Keep away from those who belittle ambitions

Mark Twain – Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great. This is something that concerns me. It was certainly something that I experienced from my ex-wife in the embryonic Mac-Sys. When the hard times … Continue reading “Keep away from those who belittle ambitions”

Mark Twain – Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.

This is something that concerns me. It was certainly something that I experienced from my ex-wife in the embryonic Mac-Sys. When the hard times came and I needed it most, the support vanished.

I feel sometimes now, when I talk to others (friends, family, my SO) about some ideas that I have on what I’d like to do next, they’re more critical than objective. Like they consider that having ideas is above the station we have been assigned.

Twice Shy?

Michael Arrington wrote on TechCrunch about the twice-shy entrepreneur. In the article he writes more about the difference between entrepreneurs from Bubble 1.0 who watched everything disappear down the pan… The intense pressure entrepreneurs were under to get revenue at any cost led them to make decisions that, with hindsight, were blatantly foolish. And when … Continue reading “Twice Shy?”

Michael Arrington wrote on TechCrunch about the twice-shy entrepreneur.

In the article he writes more about the difference between entrepreneurs from Bubble 1.0 who watched everything disappear down the pan…

The intense pressure entrepreneurs were under to get revenue at any cost led them to make decisions that, with hindsight, were blatantly foolish. And when the market crashed on April 14, 2000, those same entrepreneurs had to lay off most or all of their employees after making those decisions. And face outright humiliation on FuckedCompany, the site that chronicled the downfall of the Internet bubble.

It left a bit of a scar.

…and current entrepreneurs who may not carry the same sort of baggage.

But what if you were not directly affected by the Bubble? I was in Nortel and yes, the bubble was responsible for thousands of layoffs but I took voluntary redundancy in 2003, much later than the bubble. Nortel was still in it’s death spiral (which hasn’t changed, the curve just got asymptotic).

Setting up MacSys took blood, money, sweat, tears and friends. It used them up pretty much in equal quantity. The sacrifices I made are not sacrifices I would make again lightly. That’s why, even though I have a successful, profitable business under my belt, I’m still ultra-conservative.

But I’m interested in how to break out of this rut. My SO thinks I could do so much more with Mac-Sys. I’d like to do heaps more with Infurious (as well as with wow4kids, macheads, ukwifi) but time is definitely limited.

Winston Churchill – Success is going from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm

This is what I’m concerned about. I have heaps of energy for ideas but I’m currently too busy worrying to actually go through with any of them (plus the holding down a day job that I’m loathing doesn’t help).

Failure is very much your own fault

The thing about being in a small business is that everything is personal. In a massive company, you’re such a small cog that no-one has the same level of direct power (in a very negative sense). A CEO and his board can lay off thousands of people indirectly and can blame it on the market, … Continue reading “Failure is very much your own fault”

The thing about being in a small business is that everything is personal.

In a massive company, you’re such a small cog that no-one has the same level of direct power (in a very negative sense). A CEO and his board can lay off thousands of people indirectly and can blame it on the market, on restructuring the business, on the wrong kind of snow. There are sufficient degrees of separation to make it feel less. And before you tell me that CEOs of big corporations agonise over redundancies, I’m sure they do, while receiving a $40 million bonus. Real agony.

When you’re the manager of a small business, you’re close to the iron – letting one person go is a very personal, very intense activity – even if the person is being sacked for wrongdoing. But it’s worse with redundancies. This kind of failure is your fault. Your own personal, direct, no-excuses, fault.

I’m at the stage right now where I see a crossroads. I can continue down the safe path and things will be fine. Or I can take a step along the riskier path, potentially see greater rewards but expose myself and my employees to substantially greater risk. Over the last four years with Mac-Sys I’ve seen this kind of path unfold. Mac-Sys was a lot of work, it took a lot of soul and it meant breaking friendships and in some cases, making enemies of people. I’m told by some people that I have a great opportunity with it but that can be hard to see when you consider the attendant risks.

I honestly don’t know if I have recovered enough from the last time to take this next step – the stress of looking after 6 families was incredible and everyone involved contributed a little to it. My health suffered, my head suffered, my beard disappeared. Some of the wounds of those years haven’t healed but currently I’m feeling the need to move on, to take the next step. To push it.

Digital Nomads

I’ve spent a lot of time in the past talking about “Going Bedouin”, an idea of working that I adore and which I have tried to do for several years, while working for a large telecoms company and also while working for my own company. I feel it helped the company pay for my productivity because as I embraced the flexibility to work from home, the company also received the benefits of me being available possibly 24×7 because I didn’t begrudge the call at 2 am (unlike the call at 2 am I got last night which I certainly did begrudge). It meant I was happy to help people out and most importantly I didn’t feel the need to demand extra money for the privilege.

Chris Brogan’s blog has an interesting post on how to become a digital nomad which is as much a marketing term as “Bedouin”.

Smartphone

It’s important to stay in contact if you’re going to be Bedouin. This means choosing your technology carefully. It’s no longer good enough to carry a pager and mobile phone. The expectation now is that you’ll get your email too and with the release of the iPhone comes the first mature implementation of a browser in a handheld device. It’s relegated my laptop for a lot of the day to the laptop bag.
Online apps

While I recognise that online apps do provide a lot of power and sometimes a lot more potential for collaboration, I’m still very much a fan of rich clients. I don’t want to use primitive web app user interfaces which haven’t really changed recently. For what they offer, it’s a lowest common denominator model. It works, but it ain’t pretty.
Centralising

This makes a lot of sense and I’d clarify by saying that as well as centralising some of your services it’s worth considering outsourcing those which don’t add value. Get everyone accounts on the same domain with the same reliable provider and keep these production services separate from your development servers and off your own machines. The economies of scale make it worthwhile.
Online/Offline Storage

Just do backups. Don’t mess around with your data. That’s one of the beauties of laptops and PDAs, for the most part they have insuffient storage for keeping all of your data. My laptop has a 160 GB drive in it which is a tenth of what I need for storage. My iPhone has 8 GB of storage which really isn’t enough for anything other than current email. And the odd movie. Keep regular backups and consider keeping your data in the cloud – so you can access it from anywhere.
Messaging/Presence management

If you’re not using instant messenger applications in business then you’re behind the times. I have no doubts that Skype and iChat will make it onto the iPhone which will make my phone the hub of my communications network rather than my laptop. I don’t believe for a second that Twitter and similar wanky apps are going to to be the core of the semantic web. They’re missing everything to do with context. I don’t wast to know only a short message about someone. I want to know where they are, how they are and whether they want to meet for coffee. FaceBook or Google would seem to be the contenders here for writing the meta-app which will fulfill your context needs. I just don’t really want content delivered as a side order to a main course of advertising.
Plan your gear

This means not only making sure the kit you have is the right kit, but making sure you invest in ways and means to keep that gear running. I get a full day out of my always-on, incredibly busy iPhone. That means, if I’m planning ahead, always making sure I have at least got an iPod connection cable handy for a quick juice-up if I’m running low. For laptops you have to consider most have a battery life of 2-3 hours with some stretching it out to 5. So that’s more bulk to lug about. You’ll also have to get less shy about using power points in coffee shops and airports. The staff in the places I have been have never objected to me plugging in. Scope them out and make a beeline for them if they are free. Power is a more valuable commodity to a mobile worker than WiFi. Think about that.

For me it’s a waiting game. I’m waiting to see what will be possible with the iPhone when the SDK is released as I’m filled with ideas on how to manage this, how to add to what is already out there. I’m less and less keen on FaceBook and their constant barrages of crap but they are in the best position to start providing an implementation of the “digital shadow” (as PJ called it.

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