entrepreneur – Page 8

Lucky Ringo

Greg Stolze writes on his web page: What I learned … is that the best creative partnerships are the ones where each of you thinks the other guy is doing 70% of the work, and youâ€™re the lucky Ringo along for the ride. (crossposted to my other blog) Related posts: Why the App Store makes … Continue reading “Lucky Ringo”

Greg Stolze writes on his web page:

What I learned … is that the best creative partnerships are the ones where each of you thinks the other guy is doing 70% of the work, and youâ€™re the lucky Ringo along for the ride.

(crossposted to my other blog)

Code for Pizza

Man, I have a bee in my bonnet about this. There is nothing I’d rather do than give up this day job with $BIG_COMPANY and survive on my writing while I whiled away the days trying to learn to code to maybe build an app that I want. Apparently (according to a thread on Twitter) … Continue reading “Code for Pizza”

Man, I have a bee in my bonnet about this.

There is nothing I’d rather do than give up this day job with $BIG_COMPANY and survive on my writing while I whiled away the days trying to learn to code to maybe build an app that I want. Apparently (according to a thread on Twitter) startup businesses require passion and if you’re not willing to code for pizza then you’re not showing passion. And not showing any balls.

That’s shite.

I can’t do this because I have responsibilities. I have a mortgage, kids to feed, a house to run. It’s just not an option. And the answer I get? Rent! WTF? Have you seen the prices of rental properties these days? You might as well pay a mortgage because at least then you have a long term gain in equity.

Five years ago this month I was in the unenviable position of finding out that the directors of the company I was working for were in cahoots and were embezzling. I’d been hired to run the technical department which, in the end, turned out to be the only pat of the business that actually made any money – everything else just made loss after loss which is how you burn through half a million pounds worth of debt in six months. They got off scot free (typically) and disappeared to their other business in England (where, for a annual fee you can get substandard techno-luddite telephone support for your Mac). I had a couple of weeks to act and there were livelihoods to take into account. I had a young child and one on the way so I had responsibilities but the choice was to go find another job or stick my neck out. I convinced Apple’s UK MD to take a chance with us, took my savings and started Mac-Sys. During the next year I would realise that business and friendship are not compatible – and as a result I lost some friends who wouldn’t work. I would discover that the only people who truly believe in you are your children – and god bless them for that (and they’ll grow out of it soon enough). And I would find that I’m not as hard nosed in business as I should be but I’m enough of a cvnt to make something work. These were not lessons that came easily.

For the last two years I’ve been trying to start a software company. Iteration 1 was when Aidan took on SyncBridge. He worked his ass off and produced some real miracles but a shaky API and Apple undercutting us with Calendar Server put paid to our dreams. As it would happen we were a year ahead of the competition, a market for syncing that is now over-run with competitors. For Iteration 2, we hired Steve into Mac-Sys and he wrote the first rendition of ‘macserv’, a web application designed to make the running of an AASP easier. To Steve’s credit, he had a job herding cats to get the processes defined but he managed it. And this only stopped because I recruited him into $BIG_COMPANY (which had been my way of escape). For Iteration 3, we tried again with Aidan, Steve, Philip and Jordan on board but everyone is pulled in different directions. It was always our ‘other job’ and frequently lost out to family, the fact that the day job killed my enthusiasm for things and everyone had priorities. I’m left wondering what to do next.

You see. The first and third Iterations were all done ‘for pizza’. There was a promise of rewards but there were a lot of steps to bypass between now and then. Both ended up falling over because, end of the day, if it’s not putting the bread on the table, it’s not a priority. The second Iteration worked because we had someone working on it and yeah, perhaps we need to look at that again.

I don’t want to ask anyone to code for pizza again.

Twitter: so how does it make money?

A thoughtful piece from 37Signals on the necessity to monetise Twitter “That doesnâ€™t exonerate them from building a more stable service. Especially not considering that they have five million dollars of other peopleâ€™s money to do it with and a few years of practice.” “If the growth in Twitter usage was mirrored by an equal … Continue reading “Twitter: so how does it make money?”

A thoughtful piece from 37Signals on the necessity to monetise Twitter

“That doesnâ€™t exonerate them from building a more stable service. Especially not considering that they have five million dollars of other peopleâ€™s money to do it with and a few years of practice.”

“If the growth in Twitter usage was mirrored by an equal growth in Twitter profits, the necessary investments needed for infrastructure would be self-evident. But when the money pot is an ever-shrinking gift-with-strings-attached, you canâ€™t just blow your way out of the issue with cash.”

It’s true. Twitter’s scaling issues are a bugbear in their sides because as their userbase is growing, the Potential Value (in terms of Attention) of the company grows but the Actual Value (in terms of revenue) stays stagnant. And they have a huge amount of Virtual Debt in the shape of investors who will want a return. So, yes, the service itself is cool but is it sustainable?

It seems to me they have three options:

Someone buys them for a gazillion dollars. This is what happened to Jaiku. Google bought them and then kinda ignored them. I guess it was a defensive buy? It then becomes someone else’s problem at how to make money out of it? I must say I don’t mind the way Twitterific handles it – advertising sponsored play is good enough. This is the model that the investors will likely want.
They find out a way to make money. What about building in the feature that Twitter-ites (Twitterlanders? Tweeters?) could make their own adverts? Anyone can tweet but Tweetvertising allows graphics? Maybe even audio or video? Maybe even some opt-in tracking (as if I’m being forced to watch adverts, at least make them interesting to me!). Or maybe offer Tweets separate to SMS to mobile phone companies? Make it unlimited for people who have signed onto Tweet plans but limit those of us who slip in under the radar with data. That’s certainly going to reduce some of the ‘noise’. I am guessing here that they already get a percentage of every SMS sent them? Unless this is truly revolutionary, it’s probably not going to please the investors.
They break out the infrastructure and make it P2P. This could shift the responsibility for uptime to others and allow them to host their own options for advertising or value-added services. Maybe even license the software out so there are a bazillion twitter servers out there. This would be the method by which Twitter could sneak up and murder Instant Messaging in it’s sleep. I tweeted recently that Twitter was not Broadcast IM. But, of course, it is.

End of the day, it’s not my problem but I wonder what happens when they spent the last cent of the VC money they have received. Does the world go dark?

Someone else’s urgency

“One thing Iâ€™ve come to realize is that urgency is overrated. In fact, Iâ€™ve come to believe urgency is poisonous. Urgency may get things done a few days sooner, but what does it cost in morale? Few things burn morale like urgency. Urgency is acidic. Emergency is the only urgency. Almost anything else can wait … Continue reading “Someone else’s urgency”

“One thing Iâ€™ve come to realize is that urgency is overrated. In fact, Iâ€™ve come to believe urgency is poisonous. Urgency may get things done a few days sooner, but what does it cost in morale? Few things burn morale like urgency. Urgency is acidic.

Emergency is the only urgency. Almost anything else can wait a few days. Itâ€™s OK. There are exceptions (a trade show, a conference), but those are rare.”

Jason at Signal versus Noise

I’ve been very harsh about $BIG_COMPANY in the past but this is one thing they get right. Emergencies are all about response time and everything else happens when there’s time to do it. This means that if the business starts to lose production/manufacturing time then it’s all hands on deck. Conversely if it’s not going to have a direct effect on production/manufacturing (like getting a password reset) then it’ll happen at some point that’s otherwise hard to predict.

So while I agree that urgency is a demotivator – mostly because it’s always someone else’s urgency and they’re in your face about it – I don’t think I can agree either way.

Emergencies aside, the concept that urgency is poisonous only covers one half of the exchange. What you perceive as non-urgent might be an urgency for another person, a source of frustration and pain for their day, the start of a bad day which eventually will lead to a dinner eaten in silence. Been there, done that.

Try and make a positive difference to other people’s days. I take this theory seriously even when just driving to work: there’s no harm in slowing and letting people out in front of you or being a caring and courteous driver so you’re not causing other people stress first thing in the morning. I don’t speed, I overtake only when I need to and I’m pretty good at letting people out. As the day wears on, however, you can see the effect of a few hours of frustration. I can’t wait to get onto the main road and on the way home. I frown at people who drive carelessly and there’s a greatly reduced chance that I’ll wave you on. I just want to get home. And for the most part it’s because my priorities for the day have already been relegated to ‘non-urgent’ by someone else.

I used to get endlessly frustrated when commissioning a new building and finding that the builders were late, the sparks and plumbers late, the plasterers were slow and the painters delayed…which delayed the furniture and meant that the Technology installation would also be delayed. It caused issues with other projects but mostly the frustration was that the deadline for finishing hadn’t moved. All of these other people treated their work as non-urgent and it always seemed to be my technology team that had to recoup this difference. And every time we delivered, nomatter the personal costs.

I see this in software development as well. The software engineers are delayed because they don’t have the hardware or compilers. This delays the testing and QA. But the release date never slips. You just end up having inadequate QA and testing. And you thought there was a mystery about why most software sucks?

In my own company I understand the urgencies of the customer. Which is why we bought extra equipment for customers who needed a loaner machine due to a pending deadline. But getting access to it required staying calm, dispelling of hyperbole and as little self-entitlement and whining as possible.

Take ownership of urgency. Especially the urgency of others.

7 Habits of Highly Successful People

A bit of satire for a Friday afternoon courtesy of McSweeney’s Internet Tendency: Skiing Yachting Snorkeling Golf Polo Dinner parties Shopping Related posts: ADBE: Nearly there ASPIRE Successful companies Videogames don’t kill people, People do.

A bit of satire for a Friday afternoon courtesy of McSweeney’s Internet Tendency:

Skiing
Yachting
Snorkeling
Golf
Polo
Dinner parties
Shopping

Armchair CEO on FastCompany.tv

A while ago I ragged on Robert Scoble (almost silently because, let’s face it, who read my tripe?) because he was talking about marketing and startups and worked at Microsoft. See the oxymoron there? Working at arguably the most powerful corporation in the world (yeah, they know the backdoor codes for every copy of Windows) and giving advice about marketing and startups – one thing that Microsoft has legions of people working on and the other hasn’t been a feature of Microsoft since the seventies. I remember disagreeing with Robert (from the comfort of my chair) at the time with an indignant “What the hell does he know! but I have to accept that the guy is an expert at what he does. And defining the ‘what he does’ becomes important.

When Robert left Microsoft to go to a short gig at Podtech, he said that working for a startup was exciting. Fair enough, Robert, this still isn’t what most of us were doing from day to day. We were running our own startups.

So, not long after, Robert moves to FastCompany.tv as the Managing Director and that’s his first real experience of a startup. He’s got an established brand (no matter what you may think of Fast Company), he’s got some funding, he’s got the A-list blogger hype machine and he pulls in some old pals to help him. He has advantages that most startups never have (yeah, start again by being a nobody, having a 300 sq ft office, 5 employees who have just been laid off from the last bit of work, Â£10 000 in your personal savings and no clients – you have enough money to pay salaries and taxes for one month and that’s your nest egg gone – now tell me it’s hard work).

So he gives it a go with all of this.

And it’s a disaster.

I’ve yet to finish a Scoble video because halfway through I just click off. Is this attention deficit on my part? I guess I can take the blame?

Tyme White writes about the recent stink with Fast Company, Loren Feldman and Shel Israel:

“The core problem, in my opinion, is that Fast Company picked the wrong people to accomplish their goals. These people are probably â€œgoodâ€ people (nice, kind, considerate, etc.) but they arenâ€™t placed in positions where their strengths would benefit the company. There isnâ€™t a system in place to overcome their weakened positions. It is my opinion if people were placed in positions they were more qualified to fill, these issues would not have happened in the first place and now that they have, they would be mitigated.”

What’s my take? I’m broadly in agreement with Tyme. Robert Scoble is an A-list blogger and he has enough interest from the net to make someone a shedload of money. But why put a ‘producer’ in a ‘manager’ position if not just for the kudos. The recent hubbub with Shel Israel just highlights how Robert isn’t a hiring manager (and Shel doesn’t have a thick enough skin yet to take the criticism that being a public figure buys you.). You want to be an internet sensation, you have to be able to take the hits too. Robert has, for the most part, weathered most hits but it seems inevitable to me that his idle boast of ignoring 17000 people on Twitter is going to bite him in the ass at some point in the future. You can’t manage a company and fulfill the ‘legend’ of Robert Scoble. Not just because there isn’t enough time but because only one person can fulfill that legend and he’s not a manager (yet).

Of course, I’m a classic armchair CEO pointing out the discrepancies in someone else’s work and I’m 100% sure that my own little companies bring in a small percentage of the revenue required to keep FastCompany.tv ticking over so there may be something I’m missing. I know my brand sucks.

V.C. Seminars in NISP

Dear Colleague You are invited to attend a Frameworks Entrepreneur workshop to be held at Northern Ireland Science Park, with a presentation on: â€œThe Venture Capital Processâ€ By Peter Stafford of A&L Goodbody Programme Overview: Raising money in today’s environment is no easy task — but it can be done if you focus on the … Continue reading “V.C. Seminars in NISP”

Dear Colleague

You are invited to attend a Frameworks Entrepreneur workshop to be held at Northern Ireland Science Park, with a presentation on:

â€œThe Venture Capital Processâ€

By Peter Stafford of A&L Goodbody

Programme Overview:

Raising money in today’s environment is no easy task — but it can be done if you focus on the right priorities and avoid common deal-killers. In this workshop, Peter Stafford from A&L Goodbody will provide you with a framework that will prepare you for raising capital from venture capital funds.

Benefits of Attending:

An overview of venture funds and venture financings;
Identifying the best approaches in dealing with investors;
How the venture capital process works;
Common terms used in transactions and what they mean.

Who should attend:

Founders, CEOs, and managers who are seeking venture funding, as well as scientists and technology experts considering a business start-up in need of venture financing.

About the Presenter:

Peter Stafford is a partner in the Belfast office of A&L Goodbody, Irelandâ€™s leading law firm. He specialises in corporate finance work including public and private company acquisitions and disposals, management buy outs, private equity transactions and commercial contracts. Peter regularly works for venture capitalists, business angels and investee companies and is â€œparticularly highly rated as a deal lawyer in the jurisdictionâ€ (Legal Week, July 2006).

Confirmed Panelists

Peter Stafford, Partner A&L Goodbody
Alan Mawson, Executive Chairman Clarendon Fund Managers
Sarah Bearder, CTO Datactics

Date:	Wednesday 16th April 2008
Time:	08.00am â€“ 08.30am Registration
	08.30am â€“ 09.30am Programme
	09.30am â€“ 10.00am Q&A
Location:	Northern Ireland Science Park, Queens Island, Belfast
Cost:	Free of charge
Contact:	Roisin Clancy, Northern Ireland Science Park
	Tel: 028 9073 7920, roisin.clancy@nisp.co.uk
Note:	Breakfast will be provided for participants

DATE FOR YOUR DIARY

â€œHow to land a whale: how does a small start-up land a big client?â€

By Linkubator

Date:	Thursday 15th May 2008
Time:	08.00am â€“ 08.30am Registration
	08.30am â€“ 09.30am Programme
	09.30am â€“ 10.00am Q&A
Location:	Northern Ireland Science Park, Queens Island, Belfast
Contact:	Roisin Clancy, Northern Ireland Science Park
	Tel: 028 9073 7920, roisin.clancy@nisp.co.uk

Join us on Thursday 15th May for a panel discussion featuring several savvy entrepreneurs of Northern Irish companies that have successfully sold to, and worked with, some of the largest companies around. Learn how they’ve been able to get the attention of big companies, how they’ve closed the big deals, how they’ve made the most of big company relationships, and how they’ve been able to avoid the pitfalls. And since some customer relationships or partnering arrangements with big companies can turn into acquisitions, our panelists will also address “next chapter” issues in relationships with big companies. See you there!

The workshop will be led by John McKee, CEO of Linkubator, a business development organisation working with CEOs and senior teams in creating successful strategic growth for companies.

About NISPâ€™s Frameworks Entrepreneur Workshops

NISP offers ongoing educational opportunities for entrepreneurs building and growing innovative Hitech, Biotech or Cleantech companies and offers member companies the opportunity to provide expert content to a responsive, interactive audience.

Many of todayâ€™s business founders and future entrepreneurs have scientific and technical backgrounds but have had limited experience in industry, so they often lack exposure to critical information which is essential to leading a start-up. To fill this gap, NISP offers InnovaNET Entrepreneur Workshops to provide these bright leaders with the vocabulary, foundations and framework around which they can build awareness of the many disciplines they will oversee as â€œCâ€ level managersâ€.

Nothing is harder on your laurels….

John Gruber writes: “Borrowing ideas is fair game, but copying an entire app is wrong. And itâ€™s creepy, in a Microsoft-of-the-â€™90s way, when itâ€™s a $150 billion company cloning an app from a 10-person company.” This is the #1 demotivator for me when it comes to software development. It’s an unreasonable fear and like all … Continue reading “Nothing is harder on your laurels….”

John Gruber writes:

“Borrowing ideas is fair game, but copying an entire app is wrong. And itâ€™s creepy, in a Microsoft-of-the-â€™90s way, when itâ€™s a $150 billion company cloning an app from a 10-person company.”

This is the #1 demotivator for me when it comes to software development. It’s an unreasonable fear and like all unreasonable fears it has to be overcome. Being afraid to do something because someone else will do it is simply stupid as is giving up when a big competitor comes on the scene. If they see it as a viable market then it’s actually an exceedingly viable market for the small business. You’ll have to fight against their ability to leverage market pressure and the two biggest issues there are going to be:

They can offer for free what you’re selling
The end user likely already has a login to their authentication system

Yes, it’s hard to fight against that kind of pressure but who told you that being an Independent Software Vendor (ISV) was going to be easy?

There are a lot of big company projects out there that start as skunkworks where someone has an idea and a project manager gives them enough rope to run for a while as long as they don’t step out of the yard. Google somewhat circumvents this with the 80:20 work week – 20% of the time you’re permitted to work on projects that interest you. It’s a sneaky way to use/abuse geeks who have a persistent work ethic (the things they love working on, that others would see as ‘work’, they see as enjoyment!). This kind of behaviour is why Google, though massive, still retains some agility and is able to throw out new and exciting stuff on a relatively regular interval. Compare this to Yahoo or Microsoft who haven’t given us anything interesting in years.

Just because Google has completely ripped off the look and feel of your app doesn’t mean you should stop. And that also goes for Apple, Microsoft, Adobe, Facebook, Yahoo or any of the other 900lb gorillas in the market. You’ve got a good product I hope, you have some first mover advantage (in that people have already been paying you money) and you’ve already been thinking of what to do next with your application (which means when some copycat clones you, you can wait, see the effect on sales and then release your planned upgrade).

That said: if you think you could lose 80% of your customer base to this new free service run by one of the big nasty companies out there and this would cause you to lose a significant percentage of income and endanger your company, then you need to start diversifying.

Nothing is harder on your laurels than sitting on them.

Co-Working guidelines.

HiveLogic on getting into The Zone in modern offices: “Thereâ€™s no choice about how or when youâ€™re expected produce, or under what circumstances. Here is your computer, here is your workstation, you have the tools, the florescent lights are turned on, why donâ€™t you go ahead and get to work, thanks, bye.” “In a best … Continue reading “Co-Working guidelines.”

HiveLogic on getting into The Zone in modern offices:

“Thereâ€™s no choice about how or when youâ€™re expected produce, or under what circumstances. Here is your computer, here is your workstation, you have the tools, the florescent lights are turned on, why donâ€™t you go ahead and get to work, thanks, bye.”

“In a best case scenario, they do a mediocre job and feel OK at the end of the day. In the worst case, theyâ€™re miserable.”

The article mentions co-working in passing but I want to focus on the above paragraph. There is an idea that co-working is a “phenomenon” and there are some who think it might be a panacea to their productivity woes.

Looking at the quote above gives one aspect that can’t be ignored. You arrive in $BIG_COMPANY and if their processes are working correctly, you should have a desk, a computer, a phone and it’s just a case of getting your userid for the system, setting your passwords and starting to work (which may or may not include weeks of reading documentation). For some people this will idyllic, for others sufficient and for some of you, it may sound like hell on earth.

So what to do about it? The co-working movement assumes some things.

You are a self-employed knowledge worker with current income (or have a really understanding boss). You can make money at this or this is what you need to do to make money in the future or past.
Ideally you’re not going to need large equipment, a precise (and expensive) model of printer or a lot of space reserved for yourself. This is about sharing. You should provide your own equipment and it should all fit on one desk and use your fair share of power sockets.
If you’re lucky enough to have the capacity for a meeting space in addition to a communal work and break area, then great. If not, it’s perhaps not a great environment to bring customers for face to face meetings.
Working alongside people who are not your colleagues will benefit what you do (via the idea that networking is more valuable to you than teamwork) and you’re not just going to try to turn them into customers.
You have the equipment, data and resources online to help you do your work (or have some storage space at the co-work facility). You’re also pretty good with fixing your own problems. Don’t depend on your co-workers to sort out your issues. Most of them might help but they have their own jobs to do.
These interesting, creative, co-working people you have shacked up with won’t prove to be more of a distraction than your Wii, the postman, two cats and significant other which you’d have to contend with if you just stayed at home. And you’re not going to be a distraction to them either with tales of your last dentist visit or the how well you’re doing on Metroid.
You don’t have too many odious habits, you shower regularly and you know how to use a litter bin. If you smoke, you’ll have the sense to stand outside someone else’s door rather than just outside the co-work space.
If the facility is for more than just bedouin workers who hot-desk from day to day, then respect others personal space and property. Seems obvious but I came into an office a few years back where the keyboard was sticky and the screen was smeared. Apparently another worker had his kids in the office at the weekend.
Co-working is about shared responsibilities. You owe it to the other occupants not to be a prick to them, their colleagues, their customers and, if necessary, their children. Establish the rules early about who does the washing up, who cleans the toilet and who knows how to operate a vacuum cleaner. Remember it’s a co-work facility so it will likely be a good bit more freeform and chaotic than the standard cubicle farm.
Pay your share of the rent and utility bills without complaint. It’s my opinion that the base cost should be your percentages of these plus 10% for eventualities. If this means it’s not economical for you or you can’t pay on time then don’t be surprised when they ask you to leave.

In short, you need to be a good co-working citizen and expect the same from others.

If you are considering a co-working facility, you could do worse than to have a look at David Rice’s blog where these questions are being considered.

more on co-working

Back in 2006 I seriously investigated the possibility of setting up a co-working facility in Belfast. At the time I was pretty much asset-free 🙂 I had a working, profitable business but not enough capital to undertake something of this magnitude. We were looking at a 3 storey building within half a mile of Queen’s University as a potential location for this nascent business. We worked out cash flows based on a cafÃ©, with pay-for workspace ranging from shared desks to enclosed, secured offices. We even drew maps and applied for funding but, being asset-free, I was kinda buggered when it came to financing it.

Just bad timing really and I think that maybe my plans were a little over the top.

It doesn’t mean, however that they were bad plans, I just didn’t have the reach I needed. I probably still don’t have the reach I need but I do have other potential plans. For instance, considering moving Mac-Sys to the centre of Belfast (because, yes, it’s a pain to get to Mallusk to get a simple Mac repair done) and sharing the resulting space with a Co-Work facility has been heavy on my mind for a while and definitely given solidity by the co-working thoughts bandied around last night.

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