The Post Money Value

See You on Wednesday

The one thing that certainly gotten into overdrive thanks to the Internet is the April Fools Joke. Yowsa, unfunded.com, fake lawsuits, etc. People are working overtime...

Looking for Dinner Ideas?

Google can help you. Check your Spam folder:

Yep, a nice healthy salad.

The secret is the salsa.

Hint: Use brown rice for a nutty flavor.

And how much do you think Hormel is paying for this?  Exactly.  Ain't life grand.

Face Time with the Blue Monster (In Canada)

Those wild and crazy kids at Microsoft Canada have put together an award/contest called Blue Sky -ISV Innovation Awards.

What is the Blue Sky Award?

"The Blue Sky Award represents an exceptional opportunity for you to showcase your great idea. If you think your application is the next big thing, and have the business plan to prove it, this is your chance to demonstrate your solution to a panel of Microsoft and other industry experts."

You've got until May 15th to get your proposal in so click here and get cracking.

So you're probably thinking to yourself, "Self, this is really cool. I can take my cool Java widget creation business that is riding on Red Hat with the coolest Firefox plug-in ever, pitch this, and get a trophy with love from Microsoft."

Not exactly.

This is a bit focused on Microsoft technology where you apply to the program with a Windows Live ID and you have to use Internet Explorer to even register.

 

Lots of people are going to be snarky about this but, leaving the anti-Microsoft rhetoric aside, efforts like these are important for the eco-system of developers out there that code up add-ons, like Xobni, or other big time applications.  Some free PR from Microsoft isn't a bad thing when you are working hard inside the eco-system.

Okay, now go sign up.

 

Technorati Tags: Blue Monster,Microsoft,Start-up

From one who knows

I've had the pleasure of watching Jenny McCarthy perform in two start ups as one who has been up close and personal to the ups and serious downs of a start-up; I can confidently point anyone who wants to work in a start-up or who is hiring into a start-up right to her.  She knows the drill.

"I've been watching this business with Jason Calacanis talking about startup life and responding to the uproar about his tips for how to save money running a startup. You should read these tips. They're fantastic and damn true. But I know you're lazy, so here's the important one:

11. Fire people who are not workaholics. Come on folks, this is startup life, it's not a game. don't work at a startup if you're not into it--go work at the post office or starbucks if you're not into it you want balance in your life. For realz.

Apparently a lot of people got their panties in a knot about this one and it really just proves the point. If this offends you, you don't get it. You don't belong in a startup.... You have to get more bang for your buck so nothing is acceptable short of hiring complete rockstars.

Young, smart, ambitious people will rise to the occasion if you put them in a place where they have to step up. There are a ton of smart kids out there that love to do what they do, will work hard doing it and want to shave 5 years off their career path."

I can only add that the really smart people hire young ambitious (and smart) people, don't crap on them, and let them rise up.

Full Link:  Hiring in a startup

Tonight: Please Check Under and Between the Sofa Cushions

I usually leave these types of things to Marc Andreessen but he is currently busy beating up Jim Cramer so I'll jump in.

 

"WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Defense Secretary Robert Gates has formally ordered the Air Force, Navy and Defense Logistics Agency to conduct an inventory of all U.S. nuclear weapons and nuclear weapon-related materials to make sure all items are accounted for, according to a Pentagon memo released Thursday."

I wonder if they'd accept a simple finders keepers.... Full story here.

Widget Quote

From this morning's Venture Wire.

"The exit opportunities in social media may be reaching a peak in excitement, but there should be strong exits in the future, said Jeremy Liew, a general partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners. "At first, usage outstrips revenue. We're in that space now," Liew said. "After a certain point you can't [rely] on traffic. You have to demonstrate your ability to monetize as well." Liew, whose firm has invested in Flixster Inc. and RockYou Inc., which develop widget applications for various social networking sites, said the highest price paid for a Facebook-only application that he has seen was in the "mid single-digit millions" of dollars for an application that was a top 20 property in the space."

Full link not available as the Venture Wire stuff is behind an Iron Curtain.

Pennies

I met with a CEO in from the U.S. today.  In the morning he sent me a text message letting me know he was on the way.  When he arrived, I said, sorry about your email not working up here.  His response:

"Oh it does but when I'm travelling, I sent text messages back and forth because the cost is so much lower."

Now THAT'S a start up guy.

The Other Side of Transparency

At JLA, we try to stay out there, be at events, make the case, press the flesh, etc.  Sometimes this leads to, shall we say, misaligned expectations.

Here is a shortened and cleaned up transcript of an email exchange I've concluded:

Them:  My idea is [.....], please let me know where I come to pick up the check. Do I need to fill out any paperwork?

Me: We have a bit of a process that we use in order to determine if your investment is something we'd want to add to our portfolio. Please go to my blog at this location to learn about our process.  While you are reading that, can I get just a rough idea (email response is fine) of the market size for this, what you will charge and how much you can make over the next several years? Just a rough idea.

Them: My partner thinks we should be conservative with VC people so we think that we will make 3 million dollars a year in the fifth year.  The rest of us think he is crazy and believe 4 can be done if we get the 11 million dollars of financing it will take to build the factory.

Me:  I appreciate the numbers.  As you might know from my blog and our web site we don't actually invest in these types of things, we are more focused on [insert rick's blather].  My guess is there is probably some government programs (Sorry, Estelle) that might be interested because of your belief in creating 150 new jobs.  But, unfortunately, this isn't something we would do.

Them: I don't get it. You are a VC. You have money to invest. Your doing investments and we need money.  According to the investing laws, I'd think you'd want to do this.

Them (in mail right after the above): You've mentioned a blog several times.  What is that?

We had a nice phone call to clear all this up.  No Harm, No Foul.

Paging - Lisa Rousseau and meshEast

Attention Canada bloggers.

Could somebody who knows Lisa and the meshEast gang kindly ask them for some link love to the VC Roundtable post.  I've gotten several emails from folks asking me to do the roundtables in Moncton and Halifax which are scheduled.

I'd like to get the word out but haven't had much luck out east.  Any help would be appreciated.

And anybody know a tech blogger in Regina and/or Winnipeg?

Now back to your regularly scheduled blog.

DreamSpark: A Great Program for Students and You

Students. They are the best investment in time, money, and resources you can make when it comes to making the world a better place and, in more practical terms, getting great minds working on business problems. Your business problems.

Microsoft has announced a super program (DreamSpark) whereby students can get a full set of developer products at no charge.

From the original announcement:

 

The Microsoft DreamSpark program, available at http://channel8.msdn.com, launched in 10 11 countries - Belgium, China, Finland, France, Germany, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the U.K. , Canada and the U.S. For more information on the products and how the program will expand to high school students, please visit PressPass for more details.

Products: Students will be able to download any of the following software products via Channel 8:

Microsoft developer tools· Visual Studio 2005 Professional Edition· Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition· XNA Game Studio 2.0· 12-month free membership in the XNA Creators Club
Microsoft designer tools Expression Studio, including:· Expression Web· Expression Blend· Expression Design· Expression Media
Microsoft platform resources· SQL Server 2005 Developer Edition· Windows Server, Standard Edition

Canada is right there with an announcement here. Kudos to Daniel Shaprio and my buddy Mark Relph for getting this into Canada.  And kudos to Microsoft for getting this program going especially the migration to high school students.

From that announcement:

"The program will expand in the next six months to college students in many more countries in the Americas, Asia and Europe. Microsoft DreamSpark will be expanded to include high school students by late 2008.  Upon launch, students with a valid ISIC (International Student ID Card) will be accepted.  These cards can be obtained at 132 ISIC offices across Canada. Students can find a nearby location at www.isic.org. We will be rolling out a number of other verification means over the next 12 months."

Why you should care

• Many (many!) anti-Microsoft people will say this is a response to "free" everything available on the Internet.  My response? So what.  Outside of our echo chamber, things like this are important because we need to make learning technology as friction free as possible.  I'm delighted that potentially hundreds of bright minds will be working on games, new web sites, services, etc.  They are thinking of things to do with all of this technology you and I don't even know about.
• This is your future employee/team resource pool and they are getting trained/excited on somebody else's dime.  MSFT people, cover your eyes for a minute.  If  you want to engage a bunch of students on some projects, they can sign up for this program, get the tools for free, work on it, and you aren't paying for developer tools.  There is an approximately zero chance the licensing cops will come at you.  If there is something you want to commercialize, simply use the properly licensed tools you already have via the MSDN subscription and Bob's yer uncle.  In short, this is a very good program that your company/start-up and that local educational institution can use to get more talent into the workforce; your workforce.

The download details on DreamSpark can be found on Channel8 is here.

Technorati Tags: dreamspark,microsoft,msdn,start-up help

Alec Saunders: VC Beauty Contests are Evil

My MSFT Alumni buddy, start-up fiend, Alec Saunders has a post up entitled: It’s time to abolish VC beauty contests. 

A short snippet:

"What's not to like, right?

A lot.  The model for this conference is that the VC community builds deal flow by holding a beauty contest and charging entrepreneurs to pitch.  It's a dutch date with a miser, which is a bad basis for a relationship."  

He wants VCs to knock it off and entrepreneurs to just pick up the phone and call the VC of choice for a 10 minute meeting to get the same 3 minutes of feedback for free. I agree with a couple of points that Alec is trying to make. 

The first -and most important- one is that you can pretty much do exactly as he describes. Pick up the phone and call Scott/Maxx/Joe/Roger (Growthworks), Michael/Derrick (Edgestone), Mark/Mark (Wellington), Barry/Robin (VenturesWest), Jeff (RHO Canada), Jacqui (Tech Capital), Mark/Sophie (Brightspark), others that I've missed (sorry), and yours truly.  You will almost always get a return phone call, an opportunity to explain what you do and, if it is interesting, an opportunity to meet.  Free.  With JLA, you get a 30 minutes no harm/no foul meeting plus a lovely parting gift (the VC Game: home edition).

So, in theory, you could blow off these events and take the shot.

I'd like to believe that there is more to it.  I've been told over and over that it is the networking at event like this which really matter. In addition, there are panels/discussions/sessions that also should be worth it.  While Alec isn't going to get much out of this (he knows this drill from more angles then most), others might get some good knowledge out of the sessions, find somebody to link up with, etc.

In addition, there are VC firms from other countries (like for example the big one just south of Canada) that show up. These VCs might have a bit more of a process in order for you to get to them. 

So my advice to you is to view the event in its totality. Networking, Content, Pitch Practice, etc, are all parts that you should view/weigh in your decision to sign up.

But to be clear: You can call your local VC community we will take your calls.

Technorati Tags: Alec Saunders,CIX

The Rudeness Factor

Jason has a post up at the Ask The VC entitled "Are Venture Capitalist incompetent or just inconsiderate?"

From Frank Ronchetti (a CFO in a start-up)

"Are VCs incompetent or just inconsiderate? Not all venture capitalists mind you, just the ones who solicit your proposal, read your executive summary, or even meet with you, and then you never hear another word from them. What’s up with that?"

and

"Entrepreneurs bust their butts and spend dozens of hours writing business plans, arranging investor meetings, and preparing and making presentations. Venture capital fund managers owe them the courtesy and respect of making a two-minute phone call to say, “No thank you.” "

Jason has a response that, like the whole post, you should read.

An excerpt:

"Okay, I haven’t answered your question: Are VCs incompetent or just inconsiderate? I think it’s more of the latter than the former, but ineffective communication styles, in my opinion, will eventually affect a VCs returns as reputations do matter in this business."

I agree with Jason that it certainly is mostly being inconsiderate. With email bankruptcy being some type of an excuse/pass, these days, I'm not surprised.  Like Jason/Brad, I really try to answer everything, say no fast, and re-look when somebody makes a decent case that I missed something material.  I do it for exactly the reason Jason says, reputation matters.

But you also have to have a sense of humor, right?  As I was reading Jason's post, I got this email:

---------------------------------------

From: Jay 
Sent: Monday, March 24, 2008 10:37 AM
To: Rick Segal
Cc:
Subject: Confirming on []

 

Hi Rick,

I hope you had a good Easter.  I am scheduled to fly out tomorrow as discussed to Toronto.  I wanted to confirm that we were still on for Wednesday as well as the time, I also wanted to ensure that things were moving forward on your end regarding this discussion.  Please ping me to confirm, and I will make sure we have [] available by phone. 
--
Thanks!

Best regards,

Jay

----------------------------------

I responded with:

--------------------------

From: Rick Segal
Sent: Monday, March 24, 2008 10:43 AM
To: Jay
Cc:
Subject: RE: Confirming on []

 

Typically we cancel the meetings when the person is already in the air. We leave a message at the airport saying sorry, just go home.

 

But since you asked.. Yup, we are on for Wed.

 

>R<

--------------------------------

 

 

One person and the remote, over there office: Your badge of honor

My very smart takes after her mother, daughter, Rachel, has an excellent post up regarding Telecommuting and what she calls: Misnomers. 

She makes some good points, for example:

"It’s *not* working from home. If you work from home, you never get to “go home”. I’ve established a very clearly defined nook where I “go to work” in the morning. At night, I turn off the light in my little office and now I’m home. Yeah, yeah - I never left. But the mental separation is truly important if you’re ever going to expect to maintain a reasonable level of clarity and balance."

She goes on with some other great points but I wanted to add a few comments regarding what I call "remote" workers.  I define remote as those that are not in the central office -assuming there is one- 90% of the time.

1. You rock.  Really.  It takes a special type of a person to actually do this. To be outside the ebb and flow of the day to day goings on is a massive head game guaranteed to mess with your head big time.  Remote offices are a compromise because at least in that case you have a group of people to rally around.  The hardest thing you will ever do, is work remote.  Triple the work and pain if it is a start-up.  If you make it and can work remote, wear this skill like a badge of honor because any CEO with an ounce of brains knows how valuable this talent can be.
2. Your mantra is Fire and forget. Most of the time you will be in conference calls or get assignments via Skype or MSN.  You can go nuts with missing information, context, etc, or just do it and adjust as required.  Essentially, like some fancy missile, you are fire and forget. You can get an assignment, task, etc, and get it done without supervision or that daily requirement of a pat on the head and/or a cookie that some people require.  Again, your should brag about this skill because it is rare and a solid skill most people don't have.
3. Work is a discipline.  As Rachel points out, routines like actually getting ready for 'work' in the morning regardless of where you set up shop is critical.  When you master this discipline, you demonstrate your ability to handle increased levels of responsibility and you demonstrate you take work seriously.
4. People will forget you and it isn't personal. If you aren't in the office everyday, expect to be out of sight/out of mind. It's normal, it's human nature, and it isn't personal.  Roll with it, be great at what you do and people will know you rock and know you are contributing.  That's all you can hope for.

Jeremy Wright, B5's CEO has probably one of the harder jobs in the world.  He spends a ton of time with bloggers from around the world using every communications tool he has.  Making hundreds of people feel part of a community/company is an amazingly hard task that Jeremy does extremely well.  The best bloggers out there, get all these discipline points, handle all the non-conformity, and produce without being bugged.  He knows the other side of this coin and can vouch for how valuable this skill set can be.

Finally, if you have workers in your world that are remote, cut em some slack, its not easy.

Good post, Rachel.

Technorati Tags: start-up

Be All You Can Be: Right Where You Are.

Jevon simply sums up and nails all the blog blather (mine included) about the good or bad of flocking to wherever in search of the holy grail.

"The opportunity for Canada is first to build strong communities individually, and then the job is to build strong connections between those communities. Canadians (who are still here!) are different from those who flock to San Francisco in search of the holy grail. Canadians love their own city, and they aren’t very excited about the idea of all making their way to another city in search of success. Most of us will choose to make a go of it in our own backyard, where we are connected to our great communities and where we feel like we can all have an impact.

We need to compete fiercely with eachother for the prize of being the top city to build a startup in Canada, but we also need to start creating a larger ecosystem where we can can the egos and start to make connections."

Amen, amen, amen.  Read the whole post here and tell your all your friends.  Well done, Jevon.

Email Management: Small Tip

[Update: I just read Michael  Arrington's post about Email Bankruptcy and the opportunity. Read it here if you missed it. Forget him, drop by MY place as I'll fund you. :-)]

Years ago -sigh, it really is years ago- when I worked for Microsoft, I was constantly getting "thanks for the quick response" notes when I replied to email.  Shockingly, people really appreciated a fast (or reasonable) email response when you worked for a big company. They still do today.  Most of my regular email correspondents have helped me stay responsive by using the low/normal/high priority flag when they send something to me.  That or they put "LOW:" in the subject line. 

It helps me categorize and prioritize my daily work.  With these helpful flags by the senders combined with so decent inbox rules, I have been able to remain steady over the years about being snappy with email responses. 

I think a relatively quick response to someone's email  is a great sign of respect.

Failures Rejoice!

Via Bob Sutton's blog, I would recommend you take a look at the Biggest Failure prize which was handed out at the Stanford E Week Entrepreneurship Tournament.  There is a video of this here and it is worth watching.

We need more, not less, of cheering on those who try and miss as it is just as important as the victories.  Or maybe more...

The Lost Art of Caring

I was reminded of this very fact by Seth Godin's recent post.  We live in an electronic world where even typing the words "thank you" just loose something as it flies from one outbox to your inbox.

I've added the "do they care" filter to many aspects of the VC voodoo I do.   An interesting dialog usually happens when I ask "Show me you care."  Lots of people answer with "care about what", many look at me like I dropped in from Mars, and a rare few go "I care because"; launching into a non-canned but usually pretty good speech about the quality of the product, service, people, etc.  And with a good BS meter, you can usually tell what's real.

Why do you care and how do you show it? 

 

Technorati Tags: seth godin

VC Roundtable - Full Schedule

[Updated to add Guelph on the 28th]

Here is the full schedule the VC roundtables.  We've got some additional locations I will add in May (Kamloops, Saskatoon, etc) but I wanted to get this list finalized so people would know.

Notes:

• There is a limit of 25 seats at each session.
• The times are firm but the locations are still being finalized
• You must register at the event links below so I can email you the final location.
• This is for entrepreneurs, you, not for me so come with questions!

[Drum roll...]

April 14th – Halifax  (8a – 10:30a) Sign up here

April 14th – Moncton ( 5p – 7p) Sign up here

April 15th – St. John’s (5p – 7p) Sign up here

April 16th – Ottawa  (10:30 – 12:30) Sign up here

April 16th – Montreal (4:30p – 6:30p) Sign up here

April 17th – Toronto Morning (8:30 – 10:30) Sign up here

April 17th – Toronto Afternoon (4p – 6p) Sign up here

April  21st – Victoria (8a – 10a) Sign up here

April 21st – Vancouver (4p -6p) Sign up here

April 22nd – Edmonton (8a – 10a) Sign up here

April 22nd – Calgary (3:30p – 5:30p) Sign up here

April 23rd – Regina (8:00a – 10a) Sign up here

April 25th – Winnipeg (noon – 2p) Sign up here

April 28th - Guelph (4p - 6p) Sign up here

If you would like to link to the full list you can use this post or this link from eventbrite.  Please get the word out.

 

A second set of cities will be set up for May.  I look forward to seeing you there.

Technorati Tags: VC Roundtable,start-up,Canada

So THAT'S what it feels like

Doc Searls told me to wait before buying a MacBook Pro because new models were coming around the corner. He was right, I waited, and now I have a shinny new laptop compliments of the Apple store in Toronto. Last night, I needed to stop by and pick up a copy of Office for the Mac so I could start doing some business work on it. I zipped into the local Staples store.

Me: "Where's the Mac software?"
Him: "Why?"
Me: "Funny. I need to buy a copy of Office for the Mac."
Him: "I think Microsoft stopped making that in the nineties or something."
Me:  [restraint] Yeah, well, I think not, but thanks, later.

So, that's how the Mac users feel; that just blows. I ended up getting a copy over at a little store in Aurora, Ontario which caters just to Apple owners.

[Bonus Mac Commentary] After getting home, I realized I had bought the student/home edition. Good news, three installs, bad news, no Exchange support. Growl.  Well, my hosting provider has the 2004 version of Entourage that you can download and use with their service.  So, I install the Mac Office 2008 product, no problem.  I remove the Entourage Icon from the dock. I download Entourage 2004 from the Apptix site and install it. I then drag the Entourage 2004 Icon onto the dock. So, presto, change-o, I have 2008 for all products except Entourage which is 2004.  Not a big deal, you likely say, you can do this with PC Office.  While true in the software will run okay category, I must tell you there is a certain feeling of ease and almost magic when you just drag simple Icons around and stuff just works. I had the Entourage install as a sub directory of the download folder by mistake, oops.  I just dragged the whole thing to the Applications folder. Done. The Dock's Entourage Icon?  Doesn't care it just launches Entourage.

[Bonus Outrageous Suggestion] I'm not trying to sound like some Mac groupie. I started life on an Apple ][. I still know some 6502 programming.  Having said that, here's my suggestion if you are delivering software or a web service.  Get a Mac or get somebody that lives on a Mac involved in your project.  The stuff just works and, as I said, there is a certain sense of satisfaction you can deliver to your customers by emulating much of this "it just works" magic.  I know, it sounds all groupie like but if you'd like to see real magic happen in a grand scale, the Microsoft Mac Applications Team should be put in charge of all Microsoft application development.  Okay, I'm done as I have to install Windows Live Write in the Parallels world as I can't find a blog writing tool even close.

Xobni: Sending out the love

When you get a really good response to a post, I believe it deserves the top level attention that the original post got and not just a comment buried away.  So, in that spirit, I'm 'promoting' the blog comment I received from Jeff Bonforte, CEO of Xobni in response to my Tone post.

It's a long, but well thought out comment.  Just for the record, it's a great product that I find very useful. Thanks for stopping by, Jeff, I'm feelin the luv.

(Memo to Albert: Pay attention, he's younger than you. ;-) )

------------------------------------------------

Hello Rick: I am the CEO of Xobni. Thanks for the post. A few comments:

1) Your point is valid and we will take a look at the tone of our support page. We take customer support very seriously. We have a full-time, dedicated in-house support team, which is not normal for a startup of our size. We use senior engineers (including the founders) to diagnose and fix customer issues. We even invite in customers from the bay area to our offices to work on issues, or we use WebEx with more remote customers.

We respond to every email we receive in hours not days (we sometimes come up short here on a heavy support days). And the tone of our support pages *should* reflect that commitment, of course. Good catch. Bad on Xobni.

2) Love! You will even notice little heart shaped clouds in the sky on our home page! We love our customers and their inboxes...I wish all email vendors obsessed over a more productive and powerful inbox as we do. That is love!

3) Spam? I disagree here. Please remember that this is a limited, invite-only beta in the true sense of the word...I know "beta" has lost its meaning thanks to Google and even Flickr who stayed in Beta for over two years and eventually poked fun at themselves with a "Gamma" release! When you are in the Windows XP + Vista desktop software business a beta is very critical. Browser diversity is nothing when compared to OS + plugins + apps diversity. It is orders of magnitude more complex. Throw in Outlook, which was never properly engineered for real powerful plugins, it is even more critical. So when a customer joins an invite-only, closed beta like ours, they are actually making a commitment to give us feedback; to join a conversation with us to help improve the product.

As such, we do email a tiny number of customers every day with requests for specific feedback, and the vast majority of them happily oblige (which is an incredible testimony that our customers like the product enough to spend a few minutes or even hours with us). We reach out to customers all over the globe to jump on WebEx sessions with us so we can share their screens to look at bugs or issues. We have brought in tens of customers into our offices, even executives at Fortune 500 companies, to sit down and spend time with us to review the product. This is not a PR beta...this is a real beta.

If people don't like to talk to the company whose beta they are using, particularly a limited, invite-only beta, they should probably wait for the GA. So while we used standard web legal language for opt-out communication (bad on us), that opt-out is critical for us during our limited beta to engage in that conversation that is needed to make great, fast and stable software for the desktop. As we leave the limited beta, and probably the next beta phase, we will reexamine our customer communication policy.

And we will take a look at the language immediately (though with install software, unlike web pages, even minor fixes can have a much higher price QA testing price to spin out a new build release). I think our customers would tell you, we don't spam. We don't blast out notes weekly or monthly. We contact people very rarely and only when it is critical to the operation of the product, and therefore their inbox. If more companies followed our standard, a far higher percent of customers would opt-in to communication preferences, I suspect.

I might suggest another post topic...while i have your attention. "RIP the Beta. We Will Miss You". Discuss how companies have abused the word beta so badly that it has lost its meaning and responsibility for company and user. Beta is not an excuse for sloppy code, or a way to buy time while you wait on your new servers to arrive. It should be a time-limited commitment from company and customer to enter dialog of rapid feedback and improvement to summit to that high-ground called General Availability software release. *stepping off pulpit* Thanks for listening to my rant and for your post.

Your points are well taken. Feel free to contact me with specific feedback going forward about the product or the company. with love, ;) Jeff Bonforte CEO, Xobni

 

Technorati Tags: Xobni,start-up

Great Quote

My friend and investing buddy over at Edgestone Capital, Michael Hollend, had a great observation as we discussed a potential investment together.  We were reviewing time to market, plans, expectations, etc.

"Elapsed time is a start-up's greatest enemy"

We (and you!) have to balance between elapsed time and getting the product/service out the door.  Do you get V1 out the door feature incomplete or wait. There are risks in all of these strategies.

With six meetings packed into today, this quote was an interesting thing to have running in the back of my head. Some (2) of the teams were clearly trying to move like crazy.  When I started to ask "what about..." next release was the comment and  in the case of a web lending service, "we can do that after we have the first round of customers because nobody will care at first. By the time they are at caring stage, we will have that feature." 

Both were not blind to the impact of bad/grossly incomplete releases and both were struggling to find that balance.

Hopefully, as you roll out your next cool thing, you can find the right balance.

Tale of two sizes

[Long story but has a point for your start up]

Photoshop. A great product and worth every penny I've paid for it.   Recently, I've gotten really aggressive about getting better at using it. I've been on some amazing trips over the years and have finally started to take this Photo hobby seriously.  I have two Macs. I have an iMac all decked out with the maximum RAM possible, big hard drive, secondary drive, etc.  I also just bought a new MacBook Pro, again, with the larger hard drive and max RAM memory.

When I am on the road or watching TV, etc, I want to practice things like color correction or grabbing layers and putting my dog on a surf board riding the waves in front of the Eiffel Tower.  The point of this practice is to get super good with the tools so on my Iceberg or Sea Lion photos, I can really make them look their best.

I sent a note to Adobe's support group which, after the praise, etc, had this paragraph:

"I want to find out if it is okay to put the Photoshop CS3 I've upgraded to on both my MacBook Pro and my iMac. As I said, I'm not doing anything iMac other than fooling around/practicing, I do all the real work on my desktop machine. Think of it as like solitare on the iMac, just a practice effort."

I got, after a week, a response which, among other things said:

"Photoshop is licensed per copy and as such we expect you to adhere to the terms of the agreement associated with the product."

Nice, eh? Keep in mind I also own a PC copy of Photoshop, own Photoshop Elements (Mac and PC), and could find a bootlegged key on the Internet in about 3 seconds, if that long.  I told them about the other copies, just so you know.  As you can see, not exactly helpful. Email deleted and I'll futz with Elements.

Now, let me point out the case where there is a $75 plug-in which does some really nice touch up.  As a test of sorts, I sent pretty much the same note to this company. Three people, I believe but don't know for sure.

The response after 3 hours:

"Well, the key you activated [] with will activate that same D/L you have on another machine. We weren't that sophisticated about it and while we're okay with you doing it (thank you for the kind words), please keep this private as we are small and don't want people knowing the key thing doesn't phone home, do IP or MAC address stuff, etc. We'd prefer not to get ripped off and our piracy rate is -we think- low. So, go have fun just shhh about it. ;-)"

So, I'm keeping them out of the story and I sent them another $75 just because they were so nice/personable about it.

There is the great start up/small business versus big lumbering bureaucracy lesson in all of this for you.

I'd spell it out but I'm sure you clearly see it.

Tone - It really is important (Xobni)

I'm currently using Xobni with Outlook. For the most part, it does what it says it will do. For me, Xobni searching is great as I've never been able to get Google's desktop search to properly work with archived email.  Judging by various forums out there, I am not alone.

Today, I've found a weird artifact that I'm fixing to report.  Here is a screen shot from the Xobni support page:

This sets tone.  Consider this from Apptix, the exchange hosting company we use.

The different is is subtle but important, in my view. 

Xobni says, in effect, go dig around and if you still can't figure it out, yeah, flip us the problem.  Apptix had me go through the problem in a somewhat structured 'build a ticket' way and, just before sending it off, suggested some possible solutions/answers.  The flow is better, some level of help is attempted instantaneously and it just (in my view) is more polished and sets better tone of who I'm dealing with.

Some will argue I'm reading the 'tone' in the Xobni wrong or that I'm being too harsh.  That would be the point.  People will read it wrong, especially newbie types.  Given that Xobni is one click away from being dropped off my desktop in favor of the next search/Outlook utility, I believe Xobni has to go the way of Flickr.  If you will recall, it was Flickr who really went nuts with the love on pages and, even today, still does the international hello messages upon log in. Some would say back then, they started all the cutesy/cheeky pages and tone.

Today, in my view, the tone of a company is her web site and the interaction pages with the customers. Helpful, friendly, caring, (ahem) showing the love, etc, can make all the difference when yet another free competitor comes along. 

As you work on your start up, look at your web site. Have others who are new, old, young, and (surprise) cranky, give you feedback.  Go overboard because apart from being insanely useful, this is the only way to get loyalty.  This loyalty is, potentially, one of your most valuable assets.

Apptix, when you submit a ticket, says thanks and they will contact you within 2 business days.

Xobni, when you submit a ticket, says thanks and they will get back to you if it is required and when they can.

Check your site's tone, it really is important.

 [Bonus Xobni Item:] 

  David is supposed to be the UI Ninja at Xobni.  Well, David, you might want to take a look at this item as well.  I thought young, fresh, new companies moved away from sneaky Spam creation. I thought we were leaving this stuff behind. Not, it appears, at Xobni.

This is a screen shot of the bottom of the help page. Note that the check box was checked by default.  Personal Foul, Xobni, 15 yards, still first down.

Technorati Tags: Xobni,start-up

Reminder: Canadian Innovation Exchange Entries

The Canadian Innovation Exchange is still accepting applications to present.   You can click here to get the application process started.

Beside the Canadian Venture community, there are a number of U.S. Venture firms that will be in attendance.  This is a great opportunity for you and your company to get some good exposure and possible funding.

See you there.

Start-Up Metrics: Slide Show

Ignore the really goofy and distracting pirate nonsense (am I just getting too old for this stuff?).

Via Rob Grady's blog (thanks, Adam), Dave McClure relives his childhood but has a good panel about start-ups and the metrics you should know/follow. This is from SXSW.  Some of the slides are really really hard to read but if you are interested, all the contacts are inside the deck.  Worth a quick scan as there is some great stuff in here.

 

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Technorati Tags: SXSW,start-up