Still Blogging

I realized that after I started Grazr, and worked on that, I never added a link from here to the new stuff that I was doing. This blog (surprisingly since it hasn't been updated in years) still gets a lot of traffic, so I thought I'd point out that I'm still blogging, but now over on a new site mikepk.com.

Wow. Marc Hedlund's Proverbs.

First, go read this post on O'Reily Radar by Marc Hedlund. It's an excerpt from a talk he gave listing quick nuggets of wisdom on startups that he calls "Proverbs". I think they're pretty great. One of the 'proverbs' is especially relevant for me in my current situation, "Build the simplest thing possible".

This blog has been a little quiet recently as I've been furiously working on a new project. I decided to heed my own advice and stop obsessing about my original idea. I still think it's a good one, but to properly develop it will take more time than my runway allows. That being said I decided to go with the flow and see where I end up. It's been an exciting time, generating some neat stuff. Maybe my original idea will be my second company ;).

The latest fruits of my current project can be seen in the sidebar of this blog, Grazr. This 'mini panel' is just the tip of the iceberg of where the project is going so it's pretty exciting. It's about 180 degrees from where I thought I would be, but then again, that's what I've been saying happens to almost all startups. So why am I surprised? :)

Great intro to VC's

I've written before about my startup philosophy and my philosophy on venture capital. When I decided to investigate VC's it took me some time to get any kind of understanding of how this world works. I believe part of the difficulty stems from the fact that some of the power of a VC results from them controlling information flow (because they are, in fact, salesmen of a sort). Tom Evslin has a great piece on his blog, Fractals of Change, intended to be an introduction to the world of venture capital for the would be entrepreneur. I highly recommend it.


Some great advice:

Ed Jordan, my CFO at ITXC had an excellent way of judging VCs: “would you give them your money to invest?” he always asked me after a meeting. If the answer is no, run – don’t walk – away from the potential deal. Trust Ed (and me) on this: you don’t want to be stuck with dumb or incompetent VCs.

Boston Web Innovators Group

I attended the Boston Web Innovators Group meeting last night and met lots of interesting people. While my primary goal was to get feedback from developers regarding YAJAF, I found myself talking to lots of others about my overarching business plans.

A few quick highlights of the meeting:

Fresh Tilled Soil did a presentation discussing new/startup business methodology, something near and dear to my heart. They seem like a bunch of really bright guys and I had a chance to talk with the primary presenter, Richard Banfield a bit afterward. The focus of the presentation was the 'get it out there fast, let the market sort it out' approach to business development, something I list as one of the fundamental pillars of my own startup strategy. While it's one of my 'pillars' my discussion with Richard helped me realize I wasn't fully embracing my own startup philosophy. I believe they were offering consulting services to enable rapid prototype deployment. An interesting business model, and something I'm going to keep my eye on.

I spent some time talking with the creators of reddit, again some really smart guys. They're one of the 'summer founders program' startups created by Paul Graham's Y Combinator seed stage VC firm. You could see the passion for what they were doing, and the love of technology. I've had this bug to learn lisp and one of guys mentioned Paradigms of Artificial Intelligence Programming, apparently an amazing book with regards to lisp. If I ever have any time I'm going to try and check it out.

I met the writer of the blog darwinianweb.com, Adam Green. He was a really cool guy who had some interesting advice and insights into my particular startup. I thoroughly enjoyed my discussion with him and have added 'darwinianweb' to my regular feed list. At one point during the night he turned to the reddit guys and said "Are you developing software, or are you developing a product?". A very interesting question, to which everyone answered "we're making software". I find the implications of that question really interesting, something I've felt on a gut level. It fits in with my technology as creative endeavor philosophy, something I think that is frequently misunderstood.

I think the best part of a meeting like this is the coming together of really bright people. I spoke with lawyers, fellow entrepreneurs, consultants, technologists and VC's and I derived something of value from nearly every conversation.

While I achieved my goal of getting feedback on YAJAF, something the YAJAF blog has failed to do, there was a lot more I got out of it as well. Thanks to David Beisel and Masthead Venture Partners for putting it on.

Update: I forgot to mention another pretty cool couple of founders and their startup tourbus. It's kind of like a live search/rss notifier/social networking project to update you on upcoming live performances, here's their blog. I don't know about you but I know I've had the "really they played in Boston? When did that happen?" experience on way more than one occasion.

Drucker

I've never read Peter Drucker before, but after just a few chapters of "The Essential Drucker" I'm begining to understand why he's so respected. I'll write more when I finish it but, since college, I've never had as great an urge to highlight sections of a text until this book.

He tackles management from a historical, social, and philosophical standpoint with a clarity I haven't seen in *any* of the other management books I've read (now starting to reach a significant number).

Asked what a business is, the typical business man is likely to answer, "An organization to make profit". The typical economist is likely to give the same answer. The answer is not only false, it is irrelevant.

The prevailing economic theory of the mission of business enterprise and behavior, the maximization of profit [...] cannot explain how Sears, Roebuck or any other business operates, or how it should operate. The concept of profit maximization is, in fact, meaningless. The danger in the concept of profit maximization is that it makes profitability appear a myth.

Profit and profitability are, however, crucial---for society even more than for the individual business. Yet profitability is not the purpose of, but the limiting factor on business enterprise and business activity...
- "The Essential Drucker", Peter Drucker

Even though I've only read four chapters, I recommend this book.