Directions

Many things can go awry when businesses shift gears and directions.

I'm sure many of you have experienced this sort of thing - scrambing for customers or users, a site signs up with as many as possibly can whenever it can, however the directions of the idea start to take a differing turn from what was originally anticipated.

Part of it lies in marketing - if you make a product that sells to flamingos, but then market it towards penguins, naturally you'll end up seeing your product used a lot more than penguins than flamingos.  The question is whether or not having birds of all sorts is what you initially wanted in your aviary.

This is not to say it's a bad thing - having one bird over the other is not bad, but sometimes it can start to be a defining moment in your business.  And it's at this point that you have to step back and check your bearings - what is more important, your idea or your business.

In a way the two are inextricably linked - without one there is not the other.  But sometimes there can become the pursuit of business for the sake of business.  That's akin to cooking for the idea that you have to eat.  Sure it will fill your tummy, but in my humble opinion it will not satisfy your desire.  

I'm a huge foodie, so one of the things I focus on is flavor, even a simple dinner to me has to be appealing in flavor or enjoyment.  I don't do this all the time, sometimes I will scarf down a burger when pressed for time.  But the enjoyment of a meal is one of my life's guilty pleasures.  

In the same way a business has its drive to satisfy the bottom line.  But when it no longer satisfies your idea, when your purpose goes to something else, then I think some of that enjoyment and soul leaves with it.

The winds are blowing differently now than when KaZuum was first founded - the economy has soured, there's a myriad of social classifieds networks out there.  We want to move forward and create something valuable and useful without ending up like the ones that failed before us.  One of my great fears is that we end up just being a site overrun with spam and useless information, a storybook tale for a site that aspired to be something different but ended up being the same.

So I'm reflecting on the directions we're choosing, and the decisions we've made coming to this juncture.  

As always if you want to leave us feedback, feel free.

best regards,

-Ag.

ok KaZuum can't help you with this...

http://www.wftv.com/news/16425860/detail.html

So what can we do?

Well lately I've been retooling the site to handle one particularly under-served market:

garage sales and flea markets.

On most classifieds sites, the process of selling a garage full of stuff (or lawn or driveway, for that matter) is an arduous task:

You list out all the stuff that you have for sale:

xbox360 RROD

parted out Ps2

dead calalily

fishbowl

old socks

black and white 13" RCA tv

2x bookshelves

Ruby on Rails book

AJAX for dummies

used McDonalds cup

Excel 4.0 handbook

and you get a flurry of email responses

when one item is sold, frequently there's many requests for the same item, although it's been promised to someone else.

with the upcoming "Batch Post" feature, you're able to create batches of items

for sale, or free,

and as they're spoken for, they're made unavailable, or the quantity changes.

This allows you to have a Garage Sale, without actually even having a garage.

Post what you want to get rid of in batch, then come saturday people just show up with money and hands ready to carry things away.

Useful also for people who go to flea markets - know exactly how much inventory you need to bring by the number of responses, and show up ready to empty your trunk.

Hopefully this is something people will find useful in all seasons.

Meanwhile I'll be wary of those lingerie housemaids.

the gap between haves and have nots

http://spotlightonpoverty.org/news.aspx?id=b81ae2be-9132-4c7b-87e6-ca65eaec1735

This is why we are here

I'm sure you've all realized that transactions for us average joes on the interwebs now is a broken process.

In case you haven't, read this article.

http://consumerist.com/5007790/its-now-completely-impossible-to-sell-a-laptop-on-ebay

"eBay seems now to be essentially broken. What used to be a 'virtual yard-sale' where one could hunt for - and potentially find - a good deal on a broad variety of eclectic items has now turned (in my opinion at least) into a hybrid mass of scammers and shady garage-retailers, clumped together with a straggling, dying breed of people who used to be excited about eBay, but who are now wishing it would return to what it used to be."


This is one of the pain points I'm trying to fix -

Try creating an auction on KaZuum, and constraining views of your auction to people within your social network. (Only 2nd and 3rd degree friends are allowed to bid, for example)

Sure it cuts back on the # of people that can see your auction - it's the eventual trade off of cost.
But we can do other interesting things as well - later constrain Bidders by user account age (nobody who created an account in the past month?) or even by geography. Or by trustworthiness metrics (like they know at least 3 of my friends).

We know the internet might be messed up a bit from what we originally hoped it to be, but we're trying to clear them out here.

KaZuum - Like Pipe Cleaners for your Internet Tubes.

PG on Benevolence

http://www.omnisio.com/startupschool08/paul-graham-at-startup-school-08

This is definitely up our alley.

I'm glad to say I also reached these conclusions with KaZuum.
Commitment, easy to run (THANK YOU RUBY ON RAILS!) , and a fanatical commitment to our values.

DHH on Pricing

http://www.omnisio.com/startupschool08/david-heinemeier-hansson-at-startup-school-08

Stanford Startup School presentation on pricing given by DHH (with typical DHH humor)

he brings up some interesting points - but this is hardly a class on pricing theory, but a good primer for those who haven't had performed pricing attempts on innovative and virtual products.

Brings to mind that you don't have to make HUGE ideas but Niche something decently well.

I think the key point that he glosses over is SUSTAINABLE CUSTOMERS. They go after the large accounts and fixes their problems. Landing the big fish for them is key, and it's quite difficult.

37Signals is a great company - they have a great product that solves some strong customer pains, obviously if you're writing a Facebook app that helps you turn vampires into zombies and zombies into vampires...you might not be able to pull this off.

Gives a good reminder too that you don't need to make a BILLION dollars in your company (if it's small like 37 Signals). This of course is in line with the RoR philosophy - small # of developers, frequent iteration, and lower rewards vs huge architectures and large numbers of coders, who then need the homeruns to pay the bills.

Totally agree with his take on the startup lifestyle - if you don't take outside money, you can call your own shots, you can have your own life. There's nothing wrong with a lifestyle business (small) but profitable.

why aren't there more googles?

paul graham seems to think that it's because startups will sell out and then end up being smothered in bureaucracy.

definitely I think this is true - when the founders are in a tired state, perhaps dipped in hope and no longer focused on the true prize - changing the world. They turn to the easy out - get paid and get out.

I wonder if this is also true for the ideas that Google itself has bought - it seems that those companies as well have not done well either.

That essay was written in response to this posting, How to Fix Venture Capital. This article touches on my previous posts regarding the idea of selling out and letting others call the shots, or really setting on yourself in pursuing true change. Once you take someone else's money, it becomes their game.

Well, back to work .

happy 1 year

Officially we are 1 year old, having incorporated last year on the 4th.

Evidently we're not the only ones having a birthday today, Happy Birthday to the Bill Gates and Paul Allen Micro-Soft Partnership.

No, we didn't plan that.

yelp? say it ain't so!

Today I checked my inbox and scanned through my usual Yelp digest email. To my shock and horror, I saw:

You haven't really lived here until you've been to the places that give Silicon Valley its local flavor. That's why you turn to Yelp - to find out about the best of the best and exactly how we keep it real in the Bay Area. Santana Row is our favorite place to start off a perfect day.Mia N regularly frequents The Row, "where everyone can find something" to do. Fashionistas like Cristina I flock toH&M when they want to make a unique statement, but Jason T breaks out of suburbia at Urban Outfitters - he likes their duds so much he likens it to a "cute, bohemian chic girl" he'd marry. After all that shopping, you'll be sure to have worked up an appetite! Looking for a sure thing? Kathy T "steaks" her claim at Claim Jumper, a saloon of sorts that has "yummy food and a great place to come with a large group of people or even on a date." At The Old Spaghetti Factory, Camille R has "never been disappointed" with the "spaghetti with marinara sauce and a side of mizithra cheese." It's also worth noting that this factory doesn't use child labor, either. Forget OzzFest, Lobsterfest at Red Lobster is here! Seafood lover Rinne R was glad she didn't miss out on it last year, and we're sure you won't want to miss out on this year's irresistible menu either. If you're craving some turf with your surf,Geomar R recommends Sizzler's succulent "Big Appetite Combo, which includes steak, shrimp, ribs, and a baked potato;" he also reminds us not to forget their salad bar, which is "actually one of the best in town." Sounds health-tastic to us, Geomar!Archie R loves to "chow" down on all the authentic Chinese food at Mr. Chau's, where they "serve so much food in one container that it requires a rubber band to contain all of their wonderful creations." Miss your family? Do like Mary A and head to Italian eatery Olive Garden, and even if you don't want to hang out with Tony, Junior and Paulie, how can you resist "unlimited salad and breadsticks!" And we certainly know Tam H has no problem finishing his and his girlfriend's "gargantuan full slab" of baby back ribs at Tony Roma's; with 35 years of business under his belt, Mr. Roma proves that great taste never goes out of style. Like so many Yelp foodies, Maritel C appreciates culinary innovations. Taco Bell/Pizza Hut does it best by fusing both Italian and Mexican delicacies, offering a late-night drive-thru as well. Now that's thinking outside the slice - the only thing missing from the culinary United Nations is a bucket of fried chicken and a root beer to wash it down...


-----

every link underlined there is a big box / corporate run identity. Nothing local, nothing mom and pop.

I am all for walmart and lower costs of goods and services through scale efficiencies, but there is something beautiful and wonderful as well in being a patron of your local shops. If a business is well run, then yes it can survive in the face of the Goliath corporations, but there is more than just costs involved when you get down to it.

When you find someone who's poured their life into doing what they do, vs a large corporation that shoulders most of the risk and involvement, paying out minimum (not always a living) wage to employees to robotically sell goods and services, it's frequently better to pay a premium for these things.

Not all things are worth paying premiums for - toilet paper is going to be toilet paper whether I buy it from a local independent supermarket, vs a big box. But things like a good butcher, a hardware store owner, a car parts retailer, dry cleaner, and definitely restaurants, are all small scale operations that offer value far beyond just the price tag. By choosing these establishments you reap the benefits and rewards of experience and wisdom that can only come through a passion that causes them to open their own shops, and a faith that they can make a business through them better than some corporation.

They also have their own networks of professionals that can be tapped for further guidance and wisdom. For example, my mechanic works out of a 76 station from which he rents space. I take my car to him not because he has the lowest prices, but because I know he's got experience, and will give me a straight price. He's not there to feed a corporate bottom line, he does it because he loves working on cars. When I took my CRX to him to have an Integra Type R intake manifold attached to my Honda Del Sol JDM block, it's an operation definitely not in any manual, but I paid him for was his long time experience and that of his friends who do know how to monkey on those things. If I had gone to a dealer (heaven forbid), I would have been turned away as it's not a stock modification. And no way I would take it to a speedy-lube-in-a-jiffy type place where they have no experience dealing with such things.

It's great to talk to a butcher and tell them what you're making and let them pick out the best piece or cut for your dish. A shank with a bit more bone for stew flavor, a more marbled cut and a wine recommendation. Try that at Safeway with the guys behind the counter.

How many times have the Geek Squad called you up after they fixed your computer to check if everything is ok? Have they ever emailed you to let you know you could download a patch or tried to just fix things for you over the phone? Their object is just to get you in the shop and bill you for as many hours as you will let them. (And search your hard drive for mp3s, movies, and pr0n to copy).

Why does this happen? Because they're not invested in the business. They have no need to act honorably, someone already reaps the rewards of their hard work. And that person is out playing golf at the moment.

---

So back to Yelp.
I love Yelp, my wife loves Yelp, and because our baby is on the breastmilk right now, he seems to love Yelp.

And it's an obviously easy way to monetize once you get to a decent size, but I don't think it's really fair. Yelp is supposed to be review based democrazy - you rise to the top based on your performance. In this case, you rise to the top if you pay them money, which I find troubling to say the least.

I guess my message to them is: Come on guys, you have an enormous amount of user data, preferential information, and reviews, you CAN do better than that, otherwise you're no better than the Yellow Pages.

--------------------------OK Yelp, you've totally sold out ----------------

I've excerpted Mia N's review and highlighted what was taken out of context from her post.

Love/Hate relationship with this place! I find myself coming here too much.All depends on when you go, your company, and who you meet!It's a place where everyone can find something (or someone..harhar) to do.Crazy night with the girls? Straits, Vbar, Rosie's, Blowfish. Bonus: cute bartender at Straits. Another bonus: potential hookup. I kid.

-------------
Is it because you couldn't find any positive reviews about Santana Row that Yelp had to edit this post? I'll be analyzing the next post with a fine tooth comb.

bebo and temptation

opinion editorial in NYTimes


this article speaks about Bebo's recent acquisition by AOL and temptation #3.

lasermonks

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2008/03/24/moneytales.DTL

They've been around for a long time, but I find their business entirely wonderful and amazing - creating value for everyone involved. If all business was only this lucrative!

temptations with social networks

I've blogged about things before, and on this day before Easter, one of my readings pointed out to me an important aspect of human life - temptation.

I'm not here to debate morality, but I am here to talk about ethics.

To me ethics are rules that are chosen and determined by ones person, or codified in some sort of document as they pertain to a business (usually either in the mission statement or in some training document).

When it comes to temptations with social networks, we are faced with contrasting desires.

On one hand, the size of an social network can frequently determine its usefulness to its users. For every user past the first, the social network increases in value for each user at first with an exponential rate, then trailing off to flattening to a modicum, along an "S" curve. This is typically because the addition of close friends is more valuable than the addition of unknowns, and on the average the amount of utility that a friend brings will always be higher than a stranger - issues of trust and authority taken into account.

The temptation is that while growing this network as quick as possible, there are various shortcuts you may take.

First off is involuntarily adding people to your network. Several sites do this, I've blogged about them and you can find info about them on google.

The benefits of simply scanning the internet for user profiles, taking them, parsing and then adding them to your database is simple- you get users regardless of whether or not they want to join your service. The con is that they did not agree, and frequently will find your solicitation annoying to say the least. So you simply don't tell them.

What does this strategy get you?

It gets you information but not 'heart'. And 'heart' is what I believe makes a social network worth belonging to. Simply scanning through the intarweb and picking up users' data does not sum up to any sort of 'heart' in the information at all. 'heart' is what causes your users to invite their friends, 'heart' is what gives them empowerment to help police and shape their own network, 'heart' is what makes a social network a home for its users, and not for the corporation running it. The moment anyone gets any idea that they are being used for something, they will cease to give any 'heart' and pull back, as well as forget why they came and blow your popsicle stand.

The book I was reading gave this example to me: After the Chernobyl aftermath, the Russian government called upon citizens of the USSR to donate to the children of the families affected by the disaster. It was like pulling teeth, because you cannot legislate generosity. In the same way as the US attempts to legislate morality, you cannot cause people to care about contributing to your developing community of you just add them. Leading your users to water does not make them drink.

Another temptation is to incentivize people to join your network - giving them a reason to sign up that does not exist in your value proposition. This is akin to hiring employees that will work for you purely because of the salary.

And as anyone who knows the attitude of that type of person (I can, having been that type of person) you show up and do exactly as you're told, no more, no less. There is no such thing as the extra mile, there is no pride in your work, no need to innovate or show off, just everything cut and dry, grab the paycheck and get out of there.

And that's the type of users you'll have in your community - if they stay. More than likely they'll bounce and take off once they realize their probability of getting the reward, the door-prize, or the max user accounts they could have created is gone. You'll get a flood of users at the beginning - expanding at a dizzying pace, then all of a sudden, your sign up rates will floor and trickle.

Your users will not contribute, they'll only send emails to friends to join so they can possibly get in on the loot, and once that is up, you'll have a bunch of junk throwaway emails and no user participation.

Temptation 3: Selling what was given to you freely
Let's face it, as the operators of social networks, we're given tremendous amounts of data, in trust between owners of a site and those that reside on it- when you give me your data, you know that I will have it, but hope that I won't use it to do anything funny.
This temptation exists after "hitting it big", which is to use that information in a way that either invades your privacy, or allows me to monetize off the data unfairly.
Sites that I've seen this happen - have started out as cool, fun and easy to use sites that provide use and value to the residents as well as visitors. Then all of a sudden the word "monetize" enters their brains and they somehow feel justified in reaping the rewards owed to the hard workers who made their site so rich with information to begin with.

----
Temptation is out there, but weathering it and making correct choices at every fork in the road not only gives you the ability to sleep well, it also exposes your character.

I have a great deal of respect for Craigslist, they have created a site of extreme value, ensuring that the value exists to their users, not shareholders. They pull a moderate (ok, savage) salary from charging people who already would have paid more at other venues, and yet maintain an air of freedom and community that is hard to match in any other network.

They've faced temptation, and stuck to their guns, which I guess is what being ethical is all about.

a very exciting time

My faithful beta testers out there have been giving the site a good smashing, and hopefully our efforts will produce a site worthy of KaZuum users everywhere.

I'm trying to keep a strong rein on my imagination, there's so many functions and "cool stuff" that I want to add to the site, but know that there's a line where it stops being cool and just becomes bloated.

I really do believe that this site has the opportunity to really push everyones' social networks into a new level of usefulness - and my first tests are of course my parents. If my mom can use it and find it useful, then I know that I'm at least headed in the right direction.

But this is the part I love about being in a startup - running on 3 hours of sleep, waking up before your alarm clock because you don't want to let go of the code process that you're holding on to. In the stillness between bug squashing discovering more interesting and cool uses for your work, and recognizing there is nothing but time and my limited typing speed (~100wpm) standing between me and that idea coming to life.

Stick that in your pipe and smoke it!

On my 3rd cup of coffee this morning, trying to switch to splenda.

-regards

&lex

commentary on Calacanis and Cuban

http://www.calacanis.com/2008/03/07/how-to-save-money-running-a-startup-17-really-good-tips

Buy Macintosh computers, save money on an IT department
- repurpose your old computers and run linux.

Buy second monitors for everyone, they will save at least 30 minutes a day, which is 100 hours a year... which is at least $2,000 a year.... which is $6,000 over three years. A second monitor cost $300-500 depending on which one you get. That means you're getting 10-20x return on your investment... and you've got a happy team member.
- good advice, i can attest to using dual monitors adding leagues of productivity - if it's excel spreadsheets across monitors or code/trace/webpage across the board.

Buy everyone lunch four days a week and establish a no-meetings policy. Going out for food or ording in takes at least 20-60 minutes more than walking up to the buffet and eating. If you do meetings over lunch you also save that time. So, 30 minutes a day across say four days a week is two hours a week... which is 100 hours a year. You get the idea.
-yeah definitely no need to have meetings - you should be in a semi-meeting - always synched anyways

Buy cheap tables and expensive chairs. Tables are a complete rip off. We buy stainless steel restaurant tables that are $100 and $600 Areon chairs. Total cost per workstation? $700. Compare that to buying a $500-$1,500 cube/designer workstation. The chair is the only thing that matters... invest in it.
-amen - in our case it's a dining table. good chairs a must- they take emphasis off your discomfort and allow emphasis on getting stuff done.

Don't buy a phone system. No one will use it. No one at Mahalo has a desk phone except the admin folks. Everyone else is on IRC, chat, and their cell phone. Everyone has a cell phone, folks would rather get calls on it, and 99% of communication is NOT on the phone. Savings? At least $500 a year per person... 50 people over three years? $75-100k
- phone systems are so 1980.

Rent out your extra space. Many folks have extra space in their office. If you rent 5-10 desks for $500 each you can cut your burn $2,500 to $5,000 a month, or $30-60,000 a year. That's big money.
- work out of my house - so the wife might be pissed at this one.

Outsource accounting and HR---such a no brainer.
- if you're too busy working at real value creating business opportunities, you won't have time anyways.

Don't buy everyone Microsoft Office--it's too much money. Put Office on three or four common computers and use Google Docs.
- YARP thank you google.

Use Google hosted email. $50 or free per user.... how can you beat that?!?! Why screw with an exchange server!?!?
- Free is yum!

Buy your hardest working folks computers for home. If you have folks who are willing to work an extra hour a day a week you should get them a computer for home. Once you get to three hours of work a week from home you're at 150 hours a year and that's a no brainer. Invest in equipment *if* the person is a workaholic.
- laptop = computer from work and from home, with codebase on it is another way to subtly say "you have your code in front of you, and you can't sleep at 5am. shouldn't you be working?" But handing out free laptops to people is just a dumb idea too- they should be a badge of honor for those who have productivity patterns you want to encourage others to aspire to.

Fire people who are not workaholics. don't love their work... 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 stabucks if you're not into it you want balance in your life. For realz.
-this note got a lot of flak on techcrunch, but it's definitely true. Jesus didn't spend half of his last 3 years twiddling His thumbs - He was out pounding the pavement till the day they hung Him up. This is your life's passion, if it's not then why are you doing it? If you're not waking up to do this every day of your life then why are you doing it? If you just want to be in it for the money, go work for Microsoft (gasp) or GE or something.

Get an expensive, automatic espresso machine at the office. Going to starbucks twice a day cost $4 each time, but more importantly it costs 20 minutes. Buy a $3-5,000 Jura industrial, get the good beans, and supply the coffee room with soy, low fat, etc. 50 people making one trip a day is 20 hours of wasted time for the company, and $150 in coffee costs for the employees. Makes no sense.
- yeah that is a bit out of our price range, but this makes sense. Me- I just work at mcdonalds - free refills, GoogleWifi.

Stock the fridge with sodas---same drill as above.
- costco.

Allow folks to work off hours. Commuting sucks and is a waste of time for everyone. Let folks start at 6am or 11am and you'll cut their commute in half (at least in LA).
- allowing them to work off hours lets you work off hours too.

Go to each of your vendors every 6-9 months and ask for 10-30% off. If half of them say yes you'll save 5-15% on fixed costs. People will give you a discount if they think they are going to lose the business.
- vendors? what vendors? everything's free! well except hosting.

Don't waste money on recruiters. Get inside of linkedin and Facebook and start looking for people--it works better anyway.
- if you have to ask someone to join your company and pay them to join, they're probably in the wrong spot to begin with.

Really think about if you need that $15,000 a month PR firm. Perhaps you can get a PR consultant to work on 2-3 projects a year for $10-15k each and save 75%. More PR firms are wasted half the year while you build up your product anyway.{I'm going to add a couple more of mine as I remember them }
- not at this stage, but will remember this advice.

Outsource to middle America: There are tons of brilliant people living between San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York who don't live in a $4,000 one bedroom apartment and pay $8 to dry clean a shirt--hire them!
- dont' know anyone there, but will keep an eye open.

-------------------------------------------
http://www.blogmaverick.com/2008/03/09/my-rules-for-startups/

1. Don't start a company unless its an obsession and something you love.
- this goes back to the Jesus point. If you're not all in, willing to lay your life down for it, then you shouldn't be doing it, and you owe yourself, your family, and friends and relationships you'll be sacrificing for this venture to make darn sure you're all in, bought and sold out for this idea.

2. If you have an exit strategy, its not an obsession.
- never thought about this, but it seems to make sense. KaZuum is definitely one of those things I want to work on for the rest of my life.

3. Hire people who you think will love working there.
- Ah but how to tell if they will love working here?

4. Sales Cures All. Know how your company will make money and how you will actually make sales.
- sales is the STFU for anyone who has questions about marketing plans.

5. Know your core competencies and focus on being great at them. Pay up for people in your core competencies. Get the best. Outside the core competencies, hire people that fit your culture but are cheap
- here's a hint - ours is not web design.

6. An expresso machine ? Are you kidding me ? Shoot yourself before you spend money on an expresso machine. Coffee is for closers. Sodas are free. Lunch is a chance to get out of the office and talk. There are 24 hours in a day, and if people like their jobs, they will find ways to use as much of it as possible to do their jobs.
- I disagree on this one- one cup of coffee is like 3 of soda. Coffee stains your teeth, soda eats them away. Plus saying "i'll buy you a cup of coffee" and walking over to the machine sounds so much better than "I'll buy you a soda". Lunch is a perfect time for people to get together and eat and hang out and talk about work.

7. No offices. Open offices keeps everyone in tune with what is going on and keeps the energy up. If an employee is about privacy, show them how to use the lock on the john. There is nothing private in a start up. This is also a good way to keep from hiring execs who can not operate successfully in a startup. My biggest fear was always hiring someone who wanted to build an empire. If the person demands to fly first class or to bring over their secretary, run away. If an exec wont go on salescalls, run away. They are empire builders and will pollute your company.
- yeah agreed - if you're here to build an empire, go DIAF.

8. As far as technology, go with what you know. That is always the cheapest way. If you know Apple, use it. If you know Vista... ask yourself why, then use it. Its a startup, there are just a few employees. Let people use what they know.
- actually you should hire people who are firmly rooted in their own technologies - forcing them to play together is something any deeply religious OSX / linux / windows / BeOS person would know how to do anyways. And if you're using distributed apps like googleapps or smb or ftp even then you don't have to worry.

9. Keep the organization flat. If you have managers reporting to managers in a startup, you will fail. Once you get beyond startup, if you have managers reporting to managers, you will create politics.
- middle management is the heel that stamps on the neck of your startup. You're either doing work or you're dead weight. There's no one that should be "making sure it gets done", only "making it done".

10. NEVER EVER EVER buy swag. A sure sign of failure for a startup is when someone sends me logo polo shirts. If your people are at shows and in public, its ok to buy for your own folks, but if you really think someone is going to wear your Yobaby.com polo you sent them in public, you are mistaken and have no idea how to spend your money
- Personally I think you should get swag depending on your business and target audience. Like graffiti is cool- skateboarder stickers, pens, and of course, an orange elephant with a Kz logo.

11. NEVER EVER EVER hire a PR firm. A PR firm will call or email people in the publications, shows and websites you already watch, listen to and read. Those people publish their emails. Whenever you consume any information related to your field, get the email of the person publishing it and send them an email introducing yourself and the company. Their job is to find new stuff. They will welcome hearing from the founder instead of some PR flack. Once you establish communications with that person, make yourself available to answer their questions about the industry and be a source for them. If you are smart, they will use you.
- yes yes heard you guys the first time

12. Make the job fun for employees. Keep a pulse on the stress levels and accomplishments of your people and reward them. My first company, MicroSolutions, when we had a record sales month, or someone did something special, I would walk around handing out 100 dollar bills to salespeople. At Broadcast.com and MicroSolutions, we had a company shot. Kamikaze. We would take people to a bar every now and then and buy one or 10 for everyone. At MicroSolutions, more often than not we had vendors cover the tab. Vendors always love a good party :0
- this is a really hard task but really important - if you don't validate peoples' hard work, reward them in obvious and visible ways, it can really crimp your morale. When people are always charging up the hill, you have to let them take in the view.

thanks guys for the inspiring advice. now back to work, you scalawags!

getting awfully crowded in my sky

seems like there's a lot of interest in the local services/listings/advertisements categories.  
In many ways this is great validation, and for the end user, this will definitely make services better for everyone.
Of course, for us, it makes acquisition harder, but also kinda muddies the waters a bit.  The emphasis on pizzaz and marketing does detract from a site's purpose, but humans are built that way.  Hopefully building a strong set of core users, being honest, pure in intent and maintaining strong "guanxi" with them will cause more likeminded people to join.

But we'll see if that occurs, I'll be giving myself an expiring hourglass on this after the next rev comes out.

The lines are drawn, just waiting for dawn to come to shine light on what we've made.  

Exciting isn't it?

lesson learned from retooling

"Don't retool, build it right the first time."

In theory, this is the best line of advice you can take, in practice, especially with startups that continually must rev their ideas, it's a light at end of tunnel never reached.

There's a fine line of balance between "overengineering" and rapid design with a startup, in most of my mind I tend to err on the side of "get it done yesterday, make it work and neatly."  But on occasion, I will try to force us to "over engineer" a feature, especially if I know that it can be used for more than one thing in the future, and especially if it's going to be something we will have to tune.  This is when we put the game on pause, come together over chinese food lunch and argue the afternoon away on one core module - a linchpin that holds many core tasks and logic steps together.  (Typically forcing marketing out of the room to boot)

Overengineering, however, takes time.  It takes thought and prescience that is typically unknown in startups, and pisses off engineers because they're asked to create code that at the time seems unnecessary, preventing them from more well defined projects.

One could argue that well designed code requires no over-engineering, as it's simple to retool, because the core modules are easily switched out like boards on a shelf.  But they who argue that fail to take into account the one thing that measures startups - time.  A larger establishment can throw engineers or teams at problems, then spawn off other processes.  Typical startup - one engineer, 5 modules, all due yesterday, but hopefully flexible enough to extend to tomorrow.

So I guess an intelligent thought process is:
1) is this module core to the operation of the system - does the whole idea fall apart without this module in place?
2)  How certain is this module from a user standpoint?  Are all the user requirements and specs set in stone, or is it basically a stab into the unknown?

If both these are yes, then spend the time engineering it with hooks and imperfections to give it that edge of fluidity.

retooling the site

hey everyone

haven't posted in a while, but been quite busy, which I'm hoping you'll be able to understand soon.  The long and short of it is, I've been retooling what the site does around a different paradigm which I think will be more useful than everyone's typical Classifieds type of site, and a direction I think the future of social networking is moving.  

We'll let you know soon!

-a

secrets of successful entrepreneurs

http://www.rd.com/content/secrets-of-successful-entrepreneurs/

This article covers most of the things that we would all think to do as business owners.  But as in all things - tis not the idea that comes hard, but the execution.

I think everyone wants to be a success in life, no one sits around all day to figure out how to reduce progress in their life.  It's just the matter of doing, not just reading or thinking about things that keeps me locked up.  

Social Networks, Web 2.0 and Small Business

The words are honking around like geese during the fall - every day you hear Web 2.0 buzzwords like Network Graph, Mashup, or Social Advertising.  But in the end most of these buzzwords fall to the wayside when it comes to actual business, they aren't helping people live lives of richer experience or greater opportunity.
That's because most social networks today revolve around 3 steps:

1)  Get big, fast
Get as many users as you can as fast as you can.  With valuations like Facebook's, each user becomes enormously (over?)valued in terms of the ad revenue they project to bring in and potential sales they could have through the network.  Sign people up, spam their friends, find ways to force them to bring their friends to the table so you can reach particular numbers that your financial backing satisfactory.

2)  Lock in, lock out
Once you've got users in, lock them in - force them to manually delete every post they've ever made, make sure your system doesn't play well with others, much like your cel phone provider or your semi-best-friend's-new-year's parties - make it horrendously difficult for you to break away from them, or at least give them some sort of guilt trip for leaving.  As for those who want to use your info, lock them out - only let people in that you know will bring you money.

3)  Advertise, advertise, advertise!
Once you've got tons of people, sell the adspace to large companies - Coca Cola, Sprint, GM.  Advertise to the companies that your model allows for specific targetting, allowing them to make the most effective granular marketing pitches.  Advertise to non-users that they're hot or not, especially not if they're not posting pictures of them at the last office party on your site.  Then advertise your IPO.

But all this leaves out the other guys - companies who don't have devoted marketing teams or no need to know exactly when some GenYer's friends recently bought tickets on Fandango and are looking for the opportunity to upsell.  Businesses that deal with the original "social network", the one that shares information over dinners, on the phone, in church, through handshakes, smiles, high fives, and a job well done.  They're left out in this grand scheme - "Get Big Fast" doesn't work in the world of quality relationships.

But that's what we're building here - a place where people can meet people, make friends, and help one another out.  We're a tool to better the lives of our users and those around them.  We want everyone to know directly or indirectly who they're dealing with.  We want to help people fulfill their needs, as well as find fulfilling for themselves.  And if people happen to have fun in the process, then so be it.

I'm a firm believer in Adam Smith's Invisible Hand, the idea that we're indirectly guided to better society by an "invisible hand" which causes us to pursue our own best interests in a free market.  I also believe that it's truly a gift that anyone can enjoy the fruits of their labors.  I believe in the power of friends helping friends, and I do think that together we can make our own spaces better places.

-alex