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 February 1st, 2010 |  | Being a software guy myself, I often find that I dig a little deeper into the successes and failures of the software-oriented startups that I work with than I do with the non-software oriented ones. When I do, I suppose that I shouldn’t be surprised, although I routinely am, at how often I come across some very consistent and basic technical errors that are made by these companies. Chief among these is the lack of thorough thinking about the architecture of the end product prior to the start of coding. It’s, of course, natural to start hammering out code as fast as possible in order to get a product to market but, inevitably, the Piper needs to get paid and fundamental problems with the architecture will eventually require a wide-spread rewrite of the system or, even worse, will be a serious resource drain and time sink to in every future release.
You’ve probably read dozens of books that have discussed the importance and value of planning and how time spent in architecting a system is a drop in the bucket compared to the time it saves on the back end. I neither have the skills nor the eloquence to drive that point home any better. What I’d like to do, though, is to present a high-level view of how you might think about the architecture of your product so that it provides a framework for you to make rapid changes to the application and makes it easy for others (partners, customers, etc.) to extend the product in ways you may not have considered.
There is nothing revolutionary here. Let’s just call it a reminder that you will end up rewriting your application or, at least, its framework, in the future if you don’t adopt something like this early on. You may not see it yet, but like I’ve already said, that rewrite is going to be very expensive and painful and will ultimately cost you customers, competitive advantage and money.
The idea here is that there are are two programming interfaces. One separating you’re application from your core libraries or base layer of functions and another separating your application, as well as the lower-level programming interface from the outside world. The lower level, base programming interface, allows you to build an application virtually independent of the core functionality of the end product. Architected this way, you can build and test the application and the base code separately and make incremental changes to each part far easier. In fact, one can be changed without affecting the other as long as the base programming interface remains the same (it needs to be well thought out to start with, of course).
The higher-level programming interface gives you the power to add functionality to your product quickly, using the code in the base programming interface as well as code in the application layer. Using the application programming interface, you can prototype new functions rapidly and get quick fixes for bugs to users faster. Perhaps even more importantly, it enables easy access to most of the guts of your system to partners and customers so that they can extend it as they see fit. This access can be provided without having to publish hooks to the internals of your core system and exposing a boatload of potential problems that foreign calls to those components can create. If you’d like, though, you can also expose some of that base functionality to the high-level API as is shown in the “optional” architecture slice in the image above.
Simple, yes. It requires more work up front – both in planning and in coding – but with such an architecture, you’ll be able to roll out new functionality quickly and to fix mistakes as fast as you find them (well, almost). Ultimately, you’ll get the functionality your customers want into their hands faster than if you hadn’t adopted such a system. You’ll also be able to continue to roll out enhanced and improved functionality without getting bogged down with thinking about an architecture rewrite or with a huge backlog of nasty bug fixes.
The anxiety about getting your product to market will lead you to think that hacking together a system and refining it later is the way to go. Virtually always, this is a mistake. Speed is of the essence, but only the speed which you can deliver sustainable, quality product that continuously stays ahead of the competition. Look before you leap, it’ll make life so much easier.
January 24th, 2010 | |  A few days after my wife and I recently celebrated our 21st anniversary we spent about a week in the Dominican Republic with our kids and some friends. One night, I found myself mesmerized by this fountain (blurry picture above). As I sat with a drink in hand staring at it, I was spellbound with . . . how it worked.
With the streams so consistent in volume, arc and distance, I pondered if there are separate pumps for each stream. Or, perhaps, there is a single pump for the entire fountain with the diameter of the piping varying to control the water pressure at each nozzle. Or, maybe even, there is some air-pressure system that regulates each stream to guarantee all are consistent.
As I was deep in thought considering this critical-to-the-state-of-the-planet problem, my wonderful wife joined me and said, “this fountain is beautiful, isn’t it?” I responded with an answer directly out of the well–trained husband handbook, “yes it is, that’s what I was just thinking.” In a sense, this was completely true. I just saw the beauty of the fountain in a different way.
I spent the rest of the evening thinking about how lucky I am. I love the fact that my wife and I have different, but very compatible perspectives on things. She, of course, rolled her eyes when I explained how I was thinking about it, but she was more than happy to have us both enjoying the view of the fountain each in our own way. Me too. Turns out our entire relationship works that way. Different views of life that the other appreciates and respects. A key to marital bliss? Who knows, but it works for us.
January 9th, 2010 | | I spent the commencement of the new decade with my family and friends on the beaches of the Dominican Republic. We had a terrific time. Not only because it was 85 degrees instead of 25, as it was back home, but because of the surprising variety of interesting people who stayed at the place we stayed. Roughly, 50% of the guests were Russian, 30% were Latin American and the rest were a mixture of Europeans, Canadians and Americans. While not profound, there were clear cultural differences to observe and it was fun and interesting (impressive, actually) watching the Russians communicating with the Spanish-speaking natives in English. Once again reminding me how Americans are among the least internationally oriented people on the planet – a rant for another post.
At no time were the cultural differences and similarities more visible than at the New Year’s eve celebration on the beach. When we got to the beach, people were standing around, talking in small groups and drinking, of course. A local band was playing but, otherwise, it was all pretty mellow and independent. That was, until the Village People’s YMCA was played by a DJ. The beach came alive – people danced with strangers, old Cold War enemies were high-fiving and people who otherwise had no clue how to ask each other the time of day were playing air guitar in their spontaneously formed bands. Everyone, regardless of where they came from or what their native tongue was knew every word of every verse and, of course, could all spell YMCA with their arms over their heads.
It was great to see and a total blast. The fun and communication continued when the DJ moved on to Michael Jackson’s Dirty Diana but faltered immediately when they shifted back to some very upbeat, but unknown local tunes. It wasn’t the music, after all, that brought the disparate group together, it was shared experience. Songs from the Village People and Michael Jackson broke through international barriers long ago and became part of the culture of billions of people worldwide. Meaningful songs, no, meaningful channels, absolutely – a true international language. Besides, like most things, the more fun they are, the faster they’re adopted. Watching the reach and the commonality of those songs was totally fun. Hearing “It’s fun to stay at the Y-M-C-A” with a heavy Russian accent made the whole trip for me.
January 4th, 2010 | | I’m fortunate that I get to work with many startups, both independently and with TechStars where I’m a mentor. There is no better way to learn than through teaching (learning is the most fun you can have, at least for a sustained period) and there are few better students than entrepreneurs. Good entrepreneurs always want to know why they should do something and not just what they should do. They test, challenge and refuse to take anything for granted; they’re highly motivated, smart and understand success is not about them as an individual, but about the team they can build; and they strive not only to make their first venture a success but also to become strong, solid leaders and managers that can build many great companies.
So, with all these qualities, it shocks me how often entrepreneurs choose a mentor because they’re the loudest guy in the room. You know that person, the one who likes to talk incessantly about all of his or her accomplishments and is quick to give advice on any and all subjects. The person who speaks before listening and has never had any failures. Yeah, that guy. Somehow, in the sponge-like desire that good entrepreneurs have to vacuum up every morsel of knowledge, they often attach themselves to the first person who sounds like they know anything. Unfortunately, that’s usually the one who brags the loudest.
So, here’s a simple three-step plan on how to avoid adopting Mr./Ms. Know-it-all as your savior:
- First, recognize that you’re your only savior, everyone else is there merely to supply data, offer up some wisdom and, maybe, hold your hand.
- Second, put yourself in a situation where you can get access to many mentors. You can do a load of legwork or sign up for a program like TechStars where mentorship (and a boat load of mentors to choose from) is the core of the program.
- Finally, ask questions. Don’t grill a potential mentor, after all, you’re looking for free help. Instead, have a conversation and learn about what the person has actually done – how they’ve succeeded and how they’ve failed. Make sure they have real accomplishments and real failures (you learn more from failures than successes) and can communicate what they learned in a way that works for you. If hubris is what you hear, try somewhere else.
I’m no psychiatrist, but the loud braggart in the room is probably making up for something else (get your mind out of the gutter, I was referring to some business deficiency) or has had too much to drink. Either way, they do you no good. Be selective, find an adviser with both good advice based on things they’ve actually done plus the ability to communicate they way that works best for you. You’ll be much happier and likely, more successful yourself.
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December 21st, 2009 | | Some of you (older readers of this blog) might remember the old Saturday Night Live skit that aired in 1976 with Dan Akroid, Gilda Radner and Chevy Chase in which they argue whether a canned substance by the name of New Shimmer is a floor wax or dessert topping. As you’d expect from an SNL commercial parody, it’s both.
After using Adobe Lightroom for about a year now, I remain similarly confused about what, exactly, it is. Is it a photo editor or is it an asset management tool? Well, it’s both; and neither. Whatever it is, once you know how to use it, it’s a great tool for doing . . . stuff with your pictures. Let me explain.
In a photo processing workflow, there is generally a tool for managing photos and how they are stored. That is, where they are located (locally or remotely) and how they are organized in directory structures and with their metadata. And, there is a tool for processing or editing photos – actually adjusting the way the photo looks. Sometimes, these are the same tools. Most often, however, best of breed tools win out and photographers use separate tools for each function.
Adobe develops the 800-pound gorilla in the photo editing business – Photoshop. It’s the absolute leader in the segment. It’s robust, has a million features and loads of add-ons available from third parties. It also has a huge learning curve and an arcane user interface. It’s meant to address the needs of a broad range of people, not just photographers. As such, photographers have to sift through a boatload of functions that they will likely never use and learn techniques to make changes to photographs that aren’t always aligned with how photographers think.
On the asset management side, even Adobe doesn’t try to pack in organizational functions into it’s behemoth. Adobe has another product called Bridge to fill that roll. IMO, Bridge doesn’t cut it for many reasons. It appears to be primarily designed to front-end Photoshop and as such, is stuck with some of the same non-photographic concepts that weigh down its big brother. It’s also slow. To me, speed is an absolute critical factor in asset management. Especially considering that gigabytes worth of photo data are often somewhere on the network, not stored on a local disk drive. The asset management tool needs to be ultra-fast to overcome network latency.
To address these issues, Adobe came up with Lightroom (actually, it came with Macromedia as part of Adobe’s acquisition of the company). Lightroom is for photographers – it has a photographic workflow, including asset management tools and photo editing functions. It doesn’t have all the asset management tools of some dedicated asset management products and certainly doesn’t have all the editing capabilities of Photoshop, but as you get to know it and use it more often, it seems to strike the right balance between the functions and in a way that’s mostly logical to the photographer.
In terms of photo management, Lightroom isn’t as good as my long-time favorite tool, ACDSee Pro. ACDSee is fast and it’s storage paradigm parallels that of a standard directory tree, making it a natural and easy to understand extension of how the files are physically stored. I was never in love with ACDSee’s metadata handling though and even though it has editing tools built in, I really had to export photos to Photoshop to get what I wanted done. The breadth of photo metadata is much easier to manage in Lightroom, but the way photos are managed isn’t as logical.
What’s hard to get used to about Lightroom is that Lightroom maintains all it’s data about a photo in a separate database. That is, not in the photo file itself. So, while the database and photos aren’t physically connected, they are both necessary to reconstruct any changes made to the photo. This is not only true for the photo’s metadata, but also for edits to it. If you brush over some skin to remove your kids’ zits, those changes are in the database and not in the file. If you change the IPTC data to give the photo a caption, that’s in the database and not in the photo file. This separation takes a while to get used to, especially if you use other tools in your workflow. If you grab the JPEG you just edited in Lightroom in a new tool, you’ll get the original file and not the modified one.
For sure, you can write metadata changes in the Lightroom database out to the file. You just have to remember to do that, it’s not automatic. Writing the editing changes is another thing all together. This requires “exporting” the file from Lightroom which, at it’s best, is a bit confusing. In the end, like most things Adobe, you have to choose to make Lightroom the cornerstone of your workflow and adopt the way it wants to do things.
That sounds bad, except it does so much so well. In fact, there aren’t many reasons why Lightroom can’t be the only tool used by the photographer. No only can metadata be managed as discussed above, but the editing functions are broad and deep. For those that know about Adobe’s RAW photo handling, Lightroom’s Develop module does all that Adobe RAW does and more. In my experience, I can make almost all the adjustments to photos that I want without ever leaving Lightroom. For the few things that Lightroom doesn’t do, I can easily export to Photoshop to get done. For you Photoshop geeks, Lightroom doesn’t have layers, but you can mask areas of the photo. There are also no tools for HDR, stitching panoramas and the like. For those, you have to export to the mother ship, Photoshop, which is pretty easy because . . . Adobe wants you to do it.
So, Lightroom is a dessert topping and a floor wax. It’s a photo asset management tool and editor. In my experience, it’s also the best all-around digital photo tool available. As usual (with Adobe products), the learning curve is relatively steep, although nothing like for tools like Photoshop. Once you know how to use it (there is loads of help from users on the web), you can modify your photos amazingly fast, create some really cool effects and, ultimately morph the picture in your camera into the one that was in your head to start with. Isn’t that how it’s supposed to work?
December 20th, 2009 | | I seem to be running into more and more people who have fallen in love with their idea for a new or improved product or service. That is, they appear to be so infatuated with it that they think it stands alone and deserves merit because of its strength and uniqueness. That’s nice . . . and virtually meaningless in a business sense. Truly great and unique ideas are wonderful things. Contrary to what many people think, though, they’re just not a prerequisite to starting or running a great or successful company. Most often, more money and success in the long haul have come from great implementations of ideas (sometimes groups of ideas) than from the ideas themselves.
In fact, many of the most successful products and companies have become successful because of their masterful implementation of the ideas of others. Did Toyota invent the car? Microsoft, the operating system? GE, the jet engine? Dell, the computer? Merck, gene therapy (or even erectile dysfunction drugs)? Apple, the cell phone? You get the idea (no pun intended).
Your business will, of course, be based on an idea. My point is that 1. it’s likely not the most important part of the business (unless you’ve found the cure for cancer and even then, it’s questionable as a guarantee of business success) and, 2. the idea doesn’t even have to be yours. In the end, the idea your building your business on and all of the ideas you come up along the way associated with the actual execution of that business are subordinate to the quality of the execution of those ideas.
I’ll take it one step further. I might be biased having only had about three unique ideas in my entire life, but I’ll go out on a limb and say that business success is singularly about execution. I always ran my own companies driven by this belief. I used to constantly frustrate sales people who worked for me. They would do everything they could to hide our secret sauce from the competition at trade shows and at user sites. My view was always to let ‘em see what we were doing. If we couldn’t execute our own ideas better and faster than someone else, then we wouldn’t survive in the first place. Let’s face it, they’re gonna find out what your product does and they’re probably gonna figure out how it does it. The important thing is that you can put it all together and deliver it better and faster than anyone else can.
Don’t get me wrong, good, independent ideas are part-and-parcel to great execution. It’s not that unique ideas are bad things in any way. It’s just that they’re not worthy as a standalone basis for a business. They should be building blocks, not the entire foundation.
So, if you’re wondering why venture capitalists are fascinated in hearing you out, but then pass on the deal; why customers aren’t begging you for an audience based on your Powerpoint presentation; why your friends want to know who’s going to actually build this thing; why your mentors are asking you how all the time and not what anymore; it’s probably because you’ve spent too much time making mad, passionate love to your business idea and haven’t considered that in the end, execution is all that really matters.
If my podium was a fortune cookie instead of a blog post, I might say: Luck and fortune favor those who can execute.
December 18th, 2009 | | Is service continuing to go downhill or am I just getting more picky? You’d think in a problematic economy, service – just about the easiest thing to quickly improve and adapt – would be great almost everywhere one turns. After all, it’s an easy differentiator. I just don’t see it. In fact, even considering that I’m feeling like a kinder, gentler and more understanding kinda’ guy these days (don’t laugh, compared to 10 years ago, I’m downright mellow), I’m routinely astonished with how bad service has gotten from sectors ranging from corporate professional services to the guy who plows my driveway.
There are many, of course, who after getting poor service immediately punt on the provider. I can’t fault this tactic since there often are few excuses for poor service and there are other providers to reward with one’s hard-earned cash. In the past, I was usually in this camp. More people, however, roll their eyes, keep quiet and continue to use the service provider regardless of the quality of their performance. Many of us have just come to expect bad service and assume that it’s bad everywhere. I’m afraid that there are times when I have been in this camp as well. Just too lazy to make a change or educate the provider to help improve the service for me or others.
A couple of months ago, I decided to take a new and more consistent tack. Everyone makes mistakes, so if a service provider I’m using makes one, I give him/her a break – exactly once. I simply inform them of the mistake they made and leave it up to them to do the right thing. What’s the right thing? Well, it varies, but at a minimum, it includes a sincere apology and some additional ass-kissing like having the service rendered for free or at a time/place/price that benefits me in some way. That’s it, you get one shot. If you choose not to deliver or you’re just too ignorant to, I’ll go elsewhere. I think it’s a comfortable and fair model that I can implement without hesitation in all circumstances.
This got me thinking about entrepreneurs with service components in their offerings. Is service seen as a necessary evil or is it part of the differentiating strategy? When you think of yourself as a product company alone, for example, the services you provide – yes, including basic training and support – can be treated as ugly stepchildren. Even great products can be completely derailed in the market with something as small as crappy support forum response times. Services are often the most visible part of the company. Getting them right can mean the difference between corporate success and failure. Are you delivering them well? If you screw them up, are you doing the right thing?
November 16th, 2009 | | I have a hate/love relationship with my iPhone. It does so many things right in a way that only Apple has been able to perfect. Easy to use and manage, consistent UI across all apps, and everything about it looks and feels good. And the apps . . . the term “app” has becoming synonymous with “iPhone app” already. Some six trillion available for download, or something like that (if this number is a bit high, check back in a while and it will eventually be correct). It’s a very nice package.
Of course, it’s nice if you want things exactly the way Apple says you want them. A substantial part of Apple’s magic comes from the fact that its products are closed with Apple being the wizard behind the curtain conducting their operation. The iPhone is single-sourced hardware (from Apple) running a single-sourced, single-tasking OS (also only from Apple), layered with applications that have to be approved by Apple and which can’t compete with Apple-supplied applications. The hardware has a non-interchangeable battery, non-upgradeable memory and no keyboard – because Apple doesn’t think you need any of those features. It even has a proprietary connector to recharge and communicate with it. All of this fixed to the so-bad-I’m-surprised-each-day-I-continue-to-use-it AT&T network. Oh and did I mention that the phone can only run one of the zillion apps it can carry at a time (yeah, I think I did)?
For sure, all of this obsessive control over their products helps and, in fact is required for, Apple to be exactly who they want to be. It’s very difficult to create the level of consistency and ease-of-use that is part and parcel of an Apple product without dominion over the entire platform. This product oversight has, in fact, made the iPhone the phenomenon and market leader that it is.
Having a fundamental problem with being Steve Jobs’ stooge (I’ll show him), though, I jumped all over the Droid the day it was released and have been an active user – my iPhone remains dormant on my desk – for the last 10 days. Does it blow away the iPhone . . . not yet. But it’s a pretty damned good smartphone and it has tremendous potential. Here’s the summary.
The first thing you notice when you hold the phone is its weight. It’s heavier than the iPhone. It’s also thicker, although not by a lot. In my experience, these are not noticed when in my pocket, although I thought they would be. Not that the perception of built quality is at issue with the iPhone, but the Droid feels like it’s built like a tank. Width and height are about the same as the iPhone. The Droid wows even non-technical users when they slide out the keyboard. Motorola did a great job fitting a sliding keyboard into such a small device. Nice engineering.
Pros:
- Speed – I don’t spend much time waiting for responses, even when I’ve got a load of apps running
- Multitasking – Ahhhh, I had blocked out how much I missed having it. You may not think you want it, but the next time you cut and paste between apps and the iPhone makes you completely restart the target app, losing your original state, you’ll know you want it.
- Google Voice – Banned on the iPhone, it’s become the cornerstone for my SMS and phone messaging. If I could just port another number to it, it would take over for all my phones. Except my iPhone, of course, because it’s banned.
- Integration with Gmail/Contacts/Calendar – Seamless. I put in my Google account information before I left the store and I was completely synced up by the time I had walked a couple of blocks.
- ActiveSync – Don’t use Gmail? That’s cool. The mail app covers any POP or IMAP server. It also has an easy to use ActiveSync client for Exchange Server integration built in.
- Free Turn-by-Turn Directions – What can I say? Works great and it’s free. Sorry Garmin and Tom Tom.
- Virtual On-Screen Keyboard AND Physical Keyboard – While I’m still trying to get used to the physical keyboard (it’s far from perfect), it’s there as an option (with much easier navigation within text). The virtual keyboard works like the iPhone’s (see this in cons as well), although I like the word selection options and spell check much better than the iPhone’s.
- Fixed Buttons – Instead of chewing up screen space with functions common to all apps, the phone has four fixed touch-sensitive buttons to do things you often need to do – back, home, search and options. I’m strangely finding it difficult to convert from the way the iPhone does it, but it makes loads of sense. I’m sure that once I get used to it, it’ll be second nature and more practical. The back button really takes you back, even to previous applications (which are still running, of course). Nice.
- Interchangeable Battery/Memory and Standard (Micro USB) Connector – As God intended them to be.
- Verizon – AT&T isn’t all bad. It’s just mostly bad. While I’ve had problems with their customer service, I’ve never had any disaster stories like others have had. The thing that makes me like Verizon better is that it’s simply available in more places. And, I don’t mean only 3G (“we have a map for that”), I mean voice, 2G, etc. I can get a signal of some kind in way more places with Verizon than with AT&T.
Cons:
- Weight and Thickness – See above. Minor issue IMO, but it might be a bigger deal for you.
- Physical Keyboard – Not quite enough tactile feedback to distinguish between keys and to tell if you’ve pressed a key. Some of this is just getting used to it, I’m sure, but I’m relying more on the on-screen keyboard to enter most text.
- Battery Life – This one could be big. Several nights I’ve had the phone run short of power fairly early. Some of this is because I’m tinkering with it often and some is because I have a load of background apps running trying things out. There is a nice app that tells the user how much power each piece of hardware and each application is consuming. It tells me that the display and phone app are usually the biggest culprits. I’ve turned down the brightness of the display. We’ll see how it works out.
- Rendering of HTML Email is Screwy – Several messages in the Gmail app don’t render correctly with some text extending beyond the right side of the display. This seems to only happen in portrait mode and is not a problem in landscape mode. Feels like a bug.
- No MultiTouch – I don’t use it much on the iPhone, so I don’t really miss it. You can still zoom in the browser by double-tapping a column or using the zoom buttons.
- It’s Not Very Pretty – Both hardware and apps are less pretty than their iPhone comparables. The messaging app is utilitarian and works fine, but I miss the little voice bubbles. Hardly a deal breaker.
- Must Tap on a Field Use the Keyboard – This one’s taking me a while to get used to. To enter text, even if the text entry box is highlighted on the screen and should be the default, you have to tap on the entry box to display the on-screen keyboard or to use the physical keyboard. If it’s the default, just let me go right to the keyboard without making me take another action. The iPhone does this well.
- On-Screen Keyboard Could be Better – For some reason, the Android folks decided to leave a gap between each of the characters in the virtual keyboard. This makes the keys smaller than they need to be. If they filled in the gaps by making each key larger, it would be easier to type on.
- Email Address Suggestions are in too Large a Font – Sounds like a nit, but it’s a real problem. Looks like the font that’s chosen to display email address suggestions (from your contacts) is sized to be appropriate for the display when in landscape mode. It’s too big when in portrait mode and you can’t see all the address – a real problem when the person you’re looking for has several similar addresses.
- Android’s App Market Doesn’t Hold a Candle to the iPhone App Store – For me, almost everything I care about on my phone is already available. A decent newsreader (NewsRob), a good Twitter client (Twidroid), Evernote (beta), OpenTable, Shazam, FaceBook, SportsTap, WeatherBug, etc. That said, there are many missing “apps-for-that (are you listening, Yelp?).” It seems like there are a lot of people working on porting their apps to Android, though, and I’m hopeful the decent ones will be available soon.
I’m concerned about the power consumption and I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to the physical keyboard. Since the virtual keyboard works pretty well, this second issue really amounts to not wanting to carry around the extra size and weight of a physical keyboard that I don’t use. Most of the rest of the issues are just software and I suspect that they’ll be addressed to some extent relatively soon.
Bottom line is that there is a lot to like about this phone, but it’s not a slam-dunk upgrade from an iPhone yet. I’m pretty sure I’m going to keep the phone, but I fully believe that there will be a boatload of new Android 2 based phones flowing from manufacturers in the coming months. Unlike Apple, with only a single hardware platform, there will be many manufactures creating new phones and actively competing in the space – all enabled by Android (and Google, of course). This ecosystem is going to move fast and issues will be addressed quickly as companies close holes to create differentiation.
Apple’s Berlin Wall-like, communistic approach to the product line isn’t likely to fall any time soon or ever, in fact, but for those looking for more features, flexibility and options, Android’s capitalism is here to stay. I’m looking forward to it.
September 22nd, 2009 | | When beginners attend auto racing or high performance driving school, they are taught that drivers tend to go where they’re looking and, where they look is usually only 10-15 feet in front of their vehicle. I see this all the time as I’m riding my bike. While cycling on the right side of a shoulder, a passing car will wonder into the shoulder right where I’m riding even when there’s no oncoming traffic. I know that the driver is looking at me, even thinking that he/she should avoid me. Nonetheless, because they’re looking at me, they tend to steer that way (just because you’re paranoid . . . ). High performance drivers are taught to look much further out and to strategically optimize their driving around a point further ahead and to let their natural tendency to steer where they’re looking take them to where they want to end up, instead of just reacting to what they see directly in front of them.
Things are similar with startups. It’s often easy to get caught with your head down, focused on near-term problems and opportunities while ignoring the big picture and where the new enterprise should be headed. As with focusing on what’s happening on the road directly in front of you, when you solely focus on the myriad of short-term problems you have to deal with, they will consume your thoughts, energy and time. You will be constantly drawn towards them. Soon, the startup’s strategy will become less strategic and more tactical.
Here are a few short-term issues that I see grabbing the attention of startups all the time:
- features, features and more features – yeah, you have to add features to your product, you simply can’t (and don’t want to) add every requested feature all at once. There are two problems that come to mind here, one is that if you don’t step back and ask yourself if the feature moves you toward your strategic goal before implementing it, you run the risk of wasting very precious time and, two, if you focus all your attention on features at the expense of architecture, you can build a house of cards that will fail miserably later. Each feature should be weighed in the context of the product’s goals before time is spent on it.
- reaction versus response – when a startup has only a handful of customers, it’s easy for it to get distracted by the feedback it gets from any one of them. It’s easy to react to every call, email and tweet regarding the product and to try to address the needs or wants of the few people who seem to be paying attention. It’s important that the startup keep in mind, as with features, spending time with early users is valuable inasmuch as the feedback is taken in perspective. Is the customer the target customer, for example? If not, you may spend your time reacting to feedback that doesn’t help you land the kind of customers you’re trying to get.
- the technology itself – loads of startups end up getting caught in the vortex of the underlying technology at the expense of marketing or gathering customer input. Often, because that’s what the founders really know well. The product is required, of course, but is just not sufficient. Simply put, it is highly unlikely you can engineer a perfect product that will dazzle your customers and meet their needs on its first pass. Product development is much more than technology development and needs to include data from the market and from potential customers. Only when you have a complete package of technology, target customer input and market information do you have a real shot at delivering a successful product.
There are many more factors that cause startups to eschew strategy for tactics. A founding team needs to set a course based on a point reasonably far ahead and not optimize around what is happening now. That, of course, doesn’t mean that it can ignore what is taking place near-term. A good driver uses his/her peripheral vision to observe what’s happening close to the vehicle. Similarly, a startup needs to treat short-term tactics seriously, but only within the scope of the longer-term strategy. Longer term isn’t 10 years. That’s just not reasonable or even possible. But a year or two is reasonable with even a few brain cells reserved for thinking out even further.
Keep in mind, you steer where you’re looking. Steer the company toward a point in the reasonable future while keeping an eye on what’s happening today and you’ll find that you will encounter fewer mistakes, less rework and a smoother path to success.
September 18th, 2009 | | I was completely blind-sided. I thought I was prepared, but I was so very wrong. It was just going to be another step like any of the infinite others that define parenting and the relationship between a parent and a child. A father and a son. I’m so naive. A few weeks ago and like a million other parents, we dropped our son off for his first year of college. Moving in was stressful. Loads to do and everything so new to all of us. When the cars were unloaded and the new roommates met, we all gathered for the usual orientation stuff. Parents and their sons and daughters listening to the college president talk about their choices and the next four years. Then he said it . . . “it’s time to say good bye.” What? But . . . but . . . but, the schedule says that’s not for a couple of hours. Then it all came down on me like a ton of bricks. Nineteen years of hand-holding, watching his every step, waiting up for him at night, worrying if he was happy, was he going to make the team, was he working hard enough, how was he getting along with his girlfriend . . . it all flooded in. Tears welled up and, when I hugged him, I completely lost it. I told him I loved him, would miss him and how proud I am of him. I bawled. And then he walked away.
As it turns out, he is completely ready. It’s me who isn’t. I was worried about how he would take it and how my wife would deal with it all, but it’s me who came apart at the seams. I’m already missing him desperately. I feel lonely and incredibly sad without him. Stuff around the house reminds me of him or of something we did together. I know this seems silly. After all, I saw him just a few weeks ago and I’ve certainly been away from him many times in his life, even for prolonged periods of time. But this is different. My son has been my friend, my cohort, my sharer of common interests for so many years I can’t remember it any other way. I’m just not ready for this change. A permanent change.
Of course, he’s still my son and he and I will spend loads of time together in the future. I’m even looking forward to our relationship maturing and being taken to a new level. Man-to-man, adult-to-adult, responsible individual to, well, you get the idea. But I’m already missing what we have had. The spontaneous discussions of why one football player is better than another, how a single crease in the bodywork of a car defines the entire design or what the impact of the latest technology release will be. I’ll miss our Sundays sitting in the stands at Gillette Stadium watching the Patriots and in a funny way, I’ll even miss only sleeping lightly until I hear his car pull up the driveway late on Saturday nights (well, early Sunday mornings, anyway). And who am I going to watch Bond movies with?
Some of my angst surely comes from the fact that I want to make the diving catch to rescue him when he’s in a stressful or difficult situation. I know that I’ve been an overly protective parent at times, but it was really obvious as I left him at school. How is my 19 year old son going to do it all himself? Stupid question of course. He really hasn’t needed to be bailed out in ages.
I jokingly told my daughter (the younger of my two children) that I’m not going to let her go to college. I don’t think I can take this level of emotional upheaval twice in my life. But that’s still two years away. I’m going to go and start preparing myself now.
Taylor, if you’re reading this, which I’m sure you’re not, I love you. You are a terrific person and you will do great in college. Always know that your mom and I are here for you. But, while we’re not around, be safe and make smart decisions. Have fun and work hard. That’s the sum of everything I’ve ever wanted to teach you.
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