Midnight Oil

There’s been a lot of buzz surrounding Google Wave recently, and I’m proud to admit that I still have really no idea what it is. I’ve decided to ignore it and let the rest of the community digest it and tell me whether it’s the real deal or just a flash in the pan. Why? Because I’m trying to be an entrepreneur, and Wave is not going to make me any money.

I’ll admit, it’s tough not to get caught up in the excitement. Here’s a snippet from an email I received recently regarding a meetup to discuss Wave (original emphasis left intact).

I’m going to make this short and sweet. We have a meeting this Thursday July 16th. The next paragraph explains why, if you are a true web enterpreneur, you shouldn’t miss the event.

If you didn’t cash out during the DotCom boom and haven’t found success with the Web 2.0 surge including the Facebook and iPhone app bonanzas yet are still looking for opportunity then you need to seriously think about Google Wave. To learn how Google Wave could be the “3rd wave” of Internet Innovation behind “DotCom” and “Web 2.0″ come to our AWE meeting this Thursday July 16 as we’ll present Google Wave and have an open discussion on the opportunities that it presents.

Wow. When I read that, my first thought was: “I had better be there. I don’t want to miss the boat yet again.” I never made a Facebook app (except for work), and I likewise didn’t make a million in the App Store. I’m still working on making some Web 2.0 money, but it sure hasn’t resembled anything like a hockey stick. So, getting a foot in the door early on “the next big thing” holds somewhat of an allure for me, as I’m sure it does for any hacker.

However, I’m trying hard to keep myself head-down on DoLeaf and Obsidian Portal and ignore all non-core technologies. I don’t need a new toy, I need new customers. Plain and simple. Jon Crawford of Storenvy says it best: Stop learning new stuff! (13:40 minutes in) I think that’s the difference between a hacker and an entrepreneur. At some point, the entrepreneur has to do the 90% of the app that’s not cool and not fun. Hackers can put down their current project and pick up a new toy whenever they feel like it. It’s a good life, but I doubt it leads to financial success.

So, if you’re a hacker, please play with Wave, make something cool with it, then push it in my face so I can’t ignore it. Meanwhile, if you’re an entrepreneur who already has a project, I suggest you do what I’m doing: Get back to work.

I noticed the other day that some of the organizers in The Scene (ie. Atlanta startup culture) are hosting a meetup to talk about the next steps needed by the startup community. In big bold letters are instructions detailing that possible attendees should evaluate themselves according to these criteria:

Who SHOULD Attend

If one of the following phrases describes you then you SHOULD attend this event:

• Entrepreneurs who “Swing for the Fences”
• Angel Investors, Venture Capitalists and Institutional Investors
• Service Providers that service the Startup Community
• Other Supporters of the Startup Community Ecosystem

Who Should NOT Attend

If one of more of these labels describes you more than one of the previous labels then you SHOULD NOT attend this event:

• Lifestyle Entrepreneurs (emphasis mine)
• Small Businesses using the Web for marketing
• People who prefer the security of employment
• Developers, Designers, Freelancers
• Internet and Network Marketers
• Interactive Agencies

No Lifestyle Entrepreneurs?

As a recovering wannabe “Swing For the Fencer”, I’m dismayed at the specific exclusion of lifestyle entrepreneurs. When did running a successful-but-not-Google-size business become a failure? Wouldn’t The Scene be much better off with dozens or hundreds of successful small businesses as opposed to a handful of mega hits and hundreds of failures? Let’s keep this list growing at a healthy clip, while keeping this one as small as possible. I know people love to throw around fail-fast as a mantra, but I prefer to win-slow. Successful small business that pays the bills? Put me down for one, please.

In my own experience, I was only able to truly get a shot at success when I stopped swinging for the fences. When I stopped dreaming about VC money, IPOs, and a Google buyout, I set about to actually building a revenue model for my projects. In addition, I stopped pursuing ventures that had no underlying business model besides the get-big-get-bought prayer. All of a sudden, I started making money. It’s not a lot, but it’s growing. I bunted my way to first base, and now I’m trying to figure out how to steal second.

Any bootstrapping entrepreneur needs the ability to barter. There are a lot of things you can do, but many many more that you can’t. So, you partner up with other like-minded people and barter your skills and time.

For Obsidian Portal and DoLeaf, we’ve been getting lots of free graphic design work from our friend Drew at Fifth Street Creative. He’s really great and does awesome work. The only downside is that I feel it’s too much of a one-sided relationship. We get so much, and I’m not sure what we provide in return. I’m afraid we’re draining the well dry and eventually he’ll say no, or even worse, won’t be a friend anymore.

They’re fast, I’m slow

Given an hour or two, a graphic designer can make some great stuff. A handful of new icons, a couple ad banners, even a brand new logo. The end result is easy to transfer, and it’s immediately useful. I don’t want to underestimate the amount of effort that goes into graphic design, but it just seems to me that most designers can create some great stuff really fast.

What about a programmer? What can I do in an hour or two that’s useful to a designer? I really can’t do any meaningful programming. A “whole site” is completely out of the question, and a new feature is often pretty tough to implement as well. I might be able to help fix a bug, but even just getting the development environment set up can take anywhere from ten minutes to a couple hours. It’s just not practical to do any real programming in such a small time frame.

The Goal

My goal is to figure out a symbiotic relationship where everyone benefits, everyone stays happy, and it’s sustainable. The ultimate setup would be where both parties always feel like they’re getting a little more than they’ve earned. I want it to be where both parties are saying, “What I do is so simple and easy. It can’t be worth the awesome help the other person is giving me.” From that perspective, here’s a few things I think I could offer:

Javascript

I think a lot of designers deal with Javascript, and I can imagine it’s a frustrating time for someone with very little programming experience. I’m definitely no expert, but I can usually get the job done.

CSS Help

Again, no expert here, and I’d imagine that many designers are already better than I am. However, if I’m working with someone whose experience ends with Photoshop, I could probably help quite a bit with turning a PSD into styled XHTML.

General Troubleshooting

You can’t become a decent web developer without learning a little about sysadmin tasks. Managing databases, creating users, and creating cron jobs are all skills that every decent programmer can handle. I know a lot of people are terrified of a shell prompt, so I can imagine this kind of help would be very useful.

From the comments

As usual, our readers have a lot of great ideas. I’ll try to compile my favorites here.

User Interface/Experience Advisor

You can help your designer friends by being another set of eyeballs and allowing them to bounce ideas off you. In addition, with your knowledge of server-side programming, you can advise on what is and isn’t possible/practical in terms of interaction or AJAX.

Submitted by Stephen and Ali.

Backups

Keith G had this idea, and it’s quite novel. I doubt people will ask you to help them with a backup strategy, but you could definitely suggest it. Just ask your friend, “What’s your data backup strategy?” A blank stare means it’s time for you to explain the importance of database and asset backups. A little work with mysqldump and S3, and you just saved them a world of hurt.

CMS Setup and Education

I always assumed that graphic designers all had their favored CMS’s. However, according to Jordan Lev, this is not the case. Spend a couple hours showing your designer how to install WordPress or Drupal, and you open up all kinds of doors for them.

Others?

Is there anything I’m missing? I’d especially appreciate commentary from graphic designers who are in need of technical help. What do you need? What could a programmer do to help you?

Like many others, DoLeaf applied to TechStars this year with the hope that we would be inducted into the inner circle of blessed seed stage startups. Alas, it was not to be. As David Cohen puts it, we’re not rejects, we’re just non-selected. From our perspective, it’s a bit of semantic gymnastics, but oh well.

In any case, while applying, we read Foodzie’s Act Like an Underdog post and found it very helpful from a perspective of what they did to get into TechStars. In the interest of providing a control group, here’s what we did to NOT get into Techstars.

Note: While this is geared at TechStars in particular, we’ve also been rejected by Y-Combinator, so we’ve got experience with rejection and can therefore make a few generalizations.

Note 2: There may be a little sarcasm sprinkled here and there, but by and large, this post is intended to seriously be a guide that others can use when determining how to approach applying to a seed stage program. This is our way of giving back what we can to the startup community. I’m following in the footsteps of someone I admire greatly, Failed Startup Guy (my name for him, given with the utmost respect). He gave it a shot, failed, and then was honest and brutal about what went wrong. That takes real guts.

The idea and the team

Essentially, DoLeaf is a marketplace for people to find and buy plants from independent garden centers and nurseries. There are a lot of smaller growers out there that want to sell over the web, but don’t want to deal with managing their own website. So, DoLeaf allows them to easily set up branded storefronts and begin selling immediately.

Yes, we’re similar to Etsy. Yes, we’ve heard of Foodzie. In fact, the people from Foodzie have been incredibly helpful.

The DoLeaf team is composed of Ryan, Me (Micah), and my wife Sarah. In case you’ve missed our previous postings, Ryan and I have successfully collaborated on our first startup, Obsidian Portal, for about 3 years now. Obsidian Portal is profitable, growing, and a lot of fun. We’re actually quite popular in our niche. Sarah is an avid gardener and able to speak the lingo and engage with the sellers to bring them in. She has been managing DoLeaf’s Twitter account, blog, and our outreach efforts, with a lot of success.

Our team has a proven track record of success. We’ve got the technical skill, the domain knowledge, and the grit to work nights and weekends while holding down day jobs. Our idea has a simple and obvious business model and will generate revenue from day one. In short, I think our team and idea are a perfect fit for a seed-stage entrepreneur program.

Pre-Techstars for a Day

Before TS4AD, we applied early (about a month before the deadline) and then exchanged a handful of emails to David. At this point, DoLeaf was a beta site with user accounts, stores, and the absolute basics. Still, it was a working site and not just an idea on the back of a napkin.

We also exchanged some emails with Emily of Foodzie. She was very helpful (and continues to be), and we asked her to send a letter of introduction on our behalf to David. We wanted to do everything possible to get the inside track.

Finally, we researched several of the TechStars mentors and picked one or two that we thought would be a good fit for us. We followed them on Twitter, started reading their blogs, and determined to meet them at TS4AD, if we got invited.

The culmination of this was an invitation to TechStars for a Day (TS4AD).

Techstars for a Day

We decided that we would all go to TS4AD, in order to show how committed we were. Plus, we have a great team and we wanted to get that across in person.

At TS4AD, we brought great business cards. To spice them up, Sarah made packets of Money Plant seeds and attached them to the cards. It was quite clever, if I do say so myself.

We talked to David twice, Brad once, and a handful of others, making a hard sell for DoLeaf. We handed out a dozen cards and mingled somewhat with the other teams. We tried very hard to make sure that David and Brad had heard our name several times. Repetition is simple, but surprisingly effective.

In the evening, we went to the Boulder New Tech Meetup, but left early to meet with our graphics designer in Fort Collins, CO. If you’re trying to get noticed for TechStars, there’s not much opportunity at the Boulder New Tech Meetup, although it was cool to see how much support there is for the Boulder startup community. Similar events in Atlanta wouldn’t be near the same size.

March – Deadline

Following TS4AD, we decided to give 110% to our TechStars application. That took the form of constant updates and emails to David and Brad. We averaged about one every two days, with follow ups to every email they sent.

We also moved DoLeaf into a closed beta where we invited some potential sellers to sign up, create a test store, and give us feedback. We got about three sellers to sign up, and their feedback continues to be invaluable. We made sure to notify David every time we got some feedback from a tester. We wanted to show that we were making progress on the promotional front, and not just on the technical aspects.

As instructed, we sent beta invite codes to Brad and David. They both signed up and played with the site at least once, and sent along some feedback. David went through the entire workflow to verify that our payment processing actually existed. For feedback, David said the images were loading slowly, so I went ahead and moved us to a CDN (Amazon CloudFront) to speed up load times. In addition, I made an addition to attachment_fu and got the patch accepted. We made sure to notify David, in order to show that we were supporters of open source (which we are!)

Finally, we discussed incorporation options with David. We asked about the differences between LLC, S, and C corporations. Plus, we mentioned our decision to implement a vesting schedule for all the founders, which David wholeheartedly supported.

By the end of the application period, we had gone from a basic site with some browsing to a closed beta with three test sellers, payment processing, a CDN, much better browsing, and a much better design. So, in my opinion, we made a crap-ton of progress over the course of the application period. Unfortunately, much of this was backend plumbing and didn’t involve a lot of zazz on the front end. I think that may have given a false impression that we were cooling our heels, when in fact we were busting our asses.

The decision

As I said before, the outcome of all of this was a “non-selection” for TechStars. On March 30, we received a letter from TechStars breaking the bad news to us. It was a major disappointment. We’re definitely continuing with the idea and are still very excited, but rejection is hard, plain and simple.

The point?

My whole point in writing this post was to give a comparison for a TechStars non-selection. There are plenty of selected companies to compare yourself to (although little information about their applications or status prior to acceptance), but precious little info on the companies that applied but got turned down.

So, when deciding whether or not to apply, and what to do (or not do), please use our experience as a guideline. The TechStars application process is extremely competitive, and it’s best to realize that up front. Don’t kid yourself that just because your friends tell you your idea is awesome, it is automatically better than 500 other awesome ideas. You’re running with the Big Dogs, and chances are you’ll get left behind. It’s just statistics. Plain, simple, brutal statistics.

Next: The Analysis

I’ve tried to be careful to keep this post as objective as possible. It is meant to be a catalog of what we did. In the follow up, I dive into the critical analysis of whether or not it was a good idea for us. I do my best to adhere to my New Year’s Resolution, but I’m still a little disappointed from being rejected, so you’ll have to be the judge. So, go read part 2!

I had lunch with a friend the other day, and he pitched me an idea he had for an iPhone/Android/whatever app. When he was done, he asked, “What do you think?” Without thinking, I answered with, “Hmm, sounds neat. Cool idea.” He told me that’s what everyone said. It was then that I realized he had asked the wrong question. Instead of asking, “What do you think?”, phrase it like this:

Friendly Optimism

If you’re asking friends (or even just generally polite people) about your idea, they won’t want to hurt your feelings. They can tell you’ve got a lot of enthusiasm and excitement tied up in your idea, and it would be a real jerk move to throw cold water on that. So, they answer, “Cool idea!” or perhaps “That’s neat. You know what else you could do?” Very few will give you real, jarring, critical feedback. Instead, they’ll try to be good friends and cheer you on. Unfortunately, you need a reality check, not a cheering section.

Ask to be bruised

If you make it clear that your goal is to get real, unbiased feedback, you pave the way for someone to be honest without seeming rude. In addition, if you explicitly ask them for negative feedback, they will be pressed to come up with specific criticisms, instead of vague encouragements.

Once the truth starts flowing, take some notes and ask for more. Resist the urge to get defensive and just let your reviewer express their opinions. Once they realize that you’re truly appreciative for the beating they’re giving, they’ll really start to build up steam. Thirty minutes of this can generate some truly exceptional insights. You may think you know what sucks about your idea, but others may be able to poke holes in it you never imagined.

React and Adapt

No idea is perfect, and your job as an entrepreneur is to overcome and adapt to the imperfections in your idea. If you can’t recognize and counter your own weaknesses, then your success will be severely limited. It’s nice to get a pat on the back every now and then, but it’s absolutely necessary to get raw, unfiltered criticism. Very few will give this freely, so it’s up to you to drag it out of them.

I attended ASW2 this Friday, and while I enjoyed it much more than last time, I still decided not to return on Saturday and Sunday. Consider it a mixture of laziness and desire to work on other stuff.

Update: Just to be 100% clear: I think ASW2 was a good time, I just had a lot on my plate. The main reason I quit is because weekends are the only times I can work on my own startup stuff, and it’s a big investment for me to spend that time on other pursuits. I’m glad I went on Friday, and if I had more free time I might have stuck it out. But, all things equal, the TODO stack for Obsidian Portal doesn’t shrink on its own.

Using Amazon Mechanical Turk, do human reviews of dating website profiles to help people look their best.

Charge a flat fee of $10 for a review. This gets farmed out to two MTurk workers for a rate of $3 each, leaving a profit of $4 for the service. The MTurk workers review the person’s profile and give specific, personal criticism of their photo and bio.

Each review is 100% satisfaction guaranteed. If the customer is dissatisfied, they get their money back…and the MTurk worker doesn’t get paid! Over time, MTurk workers get better, to the point that they can churn through the reviews and make $30-$40/hr, all the while earning money for us!

Essentially, it’s an excuse to play with MTurk. I think MTurk is a fascinating idea, and there are some really cool things that could be done with it, assuming the workforce is steady and high enough quality can be ensured.

Get Me A Date made it to the top 5 (out of about 30 ideas), but when the time came to pledge support for a project, only my new friend John stood up. So, we disbanded and moved to Giving Time.

I spent a little time with the GivingTi.me team, but eventually decided to quit. I liked the idea and the opportunity to work with some new people, but there was one person on the team who really rubbed me the wrong way. Chris wanted to run all the conversations, and seemed to think very highly of himself due to being a CTO of a local startup and having an MS in Software Engineering from Tech. Well, I’m also the CTO of a startup (I give myself titles for AisleTen whenever it’s convenient) and have an MS in Artificial Intelligence from Tech, but I don’t think that’s really all that relevant at Startup Weekend. Skills and personality are important, not titles.

When I was asked if I would be there Saturday morning, and I said no, Chris asked, “Is it because of me?” Rather than play it down and be nice, I was blunt and said yes. If I’m going to spend a weekend hacking away on a never-make-money project, it had better be with people I like and respect. Why spend your free time getting bossed around and talked down to? At the time, I declined to elaborate, since there were about a dozen people in the room, but I am proud of myself for being straightforward and honest.

Ultimately, I didn’t find any of the ideas all that compelling. Plus, I’ve been tweaking some stuff on ObsidianPortal, so that’s where my heart is at the moment. It’s hard to concentrate on something when you wish you were somewhere else.

Anyways, I wish everyone the best, and I hope some good stuff comes from the weekend. I know I’ll be working on Obsidian Portal most of the time, so it’s still a startup weekend for me.