I found this picture on http://objectsworld.blogspot.com/ and absolutely love it. People like to discuss the perils of being too young or too old or too female, etc., but obviously some entrpereneurs just make it happen.
By the way, they had two women on this very early team? I'm impressed. The women look like they mean business for sure.
I found a curious video of Michael Arrington of Techcrunch and several startup CEOs discussing what Web 3.0 may be.
I really had no idea what I was getting into. As it turns out, I am doing Recruiting 2.0. Yes! I think that's right. And boy is there more to come, now that I'm thinking about it.
I'll keep you posted on this, but here's what I see so far. There's a post on the Wired Blog which I'm really excited about:
http://blog.wired.com/business/2007/05/recruiting_20_f.html
On Mr. Biggs' One Powerful World:
http://onepowerfulword.blogspot.com/2007/05/entrepreneurs-quest.html
Check out this great recent video on Scientology produced by BBC: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-126281853779690652
Some of us smart people laugh about Scientology. However, let's acknowledge that it has been a very successful organization. They are not shrinking in numbers, they have been growing, expanding all over the world and opening up new centers. So, obviously, something (if not many things) about this organization works.
Besides it having the strength of a cult, it is successful due to it's ability to offer practical tools of dealing with the world, whether they are tools for personal life or for managing your business. I had a neighbor in the office next-door, who was a Scientologist. He was a super nice guy and I really enjoyed having him as a neighbor. Now, this guy ran his entire operation based on Scientology manuals. Being someone well versed in business management, I have to say, a lot of what I saw in his manuals made a lot of very practical sense. Essentially, there were a lot of great practical ways to understand your business all translated into Scientology-speak. They also provided a great systematic way to look at and manage your business.
The reason I'm bringing this up is that I think it's important for us not only to laugh at Scientology but also to take it a little more seriously and understand that this is a serious organization which has enjoyed considerable success around the world. I think we should make sure to be educated about it, so that we and our loved ones can avoid it safely and be aware of its dangers prior to coming into any other contact with it. It is helpful to understand that initial ways of getting involved with Scientology can seem innocent and possibly helpful.
Found this very interesting tidbit at Mark Fletcher's WingedPig.com:
http://www.wingedpig.com/archives/2004/08/giving_up_169.html
As an employee climbing the corporate ladder at a company, it's all about getting more. More responsibility, more control, a larger salary, a bigger title. However, the exact opposite is true when you start a company. A big part of starting and building a company is about giving up. A founder is in a weird position. When you first start a company, everything is yours. You own all the stock, you make all the decisions. This point of creation is the only time this will be the case, however. Forever after, the founder must give up more and more control to other people and more and more ownership to employees, investors, etc. The founder must do this for the company to be successful, but at the same time this is the opposite of what many people are used to doing.
Very smart man, this Mark Fletcher is.
Link: Zooomr | Mark III.
I am floored. Before it's too late go to http://beta.zooomr.com/ and you can watch the founder on his webcam. You can watch him work, you can watch him eat - it's PHENOMENAL. It's blowing my mind.
Once in a while he turns to the webcam and talks to his viewers and he's got quite a few, in the past few days it's stayed in the range of 100-130 viewers. Guess what - he's got our attention and I'm loving it.
I think it's a really powerful and personal way to engage people and I myself will probably use this technique in the future. Imagine being able to watch the founder of a website you're using real-time and possibly chat with this person. Personally, it takes a bit of courage to get over our sense of privacy. Even now, as I've started this blog, I'm trying to figure what boudaries - if any - I should have in writing this blog. My sense is that I'm most likely to give up on the whole privacy thing all together. It's too complicated and limiting to worry about what you can and cannot and should or should not say. I've never been great at lying and have always found it to be too much work.
Anyway, I'll start playing with my webcam and it's likely to go up soon :)
Kristopher, the Zoomr founder is using UStream.tv - here's the stream below:
Designing a great and usable product is very difficult. One
of the ways to bring yourself back to reality through this process is to watch
your customers use your site. It's surprisingly counter-intuitive and, in fact,
the idea seems kind of dreadful. I think the main reason that we are afraid of
this simple step is that we know it might force us to make changes and
potentially rework our entire product.
One misconception about usability studies is that it's something that has to be
done on a large scale and cost a lot of money. This is not the case. In fact,
studies done this way are unlikely to really influence your product, because
the study is done only one time and frequently the results are too late in the
process to influence new product design. Instead, you achieve a lot more by
simply grabbing one or two people not familiar with your product and asking
them to use it or accomplish specific tasks that are central to your product.
You can do this even before the product is designed. Draw it out on ppaper, or use
your wireframes, or designs and ask the person to tell you how he/she would go
about completing a task.
The best approach is to do this a few times throughout your design/development
cycle to ensure that you can accommodate the feedback and build it into your
product.
I've started this blog as one of the ways to fascilitate my search of a technical co-founder. The following is the latest version of my job posting on Craigslist. I think the posting's all right, if you have any suggestions on how to improve it, please let me know in your comments. Thanks :)
* * * Web Architect for Web 2.0
Startup * * *
Seeking a brilliant Web Architect / Engineer
to lead the technology of an internet startup that has the potential to
redefine e-commerce and the way we shop.
This is an opportunity to be a part
of a business with a huge growth potential and a solid business model. This is not another “me too” internet startup
with minimal value creation and a flimsy ad-revenue based model. This is a
chance to join a company from the start, build something that will have an impact
and realize your full potential.
You must be highly ambitious, have a
passion for technology and have a burning desire to start a company. Key
qualities include focus, ability to prioritize, persistence, desire to work
hard, and flexibility in achieving business and technical goals. Your drive and
potential may be more important than the specific experience you may have had.
Technical skills needed:
• Experience with scalable consumer web applications
• Ability to design and deploy a complete new
architecture from ground up
• Ability
to investigate and offer creative technical solutions to technical and business
problems
• Ability
to evaluate and adopt new technologies
• Familiarity with e-commerce, web services and
data integration
Compensation:
You will
receive founder equity.
Please reply with a summary of your experience, accomplishments
and/or a resume, and include a note about your personal and professional goals.
Thank you.
Search keywords:
CTO, technical partner, business partner, engineer, software, web 2.0, startup,
AJAX, e-commerce, J2EE, Java EE, Spring Framework, Hibernate, JavaServer Faces,
XML, XSLT, SOAP, Eclipse, Subversion, CVS, uPortal, Linux, open source, SQL
Server, Postgres, Ruby on Rails, PHP
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