Musings on the world of business

One of my favourite entrepreneurs continues to kill it!

dosa — Sun, 05 May 2013 11:43:00 -0500

More unsolicited positive press for Philip Carmichael and pcpartpicker.com Fantastic example of focusing on the product and letting press and perception take care of itself!

> Next, we’ve decided to use PCPartPicker to put together our builds. We ? > love it, and think you should use it too—it gives you more flexibility in > your part buying, helps you eliminate possibly incompatible components, > and makes sure you get he best prices for the items you plan to buy, even > if it means you have to buy them from different retailers. Whole Article: http://lifehacker.com/5840963/the-best-pcs-you-can-build-for-600-and-1200

End WWDC | Bitsplitting.org

dosa — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 16:30:35 -0500

End WWDC | Bitsplitting.org:

Great point. Some times it helps to take a step back and realize that your initial project has succeeded beyond your wildest dreams. What’s more - you are doing yourself harm by not realizing it.

Reason vs Purpose - Why the "why" matters

dosa — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 09:02:54 -0500

Just read a brilliant blog post from Umair Haque on HBR[1]. It gets to the core of why I believe building a massively profitable business can still leave you feeling unfulfilled in spite of the wealth accumulated.

“a reason is not a purpose” - This is a crucial distinction being lost on the hordes of young minds enraptured with the cult of the modern day entrepreneur. Entrepreneurship is the new black and it is a world view that is slipped into your mind camouflaged as a path to freedom and financial independence. This is dangerous; a world view should be consciously chosen not accidentally acquired. Entrepreneurship is not a reason, it is a purpose. The reason has to come from within before the purpose can be manifested in its entirety.

Or as umair says it…

Absolute clarity. A reason is not a purpose. Priya’s real mistake is that she’s confused a purpose — writing books — with a reason: why the books must (not should, but absolutely, totally, must, or else your whole life will feel empty, wasted, pointless, over) be written. Imagine you were a master stonemason. Your purpose might be to build a great cathedral. But your reason might be to approach the divine, to leave a legacy, or simply to do great work. A purpose, then, is a set of accomplishments — but a reason is the animating force behind them; it is the “why” that gives sense to the “what”; and without it, all our “whats” may end up being empty, barren, senseless in the terms of a life that feels well lived. Priya, like many people I know, is a stonemason with a blueprint — but no incendiary, unstoppable, inescapable reason to begin building.

The distinction is important and it comes through in the product or company that you build. It always comes through whether you like it or not. Having a reason not only fulfills your pursuit but it speaks clearly to the people you serve through your purpose (your customers in business speak). I think this is why great entrepreneurs are so.

Links:
[1] http://blogs.hbr.org/haque/2013/04/how_to_create_your_reason.html
[2] Related TED Talk: http://www.ted.com/talks/simon_sinek_how_great_leaders_inspire_action.html

"Poka-yoke (ポカヨケ) is a Japanese term that means “mistake-proofing.” A poka-yoke is any..."

dosa — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 08:32:43 -0500

“Poka-yoke (ポカヨケ) is a Japanese term that means “mistake-proofing.” A poka-yoke is any mechanism in a lean manufacturing process that helps an equipment operator avoid (yokeru) mistakes (poka). Its purpose is to eliminate product defects by preventing, correcting, or drawing attention to human errors as they occur. For example, I once read about an x-ray film that dramatically reduced incorrect diagnoses by putting “THIS SIDE UP” on the film itself. Doctors wouldn’t accidentally read the film backwards because the label cued them instantly to the correct orientation. A very simple fix to prevent what could be a dangerous misdiagnosis.”

- Steve Johnson

"You know, one of the things that really hurt Apple was after I left John Sculley got a very serious..."

dosa — Sat, 06 Apr 2013 06:42:44 -0500

“

You know, one of the things that really hurt Apple was after I left John Sculley got a very serious disease. It’s the disease of thinking that a really great idea is 90% of the work. And if you just tell all these other people “here’s this great idea,” then of course they can go off and make it happen.

And the problem with that is that there’s just a tremendous amount of craftsmanship in between a great idea and a great product. And as you evolve that great idea, it changes and grows. It never comes out like it starts because you learn a lot more as you get into the subtleties of it. And you also find there are tremendous tradeoffs that you have to make. There are just certain things you can’t make electrons do. There are certain things you can’t make plastic do. Or glass do. Or factories do. Or robots do.

Designing a product is keeping five thousand things in your brain and fitting them all together in new and different ways to get what you want. And every day you discover something new that is a new problem or a new opportunity to fit these things together a little differently. And it’s that process that is the magic. — Steve Jobs

”

- Quote: You know, one of the things that really hurt… by Travis Jeffery of 37signals

The Complexity of Simplicity | UX Magazine

dosa — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 14:25:00 -0500

The Complexity of Simplicity | UX Magazine:

My summary:

Talk to people through your product. Don’t “talk down” or “talk up” just talk to them as you would to a friend at a coffee shop.
Minimize configuration options mandatory before first use of the product. Think of a car. Key + ignition = Usage (maybe adjust mirrors). Climate control, blue tooth, audio nice to have but not necessary. Especially prior to first use/impression of complexity in using the product.
Understand the problem so you understand user expectations on solving the problem. Deliver them.

"OS X 10.8 (Mountain Lion) reports that the FreeMind download is damaged. We found out the problem is..."

dosa — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 11:19:05 -0500

“OS X 10.8 (Mountain Lion) reports that the FreeMind download is damaged. We found out the problem is rather security related (checksum or certificate could not be verified). Here is the solution: System preferences > Security & Privacy > Allow applications from anywhere. Open Freemind. Change the security & privacy back to its original setting. Freemind will always open once you’ve approved it the first time.”

- http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Asked_questions

Exporting custom collection of emails from gmail

dosa — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 23:34:00 -0500

I needed to export a small (330 so “manually” was not an option) number of emails to text for analysis. I could group them together using a gmail query. The top google search results often pointed to using imap or pop, combined with the native export functionality of an email app (like thunderbird). This was not suitable for me.

Luckily, i found a quick work around. It took me about an hour and assumes rudimentary coding skills. Below is an outline of what I did. Get in touch with me* if you want specifics.

Group the emails within gmail via a label (you will see why below)
[Sign up for google drive if you haven’t already]
Set up google drive for script creation.
Modify this 15 line javascript function to suit your needs.
Execute the function.

What the function does: It searches through your gmail account for threads matching a specified label. It then pulls out the first email in every thread and saves it as a google doc in your drive account. The name of the doc is set to the subject line of the thread. This worked for me since all of my threads were single email threads. You may want to modify this.

Function:

function myTestFunc() {
  // Log the subject lines of the threads labelled with &lt;&lt;label&gt;&gt;
  var label = GmailApp.getUserLabelByName();
  var threads = label.getThreads();

  for (var i = 0; i &lt; threads.length; i++) {
    docname = 'mesg ' + i +' ' + threads[i].getFirstMessageSubject();     
    doc = DocumentApp.create(docname)
    // assumes that only the first email in the thread matters
    doc.setText(threads[0].getMessages()[0].getBody());
    doc.saveAndClose();
  }
};

me = amar dot rama at gmail

NYC vs SFC

dosa — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 11:25:39 -0500

NYC vs SFC:

Silicon valley does tech for the sake of tech. New York focuses more on using tech to change other business models. I dig the NYC scene :)

The best deal for the customer is the one where you pay right away

dosa — Sun, 17 Mar 2013 15:01:37 -0500

The wake-up call to app developers should be that that only 37 per cent of consumers are comfortable sharing information. 33 per cent are not at all comfortable. That means either 33 per cent of all consumers are avoiding apps because they don’t trust them, or they are happily downloading and using apps unaware that they are sharing their personal information.

A new kind of app company is going to win the marketplace, one that tells the user exactly what it costs them to use its app. Two possibilities:

IT IS FREE!! Err…. well actually not. We collect your location, demographics, and some browsing habits,.. okay all browsing habits. We might sell it to these 3 people anytime over the next 6 - 12 mos. Err… actually they might sell it to 80 more people. So yeah, we don’t know how many people will have access to it. Anyways you can use this app for free and somewhere down the line you will be paying the price.
It is $25.99 to download and costs you $3.50 a month.

I know it is “old fashioned” but at the end of the day nothing beats providing concrete utility to your customer and charging them directly for that. Popular wisdom was that this was a quick route to profitability but inhibited explosive growth and scaling.

Now it is clear that this business model is not just attractive from a revenue point of view but also the best way to take care of the customer. There is _no_ such thing as free food (it should be treated akin to laws of physics).

A free product or service is always being funded by one of two things; either a foundation or corporation that is paying for everything (because of alignment with mission) or there is economic value being extracted from user behavior or user attributes way down the line.

Most of the “free” apps fall into the second category. Customers are biologically impeded. We are wired to favor convenience and short term wins over long term costs. But we are learning and growing as the research shows.

If you truly care about the customer - provide utility by solving a problem and identify a route to profitability at the price point the market chooses.

Complete transparency on what it costs a customer to use your product/service is a big win for them! :) which over time will translate to invaluable goodwill for you.

[1] http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/03/16/flashlight-apps-location-and-why-consumers-till-dont-understand-privacy/

Pinokio (by adambd)

dosa — Sun, 10 Mar 2013 14:45:34 -0500

Pinokio (by adambd)

Teach kids to farm, not code.

dosa — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 10:05:50 -0600

Teach kids to farm, not code.:

Not sure I fully agree, but I do appreciate the truth about varying valuations of skill sets. This credo might be a little too idealistic. For now I will settle for the goal of rapidly equalizing the availability of teaching programming to all young minds.

Hello future… MYO - Wearable Gesture Control from Thalmic...

dosa — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 13:58:30 -0600

Hello future… MYO - Wearable Gesture Control from Thalmic Labs (by ThalmicLabs)

Fun with machine learning. Yes, Federer besting Jaziri is best...

dosa — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 11:05:47 -0600

Fun with machine learning. Yes, Federer besting Jaziri is best represented by a giant turtle being lifted up.

A Broken Industry

dosa — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 10:06:38 -0600

If taking money and then trapping customers and their kids for 5+ days in a barge of sewage does not destroy a corporation, I don’t know what will.

Carnival’sstock price[1] barely took a hit from the Triumph disaster[2] of the coast of Texas. This is not a rare occurrence either.

The cruise industry says cruise ship fires are rare, but they are not rare. They happen with alarming frequency. In the two years between the Splendor and the Triumph fires, more than 10 cruise ship fires were reported in the media. Several cruise ships were completely disabled, including the Costa Allegra, the Bahamas Celebration and the Ocean Star.

src: cnn report[3] - expect some bias.

This is clearly a broken industry. But more importantly it shows us all up for the hypocrites we are. We all talk a good game about quality, integrity, customer service and blah blah blah but at the end of the day all we want is a good deal and everything else goes out the window. How else can we explain why cruises companies like Carnival continue to stay in business and operate as usual. Sadly enough it looks like carnival will continue to do business as usual. Seriously WTF!?!

As an entrepreneur this is why it is very, very, hard to build a quality product or service especially when most of us/consumers seem to favor a “good deal” over quality product or service.

But it is worth it! The alternative is depressing. Living in a world dominated by mass mediocrity goods and services is a sad end game for the human race. This is not just restricted to cruise lines. It is the same fight to ensure Mcmeat and cheetos do not become the global food and snack in spite of massive evidence of the health cost.

… hopefully Carnival grows a conscience but I don’t have high hopes. Any CEO who can make a statement like this without a tinge of shame or irony is incapable of any authentic change.

“I appreciate the patience of our guests and their ability to cope with the situation. And I’d like to reiterate the apology I made earlier. I know the conditions on board were very poor,” he said. “We pride ourselves on providing our guests with a great vacation experience, and clearly we failed in this particular case.”

Yes, Gerry the best way to summarize[4] this epic shit storm Carnival created is to categorize it as failing to deliver a great vacation experience. For the love…. is there a CEO college that trains these people in complete bull shit statements?

Links

[1]http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=CCL+Interactive#symbol=ccl;range=my;compare=;indicator=volume;charttype=area;crosshair=on;ohlcvalues=0;logscale=off;source=undefined;

[2] http://www.sfgate.com/news/houston-texas/slideshow/Carnival-Triumph-cruise-disaster-56826.php

[3] http://www.cnn.com/2013/02/13/opinion/walker-cruise-ships/index.html

[4] http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/cruise-ship-moves-toward-shore-again-after-towline-break-passengers-describe-scene-on-board/2013/02/14/a37f6058-7705-11e2-b102-948929030e64_story_1.html

Cleaning the deck while the ship is sinking.. sigh..

dosa — Wed, 06 Feb 2013 11:56:00 -0600

Begich said the Postal Service should have allowed Congress more time to find a legislative solution. The Senate passed a postal reform bill last year that would have prevented the elimination of Saturday delivery for at least two years, but the effort stalled in the House

"Steve Davis and Till von Wachter (2011) have shown that the present value of lifetime income of new..."

dosa — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 10:00:58 -0600

“Steve Davis and Till von Wachter (2011) have shown that the present value of lifetime income of new entrants to the labour market can differ substantially depending on whether their first job occurs in a boom or a recession. In our model, the lifetime income of the young can differ by as much as 20% across booms and slumps.”

- Why financial markets are inefficient « naked capitalism

A business meeting

dosa — Sat, 19 Jan 2013 15:59:47 -0600

mymorna:

(Translated from this blog: Alex Aka JJ LJ. Originally, this story was published by Alex in Russian. The translation is mine, sorry for any inaccuracies. Suggestions for improvements are very appreciated.)

Smith attended the meeting on Tuesday. There, he himself and his brain both died a slow and painful death, brought onto them by the other attendees, with Smith’s manager Lehare as leading murderer.

“Gentlemen,” said mrs. Redroot, “Our organization is facing a major challenge. We’re dealing with a project, for which we must depict several red lines. Are you willing to take on this assignment?”

“Of course”, Lehare said. As the company’s CEO he was always willing to take on problems that would be solved by someone else of the team. However, he instantly clarified: “We can do that, can’t we?”

The manager of the drawing department, Greyskin, quickly nodded: “Yes, definitely. This is Smith, our best specialist on the drawing of red lines. We’ve invited him to this meeting for exactly this reason, to hear his competent opinion on the subject.”

“Nice to meet you,” mrs. Redroot threw him a smile. “Well, you all know me. And this is Lily, our company’s specialist in the area of design.” Lily blushed and smiled self-consciously. She just obtained her economics degree and knew about as much of design as a platypus knows of the design of airships.

“In short,” Mrs. Redroot continued, “we must draw seven straight red lines. They must all be strictly perpendicular. Furthermore, some of them must be green and some transparent. What do you think, would that be realistic?”

Read More

On Confidence and building a good product

dosa — Tue, 15 Jan 2013 21:25:00 -0600

“The older you get, the simple(r) you present your food”….”because you are confident, when you are confident then you can do something very simple, when you are confident then you can generate a product which is exceptional and doesn’t need anything else…”

— Chef Laurent Gras[1] around 18:40 into the episode

I think this is a theme that is easily misunderstood in the software community. There is a increasing emphasis on ux and design in software products. This is a good thing. The problem is when young software engineers enter into a causation/correlation confusion.

Tall players seem to dominate basketball, therefore if I play basketball I will become tall. I was struggling to put what I was sensing in words until I heard the above quote from Chef Laurent Gras. Confident (mature, experienced, passionate) product designers and developers seem to create simple, elegant and insanely functional products [2][3][4]. If I create a pretty product, I will become a confident product designer… No…. sorry there are no short cuts to confidence.

Links:

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurent_Gras_(chef)

[2] https://medium.com/

[3] http://www.fiftythree.com/

[4] http://www.iawriter.com/

Continuations: Money Ball for VC

dosa — Tue, 08 Jan 2013 11:34:02 -0600

Continuations: Money Ball for VC:

continuations:

Money Ball was a good movie (I have to admit to not having read the book) with a crucial theme: statistics beats human intuition in complex situations. With the predictions for the 2012 elections we saw the same theme play itself out as Nate Silver crushed the pundits by using data….