blog364

Thank you Steve Jobs

No one but you (only the good die young) by Queen:

A hand above the water

An angel reaching for the sky

Is it raining in heaven -

Do you want us to cry?

And everywhere the broken-hearted

On every lonely avenue

No-one could reach them

No-one but you

One by one

Only the Good die young

They’re only flying too close to the sun

And life goes on -

Without you…

Another Tricky Situation

I get to drownin’ in the Blues

And I find myself thinkin’

Well – what would you do?

Yes! – it was such an operation

Forever paying every due

Hell, you made a sensation

You found a way through

One by one

Only the Good die young

They’re only flyin’ too close to the sun

We’ll remember -

Forever…

And now the party must be over

I guess we’ll never understand

The sense of your leaving

Was in the way it was planned…

So we grace another table

And raise our glasses one more time

There’s a face at the window

And i aint never, never saying goodbye…

One by one

Only the Good die young

They’re only flyin’ too close to the sun

Cryin’ for nothing

Cryin’ for no-one

No-one but you

… and thank you for so much magic!

One day, when my son was two years old I got a call from a friend of mine that needed to meet me right away. But there was a problem. At that time, my wife was out meeting a client, and our nanny had gone home early. So I had no choice but to bring the little one with me. The other problem was that he was still wearing his pajamas. For some reason I had this weird idea that taking him out in his PJs wasn’t acceptable. What ensued was a very long and draining battle to get him out of his PJs and into his day clothes. The battle lasted over half an hour and left both of use exhausted. About a week later, the same situation presented itself: I had my son with me (yes, wearing his PJs) and I had to leave the house in a hurry and bring him with me.

Now, my first instinct was to reach for an outfit and get ready for another “battle”. But before I could reach him, a thought came rushing into my mind: “I have two things that I’m trying to accomplish: 1) Get him out of his PJs and dressed and 2) Get out of the house with him ASAP. Now, which one of these two is the most important? In that instant, I finally understood the true meaning behind the saying: “Pick your battles.”

Budget	Schedule
Features	Quality

Now, you might be wondering how does this story relate to startups. Simple: In every startup there will always be multiple things that need to be done, and in our entrepreneurial OCD minds (lets face it, most entrepreneurs are!) they all seem equally urgent. Most of our first reactions will be similar too: how do I get them all done at the same time? Then we’ll proceed to flip out, stress and waste incredible amounts of time and energy trying to figure it out. This is ludicrous, because rarely, if ever are we in situations that will require us to complete all the tasks in parallel.

If you take an honest look, you will realized that the need to get it all done-right-now is more like a beautiful mirage than an actual helpful oasis. Look closer…closer… and you will see that there will most likely be one truly important task that needs to happen right at this very moment (in my case, it was leaving the house!). Usually a good way to find out which task is most important is by asking: Which of this task, if it doesn’t get done now, will keep me from completing the other ones?

In my current startup, most of our done-right-now tasks fall into one of these categories: 1) Budget 2) Schedule 3) Features or 4) Quality.

Like most all other startups out there, we want to hit high marks in all these categories. We wan to: Be well under budget (our investors will love us for this). Hit our release date (our investors AND users will love us for this). Have the most features (the only way to crush our competition…. NOT!). Have no bugs in the system (just like the other “startup” up in Redmond). And we want all this to happen by the time we release our Beta MVP.

But we are a small team (Mr. Smith and I) and know that this is far from realistic. So we had to make some decisions. For us, being self-funded, it was a no brainer. We had (and still do) to be within our budget. That was and still is our most important decision driving point. We know that if we run out of the little cash that we have for our venture that non of the other three points will matter. Sure, we still want to have our cake and eat it too, but that’s just not realistic. And nothing teaches you better the definition of reality than self-funding and bootstrapping your own startup.

So, being on budget became our do-it-now driver. Because, if we don’t pick this battle first, then we’ll never get to the other ones (i.e. delivering on schedule, features, quality). And, as any good General will tell you: winning a battle doesn’t win the war. You need to win all the battles (or at least the bigger, most important ones) to win the war. So start by winning the first battle. But choose which one to fight first you must, so do that carefully. Also, remember that it is the aggregate of multiple successful battles that bring the desired outcome. And, picking which battle to fight first doesn’t mean that the other ones don’t need to be fought. You will need to be able to extract multiple victories across multiple fronts in order to be ultimately triumphant!

Truly successful startups aren’t successful because they’ve launched a great product. Launching a great product is the end result, a visual manifestation of a company that has already become successful at mastering the art of “picking the right battles in the right order”.

Which battle will you pick next?

Recently I’ve been reading a lot about how to pitch a startup. But it wasn’t until I found this video that all started to make sense… well, sort of.
 

The scary part is that this video is not too far off from reality!

As consumers start to rely more and more on their social-networks and the wisdom of the crowd for products, services advice and information, will this cause a decrease in the consumers reliance on online advertising, thus causing a decline in online ads?

A bit like the situation that newspapers find themselves in. News haven’t change nor will they go away. But how we access them has certainly changed and that has had a huge impact on Newspapers business models.

Advertising... Go away!

Advertising won’t go away, but how we access and extract value from them is changing and will probably affect its business model as well. So, may be in a not so distant future, we’ll either stop seeing online advertising (at least in their traditional shape and form) or see a big decline as advertisers start reaching and using direct lines of communication with their target markets (permission marketing & Seth Godin) and engaging them in the promotion of their services and products, thus, making online advertising as we know it today obsolete.

It would seem that the web is ablaze, once again, with a lot of buzz going around about “real-time” companies and services trying to ride the ‘old-buzz‘ in an attempt to get their 15 xx (insert your favorite time-frame here) of fame. Funny thing, because if you were to believe all the hype that these companies are generating, you’d start believing that someone has invented a time-machine to get the news and data before they happen so then they can be served in “real-time”. Much like when Biff Tannen gave his younger self a copy of the Sports Almanac.

I know we’ve made a lot of great technological advances in the last few years, but we are yet to invent the time machine (unless your name is Dr. Emmett Brown)

So, please stop calling it “real-time”. Unless you drive a DeLorean that can go at 88 mph and go Back to the Future, it is not.

DeLorean

Applied to the latest social-media tool and social-networks site, the term attempts to connote a sense of immediacy and proximity that modern technology and our current understanding of the laws of physics can not realistically provide for.

But the problem is not the technology or the services that these companies attempt to provide. The problem is our pressing need to over-hype and super-buzz our language in an attempt to impress. But these “impress” attempts are based on the “pop-corn” model: full of hot air and not enough substance. And as the year 2001 clearly proved, following the “pop-corn” model, however tasty at the moment, is a recipe for disaster.

The good news is that we’ve been there (2001), done that. And most of us not only remember what happened, but we’ve actually learned the lessons (I hope) And this is one situation where we don’t need to go Back to the Future to avoid the consequences of our Present.

Imagine this…

You are in racecar, driving at 100 mph and you are in x place (but not in first).

All of the sudden, you start noticing some vibrations in the car.

At first you try to dismiss them as little bumps on the road. But then, the vibrations start to get stronger and stronger, making driving and staying in control almost impossible.

100 mph

What do you do?

You could speed up…. Hmmm… stronger vibrations and some parts of your car start flying off. If you keep going like this there’s a good chance that you won’t finish the race and might not even survive another lap.

What do you do?

You could slow down…. Hmmm…. if you do, then there’s not a chance to catch up to first place and win.

What do you do?

You stop. You pit out!

Pit stop

That’s right, you STOP!

Ask any experienced race car driver and he/she will tell you that most races are won not just by going fast and having nerves of steel, but by knowing when to stop. Stopping at the correct times allows you to make adjustments and corrections before they become “life threatening” issues. It’s on the pit where your entire support team is at and where the best assessments as to the current situation and best course of action can be determined and implemented. Even though you are alone in the “car” you are not alone in the “race”. Your entire team is in it with you, and you need them as much as they need you in order to win. Yes, racing and building successful companies are team sports!

So, if it feels like you are starting to lose control and may not make it another lap around, consider stopping. It may not only save your life (if you are heading for a crash as your car/company starts to fall apart), but it may give you a new fighting chance. Some people call it “the pivot”, some call it “regrouping”. The fact is that something has to change. You cannot continue moving forward this fast and this out of control.

You’ve built a team around you to help you win. When those vibrations start to make the going get tough, the only way they can help you is if you stop and pit out. This gives the chance to the entire team to assess the situation, and how to best correct it and send you back out on the race with a winning chance.

Stopping is not a sign of weakness, lack of drive or commitment. In fact, it’s a sign of strength and focus. A mind that is present and focused on the task at hand, is better equipped to anticipate the need for the stop even before the first signs of trouble present themselves. Thus, saving you precious time, energy and resources, three things that are always in short supply in a racing situation (and a startup is exactly that: a race to execute before you run out of those three elements). Most of the time, the winning teams are the ones who best manage and balanced these resources.

If you stop, what’s the worst thing that can happen? You don’t win the race? I’m willing to bet you money, that if you continue driving, regardless of how hard or fast you drive you won’t win anyway and you may face terrible consequences. Something tells me that deep down, your gut is telling you the same. So listen to it.

Now, start to slow down. As you do, you’ll be able to regain some control. Good! You see, it’s not that hard.

Radio up your team and let them know that you are coming in. Once you get to the pit, stop and work with them to resolve the problems and set a new strategy.

Are all systems working? Are you, your team and car/company firing on all cylinders? Good. Step on the gas and go. You may not win the race but at least now you have one more fighting chance!
—

Note: Notice that when I set the scenario up, I said that you were in x place but NOT in first. Why?

Well, if you are in first place, chances are that you and your car/company are performing at 100% efficiency, and sans some unforeseen tragedy, are probably on your way to a win. But at some point in the race, even you had to pit out to refuel, regroup, and make some minor adjustments. And, it’s very likely that this very same action of stopping at just the right time, gave you the extra edge to finish first!

I’ll see you on the racecourse.