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IPod Touch - Happiness in My Pocket

I have long been a fan of the iPod line of products from Apple. I owed one of the very first iPods, and several in between. When the Video iPod (now called iPod Classic) was released, I purchased it with the belief that it would be everything I could want in a portable media player.

Unfortunate a teacher as gravity may be, I learned a valuable lesson two weeks back when my iPod fell five feet to the ground, flush on it’s glass display. I have long wondered how Apple got it’s hands on glass that was so hard to scratch. Alas, I broke it plenty good with that fumble.Though I was not looking to pay my twice annual Apple tax so early in the year, I knew that I had to replace my iPod. Sad, I know. I mostly used it for listening to podcasts. Several I recommend below. In any event, I rarely watched video on the device, in large part to the small screen. I started watching a few shows that I was downloading from the Apple Store, but the small screen really limited my viewing - which bothered me a little, because I really wanted this to be my travel buddy.

The first time I handled the iPod Touch, I wasn’t that impressed. It seemed a bit clunky, and not as pretty or slim as her sister, the iPhone. Too much time was spent hoping that I could get one of those for Verizon, that I completely missed the boat on this one. In fact, when I read Fred’s dismal review of his experience, I was pretty sure that I didn’t want one.

It’s funny how the loss of a loved one can force us to make decisions that we may not otherwise have made. Sure, one could argue that my iPod Touch purchase is a rebound purchase, but sometimes the rebound is exactly what you need. In this case, I have to say is that I don’t know how I will not have this thing with me all the time. My wife is already annoyed at how often I have it in front of me. The screen is plenty big to enjoy TV shows on. The ability to synch with my iCal, my photos, and do email and web on the one device is fantastic. Would I like it to have wimax or in effect be an iPhone? Sure…for the data only. Now that I have this thing in my pocket, I long for a much smaller phone than my complete-pain-in-the-ass Motorola Q. The hate that I have for this phone is second only to it’s predecessor in my pocket, the dreaded Samsumg i730. The Moto Q is kind of like the hot cheerleader in high school: you really want to date her, and you finally get the chance, only to find out that she is bulimic, completely self-involved (meaning you don’t get what you want), and a borderline short bus passenger.

Anyway, back to the Touch. It hasn’t left my side in the week that I have had it, which is to say that I love it. Though, I have some complaints about the controls. It’s almost impossible to advance a song, movie, show, whatever, with any fine level of granularity. On the Classic, you had the scroll wheel, so advancing was easy. With the Touch, they had to make some compromises on how the controls work. The slider is too small, meaning you move forward in :45 second chunks, and the fast forward is not up to the task, as you have to hold it for something like 10 years in order to move forward one minute. It would be nice if the slider timeline were zoomed in around the location, so you could move forward with slow movements in small chunks, but faster movements would move you along further. Perhaps this is how it is implemented, but it doesn’t work as such.

The battery life also impresses, though I find myself watching so much video on this thing now, that I am a little miffed that I have to dongle the Touch to my computer to charge it. There are times when I want to use my computer and just leave the Touch to charge. They make wall chargers in the aftermarket, but I shouldn’t have to pay for it. I guess the box wouldn’t have been so slim if Apple had included a wall charger.

The flash memory is also a welcome change. No longer do I feel or hear the hum of the hard drive as I listen or watch. The big drag, of course, is the pricing with the flash memory. I ponied up for the 32GB version for no other reason than it came in a scant $1 below the threshold for a spousal deliberation. I have seriously trimmed down my music library on my main computer, but that’s because my nearly two year old Macbook has the svelte 80GB drive in it, on which I am always in danger of running out of space. I know at some point I am going to upgrade my main computer, and it will thankfully have more space for music, videos, etc, so for the extra $100, I doubled the memory to 32GB.Every day I marvel at the technology I can now fit in my pocket with this iPod Touch. It’s amazing, and I hate sounding like a fan boy. I am sure that as I travel with it more, I will come to want the constant network access, which means I will end up buying the iPhone, but I hope not. I actually miss having a small phone in my pocket/bag.

Some Recommended Podcasts

  • Keith and the Girl - Crass? Yes. Good fun? You bet.
  • Dave Ramsey Show - I find it very interesting to hear how people are dealing with financial issues. This is something that people (friends, family) don’t talk about enough, and yet money woes are the cause of so many problems. Financial education really needs to be higher priority.
  • The McLaughlin Group - Yes, they are self-billed as having the “hardest talk,” which I find a strange way to market yourself, but I do find that I learn something with every listen.
  • This Week in Tech - The obligatory nerd talk show.
  • The Tri Talk Triathlon Podcast - Nerdy content of a different type. A great host, with great content, though it always reinforces in my mind how much time type-A tri guys (and gals) spend on trying to find that little extra “go fast” tech, when dropping a pound or two would probably do you just as well. For the middle and back of packers anyway.
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Finding Your Bliss

As I have been spending the better part of the last two months thinking about what to do next with my career, I have actually been doing something I never would have thought: reading books on the topic of “finding yourself.”

The first book that I started reading, way back in early January, was the Tony Robbins book “Awaken the Giant Within.” Sure, we have all seen the late night informercials with Tony, and some might even get the reference to Banana Hands. I don’t think I would have given this book much more than a second glance had a friend of mine from business school (someone whose judgement I trust immensely) not been singing the praises of a Tony Robbins weekend he attended. I happened to see the book in an airport bookstore and figured “what the hell?”

This is a long book, and certainly filled with what many would call common sense advice. Mostly, I think that what a person gets out of these books is based in no small part on what they were trying to get out of it. I was not trying to change my life, nor was I trying to turn a huge debt-load into a million dollar plus surplus in twelve months. Many of the personal stories in the book are of this variety. More than anything, I am trying to gain clarity on what I want out of my working career, and, more broadly, how much I want to let my working career infiltrate my private life.

The second book that I started reading around the same time is called “The Pathfinder” by Nicholas Lore. This book recommendation came courtesy of my wife, who has infinitely more EQ than I do. She knows what a traumatic experience it has been taking a germ of an idea to founding a company, building and releasing product, and ultimately selling it. While it was a fine outcome, the least likely bit was the feeling of emptiness inside of me. How much of what I had accomplished really had anything to do with me, and how much of that experience did I want to go through again? I wasn’t sure how to even begin thinking through these problems, but considering that I had a two month vacation in front of me, I figured now was as good a time as any to sort it out.

I am not sure how others use these types of books, but I went about it like I would a class in college. I had a notebook where I was taking notes, and I was dutifully going through the exercises. The big problem I have is that there is no teacher, and as such, no one of whom I could ask questions. These books are laid out to walk you through a specific experience, but they both felt very long on having exercises for the reader, and little in the way of material helping you know if you were doing things right. I tend to be pretty cerebral, and, certainly as an engineer, I like order and process. Throughout the entirety of both books, I felt like I wasn’t making progress, due in no small part to the fact that I wanted to feel like I was making progress, and without some reference point or instructor, it was hard for me to feel like I was.

Do I feel like I know more about myself now than I did before endeavoring to tackle these books? Yes. Do I actually feel more calm and less stressed about what will come next? You bet. I just am wondering how much of that had to do with the thought exercises of the books rather than the fact that I have also been on a dream vacation for two months, in two dream locations, with my family and no other obligations.I suspect that a good bit of my time in my future writings will be dealing with this topic of inner bliss. As I begin to accept invitations from companies to hear their pitches as to why I should come work for them, I feel better equipped to go through the process with the mindset of doing what is right for me, with little in the way of compromise, than taking a job to fulfill the life need of having employment, and with that being able to feed and clothe my kids. Setting the parameters for personal satisfaction is something that I did not do enough of early on in my career, nor do I get the sense that this has had any kind of importance amongst my peer group. Yes, people talk about work-life balance, but what does that really mean to them, and what are they really doing to achieve it. Besides, I don’t think that the discussion is entirely about work-life balance, but rather work-life optimization. You can be working the right amount of hours per week, but hate your job. You can be spending the right amount of time at home, but hate where you live.

When you remove the stress of where your next meal is going to come from, or the worries of having some number of monthly checks you have to write to creditors, it’s surprising the level of clarity that can be achieved.

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Wrong On So Many Levels

What I love about this new blog is that I am going to write about anything and everything. So many people think that the only reason to have a blog is to either a) write about your kids, or b) write about some niche topic about which you are are the supposed expert. Well, not me. This blog will be a peek inside my brain; the topics which interest me. What better way to really get things going with a video which all but encompasses every reason why I have kids. Enjoy.

By the way, if you are wondering, yes, the parents were playing a joke on the poor boy, and yes, they actually did give him the XBox 360.

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You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know

One of the things that I loved about being a program manager at Microsoft, AskMe and IMSafer was that I had the opportunity to design products that other people would use. As part of the design process, you plan, mapping out what needs to be done, and setting a schedule. The big challenge with any schedule is that you don’t know what you don’t know.

In and of itself, this is something of a tautology, and pretty much non-actionable. In the instances, however, where you hit upon one of those things that you don’t know, well chaos can sometimes ensue. The best you can hope for during one of these escapades is to contain the challenge and minimize the impact on the overall product and schedule.

These things that you don’t know can take many forms, but the ones that are the worst are the ones you don’t know how to solve, could not have prepared for, and basically throw up your hands and think bad thoughts. I hit upon one of these challenges just a few weeks ago with IMSafer.

In dealing with people, especially close colleagues, you never know how they are going to react to adverse conditions. There was a section from the Alex Garland book “The Beach” that applies here. It’s called the “oh shit” moment. You know that moment when you are playing a competitive video game…the one where you are about to die and there is nothing you can do about it? How do you handle that moment? Do you throw the controller? Do you swear? Do you get angry? This somewhat simple, yet very primal, response tells a lot about a person. The same holds true with venture investments. How do people react when things start to go bad? You don’t know what you don’t know, and this can really hurt you when you are dealing with delicate issues.

Venture investments can be really stressful, and if you are going to get into bed with people, remember that you will see some pretty wild swings in your fortunes, so it’s best to really know how your partners are going to handle those “oh shit” moments. We kept and XBox 360 in the office for just this reason.

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Success Factors Part IV

It never ceases to amaze me how many smart people don’t seem to understand this one topic. It’s basic MBA stuff, but even MBAs don’t get it. Perhaps this is symptomatic of an era of easy financing and business models that make no sense, but I run into this issue even when speaking with colleagues seeking advice as to how to get their businesses charged up.

Cash flow is king. If you learn nothing else during your adventures as a new venture owner, you must come to understand and appreciate just how important cash flow is to the health of your company. There are many ways in which cash flow can and will impact your company, and I would like to lay a few of them out for you.

A question I get often from entrepreneurs goes something like this: “I am growing my revenues like crazy, but I just never seem to have any cash. What is going on?” Cash flow my friend, cash flow. More specifically, as is usually the case with the folks that are asking these questions, operating cash flow. Of the three financial statements that I look at when I consider investing in a business, cash flow is where I spend a lot of time when I see problems with a business. As is often the case with a small business, managing the receivables and payables is critical to success. The revenues that come in the door are only helping you, cash wise, if you are collecting your receivable. If you aren’t, you have most probably already spent the cash to build your product for the customer. In fact, you are probably getting called right now by your vendor looking for their money.

Your operating cash flow is chiefly governed by your current assets and current liabilities. Any changes in these will impact your cash flow. For example, if you are building up your inventory, it’s going to cost you money. Sure, that inventory is available for sale, and it more or less represents money in the bank (in that you will - hopefully - sell it), but you still have to pay for it, and that uses cash.

As for your payables, one of the tactics that I tell my clients to explore is trying to take advantage of any early payment offers. 1% may not seem like a lot to you now, but when consider that on an annualized basis, that’s more than 12%, that’s not a bad use of capital. This is because you were probably going to have to pay within 30 days anyway, maybe 45 if you stretch your payables. By paying early, you are using cash, but you are also paying less. Think of this as a free loan from your vendor at a very favorable rate.

It is also important to understand that a dollar today is worth more than a dollar tomorrow. With that in mind, why would you allow the folks who owe you money to take their time paying you? You wouldn’t. Similarly, you would want to take as long as you can to pay your vendors, within reason of course. This has to do with the time value of money, and the notion that you can invest that dollar you owe today and collect interest on it. If you pay now, no interest. If you can get the pre-payment option, that’s great, but if not, think about making sure money takes as long as possible to leave your accounts.

Cash is king. Without it, you cannot operate. Growing like a weed is great, but if you aren’t collecting your cash, you are going to hit a wall. Knowing the number days it takes you, on average, to collect your receivables and pay your payables will give you a window into how your business is operating. These tersm are usually called receivable days or days sales outstanding, and days payable.

One last note. I bring this up only because I have seen this a few times and want to share. If your receivables are going up faster than your revenues, then your customers aren’t paying their bills. You see, if your revenues are flat, your receivables should be flat if you are collecting your cash from your customers. If not, your receivables will grow, which is taking cash flow out of your pocket, and putting you in a position where you cannot have sustained growth.

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Success Factors Part III

Already I have posted about knowing whether or not you are starting your own gig for the right reasons, and knowing whether or not what you have is a product or a business. Both of these items are critical to the success of any venture, but there is one factor that is at the top of my list of importance. Talk to any other venture capitalist and they will tell you that the very first thing that they want to know about the investment opportunity is the management team. I want to extend the axiom beyond simply those who are directly involved in the day to day operations of the business to the notion of the right team.

The right team is inclusive of your starters, your bench and your assistant coaches. It’s important to understand that, from the first whistle, your starting team can get the points on the board, but the right team is what is going to get the points on the board during the fourth quarter.

Your management team (the starters) has to include folks that are also doing it for the right reason. If they don’t share your passion for the product or service that you want to build your business around, then you have a problem. In the early days of getting your company off the ground, you are no doubt going to be spending large amounts of time focused on the business, and without being surrounded by folks who can make decisions, and have the passion and drive to do the hours, you are going to hit a wall. You simply can’t scale your available time. Each of these folks should have complimentary skill sets to solve all of the problems that face a young company, but stack this team in favor of solving the problem of the actual product or service.

The worker bees (the bench) must also share your passion, but to a lesser extent. You are going to need to surround yourself with people who can execute against your plan. My experience has shown me that when you have too many people who are super passionate about a particular problem, you have a lot of “solutions” but not a lot of actual execution. Worker bees tend to be a bit more steady and less volatile than passionate management.

The advisers (the assistant coaches) are some of the most important people that you probably didn’t think about asking to join your team. My father once taught me one of the most important things I have ever learned. He said, “son, you don’t need to always know the answer. You just need to know where to look for the answer.” Having industry veterans (where applicable and available) can certainly help shed some light on potential problems you may have with your business. You should always think about how to approach people who might have relevant experience as potential advisers to your company. Further, seeking individuals who have specific domain experience (lawyers, accountants, etc) will allow you to get your quick questions answered, most times for free, and save you a ton of time and frustration with issues that require professionals.

Key to hiring anyone who works with or for you is to seek those out who are smarter than you. I have had the good fortune to have worked at Microsoft in its hay day, and was indoctrinated into their way of thinking as it pertained to hiring. Always, ALWAYS, hire people smarter than you. If you hire B team players, they will hire C team players, and you are in trouble. In my experience as a board member and as senior management with startups, I have crossed paths with CEOs and managers who were more than happy to hire sycophantic workers who would yield to them. It’s healthy to have employees push back on vision. You, as the leader are there to provide it, but you must also know that you don’t know everything. It’s OK to be the guy driving the bus, but don’t be afraid to accept directions. That is why it is so important to hire people smarter than you. You might actually learn something.

The management team is very important. Of that there is no doubt, but as an entrepreneur who is building a company, you cannot stop at just hiring the management team. You have to think about the entire team that is going to get you through the fourth quarter, victorious. The energy of your starters will electrify the crowds. The rock solid play of your bench will keep you in the game when your starters get tired. And the experience and training your assistant coaches bring to bear will provide the discipline to keep from making key fatal mistakes, especially at critical junctures. Build the right team, and build it smart.

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Success Factors Part II

One of the more interesting conversations I have with entrepreneurs is whether or not what they have is a product or a business. It’s a tough conversation because most entrepreneurs are very passionate about what it is they want to pursue, and believe that they are on the cusp of building a multi-million dollar business. Sadly, many would be entrepreneurs cannot make the subtle distinction between a product and a business.

Here’s a great example. I had one entrepreneur approach me in the last few weeks because what he wanted was guidance on building a business plan around a new idea he had for a blog program. His program was essentially a blog editing tool. Sounds great, right? Blogs are hot, there is a clear market, what could be the issue? The challenge is that this is a product idea, not a business. The reason? Well, most potential customers who would buy this tool would either already have a blog set up, meaning they have a blog business that is either hosting the solution for them, or has provided them with the software to manage their blog (which has fine blog editing tools built in), or this is a new blogger, and they are most in the need of a web hosting solution or the server side code to manage their blog. Either way, how would this entrepreneur build a business when they are missing so many pieces of the value chain, especially when customers have an expectation of what should be provided from a blog business? It’s a tough sell. The entrepreneur got it though, and is retooling his thinking. I can’t wait to see what he comes back with.

I really like to make things simple when I talk about topics like this. I really want to feel like I could have the discussion with my mother or father and they would get it. Put simply, a product is something you can sell to a customer once and you never see that customer again. A business builds a long term relationship with that customer and sells them many things over the lifetime of that relationship. If that seems too simplistic, then I have done my job. It’s important for would be entrepreneurs, before they jump off the deep end and commit to their passion and pursue their new idea, to consider and understand whether what they have is a product or a business.

While it is possible to transform from selling just a product into a full fledged business, it’s a tough road and not easy. You have to know who your customer is, and what experience you are selling them, and whether or not you can provide enough of that experience. There are times where it would appear that what a new business has is just a product (great example: Baby Einstein), but they really do have a business with only one product in their portfolio. The key differentiators is the ability to grow that product portfolio, leveraging the skills and experience from creating and selling the first product, which is the definition of a successful business.

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Success Factors Part I

I wanted to start a little series for entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs-to-be that I am calling “Success Factors.” This series will build on itself, and I will release a new factors from time to time. When entrepreneurs find out that I invest in start ups, and have run my own successful start ups, they often ask, “what made you successful?” More often than not, my first answer is “luck.” Being lucky over being good is often a preferred state of being. However, there are certain factors on which an entrepreneur can focus in an effort to maximize their probability of success. When I say “luck” I am saying it glibly, and what happens is that I often then go into a diatribe about the most important factor.

My personal opinion is that in order to be a successful entrepreneur, you have to have the right reason to be doing it. A hallmark of a successful entrepreneur is that they have a passion for what it is they are doing. You will hear things like “I want to change the world” and “I want to make things better than they are.” You hear these things because these people are starting their own gig and following their passions for the right reasons. Having the passion for what you do means that you will be really engaged in the work. You will be living the life you are trying to sell, and you will be all the more successful for it. The reason? Your passion will shine through, and you will be eminently more believable. You’re not a phony because you are living what you are selling.

People looking for a new lifestyle are also doing it for the right reasons. Looking for something better than what you currently have is a fantastic motivational tool. Beware, however, as many entrepreneurs believe that starting their own venture is the key to a better life, and that simply starting your own venture is enough to get there. Being an entrepreneur is hard work, and it will cause many stresses. Which brings me back to having the passion for your work. Wanting to have a different lifestyle is a great motivational tool, but without a passion for what it is your are doing could ultimately land you in a situation where you have way more stress associated with getting your business off the ground, the lack of steady income, and the piling expenses.

If you were to ask any person off the street, the most likely response to the question “what’s the primary reason people start their own business,” you would most likely hear “money.” Strangely, it is not the money that drives the successful entrepreneur. In fact, more often than not, most entrepreneurs are taking significant pay cuts when they venture off on their own. I actually have a more heavy handed view on this topic. It is my personal belief that if you are setting off on your own thing primarily for the money, you are in it for the wrong reasons. Money is a source of stress. Just ask any young married couple. If you use money as the primary metric of your success or failure, you will find that even though it is an easily measurable thing, determining how much is enough in order to call oneself successful is often a Quixotic effort.

Does luck factor into a successful entrepreneur? Absolutely. However, you can’t rely on luck to get the job done. In most cases, you are going to have to create your own luck. Unfortunately, luck in entrepreneurship is a lot like luck with the ladies. Some guys have it, some guys don’t. Worse still, you really can’t figure out what the contributing factors are to luck. So don’t rely on it. Just hope for it. As far as money, well, it’s real simple. Do what you love, and the money will eventually follow. Passion is contagious, and you will be successful because people want to buy into your story. Your story is authentic because of your passion. It’s not to say that passion will make the money flow in immediately, but it will make the money flow. To be successful, you have to ensure that you are doing it for the right reasons.

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Am I Ready For This

One of the questions I find entrepreneurs asking me, and by extension themselves, is “am I ready for this?” I find this a very interesting question because so many entrepreneurs ask the question, and yet so few believe or understand that it is a common question.

Common? You bet. One of the hardest hurdles that any entrepreneur has to clear is deciding that they are going to venture out on their own. That’s it. Saying that you are going to do it. By taking that one action, you have already answered the question of whether or not you are ready for this. The mental hurdle is a hard one to clear, but it seems that more often than not, entrepreneurs get hung up on whether or not they have made the right decision, and not celebrating the fact that they have done a very difficult thing in casting off in the first place.

So what is the right answer? Are you ready for this? You tell me. Only you can answer that question. Rest assured that throughout the entire process of starting up your venture, you will question the decisions you are making and the actions you are taking. Nothing will seem like the right thing to do. You will feel more unsure about everything that you do than at any other time of your life. It’s not only normal, it’s natural. You are more than likely surrounded by people who are going to doubt your decision to start your own thing. They wouldn’t, or rather haven’t, do it, and therefore are not necessarily going to be the most supportive group. That’s a huge challenge, especially at this critical time in your life. This is why I stress the importance of ensuring that you have the right team around you. They are going to be some of the more supportive folks around you, and will be those to whom you can go with questions when you are unsure about what you are doing.