Things have gotten so bad that I have to admit defeat and start over completely from scratch.
Somehow in the course of running the Snow Leopard betas and then Snow Leopard followed by the Lion betas and then Lion, my computer has become incredibly inefficient and almost unusable. (The developer betas of mobile platforms doesn’t help either)
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I have an idea I would like to throw out there. I think it would be a fun side-project or StartupWeekend project. Granted, it is a feature, not a product (and definitely not a company), but I think there are some verticals that would find it very useful.
IndexCloud Elevator Pitch:
IndexCloud scans a piece of content (say, a semester’s worth of chapters in a text book) and identifies the key topics (not just words). It then creates a clickable “tag cloud” of the topics. When a user clicks on a topic, IndexCloud presents them with links and passages to that topic in the content. IndexCloud would be used by students studying for exams or doing research, publishers looking to give readers a new way to explore their publication (think magazine issues on a tablet), and even large corporations doing analysis on their customer service interactions.
The dotcom is owned by a squatter.
I am not doing any side projects since all my time goes to Bizen, but I think this would be a fun one and I would love to see someone do it.
The best iPad 2 case on the planet
I use my iPad a ton. It is my primary calendar, my primary access to digital documents (via Evernote), my task list, my reading material, and I frequently use it for web browsing and email. I also use my iPad for every single bizen.com product demonstration that I do. I rarely take my computer with me when I leave the office or house.
Unfortunately, ever since I picked up an iPad2 I have been searching for a decent case. I tried the magnetic case from Apple, but hated it. It was always falling off and was horrible for anything other than typing on a desk. The magnets are cool though.
I really liked the Apple case for the original iPad, but the microfiber looked horrible if you use it a lot (and have kids around). It protected the front and back of the iPad and was great for using in multiple positions (in your lap, on a table, while standing, etc). I tried using my old iPad case on my iPad2, but it was just too loose fitting.
What I decided that I really wanted was a durable leather case for the iPad 2 with the same design as the first iPad case, but with magnets for the auto-wake/sleep feature. I searched far and wide for this ideal case. I struck out at the Apple Store, Mac Authority, Best Buy, Target, Staples, and any other place I could browse iPad cases. Finally I broke down and searched the internet.
I hate to buy something like this sight-unseen, but I wasn’t having any luck so I figured it was worth a chance. Last week I ordered a Yoobao Executive Leather Case for iPad 2. It is slim, has all the right cutouts for cameras, speakers, switches and connectors. It even includes magnets to keep the case closed and auto-wake/sleep the iPad.
After a week with this thing I can say that it is everything I had hoped it would be. It looks awesome, works awesome, it wasn’t expensive and it is slim. It is by far the best iPad 2 case I have found anywhere.
In the work I do, things like iPad cases seem to influence people’s opinion of you. This one totally fits my personality: quality, simple, effective, and well-designed.
Oops!
When I was in high school I got into a little trouble which resulted in me getting removed from the cross country team. The coach called me at home to tell me the bad news. It was a phone call that has stuck with me ever since.
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Earlier this year John Pisciotta launched Innovation Nashville – a group that meets monthly for talks about entertainment, technology, and entrepreneurship. It has quickly turned into one of the best resources in town for peer interaction within the startup community.
I am genuinely honored to have been invited to participate in this month’s discussion. Lee Parsons (Ditto Music), John Dayani (Goba), Jason Moore (Stratasan), and I will talk about life in a young startup.
Bizen is quickly approaching it’s first anniversary and it has been an amazing ride so far. I am sure the same is true for Lee and John and I happen to know the same is true for Jason.
I think this will be a really fun conversation. I have learned a TON this past year and I look forward to sharing and learning.
Why not join us August 4th from 6pm – 8pm at E-Spaces in Nashville.
The Franchise Hound has a nice writeup on Bizen today. The theme of Return on Involvement is an important one for Bizen.
It is widely known within franchising that the highest performing stores are the ones with the highest level of owner involvement. Bizen excels at helping multi-unit operators be more involved in their stores, even when they aren’t there.
Read “Return on Involvement” Becomes the New ROI at TheFranchiseHound.com.
My startup Bizen gets a nice mention in Entrepreneur Magazine this month. Read: Finding Customers Ahead of a Startup Launch
The Nashville Business Journal did a cover story on our Plato’s Closet locations last week. The story talk about how resale has done so well in the current economy that it is continuing to expand. As proof of expansion, they broke the news that we will be opening up a new Plato’s Closet location in Green Hills. 
Read the article: Resale stores thrive, expand amid recession
There is no shortage of really great things to read on the internet. I mean incredibly informative, brilliant, inspiring stuff.
Right now I could go read You Can Increase Your Intelligence, Hacking the American Dream,Similarity Between Musicians and Entrepreneurs, or several different perspectives on the LinkedIn IPO (a pretty big deal). All of those are relevant to what I am doing and may be helpful for me to read. Those links are also just the ones I am interested in reading on Hacker News right now. There are also the blogs I subscribe to (only a few really great ones now) and the general news sites. Oh, and the several interesting links I saw on Facebook today like The Problem with Great Ideas.
The cliché is that “talk is cheap”, but I think listening to all that talk is incredibly expensive. I just can’t afford all this talk.
It is great that we have all of this excellent information out there. I love that people are focusing on creating quality content. I am also excited to see more and more of a focus on curating. I was wrong when I said 2008 would be the Year of the Editor. I am hopeful that curation is a growing trend. I just need to limit the amount of time that I read all this great stuff.
Over the weekend I read a great post by the CEO of Svpply where he basically admitted that he has no idea what he is doing. While he wrote that he has no idea what he is doing, I think knows exactly what he is doing. And I think he is killing it.
Being a first-time startup CEO is hard.
It is hard in ways that I didn’t expect, and it is hard in new ways all the time. I am constantly facing new challenges and pushing up against the limits of my weaknesses. When I find those limitations imposed by my weaknesses I either have to grow (hard, often painful) or find a way to supplement (maybe harder).
Maybe this stuff is what any organizational leader goes through, but I suspect that the stakes are particularly high in a startup because we have our sights set so high. It isn’t easy to create a company from scratch and scale it to a real valuation of millions of dollars (and by real valuation I mean the price someone is willing to pay for the entire company, not the valuation for purpose of an investment round).
What I liked about Ben’s post is that it was brutally honest. He said things that many people feel, but that I have rarely, if ever, seen articulated. My experience and his experience are different in the specifics, but the general idea is the same. We both have investors and employees who have a lot invested in our success and we are leading the way without a map.
The comments about this post at Hacker News were conflicted as to whether or not this kind of information should be shared. I mean, do you want to follow me if you know I don’t have a map?
I guess that depends on whether or not you trust my ability to figure it out.
Once you gain the support of investors, advisors, board members and employees, how do you keep that support? It is one thing to get everyone to sign up for what promises to be an epic journey, but what happens when you start running out of food or make a wrong turn and waste a considerable amount of time going in the wrong direction?
I think transparency like Ben displayed helps everyone have clear expectations and cements his position as captain of the ship. Especially if that transparency is directed towards the stakeholders.
