Dave Delaney invited my to participate in the Jumpstart Podcast this week. We talked about Bizen, where my inspiration comes from, and entrepreneurship in general. Check it out 
Note: The title of this post is a link to the podcast. Whenever there is a link icon next to the post it means that the post links to another site. I don’t know how intuitive that is.
We are doing a series of events at the Entrepreneur Center on moving from developer to founder. The idea is to help talented and motivated software developers create more companies; I believe tech-driven startups are exceptional in the same way chef-run restaurants can be exceptional. Of course, no one can do it alone.
Great post from Mark Suster over the weekend. It has me thinking about how I want to approach blogging for Bizen. So far I am thinking that this will continue to be my personal blog, which means it is also the Bizen CEO blog. However, anything that may be of interest to Bizen’s customers or future customers will be posted under the Bizen domain. Of course, I will likely continue to link the two by posting links from here to there.
Man, 2011 has been off to a great start.
So far, married life is awesome. Erica is amazing. I am a seriously lucky man. The luckiest. Erica is incredibly supportive. Our house is amazing, she helps me with my business, is an amazing step-mother, and our date nights are AWESOME.
My new company Bizen is off to the races. I have the support of some incredibly smart people and now get the opportunity to try and make this company a huge success. And I mean huge. I am moving from “developer” to CEO – it is an exciting transition. This project is the culmination of every aspect of my professional experience thus far. The market opportunity for Bizen has me really excited. This next phase is all about customer acquisition. Tell your friends
The Nashville entrepreneur community is incredibly exciting. JumpStart Foundry (who provided Bizen with seed funding) is now a part of the TechStars network. The Nashville Entrepreneur Center is becoming the hub of the startup community here. Michael Burcham has taught me a ton and really helped me to mature as an entrepreneur (and I have been doing this for 7 years now).
Speaking of long term entrepreneurial interests, our retail stores are still going strong. I hope to have some exciting news about that in the next few months too.
I have also been running regularly for the first time in years. I ran the Zoo Run Run last month and actually placed 5th in my age group, so that was encouraging. Next up is likely the Fristbite Half Marathon in a couple of weeks. The current goal is that I am going to run the Country Music Marathon in April. I have always wanted to run a marathon and this is the year. Some of the entrepreneurs and business leaders that I admire most are marathoners. There are definitely some similarities.
If you follow the Silicon Valley soap opera stuff, then you have definitely heard about this super-duper-secret meeting of so-called super angels that took place the other night. It is impossible to cut through the noise and know what really transpired, but it was some sort of power-grab. You may have also seen Ron Conway’s email. I have never met Ron Conway and never had the balls to try to pitch him when I have seen him at events, but what he writes sure sounds good as an entrepreneur. Then again, it was supposed to. I think Conway’s email has to be taken as marketing, where he is trying to gain the favor of entrepreneurs so that he can get the best deals.
Which brings me to my recent experience.
My new venture is being funded by Jumpstart Foundry.
The terms are really favorable. It is my company. I own the vast majority. I can do anything I want. I can spend money however I see fit. The board members are helpful in my industry. There just isn’t risk for me other than the risk of spending my time on a venture that statistically speaking will probably fail. (This one won’t fail though. I am about to knock it out of the park).
I don’t know for sure, but I suspect this is because Vic Gatto and Townes Duncan at Solidus genuinely want to help entrepreneurs.
I am really grateful for how much more startup-friendly Nashville has become in the past year. The opening of the Entrepreneur Center and Jumpstart Foundry are huge. They are actually doing deals and helping entrepreneurs get off the ground. This is a huge improvement from the previous empty lip-service that was given to seed-stage investing in Nashville.
I am really grateful for all the hard work people like Vic Gatto and Tod Fetherling have been doing from a leadership position to raise the bar in Nashville. I am also glad that we don’t have to deal with the same kinds of bullshit that is going on in “the valley”.
If you don’t know what I am talking about, watch this:
I have a lot going on right now. It is crucial that I manage my time well. Of course, that is something I always struggle with.
I have been using a service called RescueTime for a while, but now that I need to really be on the top of my game I am finding the service to be highly addictive. The chart below is a measure of my productivity for today. When I am actually in the RescueTime dashboard I see how I am doing compared to other users. Since the user base is people who care about their productivity, it is pretty awesome to be in the top 50%. It is a huge rush when I hit the top 10%.
If you want to maximize your productivity when you are sitting at your computer, I highly recommend it. Maybe we can find a way to compare productivity and add some mutually beneficial competition.
Here you can see how I used my time today so far:
You can also setup alerts to notify you if you have spent too much time on an activity (social networks and news used to take up a surprisingly large part of my day).
Ok, back to work!
UPDATE: Apparently these are live charts for the current day. The level of productivity no longer reflects the numbers from when I wrote this. I knocked it out of the park that day
Remember when everyone was up in arms about auto execs taking private jets to petition congress for bailout funds? Yeah, that was pretty bad. The thing is, the execs made what could be a compelling argument based on the value of their time and the wasted time involved in travel. Still, it was a PR loss. The perception of largess was far worse than the reality of the situation.
The same kind of thing happens with business travel on commercial airlines too. Today, a friend told me they are a “Southwest company.” As in, they only fly Southwest airlines. I know other Southwest companies too. It is worn as a badge of honor representing fiscal responsibility.
I don’t buy it.
A few years ago I posted that I would buy ideas. It was a poor attempt at making a point through sarcasm.
The point I was trying to make has been summed up nicely by Scott Adams:
You’d be hard pressed to come up with an idea so bad that it couldn’t succeed with the right execution. And it would be even harder to imagine a great idea that couldn’t fail if the execution were left to morons.
Ideas are worthless. Execution is everything.
Since no one actually buys ideas, my old post is still the #1 search result when looking for people who will buy ideas. I have finally stopped getting phone calls from people who are hoping that I was seriously buying ideas. It is really kind of heartbreaking to have someone call you convinced that they have a million dollar idea and have to explain that there is no such thing.
I opened myself up to it; it was my own fault.
Scott’s post is worth a read. It is another nail in the coffin of the million dollar idea.
Something really interesting is taking place and it could prove to be a powerful lesson about what happens when you don’t value your customers.
There is a growing murmur of discontent about Facebook. What started out as nominal complaining about UI changes has paved the way for full-fledged outrage about changes to the privacy policy. Facebook has taken the stance of “if you don’t like it, leave”. It is a gamble that Zuckerberg seems to feel is safe because there is no where else to go. As Jason Calacanis so succinctly stated yesterday, Zuckerberg has overplayed his hand.
The problem with a tech company upsetting the geeks is that they can not only leave, but they can also compete with you. How could anybody compete with something as big as Facebook; something with so much traction that it has become the primary communication medium for many social circles. How could you ever get enough buy-in? Maybe by getting actual buy-in. (more…)
I received an email today from Apple encouraging me to “Like” the App Store on Facebook. I didn’t think anything of it other than that it was kind of lame.
Until I saw one of my friends “Like” the App Store. Then it all made sense.
Here is the email:
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