December 31st, 2007
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Today I have to make the announcement that Gone Yard Games has decided to close it doors. It was a good run, from the ESPN negotiations to the trade show in Vegas. Unfortunately we unable to secure the mass distribution deal we had all hoped for to ensure the company’s long term success.
A special thanks to Michael, Cory and all the guys over at Rocketship who helped with the design, prototyping and production runs. Additional thanks to Brady, Jared and the crew at Revolution Snowboards who helped with the original concepts and prototyping in 2006.
It was an incredible two years of ups/downs and everything in between. Thanks to all who enjoyed the ride with us.
Men succeed when they realize that their failures are the preparation for their victories. — Ralph Waldo Emerson
November 8th, 2007
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I’m a subscriber to Robert Scoble’s blog. Once or twice a month he’ll post something that interests me and I do find some value in his work. However, something about his presence at anything and everything related to technology is starting to wear thin on me. Has technology become some random conference in some random city every single weekend? Could I please just once go a week without hearing about a “panel” of experts at the Web 2.0 New Emerging Technologies of Change Conference for Change and World Peace with Demo Pit and Expert Talks Conference by the Technology Association of America in Fargo, ND?
I think it’s great that companies host these conferences and bring in cool people to talk about technology. I just could go without the celebrity because I’m a celebrity routine. It reminds me of Buffalo Bill and the Wild West show. If I plant my image on enough stuff, show up in enough cities and tell people fanciful stories of outrageous adventures – maybe people will start believing I’m actually the person I’m pretending to be. I feel a little of that with Scoble. He’s always planting his face on something or somewhere. Is he just a reporter or does he actually have something valuable to bring to the conversation? I don’t know yet and while I’m trying to figure it out I’m finding myself more and more annoyed with him blogging about some event he was at. It’s like the E channel for technology. Where’s the red carpet?
The amount of conferences and people running around at these conferences has me a little annoyed and I needed to vent about it here. However if a concert promoter out there wants to set up a Paul Graham lecture tour I’ll be the first one in line to buy tickets.
September 28th, 2007
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Startup Rule #3: Solve A Pain Point
Ask yourself what pain you solve? You have to solve a consumer or industry pain point. If you don’t you’re just another copy cat product or service. Does it make it easier? quicker? cheaper? Too often startups fall into the trap of creating something they think is neat or cool and fail to ask this basic pain point question.
For example, lets say you want to open a coffee shop. OK, but what pain point are you solving? Is there a lack of coffee shops in the area? Is the current coffee offering too expensive or of bad quality? Is there a convenience problem with the current offerings? You have to ask these questions, you have to ask potential customers these questions. Only then will you create something that brings value to the market – because you will in some part help solve a market pain point.
Say the problem with the area in convenience. You have to find parking, you have to walk in, you have to walk out, the weather is always bad half the year. The pain point is convenience. Sure the current offerings are doing just fine, but there is opportunity in solving this particular pain point. A potential answer – drive through service. It’s quick, it’s easy, I don’t have to park, I can stay in my car, I’ve created my own market position.
One company that did ask is Dutch Brothers Coffee with 124 coffee stands in only six states.
When you solve a pain point you create new market space, you change the game. For that reason Startup Rule #3 is Solve A Pain Point.
July 10th, 2007
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How can you not love what Nintendo is doing right now with the Wii? Five years ago Nintendo didn’t really matter. Sony and Microsoft were suppose to take over the video game console market. The PS2 and Xbox were fighting a battle Nintendo knew it could not win. So it changed the game.
The founding principle behind the Change the Game business strategy is to literally change the game, to shift the rules the market plays by. Five years ago the console wars were about out doing the other guy. The objective was to build the biggest baddest and fastest machine. Nintendo knew it couldn’t fight that battle. It knew it couldn’t compete with $600 machines that actually lose the manufacture money at retail. Nintendo had to do something drastic if it still wanted to matter. They chose to forget all the fancy processing graphics stuff and instead focus on playability.
In creating their next console Nintendo actually thought about the users and their gaming experience. They created a machine that was completely different from anything Sony or Microsoft was doing. » Read more: XBox Bleeds, Wii Leads
April 20th, 2007
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While channel surfing last week I came across an hour long TV show on the Food Network called Chefography. The episode chronicled the success of Mario Batali and was actually quite interesting. As I watched I became more and more impressed with how far ahead of his time Mario is. There are so many lessons that can learned from his successful formula for any startup business.
The first thing that jumped out at me was his epiphany of simple things. From 1989-1992 Mario apprenticed in a small Italian village that led him to change everything he believed about food. In the documentary he says, “The most significant thing I’m sure I learned while in Italy was less about what to put on the plate and more about what not to put on the plate. The food was so simple it really implied absolute confidence in the ingredients. It was less about the cook’s white noise, what was rattling around in my head, and more about the peas being perfect, the papadelli being perfect and the cheese being perfect”.
You could easily switch out the food references with ’software’ or ‘product’ and get the same effect. It was less about what to put in the software/program/product and more about what not to put in the software/program/product. And he was coming to these conclusions back in 1992. A simplicity formula that would make 37signals proud.
And it still remains at the core of what Mario does. His first cookbook was title Simple Italian Food, 250 recipes containing Mario’s belief in the power of simplicity. The guy really does get it. He’s full of insightful quotes, “If you try to build something for a group of people you will never succeed, so you have to build it for yourself”, sounds a lot like some of the most popular websites. Built for the needs of a few people that caught on with a larger audience…sometimes for a different reason – think myspace, facebook, flickr. » Read more: The Mario Batali Formula
March 31st, 2007
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Startup Rule #5: Don’t Try To Do It All Yourself
The most important investment a startup can make is an investment in its people. When you’re not working on your core product you are wasting your most important asset, your time. Treat your sweat equity like you are actually getting paid by the hour. You have to value your time like you are getting paid. If you spend three days trying to set up the legal aspects of your company then you’ve wasted three days of productivity. If you think your time is worth $20/hr, those three days just cost you $500. Hiring out the tasks to a law firm who specializes in startups for $350 is a better move, not only will the firm set up the right legal entity for you, but it will come with advice and guidance.
The same can be said for tasks like accounting. Hiring a friend or accountant for $15/hr a few hours a week will free up your time so you can focus on whats most important, building your business. If you bog yourself down with doing the day-to-day tasks required to run a business you won’t have enough time or energy to actually do the stuff you wanted to do in starting your own business. In everything you do, you will have to pay somebody. Whether you pay someone else or pay with your own time, you still have to pay someone. The sooner you start learning this, the quicker you will build and grow your business. If your business goals include building something bigger than yourself, you might as well start building the support structure around you sooner than later.
