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Inflection Point

2-3 weeks. That is apparently about how long it takes to reach the productivity inflection point with AJAX/Ruby on Rails/Javascript. After spending many a day stumped on various problems that seemed like they ought to be “minor,” I found myself today refactoring our most complex controller from top to bottom, fixing a couple bugs, and having the damn thing improbably work. Cool. Maybe there’s something to this language.

In seriousness, most all of this week’s interviewees have expressed considerable curiosity in how RoR differs from the other scripting languages, and why we chose it. I don’t know that I’m entirely qualified to compare it to “other languages” since my experience in both ASP and PHP has been purely C-like procedural goop written before I had OOP experience. Though that does hint at the first difference I can confidently draw between the three languages: whereas other languages tempt you at every turn to write ugly code, RoR takes MVC architecture and unit testing into its own hands to minimize the initial time penalty for writing clean code.

The database model conventions and migrations took some getting used to, but I am growing to appreciate them more as well. There is sense and utility in having a memory version of your class that mirrors the database version of the class. And it’s convenient to be able to quickly and easily commit a class instance in memory into its database counterpart. I have never even attempted to do that in another language, but I know that last time I used ASP it wouldn’t have been easy, and I imagine that is probably still the case with them.

I’m also very fond of the gem packaging system that is used to add plugins to RoR. Even with lowly DOS, installing a new plugin for one’s site is often as easy as “gem install pluginname.”

These are amongst the more superficial differences between the languages, but some of the easier ones to describe. It feels a little bit jurassic to be debugging with a console again after having used Visual Studio debugging, but it works and you get used to it. An applicant who I asked about PHP debugging wasn’t even sure if/what PHP debuggers existed, so I can’t imagine that the situation is radically better for PHP. Though I doubt it’s worse.

So, on balance, I’m giving a thumbs up to the advantages of RoR over the other languages we could have chosen. And this is after using it but a couple weeks. I’m very much looking forward to seeing what I can get done with it once I truly learn to start think like a Ruby programmer.

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Books for a Better World, Pt. 1

There are a couple books (literally, two) that I find myself quoting from on a very regular basis. Today, I come to speak of the book that takes about an hour to read and years to fully assimilate.

But before I reveal the identity of this book, a question: when was the last time you started using a new application (for the sake of this blog, “applications” includes web sites) and felt like the architect of said application truly cared about your experience?

Speaking from personal experience, it never occurred to me why certain applications felt “better” and “worse” to use. Nor did I ask myself why frustrating applications had ended up being designed as they were. Now I reflect on both regularly, and the reason is Don’t Make Me Think by Steve Krug.

Before I go any further, I should probably throw in fair warning: after reading this book, my reaction to using poorly designed software has changed from a mix of frustration and confusion to simple anger. If I waste more than five minutes finding a basic piece of functionality in an application, this now generally leads to severe annoyance. There is a fair chance that you, too, will revile the authors of your poorly designed software after reading this book. Therefore, if you are a person of action with a strong sense of justice, think twice before reading a text this potent.
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But if you think you can deal with the truth, here’s what you’ll learn:

The premise of the book centers around the fact that users are very busy people who have neither the time nor the will to give an application as much attention as designers think they will. Krug asserts that when encountering a new application, the human impulse is to scan a page in about 1-3 seconds, make a best guess what will get them where they want to go (in Krug’s words, “satisfice”), and muddle along from there. He points out that designers should take care not to waste users’ milliseconds through making unclear links or leave them stranded in an application without a clear sense of where they are. He goes on to do some exercises where the reader sees examples of well-organized sites (i.e., Amazon) and poorly organized sites (buy the book and see them).

What’s more, the book is chock full of pictures and great examples. As I’ve come to know other Internet entrepreneurs within the community, I have found myself repeatedly citing examples in this book, as it seems to take most applications at least an iteration or two before they can get enough user feedback to create a UI layout that makes sense. Without this book and a strong sense of responsibility to your user, an application can quite easily never get things right.

With this book explained, you can now look forward to hearing the exasperated tales of applications that drive me bonkers, like TopStyle. This application earned itself an express ticket to my bad side today when, after handily reporting files with CSS errors in them, it provides no clear path of how to fix (or even view) these errors. Clicking on a specific error in a list of errors just jumps directly to the top of the file that the error resides in, not to the error itself. Brilliant.

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Close Call

Holy smokes, folks! I avoided catastrpohe by the skin of my teeth this evening. I feel like I should learn something from it, or at least help somebody else learn something from it. Geek advisory forthcoming: this catastrophe was computer-centric and I’m about to get a little (or a lot) geeky in explaniing it.

explosion-22.JPGThe trouble started when I got home from work this evening and rebooted my computer per Windows XP’ insistence. Upon rebooting, I was dismayed to find my computer booting to its old partition (the half-installed Vista partition that came with this laptop before I installed XP). I had tried to remove this partition previously, but it’s been hanging around like mustachioed hotshots at the roller rink, reliably causing a BSOD whenever the laptop chooses to boot that partition. Unfortunately, as of this evening, the still-unidentified laptop demons decided that this evil partition would become the only bootable partition available on my disk.

I started the built-in Windows XP Recovery Tool (which I highly recommend…if you like fake DOS clones that serve no purpose), and it indicated that I had a block of unpartitioned space about the size of what my hard drive had been. Not good. I tried making it into a partition to see if I could boot from it, but no dice: the partition that the Recovery Tool created was an extended partition that couldn’t be booted from.

Long story short, I proceeded through the Dell MediaDirect Repair disk, Cute Partition Manager, and Partition-Recover, before finally finding the freeware app Test Disk. Now, I should be clear in my Test Disk review that it is basically a text-only app that is sparse on instruction and generally pretty black-boxy, as opposed to Partition-Recover, which has a reasonably-well laid out interface (for a DOS app) and a clear path to follow. But Partition Recover costs greater than $0, whereas Test Disk costs exactly $0. So Test Disk won. And finally, after about four hours of trial and error, I have fully recovered my deleted partition after about five button presses with Test Disk.
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This was an experience that made me rethink what I would lose if my primary computer got wiped with no prior notice. Of the many potential backup options to reduce the risk of this happening, my favorite one so far is Tortoise Subversion. Subversion is a free CVS-like source control application. Tortoise offers a Windows Explorer skin to the source control. As you can hopefully, sort of see in the picture at right, Tortoise provides a graphical indication on each indexed file showing whether it is up to date or not.

But here’s the most awesome part of all: you can create your own source control repository from scratch in less than five minutes. Right click on a folder, there is literally a “Create Repository” option within the Tortoise choices, fill out a couple fields, and you have both a ready-made backup system and source control. I’ve been using it to keep my three home computers in sync, and to get revision history for my documents that I might want to look back at later on. I can’t imagine a much easier solution. It’s only real drawback as a backup solution is that you have to transfer files over your home network, which probably won’t have the throughput of a USB 2.0 flash drive. But it can always run in the background. I’m doing my backup as I write this.

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Synergy: Beyond the Buzzword

“Synergy.” It’s one of those words that resides alongside “Web 2.0” as business jargon whose power is diluted from misuse and overuse. But, linguistic connotation notwithstanding, I think it is a critical component of sites that are going places in the 2000’s. Don’t buy it? Observe:

Etsy. A site that, at its core, is doing the same thing as eBay: selling crafts between users. Given, they have done it with a better interface, but a blind decapitated monkey could create a better UI than eBay. Most sites have. What has made Etsy so much more successful than nice-looking sites like MightyBids.com is the synergy it generates between items and artists. The preponderance of well-photographed (and thus visually attractive) items on the site exist because artists tend to be better photographers than the average user. Many of Etsy’s most unique and successful features “work” because the site is designed for abstract-minded individuals. Their “time machine” is a perfect example of this. The “time machine” is a flash application on Etsy that scrolls items of decreasing newness toward you through space. This feature succeeds resoundingly because of the synergies wherein A) people expect artsy features on an artsy site and B) art-related items are much more arbitrarily chosen than eBay items, so it is relevant to see random pieces presented. If eBay tried to do the same, you would get toasters and broken laptops and Nigerian get-rich-quick scams flying toward you. And it would not help you shop more effectively.

Biznik. A site that takes one part business, one part indy, and seasons to taste with charm. As Etsy::Classifieds, Biznik::Networking — that is, the world doesn’t need another business networking site. But powerful synergies exist when you take friendly, benevolent, like-minded indy service providers, and mix them with users possessing business acumen. The result is monthly get-togethers like “Biznik Happy Hour” which is a networking event advertised as “Not a room of business card pushing suits,” and which, over the course of the last six months, has nearly tripled in size, to the point that the event has outgrown the otherwise-terrific Liberty Cocktail bar. Why does Biznik work so well? Because its users naturally want to talk to and help each other, and if you’re talking to and helping someone, you want to get to know them, and if you get to know them, you’ll more likely to want to help them. And every time this cycle happens, the site itself becomes better because more people join and more advice is posted. The bottom line is that Biznik fosters an environment that perpetuates helpfulness, and is led by founders who embody the generous, user-first indy spirit that is manifest in so many members of the site.

As I continue to gather data and start putting the words into Business Plan 2.0, it has become very clear to me that this type of synergy is exactly the reason that Bonanzle will work. The classified ads sector is saturated, and the online auction space is beyond saturated. For a new site to make any significant inroads in this environment, there must be a strong synergistic undercurrent that leads users to the site and the site to users and users to users and the site to other sites. Fortunately, that is precisely how the plan is working out.

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Seattle Entrepreneur Blogs

I set an objective this week to get a feel for the Seattle Entrepreneurial blogging landscape, and have picked my three favorites from John Cook’s list of good ‘uns.

A Sack of Seattle: A. Sack (aka Andy Sack of Judy’s Book) is an honest guy with good observations. He’s also set up a forum for Seattle entrpreneurs to meet up over coffee, which is a benevolent gesture for an individual who has reached the “investment capital secured” promise land from which few bloggers return, and fewer still retain accessibility. Plus, his blog carries an extra bit of drama as he is currently in the process of trying to reinvent his site to capture a completely different niche (coupons) than it grew up on (reviews). Sounds like a hell of a trick to me, but I bet there are those who would say the same about taking on a $48 billion behemoth named eBay. Morons. They’ll obviously never topple eBay with that attitude.

Geeking With Greg: Greg is both a lucid and prolific blogger. He also seems to share my interests for Artificial Intelligence (I’ve architected the AI systems for most every game I’ve worked on for the last four years / he is making a web site that learns what kind of RSS you like and gives it to you) and productivity (I blog about it every other post / he blogs about it every other every other post). And if that weren’t enough, there is a funny quote about how engineers are leaving Google because MBAs have declared it their employer of choice.

Curious Office: Made by the founder of Imagekind, this site seems to fall into the “investment capital secured, accessibility retracted” collection. Comments are disabled on most posts. But you don’t have to be buddies with the writer to appreciate the piles of wisdom lying in plain site on here. In particular, there is a Steve Pavlina-esque article on their approach to getting funded. I like how he proposes that we wait until the investors come to us, rather than investing time on finding investors when there’s development to be done. Spoken like a true programmer. And you can bet that the story about the investor who tracked you down to give you $5 million is going to make for a great blog post/party story/pickup line when you can pull it off.

Anyone else got a local favorite local entrepreneurial blog not mentioned here? I’ve found that the defining characteristics of my favorites so far have been bloggers with experience and similar interests, who respect their readers and answer comments. It’s quite a treat when I uncover such a blog. The information that is readily accessible on any number of blogs these days (on the steps to getting investment, or generally being entrepreneurially minded) is stuff that simply didn’t exist 10 years ago. Let alone for free and in relatively unlimited quantities.

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Kill the Gorilla

I went to see Sujal Patel give an intriguing talk on “Introducing Disruptive Technologies into Mature Markets” this Friday. Listed as starting at 6:30 (it actually started at 8, but that’s a different story), my expectations were high as I dragged myself out of bed at 5:30, after a mockingly short 5 hours rest. It didn’t disappoint.

In brief, his three keys to dethroning your gorilla:

1) Possessing a “disruptive technology.” According to Patel, for a new product to make a dent in an existing marketplace, it must be at least 10x better than similar existing offerings. Not twice as good, not five times as good. The logic behind this is that a product anything less than 10x better will not be able to cross the chasm into the early majority, because all breeds of majority adopters (early, middle and late stage) are compelled to adopt only when a product is so overwhelming better that it justifies the investment of time to learn it. This matches my intuitive perception of user adoption patterns — I’m certainly unlikely to adopt something new unless I can clearly see high benefit and low risk (i.e., of the new technology disappearing) to doing so.

2. Tenacity. Though this one is somewhat obvious, the depth to which it is necessary is something that new or non- entrepreneurs may not understand. Patel gave the example of spending literally three months in VC meetings for “all but two days. ” In many of those meetings, he was assured that his idea “was like so-and-so’s idea,” but worse. Other challenges in his case involved convincing VCs that two late 20-somethings, who knew almost nothing about storage, could build a successful storage company amongst a landscape of almost 100 competitors. An illuminating example that he didn’t give was that, as he lectured us, his company had dropped in value almost 22% in the last couple months on news of poor fourth-quarter earnings. Nevertheless, he had to show up, organize an hour-long show, and preach the perfection of his company’s execution. Guts.

3. Partners=results. If there is a single, overarching requirement for success, it is surrounding yourself with the absolute best people that exist. He specifically mentioned the need to find “high ceiling” people who have separated themselves from their peers. When asked in the Q&A session why he’d failed to mention “adaptability” as one of the core needs of a new business, Patel responded that “adaptability” is really a function of who you have. Do you have partners that hear the needs of the business and work together effectively to ensure those needs are met? If so, adaptability is already assured.

Overall, it was an extremely relevant topic for me. Thinking about the features of the site that are truly 10x better than their alternatives helps to focus on the core of the business model. And the need to partner was one that I had already understood, but Patel’s commitment to not compromising on a less-than-ideal partner certainly resonates, as my search for able accomplices extends into weeks from what I’d hoped would be days.

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Be Better

In the last blog, I discussed the first half of the pivotal question for the great idea: How is your thing different and better? This time I’ll discuss the second half of that question.

To be sure, there are a lot of ways to be different than the competition. An eBay-like site that exclusively sold variously-aged Cheetos would pass the “different” test. Etsy would also pass the “different” test. So the question is, how can one tell if their idea is more like selling variously-aged Cheetos or artist-created handiworks?

The answer: ask around. This is a more difficult task than it sounds like for many entrepreneurs, because many of us introspective, visionary-types are used to listening to ourselves when an important question needs to be answered. It doesn’t help that other common qualities in entrepreneurs include the need for control and willingness to buck the norm. Simply put, most entrepreneurs at some point get used to living in a world of doubters and the short-sighted. So when it comes down to the most pivotal question of an idea’s existence, why would we turn to the same choir that has so regularly tried to stomp our initiatives… until around the point that said initiatives become unfathomably successful?

The first reason is that while people may not be able to imagine something better, they can often spot something they don’t like. Even if they can not absolutely determine why they don’t like an existing offering, asking people questions about their past experiences is instrumental in determining the relative degree to which certain opportunities exist in an established competitive landscape.

The second reason is that, if you’re asking your target audience, you are talking to the people that will ultimately determine your idea’s success. While human nature is naturally skeptical of all things “new” and purportedly “better,” ultimately it is the entrepreneur’s mission to dispel that skepticisim by creating a tangible product that resoundingly fills a need its competitors don’t. Without asking your target market about their needs and desires, what will guide you toward creating that tangible product that manifests your idea?

The third reason is that maybe you’re wrong. Yeah, you. Maybe your idea is variously-aged Cheetos. And if you spend thousands of dollars creating the perfect site for selling these, you will succeed only in becoming thousands of dollars poorer. Gaining feedback about your idea from the people that will ultimately use it is the ideal means by which to determine to what extent your idea needs to be adapted before it hits the bullseye.

Entrepreneurs are ultimately big dreamers and big dreamers are often very protective of their dreams. As such, I have found it difficult as a relative youngster in this game to take the first steps toward exposing my idea to the potential of Valid, Important criticism.

But that’s what this game is founded upon: having an idea, being wrong, and productively responding to that reality.

If all continues according to schedule, I should be able to report in the next week or two how being wrong feels.

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Differentiation

It’s the three-inch titanium wall between you and the loot. It’s the ghost you feel on your ceiling in the middle of the night. It’s the $64,000 question challenging your otherwise-grand business idea: How is your thing different and better?

This question has been dancing through my head for weeks. It’s one thing to have an idea that could make people’s lives better. I have those every day, and you probably do too. In fact, talk of “how to do things better” has graced watercooler after watercooler since some business wunderkind had the idea that our lives would be improved if we didn’t drink from the tap. However, barfing out some idea of how things could hypothetically be better is not unique. If only the ideas heard by the watercooler were judged in a void where “degree of improvement” was the sole arbiter of success, then the world might properly appreciate the value of a good idea.

But they aren’t and it doesn’t. My idea kicks eBay where it counts, while providing a service that person after person has agreed they could utilize. But the $64,000 question remains, because the 800 lbs gorilla is often only of peripheral concern to the new business. Big businesses tend to lumber along with scattered focus, and as a result, are easy to be negatively contrasted with a nimble startup if one focuses on the idealistic: “Could I do a certain thing better?”

The crucial gauge of the great idea, then, is no more how it compares to the gorilla than how it compares to everything else. Once I find a site that seems to be trying to do something similar, I ask: How do I compare to what these people are doing? How will I compare to them once they see my idea and start trying to copy it? And of course, how well is this business doing? Quite frankly, this final question is an annoying one to ask, because if they are doing well it means more competition, and if they’re doing poorly it means the need we’re trying to meet might not be as great as anticipated.

From what I can gather, it would seem that there are a lot of “entrepreneurs” who don’t have the tenacity or wherewithal to ask this question, and their site ends up missing the key point of differentiation. For example, Powersellers Unite provides a list of the 20 most successful eBay copycats, er, Internet auction marketplaces. You visit these sites, and you see very little to distinguish them from eBay, save that they €™re willing to make less money with lower or no fees.

It takes tremendous courage, tenacity, and perseverence to honestly evaluate a competing idea and confront the question of why that idea won €™t work and yours will. But it alone is what charges a €œgreat idea € with the power to become €œa great, successful idea. € Over the course of refining my great idea, I’ve focused on learning to be honest about the similarities, and persevere through them with an even greater understanding of where are the cracks in the fortress of competition. There is no second option for businesses that want a realistic chance to succeed.