Differing Goals

It's been another learning experience this week on how to manage people's expectations and personal interests. After the team meeting on Sunday morning, we left with differing views on what/which idea would be the main objective for the team.

We had two differing camps: Condor or Doberman. Though the Condor idea continued to evolve, this time to remove a critical differentiator for the idea, my gut was still telling me that Condor has a real market opportunity. Doberman was being favored by RG because it was more byte-sized and the expectations for a high-tech solution are lower. I don't think we agree on the size of Condor's market or the problem-space that it may solve. For you readers, I haven't explained Condor and Doberman on this blog, yet. Remember, I only reveal the details after I've set the idea on a shelf and have moved on; see ideas Angus and Bison.

We talked it over again and we came up with a gameplan. We will focus on getting Condor's concept and perhaps a demo ready for the Y Combinator Winter Funding Deadline of Oct 11th. The sooner we get this application into them, the sooner we can apply our energy towards launching Doberman.

The reason for two separate approaches is to appeal to the investment/networking opportunity at YC. Condor may have a greater upside, though it would require more time to implement, so unless we're funded by an angel for a few months, allowing us to quit our day jobs and bang out the product, Condor will have to take a back-seat to Doberman come October. Doberman on the other hand is almost too easy. The upside and potential isn't as great, and since the concept is very low tech, I can't imagine YC would be interested in the venture... Imagine, the solution requires a person to be involved with operations, too!

- I sent out the Condor survey for comments yesterday, so we'll see what feedback we get.
- I borrowed DE's PHP and MySQL Web Dev book, looks like I'll be coding this weekend.

The fun continues!

-john

Retool Condor; introducing Doberman

Here's a recap of what happened over the weekend:

Survey
I completed a draft of a customer survey and posted it in our google group. There were three sections to it: set the stage for the customer, ask about experiences, offer a solution.

We want the customer to be in the right mindset prior to filling out the questionnaire, so by giving them a short story/description, we are able to get them to focus correctly. We'll then ask them about their experiences and how they liked or disliked them, finally we'll offer the possible Condor solution and inquire whether they would use a service such as Condor. And ofcourse we'll gather demographic info and gather their level of interest on being an early adopter of the service.

Meeting
The team got together on Sunday morning to discuss the deal-breaker issue for Condor. This being the need to establish 3rd party partnerships to make the service even work... Research was conducted and we found some information which states that this sort of arrangement is unlikely to happen because it places undue risk and liability for the 3rd parties. This being said, the survey draft was not that important anymore and our focus changed to how we could retool the idea to reduce the liability for the 3rd parties.

Doberman
While thinking about how to change Condor, Doberman was born; I've written an initial concept in the google group. Doberman plays in the same arena as Condor, but is sufficiently different enough to be treated seperately. It may be the case that we'll combine these two ideas as a single plan with phased implementation; I think investors may like it better that way :-)

That's all for now, lots to ponder still. I need to get more comments on the survey though.

-john

Condor: Status

Here's a quick recap of what we've accomplished since my post on Aug. 17th:

Technology
- I did two installations of the same open-source script on my LAMP server at home, calling them site A and site B, respectively.
- DE and I met last night to see how we can forward data from site A to site B; he had a copy of Apache2Triad running, btw
- We soon realized that our attempts to capture transaction data from the session token was not the way to go because it was too cumbersome. Instead, we'll have the data stored on a local database. We can then query for the information when we need it and then repackage it prior to sending it out to a partner site.
- There is still a lot more to figure out, including coming to agreement on the concept of operations.

Business
- I emailed various organizations with whom I have affiliation about their business resources
- my engineering adviser/professor at George Washington University
- the entrepreneurship club at GWU
- the alumni association at University of Maryland University College, for alumni living in Phoenix

Additional Task
- Address investor risk, specifically market risk. To do this, I am going to produce a survey of potential customers. More details on this in a later posting.

-john

How does VC behavior change when interest rates are cut?

I posted the following question, How does VC behavior change when interest rates are cut?, on Y Combinator News because I am trying to understand the relationship between interest rates and the likelihood for angels and VCs to actively be investing in start-ups; my post with people's replies can be found at http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44771.

I remember a few years back when timing would have made all the difference. I was spending my evenings working with a start-up in Washington, DC to get their business off the ground. They were trying to partner with either Erickson or Nortel to exchange equity for equipment, but the bubble burst and the wining and dining went up in smoke. Ideally, I would like to try and time the launch of a company when angels and VCs are more likely to be handing out money.

Do you have no life because you work in a startup or...

I responded to the following Y Combinator News posting by vuknje, "Do you have no life because you work in a startup or..."

My response was:
"Oftentimes, working/thinking about my startup consumes my attention, such that my wife thinks I don't care about anything else... I find it hard to understand why other people just don't "get it" when it comes to entrepreneurship."

I used to spend my evenings working on my projects, but have now had to change to early mornings. It's tough on the family (wife and two kids) for me to work on stuff in the evening, so now I wake up at 5am and work till 6:30, at which time the morning routine of getting the kids ready for school kicks in. The weekends afford even less time for me to work on my start-ups...

-john

Condor: Near-Term Planning

So here is a preliminary game plan looking forward a couple of months. There will be many more things to investigate, but here is a quick list:

This week
- setup two sites for testing out a proof of concept

1 Month
- complete a proof of concept; the team members have agreed to help at various levels.
- begin looking at which retailers would be most willing to work with us
- discuss with advisers about how we can get retailers to cooperate; I already scheduled an appointment with SCORE for Sept 12th.

2 Month
- apply to YC with demo sites
- attend Launch Prep course at ASU Technopolis; I already signed up for it, starts mid-September
- see if thru ASU Technopolis, we can get an introduction to demo our idea for an angel; I'd like to get enough money to be able to work on the project full-time

I'll work on the two sites this weekend and hopefully beginning of next week we can start to do some mods and tests.

-john

Can a Start-Up Succeed w/o Developers as Founders?

I posted the following question, Can software start-ups succeed with non-programmer founder(s)? on the YC news forum; http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42508.

The reason I'm asking is that my quest for launching a start-up(s) will mostly be done by me, until I can find a developer/partner who is willing to share the same sacrifices and risks. I hope to get some feedback on this question from someone in the investment community. We'll see.

-john

Condor: Prelim SWOT; Plan Proof of Concept

I just got back from a weekend camping at the south rim of the Grand Canyon. 'twas a fun time, but now back to business... {the full version of this posting is in the google groups page}

Direct Competitors?
I did an initial search for companies that do the same thing as Condor -- none found so far. Not even those {cut} have this kind of feature.

Alternative Competitors?
These are the alternatives that might take away a customer. For example, if we were in the automotive business, an alternative competitor may well be public transportation and cycling. As for Condor, the alternative for consumers is to do things the old-fashioned way -- {cut} (If you haven't read what Condor is all about, please do so in the Pages section) That answers two of the hardest parts for a SWOT.

The Opportunity is to fulfill a consumer need and to provide convenience.

As for the Threat? There is no direct competitor and there is no alternative. There will always be copy-cats (so no biggie). There is always the risk of a slow rate of adoption. These last two points are pretty much a part of any Threat analysis, so overall, I'd say that Condor is a high opportunity and a low threat.

Proof of Concept
I think with Condor, I will actually spend some time looking at how a proof of concept can be thrown together. Why focus on this now? Since Condor's business model is so easy to understand and the opportunity is more apparent, I think it would serve us well if a proof of concept were put together. At the very least, I will document my train of thought, and if you ever want to comment, please do.

The 10,000 Feet View
{cut}

Condor at 10,000 feet will need to do the following:
{cut}

3rd party {cute} site will need to do the following:
{cut}

More thinking to come, got to leave for the cubicle farm.

-john

Investors at YC Demo Day

Today was Demo day for the summer Y Combinator teams in Boston, MA; the winter one let me remind you is in San Fran :-)

Here is just a quick snippet of those investors who attended the demos, a little info about what happened, but the bulk of the event is kept under-wraps. Still I like reading the list of investors,
http://www.innoeco.com/2007/08/demo-day-at-y-combinator.html

-john

Condor: v1

Alrighty, concept Condor is available for reading. I'm testing out this versioning option for the Group Pages. So you'll have to read about Condor from the Pages section of our Google group. We'll see how well this works, if it is cumbersome, I'll just go back to the way I've been doing it and put the content in the discussion pages.

Condor is so straightforward, it's short and sweet.

-john

Bison: Prelim SWOT; Put on Hold

The following is what I worked on while flying from Rhode Island to Atlanta(lay-over) last week. What I found was a narrow market for customers, which can be a bad thing.

Who are the customers again?

• bloggers, people who like to write, people who review things, etc...

Unfortunately, most of the people who get online do not create content.

A prelim-SWOT had me stuck on the externals: Opportunity and Threats.

BCNN Opportunity:

• create first blogging news service
• monetize user generated content

BCNN Threats:

• rate of adoption by customers (bloggers, etc...)
• copy cats

When I got home, I started to search for competitors who have already monetized blogs:

• About.com, though not a blog, pays all their "guides" rather handsomely to keep the content flowing; http://beaguide.about.com/compensation.htm
• a number of other pure-play blog who haven't hit the mainstream yet;
  
• http://payperpost.com/
• http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2005/05/08/gawker-blog-network-a-ni...
  

So it made me wonder -- does monetizing blogs make people more ready to leave their current blog service (blogger.com, wordpress.com) and sign up with the PayPerPosts of the world? It hasn't happened yet,
though these services were started in 2005, which means the Threat of a slow rate of adoption is real.

Now, that I've recorded my thoughts from last week, I can fast-forward to this week's thoughts.

I've been reading a bunch of Paul Graham's writings/lectures/info, both from Y Combinator's site, and his own website, http://paulgraham.com/, and the one thing that he stresses is to make something that people
want... http://paulgraham.com/start.html

I asked myself, do people really want to use a blogging news service? [unsure]

Do people really want to earn money from writing their blogs? Well, I have a blog and I never wanted to put Google's adsense on it... I've always thought advertising was rather annoying because it changes the aesthetics of a web page.

So I spent the past couple of days documenting my thoughts from last week, only to have my thoughts from this week slow my momentum for Bison; I'm shelving it for now based on the question of whether people would really want this service.

Next in line is Condor!

-john

Zenter Interview

Interviews with the founders of the latest Google acquired company, Zenter. The company was only started in January and was bought just recently. Here is a link to two separate interviews, one that is audio and the other is a transcript -- both have great content and provide inspiration. Did I mention that these guys are from Arizona?

http://www.grid7.com/archives/178_podcast-24-founders-of-zenter.html

-john

Bison: v3

If you didn't read the wrap-up to Bison v2, you might want to do so first, so that you can understand how Bison v3 came to exist. While on vacation, this is how Bison evolved...

What exactly is BCNN?

• BCNN stands for Blogging Community News Network
• it is a blogging service and social network

What is the purpose of BCNN?

• to promote blogging content as an alternative and legitimate form of
• daily news and opinion
• to be the source for "the news about the news"
• to compete against other online news sites for advertising dollars

Who are the customers?

• the blogging community, each individual blogger
• writers
• anyone creating user-generated content

What does BCNN provide the customers to compel them to switch from other blog services?

a) more opportunities b/c of

• shared revenue based on traffic to their blog/entries
• as part of the social network they can expand their readership base (audience)
• become part of a larger purpose "to build a news network" and "create a brand"

b) a better blogging experience

• full web server statistics for their blog/entries so the blogger knows more about thier audience
• more reader traffic because the social network allows for tagging of content (creation of a tag cloud), this allows for associations
• between blogs/entries which generates more readership traffic among BCNN blogs. The tagging of content lets BCNN offer readers the
• following scenario, "If you like this blog, we recommend the following other blogs..." Hence more traffic for bloggers.
• a blog book binding service to allow bloggers the option to offer their content in bound, book formats. Yes, this is possible and it
• will be an additional revenue source for the blogger
• ILP (maybe we keep, maybe not), if yes, it will allow for paid readership opportunities and more revenue.

The implementation plan for BCNN is pretty straightforward,

1. build the software
2. persuade bloggers to use our service with hopes of revenue opportunities. We'll target the more popular bloggers to become beta
3. testers by invitation...
4. As the network grows with content, we can turn on the news feature, such that we'll have a news page, akin to Google News, but all of the links and sections are user-generated, BCNN blogging content. We'll have algorithms to figure out which entries to post in which sections, Sports, Entertainment, Misc, etc... and we'll even have to figure out the order of listing, etc...
5. we hope to generate enough buzz such that regular news services will come to our bloggers for their "news about the news"

So, what do you guys think? Not only about v3, but if you think we should revisit a previous version also. Thanks.

-john

Bison: SWOT

Continuing where I left off for Bison v2...

I then did a preliminary SWOT of a combined scenario of A and C -- use a free blogging service to allow people to experience ILP and to
create buzz for it, then sell the ILP servers to companies for
integration within their own networks.

Strengths:
- unique security feature (ILP)
- ?

Weakness:
- ?

Opportunity:
- gain advertising revenue from aggregation of similar blogs
- sale of ILP servers

Threats:
- infosec firms
- copy cat firms

As you can see, there was nothing compelling in the SWOT that made Bison v2 (scenarios A & C) very appealing. The question kept coming to my mind about how we could sufficiently create buzz if bloggers have a low adoption rate for our free blog. What can we do to make our blogging service unique and useful enough for bloggers to try it, then like it, then create buzz, which we hope will sell ILP servers? Then it dawned on me.

Monetize the blog such that revenue sharing options can be
implemented. So now, the people who create the content can be paid for their work based on traffic to their blog entries. As I continued to
think about how this revenue sharing would work, Bison continued to evolve and scenario C was removed and what was left was a scenario A on steroids, the Blogging Community News Network (BCNN).

This is Bison v3 and I'll write about it in my next post.

Assessing Your Situation

Today is Aug 7th, and the deadline for InvestSouthwest is upon us. Thankfully we're not submitting anything ridiculously thrown together.

But the one that I'm quite interested about has a deadline of October 11 and I'd like to know which one of you (or if you know of any friends) would seriously consider doing this with me.

Visit http://www.ycombinator.com/ and read the Newseek and USA Today links on their page, and then read the "winter 2008 funding" link.

My wife is resigned to let me go because this is all I think about and she has not rejected my suggestion that we may have to sell our house if any idea is really good enough to require my full-time focus.

You may be saying that we haven't solidified an idea yet -- I agree, but once we do get one rock solid -- I'm going to submit it and I want to know who can ride this bus with me. Again, if you know of anyone who would be interested, please let me know. If you want, just email me directly.

Oh yeah, the main thing to remember is this: being in Silicon Valley and working with the ycombinator team (which have founded a lot of businesses we know, even slashdot.org) is the value of who they know and the introductions we can get.

Yes, I am trying to get the same introductions in Phoenix, having signed up for an entrepreneurial program that is jointly funded and run by a VC and ASU. But we're talking Phoenix here, which for start-up investments is not even in the top 5 cities.

Okay, please read and think about your options, your future, and your family. We're all not getting any younger, so the window of opportunity for this kind of stuff gets narrower as the months go by.

Thanks,
john

Bison: Marketing and Generating Money

While on vacation last week, I worked on trying to understand how we could get ILP as a software business to work. I looked at it from
these standpoints: marketing, scenarios on how Bison will generate
money, SWOT. This is the first of a few postings which will show how
Bison will continue to evolve into a version 3, called BCNN; I just
want you to understand how I got to version 3.

Here is an overview of some of my thoughts of Bison v2.

Marketing

What market needs does Bison meet?
- multi-level information sharing with stakeholders

What market condition will Bison exploit?
- Convergence of information makes it hard to control the message that stakeholders receive; the combinations of information sources,
distribution channels, and different stakeholders makes for
information distribution to be inefficient.

What market segment will Bison target?
- Bison will start with bloggers.

What makes Bison unique?
- Bison's ILP is the first engine to allow each person to control
their own message.

What advantage does Bison have?
- Bison's ILP can be integrated into many different communication
workflows: email, blogs, office documents, web documents.

Who are Bison's direct competitors?
- none found so far

Who are Bison's indirect competitors?
- software firms that
-- develop security related software for different classification
levels
-- develop versioning systems, ie) source code and documents
-- develop requirements management systems

How will Bison reach the market?
- We intend to "get the word out" by offering a free blogging service
with ILP. This will allow consumers to get a feel for ILP and create
buzz for the blog service, which will lead to more interest in ILP.

What future circumstances can "create" the market for Bison?
- More consumer security breaches and scares will make ILP more
inviting.
- More accidental information leaks, whether thru press releases,
blogs, etc...

What is the purpose of the business?
- (Then, as I continued, I got stuck on what exactly is Bison's
purpose.) To be the leader in information partitioning. Our focus is
to control the message behind the news. We are not an information
security company.

What business are you in?
- Software development for ??? (got stuck on this)

Scenarios on how to generate money
A) Bison as a web site destination for blogging
- user creates free blog at Bison
- Bison sells advertising
- as more ppl read the blogs, Bison generates more money

B) Bison as a web service providing ILP to other websites
- I started to step through this scenario using three entities: the
user, their website, and Bison
- I had difficulty understanding how the ILP service will be able to
provide the user with the list of groups tagged for sharing the
content. Where will this database of groups reside -- at their website
or on Bison?

C) Bison as a software server to be purchased and installed by other
companies.
- Bison will be a "commercial off the shelf" offering with licensing.

D) Bison as a monetized, social blogging network
- aggregate blogging content
- sell advertising
- share revenue with bloggers
- allow tagging of their own content and other people's content

(to be continued later, got to get ready for work)

-john