Swinging For The Fences

After the Entreporn controversy, I was mildly insulted by the readers that took my words to mean “be a micro-entrepreneur and have no ambition”.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

The truth is I’ve “swung for the fences” all my life.

My arrogance always lead me to believe I was too good for anything smaller.

I’ve tried to build a venture backed Google/Facebook/Groupon 4 times in my career.

  • All Channels, a human powered search engine (2000)
  • NanoFlirt, a real world meets virtual world dating system (2006)
  • Woyano, Mahalo meets wikipedia meets digital content marketplace  (2007)
  • MashAPI, a cloud based programming language combined with metered transport layer (2009)

During the ride I also built an open source PHP database layer that is the backbone of WordPress, and prior to my startup career I spent 5 years trying to be a world famous rock star, with burning passion to be as big as the Smashing Pumpkins.

Repeatedly “swinging for the fences” has been the most costly entrepreneurial mistake I’ve ever made.

It wasted huge amounts of my life and delayed my ability to be a self sustaining businessman. I was so focused on big exits, and grand ideas, that I never learned the fundamentals of building a profitable business.

If I had been less big headed, and the very first thing I had done was to built a sensible micro business instead of – “swinging for the fences” – I would have had a better chance of fulfilling all my entrepreneurial goals.

  • I would have had a more rounded understanding of “business”
  • I would have been financially free sooner (and able to pursue my larger high risk ventures)
  • I would have proven my business chops and been more likely to get funding
  • I would have retained more control of any deals I tried to initiate

My delusions of grandeur, mixed with Entreporn’s promise of glory, kept me on that 0.001% path.

Of course that’s my story. You may be one of the 0.001% who “swings for the fences” and gets it right first time.

If that’s your story, more power to you.

But don’t, for one second, think that I don’t have the intention of swinging for the fences.

Reference: https://cryptonews.com/news/non-gamstop-casinos-uk.htm

Bootstrappers’ Kickstarter Kit – No Investment Required

A lot of people have responded to my article about the merits of building a lifestyle business looking for answers on how to get started.

Here’s a hastily compiled list of resources to help you get started on your journey:

Entreporn, The Fallacy That Wastes Your Life

Entreporn, a term brilliantly coined by Amy Hoy holds us back from our true potential.

It works to the advantage of almost every player in our industry that we “believe” in chasing the next big thing. They need us to keep chasing it. In the truest sense – the next big thing – is a carrot on a stick that keeps us occupied and keeps them in business.

I wish I could point the finger at one specific company, person, or party and say – it’s “their” fault – but there is no conspiracy here. It simply “is” because each player (VC, corporation, media) has become so good at optimizing their part – that the system as a whole keeps us distracted and chasing after a shimmer in the dessert .

It behooves the likes of Techcrunch, Time magazine, and 60 Minutes that we care about Mark Zuckerberg’s outlier story because that’s how they sell advertising. It works out for VC’s that we keep chasing investment because that’s how they make their daily bread. It’s awesome for corporations that we chase very-unlikely-to-succeed break-free strategies because then we don’t leave our job. Meanwhile, the growing interest in crypto casinos highlights a shift towards decentralized and anonymous betting platforms, offering players a chance to engage in gambling with digital currencies, free from traditional financial oversight. This trend reflects broader changes in how we approach both investments and recreational activities, driven by technological advancements and evolving consumer preferences.

What they don’t publicize, and what they scoff at, is the concept of the “lifestyle business”. You’re lead to believe that it’s a waste of time, and in fact the category was recently derided by a VC talking to Mike Arrington as “dipshit companies”.

But here’s the truth.

If every developer was to focus on the very achievable goal of building a lifestyle/micro business – the entire house of cards would crumble.

And they know it.

The absolute truth is that each and every one of us can build a business that can support us. We don’t need to build a million dollar business to survive. We just need a regular paycheck. Just like the paycheck that we already get working for someone else, except it’s a paycheck we pay ourselves.

If you build a micro business it means you’re your own boss, you make your own rules, you live life on your own terms.

If you genuinely have the spirit of an entrepreneur inside of you, it’s perfectly possible to build a $10k/month webapp business that can set you free.

But even better, once you have the knowledge that comes along with building a succesful $10k/month business, you also possess the exact same knowledge that it takes to build a $100k/month business.

The chances of building a Google, YouTube or Facebook and scaling to the millions of users required to be “considered” for VC investment are vanishingly small. We’re talking in the region of 0.001%.

However the chances of building a $10k/month webapp business is pretty high. In truth, there is no reason to fail – other than failing to learn from your mistakes.

Imagine if we all did that. We would be free.

—

Update:

A lot of people have emailed me asking how to get started with this, so I’ve quickly put together the Bootstrappers’ Kickstarter Kit – No Investment Required

1 to 1000 in PHP With No Conditionals or Loops

Inspired by this post (a puzzle challenge asking if you could think of a way to print from 1-1000 in C++ with no conditionals or loops)

I wondered if I could think of a hack to do it in PHP… here’s my hack!

<?php
   sleep(1);
   $i = ++$_GET['i'];
   $go[1000] = 'http://google.com?';
   header("Location: {$go[$i]}/?i=$i");
?>

It’s a PHP script (index.php) running from the root of a server with warnings switched off.

As an added bonus you need to watch http live headers to see the “print” out 😉

(Note: It’ won’t work in most modern browsers as they tend to have a limit of 20 redirects. Meh. That’s just a technicality.)

 

PHP Coders 42% Nicer Than Ruby Coders, Java Coders The Meanest

Quick disclaimer: This is meant to be tongue in cheek 🙂

For the past six months I’ve been using my webapp Pluggio to grow my Twitter following based on the this strategy here.

A key component is to enter hashtags relating to the type of people I want as my followers.  Pluggio uses this data to make friend suggestions based on who Tweets those terms. I’ve been searching on hashtags like #css, #html, #php, #ruby, etc. because I want a tech following.

Pluggio has been keeping track of stats. It tells me who I followed and who was kind enough to follow me back (based on hashtag).

Using this data-set if we say that Apple Fanboys have a niceness factor of 100% (they followed back the most) then we can see that PHP coders are a whopping 42% nicer than Ruby coders. Horrible stingy Java coders are more than 50% meaner than Apple fan boys.

Hashtag I followed Followed back % Followed Back Niceness Factor
#apple 481 80 16.6% 100%
#api 568 89 15.7% 94%
#php 244 36 14.8% 89%
#html5 852 116 13.6% 82%
#firefox 2007 268 13.4% 80%
#css 463 60 13.0% 78%
#ror 382 49 12.8% 77%
#javascript 411 51 12.4% 75%
#android 1944 224 11.5% 69%
#perl 316 35 11.1% 67%
#rails 547 59 10.8% 65%
#stackoverflow 431 44 10.2% 61%
#cakephp 603 60 10.0% 60%
#ruby 509 50 9.8% 59%
#java 306 24 7.8% 47%

So, next time you’re in a bar and ask someone what they do.

If they reply “I’m a Java coder”.

Just remember, be wary.

Be verrrry wary.

Of course another way of looking at it is that Java & Ruby coders are just more discerning 😉

 

This is a test of Pluggio’s Automated RSS -> Twitter Posting Feature

I added this new post to my blog to make sure that Pluggio auto posts it to Twitter.

For more information watch this video: http://pluggio.com/videos/feed_automation

A retrospective of the first 110 episodes of the TechZing tech startup podcast

This is a guest post by Gordon Oppenheimer who submitted these comments on the TechZing blog for episode 110.

In the past month and a half, I have listened to all 110 episodes [of TechZing]. Here are my thoughts:

The Show Name

In my opinion, you were committed to the name with the first link/mention pointing to TechZing. All the discussion about it got kinda old but in retrospect it is one of the aspects of the show I like the best. I got to listen in on your struggles about the name and your decision making process (more on that later).

Unusual Guests

It is a great idea, and I like the choice of guests. This is the “Zing” part of the show.

Straying off Tech Topics

You seem to have a good balance. The non-tech topics, for the most part, do interest me. More “Zing” parts.

Build vs Reuse

You most often talk about this with regard to frameworks. In different ways, you both advocate writing your own framework. You have both been coding for a long time and I think you forget what it is not to know all that you know. For me, I started using a framework (Codeigniter) about a year ago because the possibilities for coding were too vast and I felt lost. The framework gave me some structure that was built on what others had learned. I may not understand all the reasons it helps or hurts yet but at least it gives me a reasonable direction.

Justin and Jason Projects

This is the BEST part of the show. I get the sense that you feel a little guilty asking guests about your own projects. However, this is where I learn the most. The rest of the stuff on the Internet tries to distill everything down to THE answer. But as you have mentioned, there is no ONE answer. When you ask about your own projects or discuss them with each other, I get to listen in on the decision making process.

Show Suggestion

Get a panel of guests and use the whole show to discuss all aspects of a single project (yours or some other struggling startup). Discuss marketing, pricing, freeium vs trials, payments, technologies, A/B testing, revenues, costs, professional help (accounting, legal, business entities), etc… It would be like a case study.

Thanks for the show!

End of guest post. If you haven’t heard TechZing and you’re looking for a totally new type of tech podcast we invite you to check it out at http://techzinglive.com

Infinity Inbox

I recently listened to episode 2 of Those Optimize Guys podcast. They were talking about the idea and methodology of Inbox Zero.

The idea is to keep zero messages in your inbox as often as possible.

My approach is somewhat different. In fact the exact opposite. I haven’t moved a message out of my inbox (other than spam) for about 15 years.

I had the same approach pre-Gmail. I was so happy when Gmail arrived that I could import my entire inbox from Outlook into it.

I now have over 30,000 messages in my inbox and I love it.

The pile of messages is so impossibly large it has the exact same effect as inbox zero. It’s impossible to see the wood for the trees. It’s just one very large Forrest.

I think of it like a big white screen with 30,000 white pixles on it. Pure zen.

Over the years I’ve carefully developed 100’s of Gmail filters that auto label incoming email with big bright primary color labels. I don’t even need to read subjects to get a general sense of what’s going on.

Instead of an inbox I use ‘bold’. I know if anything is ‘bold’ I haven’t dealt with yet. When I see something bold I click into it and deal with it (or apply the .todo label).

Many of my Gmail filters auto mark messages as unread when they come in (ie un-bold them). Things like recurring saas billing emails, ebay notifications etc. Because they are un-bold I ignore them. They take no time out of my day. But it’s nice to have a record, just in case.

In many ways I now have the same relationship with my inbox as I do with svn or git commit logs.

The upsides I get from this approach are:

  • Same low stress level as inbox zero because I’ve “let go”
  • Complete peace of mind that my information is safe and backed up
  • Instantly search 15 years worth of MY information, correspondance, recipts & contacts
  • Minimal email management due to 100’s of inbox filters with auto tagging. No need to archive etc.
  • Ability to scan recent few days to a week to get a sense of what’s been going on (like looking at svn log)
  • Easy to track todo list

I’m happy to say my inbox will always grow and grow. I have no intention of declaring inbox bankruptcy.

Ever.

Of course I’m sure I’m not the only one. I bet plenty of other people do it!

Do you have an Infinity Inbox? If so how many messages? How old?

Let us know in the comments below!

Twitter Stats By Email Launched

Half the battle of growing a successful Twitter account is keeping track of your stats.

That’s why I’ve created “Twitter Stats By Email” a new service that sends you a weekly snapshot of how you’re doing.

It’s free with instant sign-up @ http://pluggio.com/twitter-stats

How We Record TechZing

Hardware

We both have Macs (and did the same thing when we both had PC’s).

Jason’s mic (at the time of writing this is a standard Plantronics skype headset) Justin’s mic is a combination of Centric Mic Port Pro, Sure Headset Mic & Sony Headphones. The headphones were chosen because they are light and can be comfortably worn with the Sure headset. Jason will soon be switching to the same mic combo.

Software

During the shows we talk to each other using Skype. Justin records the audio using Audio Hijack Pro. As a redundant backup we also record the show using Call Recorder at the same time (on both sides).

Audio Hijack Pro is setup to record audio into two separate mono audio files. One file is a direct input of Justin’s mic recorded to raw aiff. The other file is a recording of skype’s input also recorded as raw aiff.

Editing & Processing

After the files are recorded both are processed via Levelator. Just drag and drop files onto it. Then two output files are created. Those files are imported into Mackie Tracktion 3 where the show is edited removing any drops or static. Another part of the editing is removing the cross talk so that it sounds like the conversation flows naturally.

When editing the show both tracks have the Mackie filter “Final Mix” on them and then the same filter is used again for the master output (so it’s used 3 times). It is used for split band compression and dynamic limiting. Also both tracks have dynamics processors on them to stop any clipping and also as a gate to only allow noise above n-DB (test for best results) to be heard (eliminates background noise during silence for either track).

The track is then rendered directly as mp3 with 128 mbps with normalize set to true.

Publishing

Then the artwork and id3 tags are added to the .mp3 using Jaikoz. Then the mp3 is uploaded to Soundcloud. Finally a post is added to techzinglive.com. techzinglive.com uses WordPress and a hacked version Burbery Podpress for podcast publishing. The hack is to enable soundcloud player to work on the website. There is also a cheeky URL 301 redirect from http://techzinglive.com/mp3/techzing-<SHOW#>.mp3 –> http://soundcloud/techzing/techzing-<SHOW#>/download/ to enable us to abstract file location.

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