Now You Can Have Focus

I can has focus and so can you.

Startups Are All About The People

On hiring:

• Hire the very best. Do not fall into the trap of just hiring the best you can find right now, because you think you need to scale. Hiring the wrong people can be toxic to the rest of your team. Know what you want and need from your employees and do not deviate from this.

• Reward your top achievers. Let your employees know that so long as they continue to perform and execute well, there will be unlimited opportunities and resources for them to grow at your company.

On ownership:
• Look for the people who have something to prove. It doesn’t matter whether it’s to themselves or the rest of the world. These are the most driven people you can find. They are competent and don’t wait for permission.

The best employees are hard to control, so don’t impede their work and what they can accomplish. They’d rather do something now and ask for forgiveness later. If a problem arises, they’re quick to fix it. Let them experiment. Not all will pay off, but some will.

People MUST be passionate. Passion breeds a willingness to defend one’s position. It also helps eliminate Groupthink, which is a sign your employees aren’t confident in themselves and their opinions.

You will run into problems if you don’t give competent employees the opportunity to own their own destiny. Their purpose is to contribute to forming the vision of the company, not to solely carry out your vision. Collaborate with employees rather than dictate and they will almost always exceed what you thought was possible.

With passion comes personal pride and responsibility: a sense that what you’re doing really matters. Everyone wants needs to have a purpose.

On trust:
• You can’t possibly know everything you need to. You absolutely have to accept this fact; don’t be stubborn. Hire smart people to fill in your gaps. Are you self-aware enough to know where you need help?

Read the full post here on Dru Wynings.

10 Rules for Web Startups

Been reading Rework and Seth Godin was right: "Ignore this book at your own peril".


Simply put, it is the best business-book-that's-not-a-business book I've ever read. The authors have successfully, in large-sized print, chipped away at the fuss & drilled down to the core.

I've a feeling I'm going to be talking about this book for weeks & months to come. Today, reading Rework reminded me of an oldie but goodie from Evan Williams, which is what I really wanted to share with you today: Ten Rules for Web Startups

In it, Evan tells you to be narrow, be different, be casual, be self-centred, be greedy, be tiny etc. It's from November 2005 but it still applies today.

Link ←

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Top 5 Excel keyboard shortcuts

Here are some pretty nifty keyboard shortcuts for Excel that even I, a self-professed Excel nerd, did not know of.

(taken from HP's Top 9 Excel formatting keyboard shortcuts)

• CTRL + 1
Very handy. Displays the Format Cells dialogue box, which includes all of your formatting options.

• ALT + F1
This is quite possibly the most useful feature of Excel. It creates a chart of the selected data.

• CTRL + F2
Displays the Print Preview window so you know how your document would look on paper.

• CTRL + K
Displays the Hyperlink dialogue box for new or existing hyperlinks. Clicking hyperlinks in Excel can link to a website, open a separate specified file, open a compose e-mail window, or take you to a spot in the document you’re working in.

• CTRL + SHIFT + &
Applies the outline border to the selected cell, which can make your spreadsheet easier to read and look more professional.


More keyboard shortcuts for Excel available here.


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Do Business Like A Prostitute ↵

• Location is everything.
• You have to stand out from the crowd.
• Have a clear message.
• Tell your customers what they are buying.
• Supply has to meet demand.
• It's easier to upsell than it is to sell.
• Account for the unexpected.

Link ↵

The absolute beginner's guide to starting a small online business ↵

Karol Gajda (of ridiculouslyextraordinary.com) has been working online full-time since he was 19. His top five tips?

1. Get started. NOW.
2. Invest in education. Keep on teaching yourself
3. Ask for help
4. Participate in the community
5. DON'T QUIT YOUR DAY JOB <-- v. v. important

Link ↵

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Switching from left to right

In Hong Kong, we drive on the left side of the road, whereas in all of China they drive on the right. Now if we're building a bridge between us and them, there's got to be a way to switch lanes efficiently and accident-free.

Behold, the flipper bridge:

( via )

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Are you married/ in a relationship? You need to slow down. ↵

It's all too easy to use your startup/ business as an excuse for "not having time" and say things like "I'm trying to make money for the both of us", "I'm trying to achieve something here", yadda yadda.

Corey Allan of Simple Marriage offers a few key ideas to reduce friction & find pleasure in some of the simple things:

• Start small.
• Leave the office. (or if you work at home, leave the computer/ work desk/ studio etc.)
• Turn off all electronic gadgets. <-- The missus often feels she's lost me to the iPhone. I'm working on this, honest!
• Be 100% present.
• Take a walk.
• Eat outside.
• Prepare for your day.

Link ↵

Anomie

There's a benefit to being naïve to the norms of the world.

Deciding from scratch what seems like the right thing to do, instead of just doing what others do.

Link ↵

Reach customers in 140 characters, for FREE ↵

Too many businesses (even the small/ micro ones) are using Twitter and Facebook to just talk, talk, talk. All of that talk translates to spam, spam, spam.

The New York Times offers a down-to-earth, 'mere mortal' introduction to Twitter Marketing 101. And what's the No. 1 thing to do on Twitter? Listen.

Link ↵

Why is Froyo good for the iPhone?

Because it's doomed without a proper competitor.

Facebook Lockdown

If you're concerned about the new erosion of privacy on Facebook, but still want to keep your Facebook account, one of the things you can do is to lock down your profile properly.

Here's an excellent guide that simplifies the whole locking down process, in easy-to-understand screenshots.

Due to the ever-changing, um, changes on Facebook, it's worth a mention that even these lockdown precautions may not hold for long should Facebook choose to override them someday, soon, maybe tomorrow, at their whim and fancy. 

Free books for your iPad ↵

Few people know that the iPad is actually very open when it comes to books. While the only means to purchase books for it is the iBookstore on the iPad itself (so far), it’s possible to import ePub files into iTunes and sync them to your device. Here’s some tips to (legally) fill up your iPad with books without spending hundreds of dollars.

link ↵

Ultra-thin iPhone stand that fits in wallet

I've found this to be the perfect solution for when I'm on-the-go and still want to be able to prop my iPhone up w/o having to lug around yet another phone accessory. Brilliant use of the law of physics & fits perfectly in my ultra-thin wallet.
Available here ($6.75)

What haughty startup bloggers don't tell you ↵

It doesn't matter if your website looks like ass.

link ↵

Why a recession is the best time to start a company ↵

Six reasons:
1. Low opportunity cost.
2. Cheap talent.
3. Cheap stuff.
4. Eager customers.
5. Competitor carnage.
6. "Now" is always the right time.

It includes a photo that is taken in Singapore too :-)

link ↵

When I joined Apple ↵

There's been enough chitter-chatter on the Internet on all things iPad; I need not contribute more to it. But what's happening around us is about more than just the iPad. Daniel Jalkut says it best:

I joined Apple because they were threatening to change the world. I stayed on at Apple because they were changing the world. And I remain loyal to that company because, in spite of my absence, they have changed the world. In more ways than I can imagine, they’re inventing the future. And I’m along for the ride. 

I'm still working off of a 5-year-old iBook G4 and an iPhone 3G S but in no way do I feel left out. On the contrary, I feel like I'm part of the ride because my machines continue to perform beautifully & never cease to amaze me 'til this day.

We live in interesting times.

link ↵

If you could run a business without interacting with anyone else.. ↵

.. it would be wonderful & perfect. Unfortunately, somewhere along the course of business, we have to have contact with customer, vendors and even employees.

This reliance can be a constant source of heartburn. So you can either take some Tagamet or learn how to get permission to follow-up with people.

Jason Cohen shares about his irrational fear of the phone (glad to know I'm not the only one!) & how we can create natural follow-up points to make easier for us to contact someone.

link ↵

Use your support e-mails as your help files ↵

Brilliant idea from Cube of M:

If you are running a software company, you probably receive a lot of emails every month, asking for something or the other. You then reply back to the email explaining something or the other.

Create a private posterous account and whenever you reply to use an email, BCC the posterous account. At the end of the month, hire someone to go into the posterous account and rewrite all the emails into help file entries. Download the text and put it on your website as help file entries.

link ↵ 

Starting a (better) bank.

Awhile back, I remember reading an impressive essay by Matt Mullenweg (founder of WordPress) on how he would start a bank, if he wasn't leading Automattic. He gave it a name i.e. SafeBank, goes on to list its would-be features, design, how the bank would make money, market itself virally, and how a big part of the bank's website would be the blog.

Today I come across banksimple, which fulfills almost all of Matt's visions for SafeBank.

If Matt isn't involved in this already, I guess someone out there was listening.

Update: 27/5/2010 
banksimple is co-founded by early Twitter employee Alex Payne. (Source)

Flash games made by Tonypa ↵

Maddeningly addictive, and I've yet to discover them all.

I must say the bestest thing I like about Tonypa's games is the soundtrack.

link ↵

"It's easier to be an asshole to words than to people." ↵

Derek Sivers (founder of CD Baby):

It's too overwhelming to remember that at the end of every computer is a real person, a lot like you, whose birthday was last week, who has three best friends but nobody to spoon at night, and is personally affected by what you say.

link ↵ 

Soon, a PC will not have files, folders, or documents ↵

So where is it all stored? In "the cloud". What is the cloud? Who cares. 

I don't want to deal with the details, just make it work. 

But if we must know. 

Sachin Agarwal (co-founder of Posterous),  gives us the most succinct explanation of "the cloud" IMHO:

I want to be able to access all my data on my iPhone, iPad, and iCar. And I want them all to be in sync. I want the data to be managed automatically, backed up, secure, and fast. If I buy a video on my iPad, sync it to my TV instantly. If I take a photo on my iPhone, sync it to my iPad. Don't ask me anything, just make sure everything is everywhere.

People don't listen to advice ↵

Jessica Mah:

There are two distinguishing factors I see in good entrepreneurs: 1) they actively solicit advice, 2) they immediately act on that advice. Most “entrepreneurs” have this false sense of productivity by doing part 1, yet they don’t follow up with part 2. Why is this? 

I’ve had and still have this issue myself. And when I nod my head in approval at a good idea, it’s usually because it’s a good idea. I don’t follow up with part 2 not because I’m lazy, but because I can’t figure out how to get it done in the limited time I have. So then the idea gets tabled, never to return to unless I hear the same advice again. But even when I hear the same advice from a second source for the second time, I’ll probably get stuck in this endless loop of not listening to very good advice.

Better marketing for the homeless ↵

An experiment by Brian of Daily Conversions improved a homeless man's earnings by over 100% over several days:

..we changed colors and went from cardboard to white to spark the interest of people walking by instead of automatically having negative associations that they have with cardboard and homeless people. We want this to look like a new age homeless man who is really trying to make it work for himself. The biggest difference, is that we are now introducing a bribe. We are basically saying "hey I'm homeless, help me, donate to help feed my family and pay my medical bills... but not only that, if you donate right now I'll give you a free squirt of hand sanitizer". This can be applied to list building and all sorts of other aspects of Internet Marketing almost as is..

More on A/B testing.

Why Post-Teens Use Twitter ↵

In response to TechXav's Why Teens Don't Use Twitter, Lucian Teo aptly summarises why post-teens use Twitter:

Peers.

Peers are people you think are like yourself. They need not be friends; they could be people you admire, visionaries in the same field of work or have similar tastes in fashion or art.

In short, peers are people you want to be associated with, and ultimately become.

 link ↵

When Woman Is Boss ↵

In 1926 at the age of sixty-eight Nikola Tesla (one of my favourite scientists) shared his foresight on things to come. Amongst his predictions of vest-pocket communications equipment and unmanned aircraft, he regarded the emergence of woman as one of the most profound portents for the future.

...the female mind has demonstrated a capacity for all the mental acquirements and achievements of men, and as generations ensue that capacity will be expanded; the average woman will be as well educated as the average man, and then better educated, for the dormant faculties of her brain will be stimulated to an activity that will be all the more intense and powerful because of centuries of repose.  Woman will ignore precedent and startle civilization with their progress.

Mind Like Water

( via )

Simplifying your product practically ↵

We spent two weeks designing and creating an iPhone app. I sent an email to my mum with the name and the one line description of the app. She wrote back a single sentence: "I don't get it." We threw out the code and the product and started over.

and

If you cannot describe your product in one sentence, you cannot sell it. People don't want to listen to you explain, they just want a simple and clear answer to the question: What does it do? If you need two sentences to answer that, then you are in for trouble. 

Becoming a self-employed graphic designer ↵

David Airey shares a quick overview on how he switched to self-employment, the first step of which was to freelance.

Starting out with a retainer client was vital to my success, and while those three days per week brought in just enough cash to get me by, they allowed plenty of time to work on the build of my website and blog (my main self-promotion tool).

Do you really want to be rich? ↵

There are three types of people who want to make money:
- those who want to be looked up to
- those who want to be comfortable
- those who want to have more money

Which one of the three should you be having business partnerships with?

Culture and children remain biggest barriers to women in tech ↵

Chris O’Brien, one-time stay-at-home dad, is reminded that it’s so often that mothers are the ones who have to plan their lives around children.

...the overwhelming force of our culture (women are expected to raise the kids), economy (disparity in pay) and policies (California remains one of the few states that provides paid paternity and maternity leaves) place the role of child raising on women. 

But achieving the equity in the office that we claim to want is going to require much more radical changes in our culture, economy and policies than we have been willing to contemplate. 

What You Should Read About Monetizing Your Tweetstream ↵

Mark Drapeau gives us both sides of the coin:

There's been a lot of discussion about the authority of Twitter users, and how users with many followers, or authority, or subject-matter expertise, might monetize their tweetstream via inserting paid advertisements. Here are the most important articles I've seen about this debate. I recommend reading them in the order below.

The New York Times has a piece that makes it sound cool and neat-o. 

Paul Carr has a piece at TechCrunch that makes it sound like the end of civilization. 

A venture capitalist investor in one of the services wrote a piece defending the idea. 

Robert Scoble crunches some numbers and writes a good piece that digs deeper. 

Finally, read this piece about the hypothetical SuperTweet with a "metadata payload."

The One Superhero the iPad Can't Save

The Power of Less

The Power of Less: The 6 Essential Productivity Principles That Will Change Your Life by Leo Babauta.

In Babauta’s typical style and simplicity, this book is a lovely collection of philosophies on productivity, minimalism, moving on, getting sh*t done, and focusing on what you really want to do. Along with The 4-Hour Workweek, this book changed my attitude about my time (a non-renewable resource!) and how I make decisions.

5 Stages of Programmer Incompetence ↵

Every now and again I see glimpses of myself in ‘younger’ programmers as they struggle with the same concepts I did, fall into the same mental traps and generally make similar mistakes. Writing the 4 wrong ways post made me wonder how common these phases really are and whether we could categorize them. 

You too? Well wonder no longer, for I have completed this herculean task! I’ve found myself in each of these traps at least once – some of them several times – and have seen them in others too. Are there more out there?

Bring microblogging (like Twitter) to your own domain ↵

You may have heard of Status.net in its early days when it was called laconi.ca .

Status.net is a microblogging platform - just like Twitter. Except that, unlike Twitter, Status.net is completely open-source and you can run your entire microblog privately..

The folks at Dreamhost set up a site to demonstrate: behold, PetStatus.com

Please, make stuff. ↵

We pay people to do all sorts of things we used to do ourselves. In some cases, this makes sense; “outsourcing” can free us from work we find drudgery, allowing us to pursue our passions. But sometimes this reliance on professionals and experts makes us more detached from the things we ought to know about.

If you've never made a thing yourself, you will never know the value of time and labour.
So, please: make stuff.

Women-owned businesses less likely to fail per this "Women in high tech study" ↵

As the global economy regenerates, new business models are needed to stimulate economic and job growth. Investors seeking to reinvigorate bottom-line performance and to favorably impact the entrepreneurial strength of our economy would be wise to support strategies that enable high-tech start-ups that are inclusive of women entrepreneurs.

How Many Social Networks Are You Part Of? ↵

Immediately Facebook, Twitter and perhaps LinkedIn comes to mind. But even e-mail, as Mark Drapeau points out, is a social network in itself.

Being part of a social network is rewarding in itself. But connecting ideas between them takes things to another level; often people in one community have solved a problem in a way that's useful to another community. Are you the person sharing those ideas across social networks?

Microstorytelling Overkill and the Conundrum of the Exciting Event ↵

For the hashtag-happy:

At some points, some participants were tweeting something every couple of minutes. And in some cases participants were retweeting other participants. What's the "right" number of tweets? Everyone has to decide that for themselves.

I've personally always preferred to wait for the well-thought out blog post, after the event.

Small businesses flocking to social media, but still like to self-promote ↵

Talking about their own expertise is popular, customer service is not. But what's new, right?

They want engagement, but aren't doing a good job of BEING engaging, it seems.

Genius is misunderstood as a bolt of lightning ↵

Genius is actually the eventual public recognition of dozens (or hundreds) of failed attempts at solving a problem. Sometimes we fail in public, often we fail in private, but people who are doing creative work are constantly failing.

In the words of a famous man: Stay hungry. Stay foolish.

Interview with the creator of the Apple startup sound ↵

What's most interesting to me is all of the math behind it -- while making music is traditionally seen as an art, there's a lot of technical know how and information that actually went into the sound's creation. Essentially, you're creating a beep that has to represent a brand, and that mix of technical data with artistic representation is fascinating.

Rude Q&A ↵

Jason Cohen compiles a laundry list of the harshest questions a startup might be asked, and how they might be dealt with.

Palm Pre sales doing poorly because of small screen ↵

Robert Scoble:

I believe Palm made a fundamental market miscall. They assumed that people would adopt a small phone with a decent experience and web browser.
They bet against the geeks. They bet against the web.
They bet wrong.

The missus insists she's alright with a smaller screen though, because she wants a smaller phone (the iPhone/Blackberry types are "clunky"). We'll see if she changes her mind.

There’s a Bizarro app for that ↵

Expertise vs Inadequacy ↵

I'm sick of being admonished that success is predicated on spending the next 10,000 hours of our lives becoming "an expert."

Jason Cohen, on how everyone is so caught up trying to be an expert that we're forgetting about what's important: just getting work done.

Always Be Marketing ↵

Daniel Jalkut of Red Sweater Software, in an interview on the Mac Indie Marketing blog:

...we developers are shy, scared, and would rather be programming than doing anything “out there in public.” So I often implore other developers to say yes to interviews, speaking engagements, etc., before your scared nerd-brain can take over and run screaming.

Everyone's favourite feedreader Feedly, now coming soon to an iPhone near you ↵

And what do they christen it? "Feedly iPhone protoype 7"

 With a name like that, we feel like we've just gotten access to the secret microfilm hidden in the false bottom of someone's penny loafers.

Update (02/11/2010): It's now simply named "feedly" and is available at the App Store for $2.99 

Am I the only who didn't manage to squeeze a Squeeze for Mac ↵

You can have my serial number, baybeh.

 

Click on the title up top to get yours, if you're not using a relic like mine.

The Most Beautiful Man On Earth and Wonderland

You won't hardly find a post like this from me anytime, but every now and then, I let my fangirl side take over.

First off, I'm a big fan of anything Tim Burton. I very nearly bought this bed frame, simply because it screams Tim Burton-esque from head to feet. But alas, the missus wouldn't have it.

Secondly, I'm a big fan of anything Johnny Depp. He is, by any account, the most beautiful man on earth.

Yes, you heard that. It takes a real man to admit it. I am that man.

I dragged the missus to catch The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus simply because Johnny Depp was in it. I kid you not. That's how big a fan I am. You'd almost think I was a swooney 16-yr-old groupie girl/gay boy. Almost. (by the way, Parnassus was crappy & confusing. Don't waste your 10 bucks like I did. Unless you're a swooney groupie.)

Photographic evidence of my almost-groupieness:

From his 21 Jump Street days, to Edward Scissorhands, to Sleepy Hollow, to Pirates of the Caribbean, to Willy Wonka, to Sweeney Todd etc etc, I've watched them all. You've got to give it to a man born with perfect features, who devotes his life to playing only the very quirky on screen. He was especially beautiful in Before Night Falls -both as Lt. Victor and Bon Bon- one of my all-time favourite films (but not because of JD).

I have been waiting forever for Alice in Wonderland. The teasers have been, um, teasing since November last year when I was in Hong Kong. Now that I'm just getting settled in Singapore, the timing is perfect. It is finally here.

You needn't even ask who my favourite character is going to be. This movie ought to be called "The Mad Hatter in Wonderland" or just "The Mad Hatter". 

I mean, who the helios is MIA WASIKOWSKA? Oh, she plays Alice? Who cares.

Johnny Depp without a doubt is going to be the show stealer. And with the help of equally show-stealing queens like Anne Hathaway, Helen Bonham Carter & Crispin Glover, all I can say is: Can't. Bloody. Wait.

Catch Alice in Wonderland Movie starting from 4th March 2010 (in Singapore) and join the official Facebook and Twitter page, yo.

Posted via email from Dumb Little Mac User 

Youth is wasted on the young ↵

Matt Mullenweg, founder of WordPress, muses on his search for learning:

...most of my pleasure from learning comes these days from books and highly interlinked websites. Wikipedia is the canonical example, it can be so blissful to be lost in a web of great content, like a choose-your-own-adventure of information, stumbling from link to link and always ending up someplace you didn’t expect.

Video Chat Wedding

 

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