Last week at Web 2.0 there were a number of great presentations (so I hear). One theme that seems to have emerged from the event was the less is the new more.

I don’t know the specific order, but I know two parties that contributed. Seth Godin did a presentation on Squidoo, a wonderful project I am proud to have helped with. As Seth noted:

“For a long time, the web has been about more. More links, more traffic, more hits, more choices. In the face of all that more, many sites (and most surfers) are not getting what they want. This free ebook proposes a different way of achieving your goals: less.”

Source: Seth’s Blog, “The next free ebook (Squidoo!)”

Jason Fried, the vocal developer/founder of 37Signals also gave a presentation. He’s commented on it at his blog:

I want to talk about the concept of less. And more specifically the idea of using less as a competitive advantage.

Conventional wisdom says to beat your competitors you need to one-up them. If they have 4 features, you need 5. Or 15. Or 25. If they’re spending X, you need to spend XX. If they have 20, you need 30.

Source: Signal vs. Noise, “Less as a competitive advantage: My 10 minutes at Web 2.0″

Jason goes on to list these points:

• Less Money
• Less People
• Less Time
• Less Abstractions
• Less Software
• More Constraints

I would have to say that in my heart of hearts, I agree with them both. Living that way is an entirely different story.

Last night we had another late-night planning session - you know the kind that runs past midnight and then I get stuck waiting 1.5 hours for the next train to take me back to my palace in Newark.

We have been working through the requirements for another arm of the project and it seems we always go back and forth, back and forth. Fortunately, everyone involved is super smart and passionate about the part they know. It sure makes for some interesting discussions.

In the end, we landed on our A-ha moment in the last 10 minutes (of course) - and it was all by accident (naturally). It’s funny when that one piece is uttered and all of a sudden the whole thing makes sense like you never imagined before.

I was happy to find an entry on Charlie’s blog today that dealt with what we were grappling with - what to start with. It’s really the hardest thing in the world to answer. Here’s Charlie’s recommendation:

• List all of the ideas for functions of your service.
• Rank them in terms of value to the user.
• Kill off the most useless 20% of the features.
• Take the remaining 80% and map how many clicks it takes for someone to actually complete them.
• Even with the most simple, try and kill off 20% of the clicks… or if its really simple to begin with, just shave a click off of everything.

All I can say is Amen, brother.

Well, I’m getting closer to launch with everything we’re doing here at **** *****. To that end, I’ll be in the Bay Area meeting with some people I’ve been conversing with over the past couple of months to explore ways to work together.

I have to admit I feel a little lonely sometimes on the Right Coast.. seems most of the folks I know and talk to about work are out there instead of here. It’s somewhat difficult to balance at the moment, but it’s more than reasonable for the time being.

In any event, I will be in San Francisco from Monday October 17 - 18. I’d love to meetup with anyone that is in the area and would like to talk shop. Drinks and dinner are also quite fun and appropriate :)

Last night I was happy to see Writeboard launch, well sort of. I first heard about the product about 3 or 4 months ago, maybe even longer. Throughout this time, there has been much speculation about what the product did and how it would help us all. 37Signals was in the “unfortunate” position of previously delivering several and useful applications (Basecamp, BackPackIt, and Ta-Da List).

Of course, in the same time that we’ve been waiting for the new Writeboard, we saw an amazing competitor, by the name of Writely, come onto the scene and steal the hearts and minds of most people who’ve used it. Naturally, they’ve started to build loyalty amongst the people who are into this sort of service.

So when I first tested out Writeboard, well, I guess I was underwhelmed. In truth, the app is very “37Signals”, so it’s not like they’ve failed on that promise. However, in stark comparison to the tools that they seemingly competing with, there’s something just not as refined. Don’t believe me? Use your favorite Blog Search tool and search for Writeboard - you’ll see what I mean.

The lesson here, though, is that we need to be mindful of the promises we make. Everyone’s letting on quite early that they’re doing something (including us). Some people put out more of a shingle than others - heck, stealth mode is actually being criticized by many. The one caution is to make sure the buzz is fulfilled or the results can be terrible.

Yesterday was a very busy day. For the better part of it, I was confused. We’ve been quickly and quietly developing the underlying architecture for our system and putting code in place to suit it. One thing we didn’t really anticipate was that the design we were using wasn’t what we wanted.

The Secret Project is actually made up of a few different projects. When we started, we completed the design for the first part. We’re now looking at parts 3-6 and guess what, it’s like assembling IKEA furniture - there’s too many parts that look the same but don’t quite fit. In our case, it’s like the furniture that arrives with one random extra piece plus one important missing piece.

Long story short, I set out today to initiate conversations with the various designers I know of that would be right for the job. As usual, they are all quite professional and I’ve heard back from most of them quickly - some I just IMed. What surprises (well not really) is that they are ALL BOOKED. And when I say booked, I mean “Call me in January” kinda booked.

So, in short, we’re still looking for a web designer to join our team - soon! Are you a super-talented web designer? What’s your project timeline look like now?

In my more formative years, I was very interested in design and visual presentation. In fact, my first business was actually selling nicely designed sheets of paper with people’s name’s on them in the 5th grade. I sold them for $5 a piece to all the kids after they saw mine. Needless to say, it was a profitable venture ;)

Beyond that, I’ve been quite obsessed with making myself a better communicator. The pursuit of this lead me to study more about psychology, sociology, writing and grammar, and once again visual design. I got A’s on my papers in college, but making the covers was the most rewarding part for me.

Yesterday we had a planning meeting for the pitching phase of our venture. We’re gearing up to start pitching several strategic investors, angels, and VCs - in that order. I’ve prepared many slides already and, while they are quite telling, I’m still not happy with them. I’m not happy with them because I know what a good presentation is and I’m not there. How could I not know, I’ve been influenced by some of the best.

I recently was delighted to find the Presentation Zen Blog. I don’t care what you think you know about selling anything, you should be reading this. The blog has been discussing the different styles of many of the best presenters - some of them with blow-by-blow precision.

So here’s the styles that are outlined so far (and my personal attachment to them).

The Kawasaki Method

I first was exposed to Guy Kawasaki’s methods by way of a crash course I took one weekend several years ago. Ironically enough, I was researching the Real Estate business and attended a Real Estate Connect conference in San Francisco. Guy was the keynote at that conference. A few days later, I was at the Garage.com Bootcamp and, again, Guy was the main speaker throughout the day. I took the first chance I had to compliment him and tell him I was inadvertently stalking him.

More recently, I picked up Guy’s new book, The Art of the Start. I read the book quickly and was really impressed that Guy detailed quite succinctly what he thinks makes the best presentation. Literally, it breaks things down slide-by-slide.

I topped off this experience in April when I produced our first Sparkcast for the conference. It was more than awesome to be a part of the Art of the Start Conference and to see it live on the big screen.

You can find out more about the Kawasaki Method here.

The Godin Method

I’ve been reading Seth Godin books for what seems like ages now. At the same time, I have been an advocate of his writings and have passed along many copies in my time. Ironically, however, I never did get to see him present.

All of that changed in June of this year. Seth does a summer internship. This internship was interesting because he was planning on launching a new service (his biggest idea ever). Naturally, I couldn’t resist the temptation so I applied for the internship. I was quite excited to become a member of the team.

My first Seth Godin presentation was delivered in the most ironic of places. It was only 30 minutes after picking up the rest of the team from the airport that we were seated in a small Thai restaurant in Queens. Seth pulled several posterboards from a black bag and began to tell us the story of Squidoo. The project is not live yet, and this is the first time I’ve mentioned my involvement, but it will definitely be something to marvel at.

You can find out more about the Godin Method here.

I’m certainly not a master presenter, yet. I’ve got very little problem talking to large groups of strangers, but making sure your illustrations, both verbal and visual, are concise and meaningful is an art worth of mastery.

What’s your presentation style? Do you have slides to share?

When building a product, one of the most difficult decisions to make is just what you charge for. It’s really a critical decision since the choice that’s made will completely dictate how the product is received and by who.

There’s a few models that clearly exist, though I don’t know which to advocate since it all depends on your business model. So here they are:

• dotBomb Method - give it all and make it up in volume (eyeballs, click-thrus, what have you)

• Free Trial Method - give some or all of it away, but just for a limited time

• Lite to Heavy Method - give away the basic stuff, get them hooked, sell the heavy side

• Pay-to-Play Method - give nothing away, you gotta be in it to win it, that sort of thing

These thoughts were inspired by a decision made by the Basecamp team and the subsequent flap.

Of course there’s lots more out there and everything in between. What models are you using? How did you decide?

I found this a couple of weeks ago and meant to blog about it sooner. Seeing as I am tired as all heck from the mini vacation I just took, here’s what I quoted earlier.

The problem with trying to think in terms of “how do we get to $10 billion in revenue in 2050” is that you lose sight of the fact that your resources are very limited today. Staying focused on earning the first $50K of revenue allows you to concentrate your resources on a very well-defined short-term goal.

Startups are lucky if they have more than a few pairs of hands to help them get the product to market. They’re even luckier if they have help bringing in the first paying customer. A startup doesn’t have the luxury of wasting time and energy on activities that don’t directly result in driving the first dollar through the door.

Finding office space, creating an org chart and writing a 5 year marketing plan may seem like a necessity to meeting your long term goals, but none of those things will matter if you aren’t able to bring in the “First 50.” The greater your ability to focus on short-term achievements, the greater your likelihood of surviving long enough to make larger accomplishments.

$50K is a great first milestone, because let’s face it – if you can’t get such a small amount of revenue through the door, who really cares if you’ve got fancy business cards, a nice office and the perfect 401(k) plan?

Source: Go Big Network

We’re quite focused now on finalizing our presentations and fortifying it with the various statistics we’ve known anecdotally. The first 50 is definitely in out sights, is it in yours?

Everyone’s probably heard the saying,”One is the loneliest number”. In many ways, I have found that to be true. However, since starting this new company, I can only say that One is definitely the BUSIEST number.

At the last count, we have 5 developers actively involved, 1 designer, 1 HTML Guru, 2 great people helping with financing and business plan development, 3 people involved in general sales/marketing/pitch strategy, 2 advisors on the Board, and myself. There’s nothing lonely about 15 people piping and chiming into Basecamp almost daily.

No it’s certainly not lonely, but I sure am busy. I hate the pyramid metaphor for management structure. Perhaps a better analogy is that of the keystone. My role as the CEO of this new company has my hand in many different pots at the same time. On any given day, you’ll find me on the phone, in an irc channel, chatting via IM all at the same time. Add to this that I am actually being forced to use almost every skillset I have. From designing wireframes and basic icon shapes with the designer, to reviewing HTML code and checking browsers, to writing specifications and designing databases, to writing sales pitches and designing the accompanying slide and last researching the competition and the landscape.

Phew. I’m not lonely. I’m bloody tired. For the last 13 years or so I have been working with 6-3 hours sleep a night. It’s never been a problem. I can tell you now, though, come 1AM or 2AM, I’m more than ready to go to sleep. Sure I still get up at 6-7AM, but still, it’s hard to admit I need sleep now!

Besides my team, I know there’s lots of us out there. We’re not lonely, but sometimes we could use a hug :).

I recently talked about my dad and the role he played in me being the entrepreneur I am today. This morning, I stopped by B&N to rest for a short while and noticed a book called Instinct. It’s a book about entrepreneurship. I saw this quote and had to write it down:

People who exhibit entrepreneurial behavior may or may not be successful, and entrepreneurial behavior isn’t necessarily passed on. The entrepreneurial spirit can be expressed in many ways that have nothing to do with starting a business.

“Nobody’s yet found [a specific genetic link], but anecdotally you sort of see it. Even though children of entrepreneurs tend to regress to the average, they probably are more entrepreneurial than the standard average, at least for a few generations,” says Kinnear. “Of course, if they get too rich, then they become Paris Hilton.”

Where biology may play a role is in creating a genetic foundation for personality. Instinctively, pouncing on opportunity, being unstopable in pursuit of a vision, being able to persuade others of the value of your idea — those are some of the marks of thinking like an entrepreneur.”

Source: Instinct: Tapping Your Entrepreneurial DNA to Achieve Your Business Goals, Thomas L. Harrison

This really goes at the Nature vs. Nurture arguments that never really get answered all that definitively. Personally, I don’t know how to tell where my guts come from, but if it’s hereditary then I’m happy to have that edge (if any).

What about you? Do you have entrepreneurial behavior or personality? Do you come from a long line of entrepreneurs?