3. Cool Company -- Paragon 5
4. VC101 -- Welcome To The Jungle
5. Quick bytes -- Funny Spam
6. More Star Trekian Thoughts
Lot’s of stuff going on, not much time to write, so I apologize for not cranking out more newsletters. Then again, if you’re like me, you probably get more things in your inbox than you have time to read. So maybe it’s not such a bad thing that I haven’t inundated you with more stuff to read.
Hopefully, I should have some interesting announcements in the coming weeks and months. As a hint, there is a major commercialization effort underway. Too many people have told me, “you ought to get paid for your stuff,” so I’m hoping to remedy that. In spades.
A little bird mentioned to me that a certain Chicago tech gossip columnist might be ready to retire. Anyone know anything else about this?
This nifty issue of the Bill Snow newsletter has some thoughts about the Blogging world, which niftily melds stinky historical riffs with technology, in a style that only I could pull off. I have yet another world famous VC101 column (it’s nifty!), plus a look at Paragon 5, a nifty game company here in Chicago (kind of), more Star Trekian thoughts, and a few nifty letters from the teeming masses.
“Nifty” and “the sense of smell” are the two hidden themes in this issue, btw.
Congratulations to the Boston Red Sox on their World Series Championship. Like most Cubs fans, I was rooting for them. White Sox fans, all 8 of them, were rooting against the Cubs fans rooting for the Red Sox. As John Kass in the Chicago Tribune pointed out, White Sox fans are jealous because the White Sox have not won a World Series since 1917, one year before the Red Sox’ previous championship, and yet there is no talk of a White Sox curse.
C’mon, John! Of course there’s no curse on the White Sox…curses only like to torment teams that have a fan base.
Last baseball note: I’d like to personally thank the Yankees for graciously incurring such an enormous collapse this year. This makes the Cubs’ 2003 playoff choke, as well as the Cubs’ crash in the final week of the 2004 season, as well as the Cubs’ playoff choke in 1984, look puny and meaningless in comparison. Thank you.
While we tend to think of today’s Internet Bloggers as a recent innovation due to technological advances, a deeper read into the bowels of history shows this is not the first time technological advances have led to more personal time and lousy authorship. While a few people have the talent to rise above the rabble, most blogs are merely self-indulgent junk culture, of interest only to the author and perhaps a few friends. Yeah, sure, I really want to hear all about your opinions about Ashlee Simpson’s Milli Vanilli crossed with acid reflux moment, or perhaps why you hate your 8th grade science teacher.
Despite my griping, there is a greater purpose to the ramblings of the self-absorbed, gadget culture elite: It is the historical record they’re laying down.
Yup, the daily machinations of these junk culturists will someday, in, oh, about 1000 years, be incredibly interesting fodder for the archaeologists who discover a server, circa 2000, that still contains readable data. Let’s look at those bowels of history I mentioned earlier, and all will make sense.
As all loyal BillSnow.com readers know, civilization (European, at least) took a few centuries off following the fall of the western empire. 1300 years of imperialist plundering, road building, and ripping off the Greeks at every turn will do that to a people. For those who are tuning in late, here is recap the Bill Snow version of European history c. 450 to 1100: Barbarians beat each other up and crowned themselves kings, slang called “Vulgar Latin” became French and Italian, the Picts became the Scots and the Scots became the Irish, Bede wrote something, Charlemagne pretended he could read it, some stuff happened in 1066, cats slept with dogs, and kids skipped school for, oh, about 400 years. It was an unmitigated mess rife with confusion. Kind of like Gigli or Andie MacDowell’s “acting.”
By 1200 or so, roughly a century and a half following William’s conquest of England, there were enough technological advances in farming that fewer people were required to maintain steady production levels. At the same time, the tracking and accounting systems of the ruling class became more complicated, and with less people needed to do the farm work, more people were able to earn livings as advisors, consultants, and accountants. No longer were these proto-MBA types restrained to a life of subsistence farming and manure spreading in remote places, no sir, these self absorbed urban souls moved to the big cities – you know, the ones with more than 1,000 people – and became fancy pants know-it-alls.
Add relative peace and prosperity to the mix, and you have a perfect recipe for the medieval equivalent to our late 1990’s self absorbed, garget culture elite. Gee, the climate was getting warmer in the 1100s and 1200s, too. Actually, it was warmer in the 13th century than today, but don’t tell anyone. If only they had Starbucks and wireless connections back then...
So what do the cultural elite do with themselves as they live a manure free life of fancy pants urban trendsetters?
They write about themselves.
(By the way, this is Snow’s Law number 8: The more technology advances, the more junk culture becomes high culture. Moore’s law has nothing on me.)
The period following the Norman Conquest of England saw an explosion of the written word. In addition to detailed accounting records and legal documents, these people kept diaries and wrote letters to each other. Fiction based every day life began to spring up again. In earlier centuries, people did not do this kind of thing because, 1) they didn’t have the time to keep records or pursue self-actualization, 2) Vikings were burning their stuff, and 3) they couldn’t write.
Much of this post-conquest writing dealt with the mundane and, dare I say, self-indulgent, pursuits of the day. And let me tell you something, people of 12th and 13th centuries (Kings included), really, really, really liked pursuits of the bawdry persuasion. And just like our bloggers today, they liked to write about it. To give you an idea of what apparently passed (no pun intended) for royal entertainment in the 13th century, a character named Roland le Pettour (the farter) was awarded an estate is Suffolk England…because of his ability to entertain King John on Christmas by leaping, whistling, and, uh, well, being flatulent. Reminds me of my childhood, actually.
In a sense, the only difference between 13th century writing and today’s bloggers is the Great Vowel Shirt, because back then prose such as, “Alas, for methinks I drankth too much mead last eve and I’ll be hungoverth for the rest of me life,” was de rigueur. Just like today. Since time in memorial, when we have the time, we love to write about our favorite subjects: Ourselves, booze, and how much we drank, and what craziness ensued as a result.
What’s percipient is the fact that this boring and middling prose is considered extremely interesting and enlightening today. The reason is because historians know plenty about the big dates in history. We know all about the big battles and other history changing events. What we do not know much about is how people lived their every day lives. I remember finding some old Life magazines when I was about 12. These detailed President Kennedy’s assassination, which occurred a few years before I was born. While I obviously found great interest in reading the accounts of this horrible incident, I curiously found the advertisements quite interesting, too. I got a better sense of what life was like in 1963 from looking at the Ford and Chevy ads, the cigarette ads, the toy ads, the Campbell soup ads, than I got from pouring over the stills from the Zapruder film.
The point to all this? I now wholeheartedly encourage everyone who is so inclined to start a blog. Start writing. Start recording. Write about whatever happens to you during your typical day. Yeah, I know what you’re saying: “Who the heck really wants to know my feelings about people who chew with their mouths open…or my opinions about the idiots who use their horns as doorbells…or how much I hate morons who cut through alleys and proceed to honk at each intersection, at 6 AM…or how stupid people look when wearing backward baseball caps?”
The truth is, your existence, whether others find it interesting or not today, will be incredibly fascinating to those who will dig our bones in 1000 years. The history of the stock market crash, the troubles in the Middle East, the elections, the technological advances, my eagle on a par five 2 years ago, will all be known to future historians. What they might not know much about is what you thought, ate, drank, listened to, and whether or not you were able to turn a flatulence problem into real estate holdings.
We all have magic in us. It might take a few hundred years, but someone, somewhere, will realize this about you. Don’t let the future down.
3. Cool Company -- Paragon 5
Paul Bragiel, CEO and founder Paragon 5, recently contacted me through LinkedIn.com (see, those pesky on-line community things can help you make professional contacts), and we sat down for a little chat.
Paragon 5 is a game and ringtone company, and Paul recently moved his main office to the Chicago area, although most of the other 15 or so employees (mainly developers) are in Poland and Amsterdam. A Polish native (no word on his thoughts about Zywiec beer), Paul’s bio states he’s ridden a bicycle across the US (5,000+ km), competes in marathons and triathlons, and speaks some French.
In Paul’s words, “…my company has created soundtracks for 35+ games. We also create some of the ringtones you hear that come default with Nokia handsets (mostly European ones though). A list of some of our larger partners through the years is pretty much a 'who's who' in the game industry. This list is as follows: Atari, Capcom, EA, Konami, Nokia, Sega, THQ, etc.”
Pretty cool, in my book. And all you little leaguers out there, er, I mean, all you early stage and wannabe entrepreneurs, note this: Paul put his company together without using outside capital. He says he owns 100% of the stock.
He got his start in this business as a hobby. Apparently there is a big subculture of people who design demos and games and animation, just for kicks and giggles. It was from his prowess and interest in these seemingly self indulgent pursuits that led Paul to jettison his first job in the corporate world, and focus on having a little fun.
And that’s the way you do it.
I’ve recently chatted with a number of early stage and wannabe entrepreneurs. Well, not recently. I’m always chatting with them, and I always enjoy it. What has been notable about numerous of these recent conversations is more than one entrepreneur has expressed the fact “it isn’t fair” because he has a family to support, and it is just too risky to quit the full time job and dive into the entrepreneur world full time.
Welcome to jungle, pal.
Who said it was fair? Who said it wasn’t going to be risky and incredibly difficult. So you have a family to support – too bad. These are the decisions that you made. If you can’t give up the job (for any reason), then it is time to give up the thought of being an entrepreneur. In essence, you’ve already made your choice, now is the time to acknowledge that choice.
If you’ve essentially chosen family and children instead of being reckless and risk taking, what’s wrong with that? That’s a choice to be proud of, not to regret. If you don’t get that into your head, you might inadvertently blame your kids for all the things you wanted in life, but were not able to obtain. That’s sad.
As a means of aiding and abetting as many early stage and wannabe entrepreneurs as humanly possible, here are some thoughts on the entrepreneuring life. Welcome to the jungle, baby!
OK, OK, so you’ve heard this countless times. It’s a business adage that is as old as dirt. Instead of merely giving lip service to the notion, let’s explore what this really means.
I bring this up because during another recent conversation with a wannabe entrepreneur, I asked the person if doing what he was proposing was something he really loved to do.
“Yes,” was the reply.
So I rephrased my question in the form of something much more harsh. I asked, “Do you really want to do this every day, potentially for the rest of your life? Is this what you really want to face when you get out of bed every day? And not just the “big picture” part of your dream, but all the little details, too? The marketing, the sales, the accounting, the product design, the packaging, dealing with customers, taking out the trash, do you really want to do this for 12 or 14 or 16 hours a day, every day, weekends, too, for the rest of your life?”
Our wannabe entrepreneur friend assured me, “yup,” he was mentally ready to do it. Whether or not he truly is ready to do those things every single day is unknown, but all wannabe entrepreneurs need to ask themselves these questions.
Can’t is one of the most horribly overused words in our language. It is an extremely powerful word, too, because “can’t” has the power to stop people dead in their tracks and cause them to give up dreaming and scheming. Far too many of us are guilty of automatically obeying that damn word, usually when it is invoked by a potentially jealous person who simply utters, “You can’t do that…”
Instead of following their dreams, instead of taking some chances, instead of risking looking like a jackass, too many people give up without trying, slump their way to their boring jobs every day, all because some sad sack intoned this horrid word.
No matter what you do, no matter what you attempt, someone will always tell you, “You can’t do that.” Sometimes it is another person telling you this. But far too often in entrepreneurship, the person invoking the “can’t” word is the same person listening to it. Far too many people talk themselves out of striving for something different.
Don’t give in to the power of “can’t.”
There is nothing wrong with taking a salary, of course. A salary comes in useful when paying the bills. But if you’re dreaming big, if you really want to accumulate wealth, you need to own the company, or a piece of it. Unless you’re a professional athlete (in a sport that pays), salaries alone are a tough way to accrue wealth.
And if money isn’t that the main thing for you, if you strive to call the shots in your career and work, then taking a salary from someone leaves you beholden to that person. You’re at that person’s (or company’s) beckon call.
The salary phenomenon has a way of institutionalizing people. During Japan’s decade and a half economic downturn, I have read numerous stories of “Salarymen,” men who have been laid off, but are too ashamed to tell their friends…and even their families. So the Salarymen get up early every morning, put on a suit and tie, grab their briefcases, and leave the house. They walk around Tokyo’s business district, trying to look as if they have a place to go, but instead of an office, they usually spend their days in a library or a museum or some other public place. After their day is done, the Salarymen commute home.
This is about as sad as sad gets. Unless someone is paying these people a salary, they do not know what to do with themselves. So ingrained is the idea of submitting themselves to a benefactor, that they get out of bed and go through all the motions of subjecting themselves to a benefactor…even when they do not have a benefactor.
If you want to do it on your own, if you want to make a big mark of your own design, you have to be willing to give up the salary (from someone else).
There are some people who have the hustler’s mentality, and others who can learn a few things from people who hustle and strive to find a way of making a buck. This usually involves finding people who are willing to pay for something, as opposed to finding a product then hoping there is a market for it. Find needy customers first. The interesting product should be your second step, not the first.
While you’re focused on finding customers, revenue, and creating a real business, don’t lose sight of who puts money into your pocket: your customers.
It’s an age-old adage in business, but customers who have a bad experience with your company will rarely tell they had a bad experience. They’ll simply stop buying your product/service, no explanations given. It is far too easy for entrepreneurs to begin to take old customers for granted. Do this and you risk losing them.
Don't Cry For Me, Valuation
If you actually get to the point where you are a viable investment for angels or VCs, stop worrying about getting the best darn valuation, and do the deal. Your focus should be on growing the business. If you are successful enough, there will be plenty for everyone. Would you rather have 100% of a company worth nothing, or 10% of a company worth $50 million?
Further, when you’re raising money from your core of family, friends, and fools, pushing for a high valuation may come back to bite you in the rear. While your unsophisticated investors may be willing to go along with your $100 million pre money valuation (probably because they don’t grasp the concept of valuation), this will cause problems down stream if you get in front of a sophisticated investor. VCs and angels will push for a more reasonable valuation, and you’ll be left with the options of either 1) not taking the needed investment, or 2) explaining to aunt Bea and uncle Vladimir why their stock, once worth $100 a share when they bought, is now only worth 50 cents per share.
Reducing The Jungle To A Merely Scary Forest
You’ll never be able to fully and completely reduce risk as you venture into the entrepreneurship jungle. But being better prepared, being realistic with yourself and your goals, and truly understanding if starting a business is right for you, may help you reduce some risk.
And don’t become enamored with many of the so-called recent entrepreneurial “successes.” Don’t think these people are any smarter than you. Yes, they have fat bank accounts, but since so many “successes” have not been able to repeat the magic and make it happen a second time, I guess their business acumen was being at the right place at the right time.
Instead of waiting for the next boom time, instead of waiting to 1999 to return, instead of waiting to ride someone else’s coattails, get out there and make your own magic.
5. Quick Bytes: Funny spam
I hate spam. We all hate spam. But I must admit that I chuckled when I saw the following subject line in one of the messages in my junk email folder:
“I Need The Hair Dryer Back”
Spam is a nuisance (no doy, Bill), but at least I’ll give this yahoo the “non sequitur of the day” award.
Please withhold emails suggesting the Bill Snow Newsletter usually wins the “non sequitur of the day” award.
Traveling faster then the speed of light, raging bulls, infinite compression, and iron butterflies!
As loyal readers of the Bill Snow newsletter know, we’ve been riffing on strange “Star Trekian” types of technology. I brought up the subject by asking the question: why can’t we turn dirt, water, and sunlight into a steak, without first making grass and then a cow?
This concept has to rank right up with the concepts of infinite compression and perpetual motion. Ironically, I recently heard a radio DJ talking about Maxim Magazine’s “The Most Rock’N’Roll Deaths Of All Time.” Being a fan of both rock music and dead people, this was obviously up my alley. So I bought a copy. When I got to #15, Philip Kramer, I suddenly remembered his story.
Kramer was the replacement bassist for Iron Butterfly. You know Iron Butterfly. Heavy metal band from the late 60’s, wrote a ridiculously long called, “In A Gadda De Vida.” Seventeen minutes long, baby. I was in a biker bar once where some knucklehead kept playing that darn song over, and over, and over. Of course, since he was a biker with a bunch of his biker pals, I thought it was very prudent to play the song a dozen times in a row.
In addition to being a bassist in a rock band, Kramer apparently was something of a mathematics geek/genius. After his rock career ended, he dove head first into the world engineering, eventually ending up Northrop and worked on the MX missile.
Kramer eventually started a couple of companies, including Total Multimedia (TMM). During the heyday of the stock market boom in the 90’s, the TMM board on Raging Bull was one of the heaviest read and commented boards.
I won’t recap all the details, you can read the old Maxim article, if you’re interested, but suffice it to say, Kramer’s company’s involved his research into, and use of, mathematical formulas that would allow you to, oh, reach the end of the universe in about one second. See, right up there with perpetual motion, infinite compression, polywater, cold fusion, and other pseudoscientific and protoscientific theories.
I actually love reading about all the stuff, and I especially love reading about the loonies who propagate it.
In early 1995, Kramer announced to various people in his circle that his research had led him to discover the most incredible thing in the world. It would be worth billions. This discovery also happened to occur during the time TMM was failing a company. Naturally, Kramer thought unknown persons were “trying to get” him.
And then he disappeared.
For years, various people in his circle believed the government snatched Kramer and stole his science. Others felt UFOs took him away. His discoveries were that important.
Four years later, Kramer’s body was found in the wreckage of his mini van in Drecker Canyon, California. It seems he simply ran off the road. Accident? Suicide? Foul play? Who knows?
Who cares?
One thing is certain, the bigger and more amazing the story, the more certain people will believe the story. That’s why so many “out there” stories spun by wild-eyed visionaries get funding from unsophisticated investors (ahem, friends and family). Add some dire situations, and things get real interesting. In fact, there seems to be a recipe for inventing the “greatest thing in the world.” I think it goes something like this:
In no time you will exclaim, “I just discovered the greatest thing in the world!”
While doing a little research for this piece, I found the following on one of my favorite websites, Wikipedia. While it was written in the context of junk science, I think we call all see how it applies to junk business plans. Essentially, suspect science (and business plans) occur when the theory is:
§ Asserting claims without supporting experimental evidence,
§ Asserting claims which contradict experimentally established results,
§ Failing to provide an experimental possibility of reproducible results; or
§ Violating Occam's Razor (the principle of choosing the simplest explanation when multiple viable explanations are possible).
§ Adhered to by a limited group.
How many bad business plans have we all read (or written) that can be summed up using one or more of the above points? These points seem to be the milieu of the hopelessly hopeful, the clueless, and the desperate.
This is why those “in the know” tend to run for the hills when entrepreneurs go overboard with hyperbole. We all know the truth: If it sounds like a nut job, if it touts like a nut job, then it must be a nut job.
From: jchristian@electricalresources.com
Sent: Friday, October 08, 2004 9:59 AM
To: bill@billsnow.com
Subject: Flaming Ball of Venom...
Psyche!
I thought that subject line might get your attention...
I just wanted to drop you a line letting you know how much I appreciate all the information on your site. I also appreciate your overall point-of-view and find it refreshingly "real."
My company already has revenue and a burn rate of zero, but lacks the bootstraps necessary to properly expand our sales and marketing efforts to the next level unless we are satisfied with "eking" out growth little by little. With the help of your site, I expect to be much better positioned to secure some expansion capital.
Again, thanks for all the work you obviously put into the content on your site!
Warm Regards,
Jamie Christian
Keep us posted on your developments. Good luck!
-Ed.
From: CharlesAKrugel@aol.com [mailto:CharlesAKrugel@aol.com]
Sent: Wednesday, October 06, 2004 10:15 PM
To: bill@billsnow.com
Subject: Re: Bill Snow Newsletter - Wednesday October 6, 2004
Your just in time management analysis is interesting but with respect to human resources/human capital management, please consider the following.
Earlier in the same newsletter, you complain about vanilla or bland writing. When a business hires people on a short-term, project or outsourced basis, a business is more likely to encounter generic or vanilla production from these employees. This is because these employees tend to not be oriented into the culture and strategy of the company they're with. They're working "blind." Usually, this leads to less employee innovation and creativity. The faces and names change but the status quo is maintained.
Ron May briefly discussed this same concept in terms of "institutional memory" in his 9/27/04 May Report. His discussion was with respect to the recent CTC Net conference and what occurs when institutional memory is lost. Having employees with institutional memory either assisting or supervising "short timers" or new employees helps to integrate them into the business culture and may encourage innovation and creativity. The point is to not repeat the mistakes of the past.
Sincerely,
Charles A. Krugel
Human Resources Attorney & Consultant
Labor & Employment Law on Behalf of Management
charlesakrugel@aol.com
P: 312-804-3851
F: 1-760-502-3772
Charles, thanks for your comments. Who’s this Ron May character you mention?
-Ed.
From: dana underwood [mailto:danamarie73@yahoo.com]
Sent: Wednesday, October 06, 2004 4:33 PM
To: bill@billsnow.com
Subject: Re: Bill Snow Newsletter - Wednesday October 6, 2004
Bill,
I'm going to tell you this one more time...you will not find a nice girl until you start going to church. :) kisses! ~ D
Dana, That would interfere with football watching.
-Ed.
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