Chapter 3 Still using Lotus Notes? My condolences.

2006-02-09T12:42:00.000-05:00

If there was ever an example of software that makes life easy for IT administrators at the expense of users, Lotus Notes is it:

Where Notes does win praise is from those who administer it, who say it is secure, stable and flexible. Databases can be tied together, and there is even a "bridge" to Microsoft's Outlook.

[...]

Delay's remarks brought one sharp user retort, who observed that "Notes's backend functionality has no bearing on us 100m or so end-users. As far as we are concerned the GUI is the system. And boyo... is the GUI client a heap of ill-conceived, non-intuitive rubbish."

I used Notes years ago and found it painful even for the most simple of tasks. This was about the time when we were starting to build collaborative software over the web, and Notes became far too painful to use. Replication alone was a huge waste of productivity, especially from a hotel room over dialup.

While Lotus Notes claims that its strength is collaboration, I've typically seen it used only for email and calendaring, sometimes in situations where the companies also use collaboration products like Documentum.

Technorati: lotus notes

Just ship it.

2006-01-05T10:50:00.000-05:00

For a couple of months now I've been writing, among other things, a Java-based blogging client named Bleezer. Hey, you try finding a domain name that isn't taken.

I've tried a number of blogging clients, but I haven't been happy with them. And the fact that I blog from multiple platforms - I use a Mac but also own several PCs - hasn't helped. So I decided to write my own, just to see if I could. And in the process I've had to overcome a number of problems, especially poorly documented APIs and some multi-platform issues.

I've had a few folks testing it and they've given me some excellent suggestions, which I've implemented. It will continue to grow as well.

I use it myself, and have since the first successful build. In fact, I'm soaking in it right now.

It does some neat things:

Blog from anywhere. It's Java-based, completely multi-platform, and tested on Windows, OS X, and Linux.
Work with any blogging service, even Blogger. It works with them all. You can even define multiple services, and re-post items or move them around just by selecting from a dropdown box.
Add tags for any tag service. Technorati, del.icio.us, or your own, or all of them and more. It's fully configurable.
Create custom markup. You can define your own key combinations for your own custom HTML markup.
Spell check. Yes you can make sure that everything is ~~speeled~~ spelled ok.
Ping. Currently it pings Technorati, weblogs.com, ping-o-matic, and Pingoat, but configurable pinging is coming soon.

And there's more planned:

WYSIWYG editor.
Support for structured blogging and microformats. Yes you'll be able to create hCard or hCalendar items to start with.

Though the week of CES is a bad one to announce little things like this, Bleezer will be available for download in a few days as a JAR for Windows and Linux, and as an App for OS X. I hope you'll enjoy it. After all, it's free.

And for those who are interested in what it takes to build a blogging client, it will also be open source.

test

2005-12-08T17:59:00.000-05:00

test

Entrepreneur Exchange.

2005-10-10T22:10:00.000-04:00

Ross Mayfield has put up a new wiki for startups entitled Entrepreneur Exchange:

Entrepreneurship is the discipline of starting a company in absence of resources. Today the Entrepreneur Exchange opened, a renewable resource (wiki) for entrepreneurs.

It's all over.

2005-10-07T20:53:00.000-04:00

Chapter 3 is history. With hope, the roughly 350 attendees heard something useful, got to ask some questions, and network with folks who've done the entrepreneur thing successfully.

If you were there then let us know what you thought.

Today's the day!

2005-10-06T00:29:00.000-04:00

We're just a few hours away from Chapter 3, which happens later today. This post was originally going to be titled "Tomorrow", but Blogger was down.

I've got the startup bug too though, so I've been working on something that lets me post even when Blogger is down it seems. Unfortunately it wasn't really in a working state tonight.

Anyway, we'll see you all in a little while.

2005-10-04T10:15:00.000-04:00

Tony Perkins founder of Red Herring and AlwaysOn, spoke at the opening of Entrepreneur Week. The man who predicted the burst of the dotcom bubble believes that "the greatest Internet companies have yet to arrive."

Tony believes that blogs, and the "blogosphere" are part of an open media revolution - the "open web", or Web 2.0. Hey, you're soaking in one now.

From Canada.com:

"Every great industry -- airlines, television, automobiles, railroads, you name it -- was built on the back of a financial mania during which the average investment generated a negative return," Mr. Perkins said yesterday in a keynote speech at the Ottawa Centre for Research and Innovation's Venture and Technology Summit.

"But the real action happened after the blowout," said Mr. Perkins, 46, who is based in Silicon Valley.

He believes that stronger companies are emerging as they reap the benefits of lower startup costs and ongoing Internet penetration. He predicts that 70 per cent of the best firms will end up being founded between 2002 and 2007.

In other words, it's time to get started.

The Singularity is Near.

2005-10-03T15:23:00.000-04:00

The Boston Globe reviews Ray Kurzweil's new book, The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology:

We'll eat whatever we want but never get fat. Real estate will be virtual. Cheap, tiny computers will be smarter than we are. Energy demands will be met by nanoscale renewable technologies. We'll choose when, and if, we'll die. Many organs will be irrelevant, we'll be able to select from alternate personalities, and those among us who are ''software-based" will be a decade or two away from being ''able to expand [our] thinking without limit."

Is this utopia? A new science fiction movie? An optimistic scenario for human life in the year 2500?

Try 2030. It is a prediction evangelized in intense detail by Ray Kurzweil in his staggering new 650-plus-page treatise, ''The Singularity Is Near." Kurzweil, a renowned computer scientist and inventor of, among other things, the flatbed scanner, argues that our society is facing an imminent and overwhelming transformation called the Singularity.

The Singularity is, in Kurzweil's words, ''a future period during which the pace of technological change will be so rapid, its impact so deep, that human life will be irreversibly transformed." Another way to put it is to say that pretty soon biological evolution will be transcended by technological evolution.

The ideas Ray presents aren't really so farfetched, and he should know. He lives and breathes entrepreneurship, having created scanners, optical character recognition and speech recognition tools, and some amazing electronic musical instruments.

People like Ray Kurzweil think of the ideas that drive technology forward. But for most of you, all you need is that one decent idea coupled with good execution to be successful. Though we can't help much with the idea, by the end of Chapter 3 you'll be ready to execute, and you'll be more than just good.

This is going to be big.

2005-09-28T15:21:00.000-04:00

Charlie at This Is Going To Be Big has some pretty useful ideas about building great companies, like these 10 Steps to a Hugely Successful Web 2.0 Company:

Solve the smallest possible problem (that is still big enough to matter) for the user and know exactly what problem you're trying to solve.
Get a responsive and chatty audience using the product.
Launch. Now. Tomorrow. Every day.
Distribute. Distribute. Distribute.
Don't hold users against their will.
Be mindnumbingly simple.
Get people hooked on free.
Don't waste any money on marketing.
Don't overfund.
No one sucks.

What to look forward to.

2005-09-27T20:46:00.000-04:00

According to InfoWorld, technology execs are all throughout the Forbes 400 Richest Americans list:

Bill Gates, of course, reigns atop the pack, valued at $51 billion. His non-techie friend, the investor Warren Buffet, is second with $40 billion. Paul Allen follows, at $22.5 billion; next is Michael Dell and his $18 billion. Rounding out the top five, Larry Ellison has $17 billion.

The rest of the top 10 are all Waltons, as in WalMart Waltons.

Steve Ballmer ranks 11th, at $14 billion. Slightly further down the list, tied for 16th, are Google's Larry Page and Sergey Brin, each worth $11 billion.

Just remember, these folks were all entrepreneurs once. And just a short 7 years ago, Larry Page and Sergey Brin were broke college students.

Seven Founding Sins.

2005-09-27T20:37:00.000-04:00

David Beisel at Genuine VC outlines "Seven Founding Sins – common mistakes which often divert entrepreneurs off the path towards success". They are:

Inauthenticity
Sloth
Extravagance
Taciturnity
Greed
Arrogance
Indecisiveness

David describes then in a little more detail, well worth reading for inspiring entrepreneurs.

Happy Entrepreneurs.

2005-09-25T20:00:00.000-04:00

Divorce low, happiness high among entrepreneurs:

If you are an entrepreneur who is suffering through lots of sleepless nights, whose marriage is on the rocks and who hates everything about your business, you aren't likely to be found among truly successful Utah entrepreneurs.
These are some of the conclusions of a recent survey of more than 100 of Utah's leading entrepreneurs. According to the study, Utah entrepreneurs have low divorce rates, high levels of job satisfaction and no trouble sleeping six hours or more per night.

Tip of the hat to A Day In The Life Of A Self-Made Entrepreneur.

What is an entrepreneur?

2005-09-24T00:07:00.000-04:00

From Wikipedia:

"Business entrepreneurs often have strong beliefs about a market opportunity and are willing to accept a high level of personal, professional or financial risk to pursue that opportunity."

Guy Kawasaki on Presentations.

2005-09-22T14:13:00.000-04:00

AlwaysOn has a great article by Guy Kawasaki, managing director of Garage Technology Ventures, on realizing your ideas, and Guy comments on presentations:

One of the things I learned about in the formative stages of my career was public speaking. I learned by watching lots of presentations, and one thing I figured out early on is that most CFO-level speakers—particularly CEOs, particularly male CEOs—really suck as speakers. They're boring; they're long; they wander around. I saw speech after speech, and I discovered that if there's anything worse than a speaker who sucks, it's a speaker who sucks and you have no idea how much longer he or she is going to suck. That's a horrible feeling.

To prevent you from getting that feeling, I've developed a Top 10 format. All of my speeches are in Top 10 format, because if you think I suck, I at least want you to be able to track my progress through the speech so that you know approximately know how much longer I'm going to suck.

Chapter 3 sells out.

2005-09-21T17:15:00.000-04:00

Okay, we aren't selling out. We haven't gone corporate. I was talking about the event itself, and it seems that some of our round table sessions are selling out.

With just over two weeks left to go before Chapter 3, the session entitled "Developing a business model: How are you going to make money?" hosted by Ray Simonson, CTO of Software Innovation, is completely full.

And "Presenting your company to investors: What are the best strategies?" hosted by Andrew Abouchar of Tech Capital Partners isn't far behind with only 10 spots left.

I don't think that we expected the space to fill up this quickly, but these are some pretty competent people who have clearly been successful at what they do.

So hurry up and get registered. The hosts of the round table sessions are also contributing generously to the Resource Guide that every attendee gets - for free. They will have hints and tips and things that got them through and helped them to succeed.

Heck, it's worth showing up for that Reference Guide alone.

Reader concerns.

2005-09-19T21:54:00.000-04:00

A local blogger, who prefers to remain nameless, was concerned about the Chapter 3 persona here at the Chapter 3 blog. He thought the whole thing was a bit "cloak and dagger-ish", and didn't understand why Chapter 3 deserved a blog.

Well he does have a good point about the Chapter 3 persona. The blog was originally conceived as an experiment by Jacqui Murphy and me - Larry Borsato. I created the Chapter 3 thing as a placeholder for everybody who posted, and because I didn't think any single person should receive the credit (or the blame). Several blogs do this. I read The Huffington Post, where many of the posts are credited to The Huffington Post. Besides, I read about 700 blogs daily in a newsreader, and I rarely notice who the author was. But in retrospect, it wasn't such a good idea.

So now you'll notice that the new posts are correctly attributed to the author, so you know who is thinking what.

As for whether something deserves a blog, well that's a different story. If you've got something to say, then you deserve a blog. If someone doesn't like what you have to say, they are free to comment, or to stop reading.

The Chapter 3 blog wasn't created to promote an event. It was created to try to kickstart a little discussion about startups, entrepreneurs, and resources. I'd like to think that it will outlast Chapter 3. Maybe it will, and maybe it won't.

I'd also like the local community to see the power of blogs as a tool for communicating and sharing information - a tool to help to create communities.

And we like to think of it as a little window into what we're going through as we try to help entrepreneurs succeed. After all, we are just a bunch of amateurs here. We're just making this up as we go.

Update: I generally do not like changing a post, but this post originally contained the name of the blogger, and he asked that it be removed. That was done as he requested.

The startup metaphor.

2005-09-16T19:48:00.000-04:00

I came late to the Chapter 1-2-3 party, having missed the work that went into Chapters 1 and 2, just jumping into the planning of Chapter 3. But the focused little team that puts these events together is like a little startup all by itself.

They started with an idea - to give potential entrepreneurs all of the information and tools they need to get started turning their own ideas into reality.

They created their first product - Chapter 1 - worked to get it funded by some helpful service providers, and then sold it to customers - all of you.

Tasting a little success, they built a second product in Chapter 2, ramped up the marketing, got some more funding - still running on a shoestring though - and sold it to even more customers.

Now they are completing the product suite with Chapter 3. This time they've got enough momentum to get 40 key tech folks to give up their afternoon to talk about what interests you. And you get a kickass resource guide that will give you tips and techniques that those people use to be successful themselves.

How often do you get the chance to spend time with a guy like Dave Caputo, CEO of Sandvine, who's already had one success and is on his way to the second, telling you how to get customers? Or Andrew Abouchar, Partner at Tech Capital Partners, who's going to tell you exactly what a VC needs to hear? Or Carol Leaman, CEO of RSS Solutions, who will tell you how to stretch your scarce dollars as far as you can?

Chapter 3 - the third and final part of a product suite designed to take you from that nagging feeling that you can change the world, to success in building something great.

But this isn't a demo. On Thursday, October 6, 2005 we ship.

My entrepreneur Skip.

2005-09-16T19:12:00.000-04:00

It's all somehow more real when you have the poster in your hand. And now we have ours:

You'll start to see these posters around town over the next couple of days, and you're probably already seeing them at the universities.

Oh and the gentleman in the photo? We've affectionately nicknamed him "Skip", and he's a placeholder for all of the entrepreneurs out there. He looks like he has a goal, and he's on his way to achieving it.

Speaking of achieving a goal, we've got a big hairy audacious goal of getting over 500 entrepreneurs at this event, and it looks like we're on our way. As I'm writing this some of the round table sessions are one third full. That really doesn't sound like a big deal until you realize that we still have three weeks to go.

It's generally true that people wait until the last minute to register for these kind of events, but the way it looks now, if you wait that long you just won't be able to get a spot.

So consider this fair warning. Get in there and register while you can.

Been there. Done that.

2005-09-15T17:37:00.000-04:00

Because you all have different questions about various aspects of startups, we've lined up 40 subject matter experts. And not just any experts - we've got people who've been there and done that. CEOs and senior level management - experts in their areas who have already been there and done that - and they're their just to discuss their experiences and your concerns.

After trying unsuccessfully for a while to get a table of those subject matter experts to look good in a blog post, I decide to just point you to the Chapter 3 web page that lists them, and lets you sign up for them at the same time. You can choose any 3 of the 40 sessions, but do it fast before all of the spots are taken.

You never know when you're going to see this many talented people in one place. Including you of course.

Startup Camp.

2005-09-13T19:10:00.000-04:00

From Wired News:

Having just finished his sophomore year at Stanford University, Sam Altman spent this summer holed up in a Cambridge, Massachusetts, apartment paid for with a little bit of startup funding, writing code for hours on end and eating so much ramen he ended up sick from vitamin deficiency.

Altman loved it so much he hopes he and his two partners in discount noodles and 12-hour coding binges won't ever become juniors.

He might well get his wish. His fledgling company is close to signing a deal to test his location-based social-networking software with one of the country's largest cell-phone providers, and is in talks with prominent Silicon Valley venture capital firms.

Eight groups were selected from a field of 227 for three months of summer seed funding from Y Combinator, moving to Cambridge for the summer, using the $6,000-per-person stipend to rent an apartment and buy startup necessities, such as whiteboards and bandwidth. In return for the money and advice they received a 5 percent to 7 percent stake in each venture.

Could this happen in Waterloo? I spent some time last month with some very bright Shad Valley students. Shad Valley says this:

Since 1981, the Shad Valley program has been helping top students in senior high school find an edge in the competitive, knowledge-based world of tomorrow. It’s an experience unlike anything else you’ve seen; it combines entrepreneurship with science and technology, and offers academic and often paid work experience to its students.

While they aren't specifically technology focused, it seems that there could possibly be a fit working with Shad in this area.

Perhaps we could fund one or two groups for a startup camp locally. We certainly have the resources to do this, and wouldn't that be an impressive thing to tell companies who are considering locating here, as well as for students and researchers?

I'll certainly volunteer to help get this started.

Less filling. Tastes great.

2005-09-12T11:06:00.000-04:00

As Ken Dyck notes in the comments of the last post, del.icio.us is also a great source of information. del.icio.us is social bookmarking site, where users post links to things that they find of interest. It also offers the option to search by tag. So the following searches:

http://del.icio.us/tag/startup
http://del.icio.us/tag/entrepreneurship

will probably turn up some interesting stuff as well. If any of you use newsreaders, del.icio.us also offers RSS feeds of the results. And if you aren't using a newsreader, why not?

By the way, you should check out Ken's blog as well; it's a treasure trove of interesting tidbits and links to startup resources. And he's a local guy too.

Tag. You're it.

2005-09-11T21:38:00.000-04:00

A great way to find information in blogs is to use a blog search engine like Technorati, combined with the tag search feature they offer. Entries have been tagged by the authors by subject area so they can easily be found.

You can try a Technorati search for the tag startup or the tag entrepreneur, and you'll be amazed at the wealth of information you are presented with.

Now is a great time to be an entrepreneur.

2005-09-11T21:09:00.000-04:00

If you are looking for resources, the blog world is a good place to look as many entrepreneurs are writing about their experiences. For example, Joe Kraus, one of the founders of Excite, and now a founder of Jotspot, wrote that now is a great time to be an entrepreneur:

There’s never been a better time to be an entrepreneur because it’s never been cheaper to be one. Here’s one example.

Excite.com took $3,000,000 to get from idea to launch. JotSpot took $100,000.

Why on earth is there a 30X difference? There’s probably a lot of reasons, but here are my top four. I’m interested in hearing about what other people think are factors as well.

He goes on to describe his reasons.

How to Start a Startup.

2005-09-11T19:27:00.000-04:00

Paul Graham is a smart guy. In 1995 he developed with Robert Morris the first web-based application, Viaweb, which was acquired by Yahoo in 1998. So he has more than a passing idea of what's involved in being an entrepreneur. Recently he wrote an essay entitled How to Start a Startup:

You need three things to create a successful startup: to start with good people, to make something customers actually want, and to spend as little money as possible. Most startups that fail do it because they fail at one of these. A startup that does all three will probably succeed.

And that's kind of exciting, when you think about it, because all three are doable. Hard, but doable. And since a startup that succeeds ordinarily makes its founders rich, that implies getting rich is doable too. Hard, but doable.

If there is one message I'd like to get across about startups, that's it. There is no magically difficult step that requires brilliance to solve.

If you only read one thing about startups, read this one.

Of course you'd have to be pretty dumb to just read one thing, so read this one first, and I promise we'll suggest some other excellent resources as well.

I entrepreneur.

2005-09-11T19:10:00.000-04:00

Ellie Rubin, author of Bulldog: Spirit of the New Entrepreneur, doesn't think that the word "entrepreneur" is a noun, but instead a verb:

Entrepreneuring is a verb, and active stance that requires energy and commitment. It is the most dynamic, rewarding, challenging, and effective way to create something out of nothing that I can think of.

I agree, but I would use stronger language.

To entrepreneur is to ache with a passion, an unquenchable thirst to do something great - to change the world. You might not always know what that thing is, but you know that you won't sleep until you find it.

And for that ache there is only one cure.

You're invited.

2005-09-10T18:45:00.000-04:00

By now many of you should be receiving your email invitation to Chapter 3 from Communitech. It looks something like this:

Together with our partners we are thrilled to bring you event you have been waiting for: Market Execution - Put your tech company into action! the third part in a series of learning opportunities geared to help you start your own company. Mark October 6th, on your calendar as one of must attend events taking place during Entrepreneur Week in October.

The participation from you at the Chapter series of events has been incredible! Starting with Chapter 1: Inspiration when over 300 aspiring and early-stage entrepreneurs got together to hear and share thoughts about life at the concept stage of a venture. At Chapter 2: Right on the Market - How to survive building a tech company, over 400 of you heard from fantastic speakers about the challenges faced by companies during the go-to-market phase. Now it is time for Chapter 3: Market Execution - put your tech company into action!

Participate in round table discussions, hear from engaging keynote speakers, network with service providers and walk away with a resource guide from this event that will help you put your company into action!

Register today! Chapter 3

Please spread the word to people you think would value this networking event.

See you at Chapter 3!

If you haven't seen this you should contact the nice folks at Communitech. And book Thursday, October 6, 2005 on your calendars now. This is an event you don't want to miss.

What is an entrepreneur?

2005-09-09T21:55:00.000-04:00

From BusinessPundit.com:

Entrepreneurs aren't idea people, everybody and their brother has ideas. Entrepreneurs are people that exploit ideas by matching them to market needs, executing them despite scarce resources and designing a business model that makes the idea profitable.

Tip of the hat to Photo Matt.

Where do we start?

2005-09-09T21:02:00.000-04:00

If you're trying to get your own thing going, there are more and more sources of help and information available today than ever before.

You might want to take a look at WatStart. WatStart provides a one stop shop for all manner of service providers, and event listing, and a collection of interesting forums that you can contribute to, or just lurk in.

Though it may not have all of the answers, it certainly is a great place to start. I've met a few pretty interesting people there myself.

What do entrepreneurs want?

2005-09-09T20:49:00.000-04:00

In the process of planning Chapter 3, we took intelligent guesses at what entrepreneurs might want to know, most of us having lived in the startup world before.

Here's the rub. We could be completely wrong. 100% off the mark. And we might never know.

Chapter 1 was all about generating ideas. Chapter 2 was about market focus. And Chapter 3 is about everything else.

So where are you in the process of building a great company? Are you in the idea stage? Looking for your first customer?

Help us out and let us know. We'll have a little survey at Chapter 3 to ask you the same question.

We just want to know how we can help you build the next great company.

Yes, we're counting on YOU. No pressure though.

A labour of love.

2005-09-09T20:40:00.000-04:00

It was pointed out to me today by Jacqui, who you'll notice is a contributor to this blog, that though I may have joined the group three months ago, Chapter 3 has been in the planning stages for six months, and was built upon the vast amount of work that was put in to Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 before.

So Chapter 3 is really the culmination of three years of painstaking effort behind the scenes, which is why it looks so flawless when you see it happening.

Though I wasn't involved with Chapter 2, I was there, and I can attest to the fact that it went off with almost military precision. And believe me, if you knew the people involved, you would know why. This is a labour of love, and it shows.

So in less that a month, when you are sitting there taking in all of the information that will make your fledgling company a tremendous success, just remember what it took to get here.

It IS who you know.

2005-09-08T13:45:00.000-04:00

Protecting intellectual property. Financing an emerging business. Selling and competing globally. Building a highly skilled and motivated team.
Emerging technology companies need help to achieve these goals. How do you make sure they get access to that valuable knowledge? You hold round table discussion sessions of course.

How exactly do you organize that?

Well, you start with a whole bunch of subject matter experts, people who have been there and done that. Then you take those areas of concern and break them down into specific discussion areas - 40 in this case. And then, over your lunch of beef stir fry, you painstakingly match subject matter experts with discussion areas. About half way though that three hour meeting, you really wish you'd ordered the wine. But the three of you eventually beat the list into submission.

Of course you only have a list now. You still have to convince 40 very busy people to give up an afternoon of their time. More on that later.

What a job.

2005-09-07T12:07:00.000-04:00

So what exactly does it take to inform and entertain potential entrepreneurs for five hours?

Well you need to find some people who've done it all before, and convince them to tell their stories, and discuss their successes and failures with you.

Then you need to find a couple of excellent keynote speakers who will tell it like it is, which isn't always pleasant. And they'll tell you why they are still doing it.

And it helps to have a few ridiculously dedicated people to plan all of this. Guess what - they don't just start the week before - more like about three months before.

But as of yesterday there was exactly one month to go until Chapter 3. Join us on Thursday, October 6, 2005, from 2:30-7:00 pm, and let us know what you think.

Welcome!

2005-09-06T11:13:00.000-04:00

It's the fall again, and as summer draws to a close we feverishly get ready for another entrepreneurial event in Waterloo. So welcome to the Chapter 3 blog.