May 2012
1 post
When users forget about a service vs when they...
Fellow NY techie Kevin Marshall tweeted:
Builder tip: if a consumer can forget or ignore your product/service, they will…too much other ‘average’ available to bury your stuff…
— Kevin Marshall (@falicon) May 25, 2012
The tweet got me thinking about the difference between having a user forget about a product and ignoring a product.
There can be many reasons why a user...
January 2012
1 post
How Does Path 2.0’s iPhone App Implement Their...
Source Code
The full source code for the project can be found on github.com at https://github.com/tobins/PathMenuExample. Feel free to use the code provided in the example as you wish. Just say hi on twitter (@tobins) if you found this post useful.
Problem
The Path 2.0 iPhone app (http://path.com) uses an expandable menu to free up some extra real estate. The Path app places a button in the...
December 2011
1 post
"The Three Things" entrepreneurs do for our...
October 2011
1 post
Social Referral Coupons/Discounts
Introduction Coupons are a great technique for driving customer acquisition by giving your potential new customer an incentive to purchase your product. Additionally coupons can also be used as part of loyalty program that increases retention and repeat purchases from existing customers. However when it comes to referrals you often see coupons (or discounts) as an after thought. What if you...
September 2011
2 posts
8 tags
August 2011
3 posts
From Idea to Prototype in 7 Days: Day 1
I get frustrated seeing ideas come out of various accelerator programs and at least one or two of them are something I’ve “thought of.” It’s not that I am frustrated that another team is getting success/validation for their idea, I’m frustrated because I let my idea languish and spoil in my mind when I know I could have done something about it.
It takes commitment to make something from nothing,...
"Fake it until you make it." to "Make it so you...
There’s a phrase I hear at entrepreneur events in NYC that makes me cringe:
“Fake it until you make it.”
It’s not so much what it means that gets to me. It’s the fact that it’s often misused or misunderstood. Not always, but a lot of times I see/hear it misused. The phrase comes from a psychology technique to build ones own confidence to overcome something that they are having difficulty with....
Knowing When to Quit
You’ve spent a lot of time and energy on starting a business - using your own savings, convincing others to work with you, and pouring your heart into it. Even though you’ve been at it a long time already, you’re still going at it…convinced that this is the next big thing! Or is it? At what point do you ask yourself if you should keep persevering? When do you call it quits? I suggest that you...
July 2011
1 post
Mark Birch. Strong Opinions.: Outsourcing the... →
I can’t say it any better myself regarding outsourcing!
marksbirch:
When I hear someone espouse the evils of outsourcing and startups, I just laugh. This mostly comes up in conversations about outsourcing one’s tech and product development to outsourcing companies (check out Vivek Wadhwa and Mark Suster respective posts). The arguments are compelling and…
June 2011
2 posts
Antonio Garcia-Martinez: Why founding a... →
Antonio Garcia-Martinez’s awesomely written piece on going from a very cush 6 figure job at Goldman Sachs to founding a startup. His biggest regret?
I’ve had apocalyptic fights with the other founders that almost ended in fisticuffs. I’m watching my four-month-old daughter grow up via Skype. These jeans I’m wearing will likely fuse with my skin at some point if I don’t take them off. I...
Jason Freedman: Pivots are for the lucky. →
My favorite part of Jason’s thoughts on pivoting:
Even if you manage your cash flow well, you risk the loss of momentum that is so vital to a startup’s life. Engineers that were recruited under some awesome, bold vision get antsy when the company can’t find direction. Once a company decides to pivot, it becomes a ticking time bomb ready to implode.
He makes a great argument...
December 2010
1 post
What does Product/Market Fit look like?
Last year I posted the Compete.com graphs of a few companies that were early stage. I noted one graph in particular was a company in the progress of trying to figure out their product and market. Back then it looked like this:
This graph represents the unique visits between 2009 and 2010.
Anyone who is trying to build a web based application is familiar with this sort of graph. It’s...
November 2010
1 post
WatchLast night I had the opportunity to attend and film a fireside chat between David Lerner and Mark Suster. The discussion was very insightful and it’s worth the time to listen as Mark talks about fundraising, angels, incubators, entrepreneurial challenges, and technology. I must say I particularly enjoyed his candor and enthusiasm to share his thoughts.
Details about the event:
The...
September 2010
1 post
Real-Life Web 2.0 Experience Starring Twitter,...
Gotta love Web 2.0 & Mobile Apps
A few days ago I was giving a presentation from my iPad on a projector, the only problem was I had lost the iPad-to-VGA out cable I purchased for my presentation. I had every intent of going to the Apple store during lunch, however as the day progressed it looked less and less likely that I was even going to be able to leave the building for more than 10...
August 2010
5 posts
Feedback Forum: Plan.FM
Each month I organize and moderate an event called the Feedback Forum. Here is a blurb from the Eventbrite page:
The Feedback Forum is a monthly gathering of NYC entrepreneurs and technology-based startups or businesses in the NY metro area. We focus on a specific company and discuss critical operational challenges in an open environment that creates a learning opportunity which can benefit the...
Plan.FM Infrastructure (Photo)
More detailed post to come, but I recently completed my migration from AWS to Rackspace Cloud. Here’s a quick overview of what I built out for Plan.FM. It’s a pretty basic setup, but I’d be interested in comments from others on architecting a scalable infrastructure.
Entrepreneur & VC Blogs I Read Regularly
One of my Founder Institute buddies sent out an email asking which blogs we read as it relates to entrepreneurship and VC. There is a much larger list, but these are the ones I learned the most from. I also probably don’t have some that I should be reading. What blogs do you read/recommend?
Entrepreneur Related Blogs
http://startup-marketing.com - Sean Ellis’s Blog
...
"Negative Influence Metrics"
I like to group conversion funnels and cohort analysis into what I call “Positive Influence Metrics.” This is when we look at the reports generated from the data we collect about users to determine the whether they are taking the desired action we want them to. Hence we look for repeat positive signals showing users taking the actions we want them to. These metrics and reports show us whether...
July 2010
3 posts
My Startup Metrics
A fellow NYC-based entrepreneur, Vin Vacanti of Yipit.com, had asked twitter what others were doing in regards to metrics. The question was whether or not people had advice about using a mixture of Google Analytics, Mix Panel, KISS Metrics or built your own metrics solution. I sent him my response in private, but he suggested I share the info with others here. What follows is an edit of my...
Product built! Now what?!
Recently someone posed a question on the NextNY list about what to do after they built their product. A lot of the initial recommendations were to begin various forms of marketing campaigns to get the word out about the product. Press release, social media, contests, you name it… straight to customer acquisition mode.
Knowing that this was the first time the product was getting exposed...
The ULTIMATE UNBOXING! PizzaCone!
The Pizza Cones arrive!
Boxes carefully taken out of the travel bag.
Looks promising!
K! K! Pizzacone
Yumalicious from above!
Out of the box! Hmmmm Yummmy!
May 2010
5 posts
10 Things CEOs Need to Know About Design
AWESOME presentation from Jason Putorti
putorti:
Watchaustinchang:
Three is a crowd and crowd is news: How to start a movement (via @TED)
"Fact"
One of my favorite scenes from the movie “A Perfect World”.
“Fact” - The difference between a threat and a fact: Saying you’re going to do something is a threat, doing it makes it a fact.
A City of Technical Founders Without Non-Technical...
I have great respect for what Matt Mireless is doing with both his business and for the NYC Startup community, however as a Technical Founder in NYC I find some issues with his latest post “The City of Founders Without Hackers.”
In his post, Matt cites a problem that there is a lack of entrepreneurially minded technical talent in NYC. While I don’t disagree there is a proportional disconnect of...
April 2010
2 posts
Waking thoughts on revenue for web services
I shouldn’t admit this, but I rarely get up before my alarm rings in the morning. The snooze button and I play out a familiar battle that I typically win.
However today I actually woke up a whole 20 minutes before my alarm went off. I figure I can take the next 15 minutes of time to get some thoughts down… About anything.
Last night I had a good discussion about web application...
Early-Stage Startups need to think strategically...
I’m an “independent” developer who loves executing my own ideas. I typically will scope out a minimal feature set and run full force to build something in a short period of time. Once I’m done, it’s very natural to feel the need to “get it out there”. When I worked on my original vision of Cupid’s Lab in 2006 (an online matchmaking/introduction...
March 2010
1 post
February 2010
3 posts
It's Just Business
This week the NY Founder Institute talked about Partners & Suppliers. Skip Hop’s founder Michael Diamant talked about how his company manages his partnerships & suppliers as it relates to manufacturing. Although most of our founding members are creating consumer web applications there’s a lot we can learn about how “traditional businesses” handle distribution from...
December 2009
1 post
Quick! What does this chart represent?
Quick! What does this chart represent?
This is the representation of “interest” for a product before, during, and after a launch at a major technology event.
What about this one?
This is a sign of traction after iterations of testing and validating their solution against the customer’s needs after they’ve optimized for the right market fit.
What is this?
This is a team in the early...
November 2009
3 posts
An evening with Brad Feld
Tonight I attended the 20th Entrepreneur Roundtable, moderated by Murat Aktihanoglu of Centrl.com. The Entrepreneur Roundtable is a pitch event where 5 companies give 5 minutes pitches and receive 5 minutes feedback from the guest speaker. The guest speaker for this evening was the charismatic and renowned Venture Capitalist, Brad Feld.
Brad answered numerous questions about venture capital from...
You say... I say...
Me: alright, I'm heading to the gym. I'll ttyl.
Saadiq: get huge for me
Me: I am getting huge, but in the "I stuff my face every day" sort of way
Saadiq: tomato tomahto
Me: donut doughnut
October 2009
10 posts
Pixel Games
Andrew Parker posted about a collection of pixelated games. My favorites from the list are Pixel & Small Worlds.
thegongshow:
I really enjoy both the art-style and the simple gameplay of super-pixelated games. Here’s a couple examples that are worth a spin, but, be warned, you’re putting your free time at risk.
Quick List of Big-Pixel Games:
Pixel Grower - Don’t let any pixels drop…...
Happiness is...
buddyblip:
a full access CMJ badge! (:
In other Buddy Blip news, we’ve got some cool stuff in the works. It’s been a VERY productive week, but the changes we’re making are across all sections of the site so we’re making sure it works nice and smooth before we open it up to everyone. It’s pretty exciting though. I certainly can’t wait!
Tobin (:
What? No Updates?
So it’s _almost_ been a week since there have been updates posted on the blog, but it’s not due to lack of progress. It’s more due to the progress is unseen to you. I know there are a lot of usability issues that need to be resolved, but I’ve been plugging away at a simple REST API.
The API is for other developers, but we will be our first customers by using it to create...
Feedback Overload!
Feedback is a double edged sword. It’s good in the way that it can validate your ideas, spawn new ones, and in general revitalize your energy in regards to what you are working on. However there are times feedback can catch you and completely overwhelm you.
Last night the NY Lean Startup Meetup Group held a Feedback Round-Robin session where we practiced getting feedback on our respective...
Observations of continuous deployments
Since I set out to develop Buddy Blip I’ve been using continuous deployments to publish code changes for the public facing website. I really like this methodology, but the concept can be quite frightening at first.
For a typical deployment the team would set up a timeline/milestone to get bug fixes and new features deployed to live. This is a nice practice as it allows you to smoke test...
How would you spend $20K - Revisited
buddyblip:
“If you had $20k to use towards your own technology business/startup, how would you manage it and spend it?” – That was a question I asked other nextNY members in May of 2008. At the time I had created a small fund for myself to allow me to bootstrap my startup and I wanted to find out from my peers about what they would do.
Some had humorous responses such as a huge launch party or...
The most meaningful advice I've heard given to an...
This past week I put together the Feedback Forum where we discussed Klickable.TV with Roger Wu. First, what is the Feedback Forum?
The Feedback Forum is a monthly gathering of NYC entrepreneurs and technology-based startups or businesses in the NY metro area.
Each month we focus on a specific company and discuss critical operational challenges in an open environment that creates a learning...
October 3rd, 2009 Buddy Blip Update - We got...
buddyblip:
While on my flight from ATL to California I was able to do a bunch of coding. The biggest thing I did was allow users to post images to comment streams and private conversations. It mostly started with my friend Kenji posting a link about getting some Korean food in NYC’s K-Town. I thought it’d be cool to show what I’m expecting!
Take a look:
Yum! (=
Okay, aside from that I...
October 1, 2009 Buddy Blip Update & Thoughts on...
For the past two weeks I’ve been collecting data through casual user tests, A/B testing, Feedback Army, and general analytics. The most significant thing I realized from the feedback is that I’m not doing much communicating on the site. I’m not explaining to the user how I envision they use Buddy Blip. I’m only telling them what it can do and leaving them to figure out how on their own.
I came...
September 2009
3 posts
Regarding Search Engine Marketing (SEM) on $5/Day
buddyblip:
The other day I was discussing the thought of SEM on $5/day with a few peers. The general consensus was that $5/day is not really effective for generating leads on Google Ad Words, but after giving it some thought I was able to turn around the notion that the “SEM on $5/day” was outdated.
If you’re building a customer product/service that’s re-segmenting an existing market then...