Valve's Super-cool New Employee Handbook

Download @ http://newcdn.flamehaus.com/Valve_Handbook_LowRes.pdf

Design Detail: Sanebox Pricing compares plans to real life expenses

Oh, and I just signed up http://www.sanebox.com/

Hacker News not recognizing duplicate links?

Amazon launches AWS Marketplace: Think Google Apps for AWS...

AWS Marketplace Home (looks like a Google Apps + Amazon Mashup!)

 A Sample listing (MongoDB)

Attend a webinar on the new Marketplace here: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/389831962

Design Detail: Forgetbox Food Contribution Icons

Calls to Inaction by Example: Leanpub and Greenpeace

Sometimes, everyone should write a really good call to inaction: copy that persuades you not to do something that is brought to your attention just before you're about to act.

Greenpeace wants me to remain on their email list. Their unsubscribe link says "Stop receiving messages on how you can save the planet". What it makes me think: Unsubscribe? What's next? kicking puppies??! I'll stay on the list.

*mission accomplished*

Leanpub wants me to publish my book. Their book delete button says "Delete my book forever, causing the world to suffer an irreparable artistic loss". What it makes me think: my book is important. It can change the world. Stick in there. You'll make it. By the way, leanpub, you're funny.

*mission accomplished*.

Do you have a good call to inaction?

Too Many File Sharing Web Applications?

I couldn't quite figure it out till now. I'd see an announcement and I'd have a sense of deja vu like I've read this announcement before. I've seen this splash page some place else.

Now I get it. It's the attack of the online file sharing services. You might have seen these before: sometimes it's just a single page that says "Drag and Drop Files Here".

 It's simple, it's elegant, it works. But, I'm wondering: what opportunity are these apps chasing? Sharing large files is a pain point, Yes. Is there a lot of money here? Can you charge people for it? What's the game plan here? Is the intent to scratch a simple itch or build the first cog in the wheel that will change the world?

$10 Startup: A Leanpub Experiment

So I'm writing this book based on my experience with launching web applications with absolutely no budget. I'm calling it The $10 Startup. Here's the pitch:

Think you need a business plan and venture capital to get your web application off the ground? Wrong. All you need is $10. Not monthly, not yearly. $10 Total. The $10 Startup will show you how to build and deploy web applications on a non-existent budget from start to finish step by step. In addition to enforcing a bootstrapper's mindset from day 1, The $10 Startup will help you validate your web application idea quickly and cheaply before scaling.

The reason I'm writing this book is not so much the need for recognition or money: I'm doing it to see if Leanpub works. Leanpub intends to change book publishing by allowing you to apply lean principles to book publishing, you're "self-publishing a book while still writing it". The argument is that a book is much like a startup and hence "lean" applies.

The minimum viable product for my book is a cover design and a blurb so... the lean approach is working so far. Now for the really important question...would you buy this book and how much would you pay for it?

Start with a Customer, End with an Idea

Two guys are sitting around shooting the breeze. One of them turns to the other and says, "You know, we should build a better search engine based on number of links to a given page...". Fast forward a couple of years and these guys have gone from startup to internet behemoth.* Whenever someone hears this story, they lament to themselves "Why didn't I think of that? Links to measure page reputation. So simple!"

What most people forget is that they had no idea how to make money from it. They just had a great idea and ran with it.

That's how things remained for decades. Startups were a high-risk, high-reward game till lean came on the scene. The Lean Startup adds an element of validated learning to de-risk the process. The intent here is to validate that your idea is something that people are willing to pay for. Using minimum viable product (MVP) principles, you validate the assumptions behind your idea while spending minimal resources and time. Think of it as maximizing the learning/spending ratio.

From Customer Development to Product-Market Fit, the idea is the starting point. The idea reigns supreme.

Here's the idea-first process from a high-level perspective:

1. Have a great idea
2. Create a product based on the idea
3. Find someone who will pay for using your product (or do this before #2)
4. Repeat 2 & 3 with as many modifications as required (pivots)
5. Get rich

The problem here is that things can go wrong at any time in this process. Your idea could suck. Your product could suck. Your customers don't see enough value to pay you. When all these steps line up just right, you become successful. Else, you crash and burn. Not good odds.

Flipping the process is exactly what it sounds like: have the idea last, identify paying customers first.

1. Find Paying Customers
• Your objective is to find people who will pay for your solution when you try to sell it to them
• Find a type or group of customers who already pay for things that they get value from
• Small businesses would be a customer. They already buy insurance, anti-virus solutions, advertising space,etc
2. Become Your Customer
• Learn to think like your target customer. Immerse yourself in their world. See things from their point of view.
• You should be able to rate a product's attractiveness from their point of view. What are their trigger words? Would they rather pay a large upfront fee for unlimited use or a pay-as-you-go model?
3. Feel Their Pain
• Now that you are in their world, find their pain points.
• What bugs them?
• What prevents them from being better, bigger, faster?
• What part of their job do they hate the most?
4. Have an Idea & Pitch a Product
• Once the pain is know, pitch an idea or product designed to kill that pain. 
5. Sell the Product
• If the previous steps were executed properly, you should be able to sell the product very easily.

The key advantage of idea-last startups is this: As you progress through the steps, your odds of creating a profitable solution actually increases.

Also notice is how linear the process is when compared to idea-first startups. There are no iterations. In the latter, you  iterate and shape an idea till it fits a market. In this case, you identify a market and create an idea that you know they want. You identify paying customers. They're going to pay for *something* if they see value in it. We know that because they're already paying for things they're seeing value in. The best way to create value is to alleviate pain. So, we know that anything that eliminates or alleviates pain for your customer will be a solution they will pay for. QED.

So the next time you're thinking of starting something: Start with a customer,End with an idea.

* Don't tell anyone but the whole Stanford PhD story is pure SV spin :)

OpenCNAM Caller ID API: Born from Pain. Easy to Use.

The best products always come from solving pain and OpenCNAM is no exception. In the founder's post announcing the OpenCNAM project, the pain is very clearly stated.

"Since I started hacking telephony code (almost 4 years ago), one thing that has always bothered me is how hard it is to find (and use) telephony data. As anyone in the telephony industry will tell you: the industry is huge, old, and fragmented."

 The solution is stated clearly as well:

OpenCNAM is an API company designed from the ground-up to be as simple as possible. The main idea is to make getting caller ID information easy--really easy.

How easy?

If you're a programmer looking to use caller ID information in your software, and you can't get something working within 5 minutes of visiting our website, we've failed our mission.

There you have it: A clear pain point. A clear solution. A clear vision on how it should be. Did it work? Yes!

Now you'll know when the President calls you back... https://api.opencnam.com/v1/phone/2024561414?format=text !

Your Startup can be a Freerider

What's a freerider? In this context, a freerider is one company using another resources without compensation. Sounds evil, right? Here's an example: people go to Gateway stores, understand the kind of PC they want and then order it online at Dell. Dell gets big. Gateway goes out of business. Does it still sound evil? More like the invisible hand of the market doing its work.

I was reading about Target's woes when it comes to competing with online retailers and it occurred to me that a startup can be a freerider. 

Be Like Amazon

Clearly, free-riding is not a viable long-term strategy as the companies that are subsidizing your existence will eventually die. Let's amend the strategy to: You start freeriding at first, get big and then fend off secondary free-riders who attack you.  That's what Amazon did. They were, at first, a low-cost alternative to offline stores. Customers do their research offline and then order at Amazon. Now, the dynamics are reversed. First, Amazon has a valuable resource in terms of user reviews of products (educational material and social proof). Second, Amazon may not be the lowest cost provider in a given category. Shouldn't someone be free-riding on Amazon? Nope. The Amazon user experience is such that it's very easy for someone to order something at Amazon once they've done their research. End result: Amazon did well in converting customers who wanted education into purchasers via a slick experience.

Find Your (Unwilling) Host

The key characteristics shared by companies that are unwilling hosts for free riders are:

• Undifferentiated Products - PCs are generic, Groceries are generic, Books can be ordered from anywhere. Look for companies and industries selling products that are not differentiated.
• Unrewarding or Broken User Experience - Look for companies and industries where the user experience is so broken that you can just slip right between the customer and the host with a superior UX.
• Wrong Focus - Gateway had higher markups because they spent *money* to maintain a physical presence and workforce to educate the customer hoping that this would translate to loyalty. That did not work. Customers appreciated Gateway's educational service but their dollars went to Amazon.
• Provides a Valuable Resource or Service - Gateway providing educational services to choose undifferentiated products helped Amazon because Amazon did not have to invest in customer education.

Don't be an (Unwilling) Host

At some point, you're going to be a host. How do you fight off free riders (now or later)?

• Full control of Differentiated Products -  Apple has stores. Apple has an awesome sales service. Do you see anyone free-riding them?
• User Experience - Make it easy for people to buy from you once they've reached a decision with your help (like Amazon does).
• Lock in Customers -  Be so great that customers don't want to explore other options. Apple is such a great example of this. The people who bought the iPad probably had an iPhone. The people who bought the iPhone were people who had the iPod. 

The Perils of being HCL

Google thinks you're a chemical....

IE and HTML5: The beginning of a beautiful meltdown.

Internet Explorer's HTML5 support (or perceived lack thereof) is causing some serious backlash. First, the folks at 4ormat decided to not support *any* version of Internet Explorer.

According to the TechCrunch article, the team were rewarded with productivity gains and clearer code and, when it comes to recruiting:

It warms our hearts to see the look of incredulous joy on the face of a job candidate when we assure them “You heard right, we really don’t support IE.”

Then the folks at 37 Signals announced that their latest version of Basecamp used HTML5 to the hilt and the only way to realize their vision for it was to drop support for IE8 and lower. Stuck in IE hell? Their suggestion: use Chrome Frame.

Could IE be that bad? Well, apparently so. From a sea of million rants, here's an example. A chronicle of frustration (AKA blog post) whose title says it all: A Web Developer's Confrontation with Internet Explorer. 

Zero Moment of Truth (ZMOT) from Google

Google promises a "new mental model of marketing": the Zero Moment of Truth (ZWOT). Read all about it and download the free ebook  by Jim Lecinski, Google's Managing Director of US Sales & Service  at http://www.zeromomentoftruth.com/.

There's also a whole new series of videos here: http://www.youtube.com/user/zeromomentoftruth.

Enjoy.

Design Detail: Betalist sign-in message

from Beta List.

Technorati, if you're reading this... MJX3Z7FAX4ZD