What’s In Peter’s Head

I just finished listening to all the back episodes of the podcast Internet Business Mastery. Since it’s an old show (started in October 2005) it has been fun to watch the hosts Sterling and Jay evolve in fast-forward. They started out with a lot of enthusiasm but didn’t seem quite sure what they wanted the podcast to be. Over time, they gained more polish, experience, and confidence and narrowed their focus. The production value of their show improved and they really started to implement their ideas in their own businesses and lives.

It actually a great sales pitch to compare the early episodes where they say “This is what we want to do” to the most recent episodes where they say “This is what we did and how it worked.” Anyone can say “Start and Internet business and you can travel the world,” but it’s a lot more credible to hear “We’re moving to Buenos Aires for 6 months just because we can.”

The podcast is pretty inspiring and somewhat informational. The free stuff is mainly good for little tips and inspiration. I haven’t bought their seminar, coaching course, or membership site access but I’m sure it’s much more helpful and thorough inside the pay-wall. For someone interested in meatier content about information marketing, I’d definitely recommend them.

One word of warning. If you’re reading my blog, you’re probably from the build-a-startup-and-make-it-so-good-that-it-becomes-popular-by-word-of-mouth school. If that’s the case, the focus mostly on marketing can sound a little slimy, a litte pushy, a little marketerese. While I certainly don’t advocate marketing at the expense of product quality, most developers are so terrible at and distrustful of it that any little bits they pick up will help. Things like using an email list, developing a sale over multiple contacts, etc. It’s okay to add value to your offering by marketing it. Wiser people than me have made this point. Sterling and Jay are a pleasant, non-threatening introduction to a lot of marketing concepts and I recommend them.

Two (very small) beefs. First, because they do a lot of affiliate marketing, they want you to click through their site and so they don’t tell you the name of the company or product they’re pluggig. You HAVE to go to their website to click. Second, their website isn’t very organized (it’s just a big pile of WordPress entries), so it’s not easy to find the link you’re looking for. Plus some of their links are wrong and most of the older ones are broken. So rather than complain, I compiled this list of all the shows, recommendations, and links for every episode. I did prune out broken links and time-sensitive things as well. You’re welcome!

[NOTE: Episodes 1-31 are no longer available for download.  They will be sold later on CD with transcripts.]

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Are you in the mood for vaporware?  An exciting idea?  More of me talking?  Then head over to my new startup GeekStack!

There’s a lot more info there (really, the home page is a wall of words) but the pitch is: “Collectible trading cards with the people, events, and achievements that our world is built on.”  I have a first blog post up, called “Why Would A Software Geek Make A Physical Product?” which gives some more background and a sample of the writing style I’ll use (although if you’re reading this, you probably know how I write).

I have a lot of the ideas about how it will work but there are questions that still need to be answered.  Check it out and take the chance to give me some feedback and help shape the development of the GeekStack.

Programming language snobs are penny pinchers. That’s a tough sentence to write for some that just finished holding a workshop to help people learn Lisp of all languages. Why would I make such a bold, inflammatory statement? (No, not to troll. Most of the criticisms in this article are aimed at myself, based on my own actions over the last few years.) I had an unpleasant realization after listening to two excellent talks that developed this idea planted in my head by Raganwald with this post he quoted a few months ago:

“…you can count the number of games written in a purely functional style on one hand. Is it that language tinkerers are less concerned about writing real applications? That they know you can solve any problem with focused grunt work, but it’s not interesting to them? That the spark and newness of a different language is its own reward? Either way, the BASIC programmers win when it comes down to getting projects finished.”

—James Hague, Slumming with BASIC Programmers

The gist of the post is that uber-languages like Lisp, Erlang, Ruby, and even C are worlds ahead of BASIC, but somehow a group of Neanderthals put down their clubs and wiped away their drool long enough to write a slew of various and impressive computer games using BASIC. OK, he didn’t say that, his exact words were “…largely written by people with minimal programming background.” I was just translating for the language snobs out there. But then, mid-gloat, he hits them, you (even me) with that damning quote above about getting projects finished.

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I had great fun writing my last article “What Kind of Software Would People Actually Pay For?” because it helped me flesh out a lot of the ideas that had been swimming around in my head recently (actually for the last few years). And it actually made my Masters Degree in Urban Planning useful!

[Hold on kids, Uncle Pete is reminiscing]

Urban history is just economic history viewed from a different angle. Farming and agriculture was the dominant form of life for thousands of years because it was the best economic option – access to soil and water was more important than access to other people. Even if you couldn’t sell the food you grew, at least you could eat it and not starve.

With the economies of scale gained during the Industrial Revolution, congregating in cities became a better economic option for many (and eventually most) people. [Warning: US-centric view of history ahead] Despite the horror stories of Victorian London of the Chicago stockyards, life in cities was a better choice, especially for people who didn’t own their own land. The technological developments of the era (steel mills, railroads, electricity, heavy manufacturing, etc) made those who developed and invested in them rich, and the cities that accommodated them prospered. Cleveland in 1900 had all the optimism and glitter that cities like Seattle do now. Starting around the 1970s, the US economy shifted from primarily manufacturing to services like finance, insurance, accounting, advertising, marketing, law, high tech, research, software, etc. This if referred to the “white collar” or “service economy” and is what we have now.

Some people claim there is another economic shift underway, from providing services to providing experiences. This idea was first developed in the book “The Experience Economy” by B. Joseph Pine and James Gilmore. Examples of this are how a regular amusement park may offer fun rides, but Disney provides a complete immersion in their (surreal, creepily clean) world. Dunkin Donuts sells you coffee, but Starbucks provides a cozy place with hip music. Nike doesn’t sell shoes, it sells athleticism. You get the point.

[Reader interrupts]

Reader: Peter, why are you giving me a history lesson? That’s not why I read your stuff!

[Peter shakes the glimmer out of his eyes and gets back on track]

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[UPDATE:  See two update posts: "The Value in in the Experience" and "Music Operates Directly on Your Abstract Syntax Tree"]

The “Free” Firestorm

Hank Williams, my recent blogging buddy, lit the internet on fire recently with a series of posts where he accuses venture capitalists of collapsing the market for software entrepreneurship by funding so many companies that give products away for free. He says:

In today’s “free” world, in most online business categories, it is inherently impossible to start a small self-sustaining business and to grow it. This is because in the digital world, advertising, the only real revenue stream, cannot support a small digital business. If businesses were based on the idea that people paid for services then small companies could succeed at a small scale and grow. But it is very hard to charge when your competition is free.

…Venture capital has totally distorted the market. VCs are investing billions of dollars in companies with instructions to get big fast and to worry about advertising revenue later. As a result the competition is for users and not paying customers.

Then at Startup School 2008, DHH took Hank’s fire and poured a 500,000 DWT oil tanker on it with his talk “The Secret to Making Money Online“. And what was the secret? Charge people for your product! Breathtaking, isn’t it? We’re living a world where feathers get seriously ruffled when you insinuate that people should have to pay money for stuff.

This recent “free” debate needed to happen, and some good points were raised. Anything that can be digitized can be copied and distributed for (essentially) free on the Internet, so anyone whose business is digital or digitizable needs to understand free. It can either be an advantage (if you’re starting from nothing and building up) or a disadvantage (if you used to rely on high copying costs to protect your profits – I’m looking at you, music and movie industries).

Breaking Free From Free

What does this mean for software entrepreneurs? Right now the market for people wanting to make money off the Internet (supply of entrepreneurs) is growing, the demand for free software is growing, but what about the demand for non-free software?. Reg Braithwaite aka Raganwald asked a great question:

What does this mean for startups and business models? Is this effect stronger in some niches (programmer tools, for example) but weaker in others (enterprise integration applications)? Does SAAS change the game? Does pricing a product so that it is credit-card-ware change things?

Rather than answer those specific questions (which I don’t have any particular insight or experience into), let’s look at some guidelines for anyone trying to grow a profitable, Ben and Jerry-style software company. Hank gave his advice on the subject in “Seven Dos and Three Dont’s for Creating New Web Products” post (definitely go read the whole post for details and examples). Here’s my list of 5 principles to evaluate an idea to see if people will pay for a product that:

1. Supports serious, expensive hobbies
2. Is so outstanding it redefines its category
3. Helps businesses spend less money
4. Helps businesses make more money
5. Can be bought easily and instinctively

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I’m a cheap guy who doesn’t like to spend money on software. I’m not totally against it, but I have awesomer stuff to spend my money on like diapers, mortgage payments, and $4 gas. I enjoy using free tools or trials offered by the software entrepreneurs I know, but no matter how much I like them, I could live without most of them.

Not DropBox.

DropBox solves a pain I’ve had for years, a pain that never relented or could be relinquished – keeping data consistent across multiple computers. I usually have 2 computers at work (a desktop and a laptop), plus my laptop at home and 2 more desktops. I tried to keep a folder that would sync across all of those machines but I never found a process or product that could do it for me, so I just decided to live without access the files I wanted. I’m not even talking about a 100 gigabyte media library, just things like notes, drafts, some pictures, etc.

I’ve been using DropBox since it came out in beta, and it solved my problem so completely that I had to consciously think to remember what life was like without it (kind of like trying to remember what it was like to install a device driver on Win 3.1). There’s a client app you install that watches your DropBox directory. It then syncs all the files in that directory tree with a copy on their server, and pushes the changes out to other machines where you’ve installed the client app. So far, It’s fast and flawless.

But wait, there’s more! Since it syncs by sending changes to your file instead of the entire file, it also keeps a backup and revision history so you can restore older versions (again, across all machines), like source control for dummies. They also encrypt the files, both in transit and on their servers, so your stuff is safe.

Still not sold? Since copies of all your files are on their servers, you can access them (including revisions) over the web! So if you’re on a computer that doesn’t have the client installed and you just want a couple files, you can just grab them off the web.

It’s sort of funny, but despite absolutely loving the product, I hadn’t written about it yet because I didn’t know what to write. It worked so well that I didn’t even notice it 99% of the time. Have you heard of the book Don’t Make Me Think, one of the great books on designing for usability? (If not, GO READ IT!) If you need to see an example of those principles in practice, try DropBox. I didn’t have anything to write because I hadn’t really used the program – it just quietly served me like a good butler.

They’re still in beta. Once beta is over, there will be small free accounts and paid accounts with more storage. Beta testers will retain a free account that’s bigger than the standard free. I have some beta invites left, so if you’d like to try DropBox (and if you don’t, why the heck are you still reading?), email me and I’ll send you one.

The first big project by the Chicago Lisp User Group is a half-day workshop to introduce Lisp and its goodness to other programmers. The primary audience is the Chicago Linux User Group but it open to everyone. This is the initial announcement and tentative schedule. The most updated info will be on my Chicago Lisp page.

INTRO TO LISP WORKSHOP

WHO: Programmers interested in learning more about Lisp.

HOW MUCH: The low, low price of 3ish hours of attention span.

WHEN: Saturday, May 31st from 3pm-6pm.

WHERE: Institute of Design, 350 N. LaSalle St, 4th floor, Chicago. Map.

WHAT: A hands-on introduction the the Common Lisp programming language.

Tentative Schedule (presentations will be 30-60 min)

• Setting up a Lisp Environment (John Quigley): A hands-on walkthrough of how to setup a Lisp environment, Emacs, and SLIME. There will be documentation beforehand about steps to take and which packages to get.
• Lisp Basics and Idioms (Peter Christensen): Lisp syntax, contructs, basic code, idioms and practices.
• Common Lisp condition system (need a volunteer)
• Macros (Craig Luddington): How Lisp lets you write code that writes code that writes code … and why you’d want to do that.
• Demos of cool things in Lisp (need volunteers): showing off both neat and practical things that Lisp can do.

We’re looking for volunteers to do the following:

• Present on the CL condition system
• Suggest and present on other aspects of CL not listed here that would be suitable for an introductory session
• Walk around and help troubleshoot during the first session about setting up your environment.

If you’re interested in attending or helping, please email me and include “Intro to Lisp Workshop” at the start of the message.

I’ve been beta testing a new project management software tool called StreamFocus, and unlike most other betas that are either nice or just plain lame and it’s easy to dismiss them. Also, the other products are consumer apps and therefore a) simple and b) extremely streamlined for easy, intuitive use. StreamFocus, unfortunately, is neither of those. So why am I sitting here still writing about it? Because it looks like it will make lots of money for very wealthy customers.

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A while ago I announced that I was starting my own internet startup. Since then, I’ve gotten nothing done. Well, not nothing, but nothing that resembles a startup. I did register a domain, setup WordPress, and write a few blog posts, but that was it. And then in a WordPress accident while backing up the database for this blog, I wiped out the blog posts I had written for the startup blog, so now it just links back here. So, since I didn’t have any code or users, and I now no longer even have a blog, I’m pronouncing SmallPunch dead (for now).

So if I didn’t lose much, why quit? A couple reasons.

First, determination and focus are two of the most important requirements to succeed at a startup, especially for one as time constrained as myself (part-time single founder). Right now because of my family situation (2nd baby due any day now), my focus is definitely not on a startup. All of my attention is focused on balancing home needs with work needs and there’s very little time for anything else.

Second, while a part-time founder might succeed with regular, predictable time periods to work, my available time is neither regular nor predictable. I take what I can get, but that’s hardly conducive to getting into the right mindset or the flow. Third, I still feel like I have some infrastructure and technology issues to work out. I’m sticking with Lisp because I think it will help me get the most done in the alloted time I have (I don’t see my free time increasing greatly anytime in the next 18 years), but that carries some costs. I’m still figuring out which CL implementation to go with. Since I lack a decent computer that I can run Linux on, I’m going with CLisp, but I’m a little weary of its lack of threading since I will be doing a web app.

Third, I’m planning on using Weblocks as my web framework, but since it’s at something like version 0.1, it’s only been tested and run on SBCL, so who knows what problems I’d run into using it on CLisp. These are not insurmountable issues, but I do need to take the time to hack them out, and it’s hard to do a good job at that with the psychic weight of a startup hanging over my head.

Fourth, I’d really like to have someone to work with. That’s part of my motive for starting the Chicago Lisp User Group and contributing to Hacker News. I think I might be able to succeed on my own, but for motivation and load-sharing purposes, a co-founder would be really nice. But I want it to be someone I know and am comfortable working with, so I can’t just whip that together.

Here’s what I have accomplished in that time frame:

• Got familiar with Emacs/SLIME as a development environment.
• Written blog posts that have been read by thousands of people.
• Made contacts/friends with other people in the Lisp and startup communities.
• Organized the Chicago Lisp User Group.
• Been an active beta tester for several new startup products.
• Continued working through the best Lisp books out there (Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs, Practical Common Lisp, Paradigms of Artificial Intelligence Programming)

I’m not exactly lounging! So why do I call it a “Roger Clemens Retirement”? The man retired in 2003, un-retired in 2004 without missing a single game, threatened retirement in 2005 but accepted a generous raise, retired in early 2006 only to un-retire again in the middle of the season, and then retired for the last (?) time in 2007. Long story short, just because he was “out of the game” didn’t really mean he was out of the game. Just like me.

Fred Wilson at Union Square Ventures just wrote a post called “Can The Y Combinator Idea Turn Into A Movement?” that set of an interesting discussion at Hacker News. He says that because you can start a company for a small amount of money, investors should back many companies with a small investment instead of a few companies with a large investment ($25,000 * 10 instead of $250,000 * 1). If you have read Paul Graham, know anything about YCombinator, or even just know some basic economics (my current mental hobby horse), this isn’t news or even particularly insightful. It was the discussion around the post that raised some interesting points.

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