Monthly Roundup

In the spirit of Philippe from Achewood's mini newspapers, here comes a special boy!

I don't like Quizno's as well as other sandwich options like Specialty's, Grand Central, or Jimmy Johns because they provide too many condiment options. "But Adam", you say, "you're the condiment king." And it's true, I am the king of all condiments. But when given too many options I forget all of my logic regarding "flavor profiles" and end up with a sandwich laden with way too many sauces and pickled vegetables, rendering it overly viscous and challenging to eat. Whereas at Jimmy Johns (who has better bread anyway) I don't have free reign over my condiment selection, and so I end up with a much better balanced sandwich. Yes that was an allegory about interface design disguised as a story about sandwiches.

My Friend Feed and Twitter profiles are locked down now, because privacy issues freak me out. Before I hit "submit" on anything I think through my standard trio: "What would a future boss think", "What would a future investor think", "What would my mom think", but it still gives me the heebie jeebies that the first three pages of Google results for any nerd I know are social networking sites. You know it ought to make me feel better because my previous paranoia was about how easy it would be for anyone with a grudge and a knowledge of SEO to seriously mess up your life. Which is still a concern, but as someone who doesn't have any SEO gurus upset with them and is careful enough about what they say publicly to land a job in Human Resources, I wonder why no one else seems freaked out about this stuff. We live in a culture of umbrage and use a medium of absolute permanence. This should scare you.

My eee PC is really pretty awesome. It plays WoW surprisingly well (using an iPod for the hard drive), is the perfect recipe holder in the kitchen, and goes everywhere with me. It is named "Sweetness" and my big laptop is named "Dreadnought". We actually have six computers in the house and now with Google App Engine that makes three separate host environments. Have you ever heard of anything so nerdy?

In much the same way re-urbanization is the aspiration of the successful suburbanite and Whole Foods "bobo"s are the next paradigm from the "any food, any time" Chilean agro-revolution, I would like to posit three more ideas which may be counter-intuitive to our consumption culture but I believe resonate better with the human condition...

True luxury is throwing stuff away. Living with all my possessions strapped to my back for 5 1/2 months taught me this one but it has been a fantastic lesson. The greatest luxury is being able to get rid of things (or donate or craigslist) that you don't have a near-term use for. You can live in a smaller space with less to maintain and less to clean and less to worry about. And your space will look better.

Do you ever write the same blog post over and over but decide that is comes out not quite right each time and redact it? Ideas two and three fall into that category I'm afraid. The human condition is too feisty a topic for this Director of Human Resources wannabe. Take care of each other and maintain a healthy perspective regarding your bad self and you will be fine.

I hope you've enjoyed the potpourri... I'm giving up on the Fixing the Semantic Web thread, to be honest I have not felt like I've done a good job at making a compelling case for why it is going to be totally awesome for blogs to create and distribute their own colloquial nomenclature dictionaries which are tied into the big aggregator/recommenders using "similarity quilts". Take my word for it: it is totally awesome and if I don't get there first someone else will. Which is a more distinct possibility than usual - I haven't programmed Python before (Morning Set is Rails based). There are some aspects which appear to be easier to do using Python... certainly it is a more well-worn trail from the math perspective.

Beware Ten Queen Off Suit Startups

There was an article on Hacker News today about a startup putting a brave face on news of a bigger competitor beating them to the punch. I don't know any of the details of the startup - they're in sealth mode, which is another rant altogether - but the tone reminds me of an analogy.

In poker, drawing a bad hand like 7-3 off suit is not a big deal. The normal play is to fold before it becomes expensive, often before the flop. 98% of startup ideas are 7-3 off suit ideas after a cursory analysis of feasibility and business case. You spend a few days cautiously optimistic while you do some research and throw together a prototype until you learn about the conference in Bern they've had every year since 1979 to talk about the field you thought you invented, or you find a link to Google YourIdea Beta, or otherwise get your comeuppance.

As poker hands get better, the danger of losing your shirt increases. We have a tendency to ignore the odds and chase bad money with good. What might have been a winning hand "heads up" quickly diminishes in probability when several players re-raise. But the temptation to stay in the game kicks in, and we find ourselves losing much more on good-not-great hands than on bad ones.

Startup ideas operate much the same way, and it seems like every day you see some of the same rationalization process that keeps people in poker hands long after they should have folded. Often it's much better to pack it in and move the project in a different direction than to continue chasing a non-existent market. I can speak from personal experience when I say that it SUCKS to acknowledge failure and move on (start over) with the next idea, but it's much better than the alternative.

On the other hand (meaning I'm about to contradict myself) there is the maxim that every good business idea can be rationally argued against. You can come up with a feasible reason why any unproven business plan could fail. A huge corporation could always change direction and squash your startup. The market could fall out. There are always risks and everyone successful has had to take them. Sometimes pocket aces lose - sometimes even to 7-3 off suit. Obviously that doesn't mean you should fold pocket aces.

The trick is being able to take off your rose colored glasses as well as your "fail" tinted ones. I believe that the ability to provide a reality check is a significant reason why teams of two or more founders are successful so much more often than solo entrepreneurs. Being a good poker player means being able to take the size of the pot into account - while detaching oneself from the percentage of the pot that came from their own pile of chips. Being a good entrepreneur means being able to analyze the opportunity for your startup to succeed regardless of how much time and money you've already invested or your desire to hold onto that euphoric feeling of having "a good idea". I am not sure it's even possible to be completely objective ourselves, which is what makes cofounders and trusted advisers so important.