Archive for the ‘Business Time’ Category

Resources for Early Stage Entrepreneurs

January 17th, 2011 Ryan

I often times post, tweet, and/or speak about starting, growing, and running high potential, new companies. There is an overabundance of information, and I use social media and my blog(s) as an outlet to wrangle and publish what I consider to be the very best.

Its important when starting a new company to cut through the crap, fail early, and iterate often. This post is meant to address the former. While I am no expert, I have put a lot of what I post to the test. This post from Bottom Line Law Group is a good one for the “non-business model”, but arguable just as important finance/legal considerations any startup must understand.

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MVV – Minimum Viable Video

January 6th, 2011 Ryan

Starting a company has its share of unanticipated costs that can significantly drive up the investment required to get to market. No matter how good you are at projections there are bound to be a host of options to choose from to make the product or experience better. At Let’s Gift It, we operate in line with 37 Signals approach beautifully articulated in their e-book Getting Real.

Before launch, we wanted to include some sort of audio/visual representation of who we were, what the app does, and how our customers can use it. I turned to Google to benchmark time and cost of producing a product demonstration. Thousands of dollars and tens of hours was not a commitment we were willing to make. There are far better uses of time and money, in our opinion, at this stage.

So…what did we do? We did what I think any young, scrappy, hustling company would do. We deferred to the free (even though its not free anymore at $5/publish) option of creating a Minimum Viable Video (MVV) by producing our own ‘Office Group Gift’ example at Xtranormal.

I love to fish. My friend and former colleague at Right Media, Tom Swenson, sent me the first Xtranormal video I ever saw. A five minute, beautifully scripted plea/explanation from husband to wife about the benefits of following the Striped Bass migration from Maine to North Carolina in pursuit of the elusive 50 pounder can be found here. I was hooked (literally).

We decided to use Xtranormal to create our version of the product overview which fit nicely on our then ‘under construction’ How It Works page. Sure, we will eventually spend more time on a professionally voiced over flash, screen-capture or animated version, but that is not necessary at this point. We did what any good startup should do:

1. Identify what you need
2. Identify cost/time vs. benefit
3. Strip out what you don’t really need
4. Find a comparable, cheaper solution
5. Implement
6. Get back to work

Here is the byproduct and it cost us $0.

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My Pitch for Startup Weekend

September 10th, 2010 Ryan


850 technologists gather at Skirball on the first Tuesday of the month. Bob is running late (stuck at a meeting) and is planning on meeting up with colleagues already seated. Bob walks aimlessly up and down the aisles looking for his colleagues who eventually see him first and wave and shout to get his attention.

What if Bob could have pulled up an app on his iphone, and see exactly where his colleagues were sitting so he can easily slip into his saved seat without anyone noticing he was late?

At the same conference Tina is excited about her new e-commerce site which has been growing at a steady clip for the last 4 months. She is a recent grad and isn’t very well connected in the tech or investment community. She is however, connected to her iPhone where she pulls up an app and is directed to the exact locations of potential partners, investors, and employees based on their check-in and integration with social media profiles. When Nate Westheimer announces the ‘turn to your neighbor’ portion of the night, Tina is prepared to connect and pitch.

I’m Sitting Here is a web and mobile application that takes Geo-mobile (ie- FourSquare, GoWalla, Places) one level deeper and enables users the ability to check-in to their exact seat at conferences, entertainment events, restaurants, and offices. Integrations into Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn make I’m Sitting Here the ultimate social and business networking tool for those on the go.

Web and mobile (iPhone/droid) front and back-end developers are critical to take this concept from idea to the app store. We can’t do this without you. Other Startup Weekend participants are welcome to join the team. I’m looking forward to working on a great project over the next 3 days.

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Startup Weekend is Almost Here!

September 9th, 2010 Ryan


I don’t know if its the… rush of pitching to a room full of strangers, the brain flurry of trying to process the best of the best pitches, forming teams a la kickball in grade school, seeing the first mockup take shape thanks to some PHP, watching people’s mood go through a Mr. Hyde-Dr. Jeckyll-Mr. Hyde transformation (and they inevitably do), pivoting, more pivoting, presenting on Sunday, or leaving the event with the feeling of accomplishment and desire to sleep for the next 14 hours – Startup Weekend NYC is here and its going to be awesome!

For those who have never been, I’ll post a copy of the schedule below. If this is your first time hearing about it, keep following their schedule as this event is SOLD OUT!

Friday, September 10th

* 5:30 pm – Doors open
* 6 – Event officially begins. Networking time. (delicious pizza and beverages served)
* 7 – Official kick-off and welcome
* 7:10 – Speakers: Jeremy Mims (Frogmetrics), Mark Davis (DFJ Gotham Ventures), Dwight Merriman (10gen) and Jessica Randazza
* 8 – Pitches start (Pitches are 60-seconds each. Pitch your best idea first, because we may not have a chance for second or third pitches)
* 9-ish – Pitches conclude. More time for networking. Some teams begin to self-form
* 10 – Voting. Teams solidify
* 11 – Break off to a bar or coffee shop to continue the discussion or begin work

Saturday, September 11th

* 9 am – Breakfast is served. This day is all about building, developing, designing, writing, creating, etc.
* 10 – By now, teams should have prototype(s) on paper, decided on a working title, and created technical plans. Start getting servers live, buying domains, creating user flows, etc.
* 12 – Lunch & Demos from Birchbox and Market Publique
* 1:30 – More coding, business plan development
* 6:30 – Dinner
* …Work through the night

Sunday, September 12th

* 9 am – Breakfast
* 10 – Teams should have a live splash page up with an email capture and a simple blog
* 12 – Lunch
* 5pm: Final presentations begin
* 8-ish – Panel votes. Awards. Wrap-up and move out

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Printers, Faxers, and Copiers…oh my!

August 18th, 2010 Ryan

I never though buying a new printer for my home office could be so much work. I started this morning at 7:30 crawling through the search engine results looking for a good printer. I made my way for CNET where I was greeted by 4/5 stars given by the CNET Reviewers and 2/5 stars given by other people. What does this mean? Are the CNET reviewers paid for a favorable review? Are there lots of trolls and saboteurs trying to damage the reputation and score of a competitors printer?

I learned a few things today that I have never had to think about before becoming an entrepreneur. Why? Because at all of my previous companies, some entrepreneur had already thought through these decisions. Today was like earning a boy scout badge for office equipment buying. (Features x Price)/Time was the formula for the morning. How to maximize features and value while spending as little time possible to acquire the optimal business printer.

I need print, scan, fax. I want copy, an automatic document feeder (just learned this term), laser vs. cartridge (Im frugal), and wireless. I don’t want a big, slow, ink guzzling piece of plastic that will require me to go all “Office Space” on.

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Twitter is Fast…

July 21st, 2010 Ryan

As in the fastest growing search engine. As a Yahoo! shareholder, it sucks to see this stock and market share continue to lose traction. There are a lot of great people in that company that can right the ship. Its just a matter of putting them in the right position.

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Start-up Tech Tools

June 23rd, 2010 Ryan

Start-ups are always short on time. Bootstrappers are even more pressed to maximize time as a day spent building a tool, looking for a tool thats been built, or trying to find a workaround is one more day of revenue delay.

The guys at Songkick have compiled an awesome list of tech tools, most of which have been developed by other startups. If you have been in business for more than a week, and already use many of these tools, pat yourself on the back and get back to work. If you haven’t started using tools like BaseCamp, OpenX, Firebug, DropBox, or Bugzilla – it’s not to late.

“This list is maintained by Ian at Songkick but will be a lot better for your additions! Start-ups that have contributed to this wiki include: Boxed Ice, GroupSpaces, Habit Industries, Huddle, IvyLees, Playfire, Plug in SEO, Fragegg, Poll Everywhere, Smarkets, Songkick, TinyCoupon, Webjam, Echodio, Skimlinks, Wasabi Ventures, Soup.io, highdefnow, boxedup, Achilles, PicoCraft, CogniDox,, edocr.com, TechBrewery/Zattoo, GetItWithMe, OnePage, Mediaroots, Clear Books, Urban Alarm “

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Gmail Hack #1

June 20th, 2010 Ryan

As part of an ongoing ‘get organized’ project, I have benefited from the following Gmail hack to clear out my inbox.

1. Login to Gmail
2. Tepe ‘in:inbox is:unread’ in the Search Box
3. Select ‘Search Mail’
4. Happy Deleting

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Insourcing for Startups

June 16th, 2010 Ryan

Solvate is an e-commerce platform that contracts top independent professionals in the country and makes them readily available to work on an hourly basis for small businesses and startups. With on demand access to world class talent, small businesses can operate like world class institutions.

Solvate is insourcing for companies. Most clients find us because they’re already connected to Solvate talent or clients and get referred to us when they’re out looking for a “good so and so”. Solvate matches you with Talent recommended by your network – and ours – to work on demand.

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10 Free-ish Wireframe Apps

June 15th, 2010 Ryan

Every web designer and developer should have a good and reliable wireframe (mockup or prototype) tool at there disposal. The importance of such a tool differentiates amongst web designers and developers, some use them, some don’t. Personally, I use them. It is in this initial stage of development that makes web design enjoyable, the coming together of the clients needs and your own creative ideas onto a blank canvas, allowing you to plan effectively the visual arrangement of the sites content.

Here are 10 free-ish apps to choose from.

I prefer Cacoo.

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