Guy Kawasaki reinforces ideas about starting up companies and reminds people about the basics in The Art of Bootstrapping. The post can be seen as a good summary of important suggestions made in business literature.
Forecasting from the bottom up is a little gem of advice that can be taken from the article. It is very tempting to imagine reaching 1% of any large group of people and predicting success based on this daydream. Rather than thinking about reaching a humble percentage of a large target group when planning the business, business founders should focus on objectives that they can accomplish in the short term. This will give them a better handle of projected income and will help determine the company’s feasibility.
To counter highly optimistic visions of success, Kawasaki advices a startup to keep a lean team. Keeping a small team will diminish idle time for workers and minimize the need for layoffs. Many researchers have reported higher levels of productivity with smaller groups. Growing a team necessitates the company to feed more mouths. So, it is best to wait on the hiring frenzy until funding is available and additional workers are really needed.
Kawasaki’s sixth point is too focused. This point suggests that startups not purchase the most expensive products for business use. His example uses chairs. Businesses do not need to purchase one high-end business chair when they can purchase four comfortable and functional chairs at the same price. The same can be said about computing devices. Whether or not this suggestion can be applied to products that a company is developing is uncertain. Releasing a product with innovative functionality and without great form might allow the competition to match the innovation and polish the presentation of that functionality with the resources that are available to them. Great form was a crucial part of Apple’s success in the already established portable music player market. Great form might be a necessary for widespread adoption of the starting company’s product.
The degree that the product should be polished is determined by the company’s judgement of “good enough.” Kawasaki’s third suggestion encourages the product’s release when it is a little less than perfect. Customers will have feedback to provide, and implementing features based on customer feedback instead of implementing potentially useful features that will not be used is a sound strategy for startups.
Perhaps, the important factor of successfully launching a business is people. Starting a company requires its people to have a lot of trust and guarded optimism. Meeting and surpassing the needs of its people after the company has stabilized will prepare the company to achieve next level.
The top guys at Google are doing it again. A Reuters report states that Google Execs Keep $1 Salaries. The article also reports Schmidt earned $250,000 while Brin and Page each earned $150,000 before taking up their one dollar annual salaries in 2004. Being able to do something one enjoys, like helping businesses rise, without having to worry about life’s necessities is great. Opting to depend on performance-based portfolio income is something to be admired about any business leader. An increase in their personal financial worth will rely on their ability to increase the value of the business and not on accumulating earned income, which has a weaker dependence on their performance.
Paul Roberts uncovers H&R Block’s mismanagement of social security numbers in H&R Block Mailing Reveals Customers’ SSNs. The leak was attributed to user error, but the blunder is most likely due to ill-implemented software. After all, software is responsible for printing the labels that are used for these software packages and for assessing their marketing efforts. Having the software responsible for generating tracking numbers is a common expectation.
Ordinary computer users were able to recognize their own social security numbers within a 47-digit tracking number, which is used primary for marketing purposes. Although I have not seen the software package first hand, I am certain that the social security numbers can be found at a particular offset within the tracking number. Knowing this offset will allow a person to get SSNs from labels on these packages.
Many people provide information to H&R Block when they use their tax preparation services. H&R Block naturally downplayed the threat of identity theft from their recent information leak. The company needs to minimize their negligence and increase their effort in safeguarding the information that they gather from clients, instead of simply shrugging off their mistake as a mere accident.
Nate Anderson’s Following the Money: How Subway Ads Ended Up in Counter-Strike is recent recognition of a media channel that is available for advertisers. There seems to be increasing popularity of advertising within video games. I recognized advertising within THQ’s Splashdown: Rides Gone Wild, a video game that I tested a couple of years ago. Ad placement within this game was documented here on May 2003. The violation of Valve’s EULA with the presentation of advertisements through Counter-Strike servers is unfortunate. Releasing an authorized mod that serves advertisements for Counter-Strike might be beneficial, through royalties or licensing fees, to Valve or Sierra. Other game developers and publishers may want to consider allowing their products, which support the Internet, to serve advertisements.
Ginger Applegarth provides a seven point guideline for taking a break from the working life in Quit Work for a Year: 7 Steps to do It Right. The first suggestion made in the guideline conveys very important information, which might not be known to workers, their employers, or their employers’ human resources departments. There may be an option to request a leave of absence instead of quitting outright.
Workers need a break, especially IT workers who are under constant stress. When two or three weeks is not enough to recover from such stress, perhaps a longer break from work is needed. If a worker is willing to forgo earned income for more time off, the employer should recognize the severity of this need and consider requests for extended leave carefully. The need for time off from work may be so severe as to require the employment relationship to be terminated.