Utah Open Source Planet

Many of my readers will already know that Gabe and I have been busy launching a business for the last few months.

Well, we’ve finally got Izeni officially incorporated, and since we hope to launch our first product soon, we decided we’d better get something of a corporate website thrown together.

It’s really not much content-wise, but it is live; and it’s just in time for us to start pumping the engines of hype and hearsay. Check it out.

Our other (product) website, which is where the majority of our development has been, will be launched shortly.

So, how do you know you’re a developer in a bootstrapping high-tech startup? You have neither business cards nor a corporate website until your product is nearly ready to hit the market. This is pretty much opposite the spend-all-your-money-making-yourself-look-cool approach that many companies take. I hope our product-first approach is vindicated, but we’ll see. :)

Anyway, sign up for Izeni news updates, and we’ll let you know how it goes.

Until then, anyone know where we can get some great business cards?

I just added the BYU Web Startup Group to my comprehensive list of Utah Tech Groups.

From their website:

The Web Startup group was founded to bring together people interested in creating new sites and services online. Group members include web developers (programmers and designers), marketing and business-minded individuals, creative idea people, and others with technology related skills. The group meets regularly to discuss and make Web Startups come to life. If you are interested in making a difference online then join us!

Their next meeting will be this Thursday and will cover Android and “Jump Starting your Website”.

I also added one of the founders, Adam Chavez, to Utah’s Business Blog Aggregator and invited him to contribute his events to the Utah Tech Events Calendar. If you or anyone you know should be added to these Utah business community sites, please contact me.

BTW, there’s also a Utah Business Events Calendar which hasn’t caught on nearly as much. Let me know if you’d like to contribute. Maybe I’ll merge the two calendars in the future; we’ll see.

Anyway, checkout the Web Startup Group. I think they could end up being a really valuable resource to the Utah business and technology communities.

Paul Graham has a new essay on Why to start a startup in a bad economy. Actually, he doesn't necessarily think starting in bad times is better than good times, just that there's nothing special about good times when it comes to starting high-tech businesses. He says that the state of the economy is a rounding error compared to the effects the founders have.

The economic situation is apparently so grim that some experts fear we may be in for a stretch as bad as the mid seventies.

When Microsoft and Apple were founded.

As those examples suggest, a recession may not be such a bad time to start a startup. I'm not claiming it's a particularly good time either. The truth is more boring: the state of the economy doesn't matter much either way.

If we've learned one thing from funding so many startups, it's that they succeed or fail based on the qualities of the founders. The economy has some effect, certainly, but as a predictor of success it's rounding error compared to the founders.

From Why to Start a Startup in a Bad Economy
Referenced Sat Oct 18 2008 07:02:32 GMT-0600 (MDT)

I enjoyed reading it since I'm in the middle of starting a business now. I would disagree with Paul only in that I think bad times are better for starting businesses in some ways. Here's one: it's easier to find good talent.

Tags: startup kynetx entrepreneurship

A book I read recently helped me finger out why school can be so irritating at times.

The book is entitled Weird Ideas that Work: 11 1/2 Practices for Promoting, Managing, and Sustaining Innovation. One of its "weird ideas" is that companies should hire slow learners. Not stupid people but slow learners of the organization's code. A code is, the author explains, "a company's 'knowledge and faiths,' its history, memories, procedures, precedents, rules, and all those taken-for-granted, and often unspoken, assumptions about why things are supposed to be done in certain ways."

He goes on to say that most companies hire "fast learners" who quickly learn to do things the "right way" and see things much as others do in the company. But companies that do innovative work need a different kind of worker, one who won't get "brainwashed into thinking just like everyone else. They need people who avoid, ignore, or reject 'the heat of the herd. . .'"
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How do you find this sort of person? One suggestion he made is to hire smart people with bad grades. He says research has shown that many creative geniuses--including Edison and Darwin--were poor students.

Creativity researcher Dean Keith Simonton points out: "To obtain high marks in school often requires a high degree of conformity to conventional ways of looking at the world and people." People who get good grades are often fast learners of social cues. By contrast, smart people who get bad grades are listening to their inner voice, doing what they believe is interesting and right. Simonton observes that "one of the reasons creative talents often dislike school is that it can interfere with what they really want to know. When faced with the choice of reading a good book or studying for an exam, the extracurricular but still instructive diversion may win out." [italics mine]

School irritates me because I'm often told by teachers to do things and learn things I don't think are valuable. I have strong opinions about where I'm going and what I need to know to get there. When demands from school align with my own interests things go well. But when they clash, school loses out.

One of my guiding principles is maintaining control of my own destiny. I cede control of my experiences only to those with whom I have an unusual amount of trust. The trust threshold a person must meet before I'm willing to give up control varies upon the importance of the activity but for learning especially, it is very high. There is nothing more important than what I know, what I think, and especially how I think. My thoughts are my destiny. And when I let someone influence my thoughts, my destiny partially becomes theirs. And there are very few teachers with whom I want to share destinies.

I mentioned earlier I was going to announce a big change this week. I’m “on the move“, as Jeremiah Owyang would put it. Today was my first day working full time at a new Silicon Valley startup with offices here in Utah, where I will be leading their Social Product strategy moving forward. I am phasing off my regular consulting, and moving to this new Entrepreneurial effort in helping them grow.

At the moment, I can’t reveal much more, other than the fact that we’re building the next era in Interactive Entertainment on the iPhone. The company I’m working with right now started out as a client of mine, and I liked their product so much I decided it would be worth helping them out full time. I believe fully that we are going to change much of the way you watch TV today. We will be launching most likely next week, and you can follow the Twitter account @MediaMyWay to catch our launch announcement and follow our updates (I’ll also point you there from my Twitter account when we launch - we’ll announce it there first!). Other Twitter accounts you can follow for updates and “clues” are @JustintheWhitt, @Romay, and our CEO, @BradPelo.

How will this affect the other stuff I do? In reality, not much is changing, other than what I do full time. I have received permission to keep SocialToo.com going part-time, as it has, unless it takes off. Expect some very cool things to come from SocialToo in the near future - we’re working on a completely new design and a really cool new feature that will be released in the next couple weeks.

As far as my blogging and book-writing is concerned, I see nothing changing, and I intend fully to continue blogging regular, unbiased articles that I feel inspire and educate. I will disclose where necessary if I feel my current employment has any influence in what I am writing. I still hope to continue writing in other capacities as well, as long as speak as I’m asked to do (I’m speaking in Dallas next week to the Dallas Chamber of Commerce, in fact - come see me speak!).

So, keep watching the @MediaMyWay Twitter account, and you can also follow this blog and I’ll be sure you’re aware of the latest of our happenings (we’ll have a company blog here shortly, which I’ll let you know about). In the meantime I’ll keep posting regular, educational, and original content as I always have and always will. “Stay” Tuned!

From Jack Ricchiuto:

1. Get to know the strengths and passions of people in your first and second circles.
2. Make your strengths and passions more known to your 1st two circles.
3. Discover who in your 1st two circles would benefit from introductions.
4. Make high quality introductions at the best levels possible.
5. Engage your 2nd circle to introduce you to people in your 3rd circle.
6. Look for new opportunities to learn with and from your first two circles.
7. Create new opportunities to collaborate with your 1st two circles.
8. Increase your asset, positional, and generative value in your networks.
9. Help other people increase their value in their networks.
10. Built trust and help others build trust through promise making and keeping.

From the Economist:

At some point in the decade after he moved from the farm in Nebraska where he grew up to the innovation hub that is the San Francisco Bay Area, Evan Williams accidentally stumbled upon three insights:

1. that genuinely new ideas are, well, accidentally stumbled upon rather than sought out
2. second, that new ideas are by definition hard to explain to others, because words can express only what is already known
3. and third, that good ideas seem obvious in retrospect.

I'm starting a new business called Kynetx (nothing to see there yet). As I go through some of the things I do, I'm planning to blog them. The whole series will be here. This is the fourth installment. You may find my efforts instructive. Or you may know a better way--if so, please let me know!

Tuesday night, after Defrag was over, I was at dinner with Andre Durand, the CEO of Ping ID. At one point we were talking about startups, something Andre has a lot of experience in, and he spoke about commitment in a way that really rang true for me.

When you tell people you're starting a business, everyone, from your spouse to VCs, has one basic question in the back of their mind: "Is this guy committed? Is he serious?" Once they have that question answered to their satisfaction, they're with you.

The reason this rang true was because of other recent experiences I'd had. The usual reaction people give you when you say you're starting a business is mild curiosity, usually expressed in a question like "what's the idea?" You can explain it--doesn't matter how well--and they'll say "that's nice" and the conversation turns to other things.

But if somehow you can express the level of your commitment along the way, you'll get a totally different reaction. Something along the lines of "wow, you're serious, aren't you?" And then they want to know more.

This is why an entrepreneur who's willing to put their own money into the business is so compelling while one trying to get a company going without getting too much skin in the game is ignored. If you've rented space or hired employees, for example, you've shown commitment in a way that's tangible.

Piper Turbo Arrow I'm Selling (click for more)

In my case, I'm selling my plane. There are other ways to fund Kynetx, but this has some particular advantages--not the least of which is that it tells everyone how committed I am. (As an aside, this is a great plane, if you're in the market.)

Whether you just put money on your second mortgage or find some other more creative way to fund your business, do it in a way that tells the people who most need your assurance--family, friends, and funders--that you're committed. You'll see a huge change in attitude from them. More importantly, your momentum will increase with a public act of commitment.

Tags: kynetx startup entrepreneurship

I'm starting a new business called Kynetx (nothing to see there yet). As I go through some of the things I do, I'm planning to blog them. The whole series will be here. This is the third installment. You may find my efforts instructive. Or you may know a better way---if so, please let me know!

One of the things I realized pretty quick after getting serious about a new startup was that you need a clubhouse. It's fine to work from home, meet in coffee shops, and go cheap at first, but eventually you want to get real work done. For me, that means a place to go that is specifically about that effort.

This may seem like an unnecessary expense that can wait until you have more funding that your credit card, but I find it well worth the money.

First, if there's more than one of you in the startup, it's a place to show up every day, discuss what needs to be done, and help keep each other motivated. Second, I find it very encouraging to have "an office" for the company; it's a big step and makes the venture seem more real to me and everyone else.

I've found that you can rent 200-300 square feet (one medium office that you can squeeze 2 desk into) for well south of $750/month in Utah and I suspect that's true in many markets. Call in favors. Do you know someone with a spare conference room? I'm lucky to have pretty good contacts, but still worked my way through several friends looking for a deal and I finally found one.

I'm on the advisory board for Canyon Park Technology Center in Orem (the former WordPerfect campus) and I got some space there. That's not a deal they did just for me--they regularly do incubation deals and are easy to work with. Novell has a similar deal on their campus at the Open Source Business Center. Many cities have economic development centers that offer incubation space. Look around...you'll find something.

Another option is a co-working space like the one Sean O' Steen describes. There are some formal tenants who have keys, permanent desks, and so on. I see this as less than ideal since it won't feel like it's "yours" but is better than working at Starbucks.

My minimum requirements:

• Internet connection--most incubation spaces will throw it in. If not, you'll need a DSL line and you'll probably get stuck with the high "business" DSL charge even though you won't get anymore out of it.
• Comfortable chair--I don't like to skimp here. I'll be sitting in it all day.
• Desk--No need to go fancy; a door on two saw horses will suit most needs.
• Whiteboard--two if possible. I love whiteboards for planning, keeping notes, and serving as the centerpiece for discussion.
• Refrigerator--gotta keep the diet coke cold. :-)
• Large monitor--if you're writing code don't skimp on this either.

Kynetx nameplate on office in Canyon Park TC (click to enlarge)

Most landlords have old furniture from previous tenants, so be sure to ask if they've got any spare chairs, desks, whiteboards, etc. that they'd be willing to throw into the deal. Many will. There are also some great deals around from time to time. We found a few great little desks at Office Depot for $125. Not bad.

You can get away without a phone and just use cells. I happened to have a Polycom and a spare Vonage line from an earlier venture, so I moved that in for conference calls--that's come in handy a few times when I have to be on a call.

I've left computer off the list above since I live on a laptop that I take almost everywhere. Obviously if you don't have something suitable, you'd need that too. There are lots of cheap places to find serviceable computers. BYU has a surplus computer sale regularly where you can pick up something that will run XP or Linux just fine for under $100. Given the choice of fast computer or a big monitor, I'll pick a big monitor every time.

I took a few photos of our set up in case you're curious. All in all it a pleasant place to get meet and to work. I'm pretty happy with it.

Now you've got a place for your new business to call home. Invite some friends and colleagues over and talk about your company. I think you'll find that it feels good and focuses you on the business in a way that few things will. Now, to get to work...

Tags: kynetx entrepreneurship startup

I'm starting a new business called Kynetx (nothing to see there yet). As I go through some of the things I do, I'm planning to blog them. The whole series will be here. You may find my efforts instructive. Or you may know a better way--if so, please let me know!

Obviously one of the things you have to do to start a business is actually set up the legal entity. This is actually easier than it first appears.

The first question is what kind of entity to set up. The two basic choices in the US are a C-Corp and a Limited Liability Corp, or LLC. One of the big differences is how the entity is taxed. C-Corps pay taxes on their own behalf. LLC's pass profits through to members who pay taxes as part of their personal returns.

There's lots of discussion about "the right choice" on the 'Net. Ultimately, if you get funding, you'll probably end up as a C-Corp due to the tax issues. But my feeling is you can start out as an LLC and switch later. LLCs are easier to set up and manage when you're just getting started. Pelle Braendgaard has called them the Ruby on Rails of legal entities.

As an aside, another legal entity that you might consider is an S-Corp. It is like an LLC from a tax standpoint, but like a C Corp from a governance standpoint--to my mind the worst of both worlds.

Some feel that switching to a C-Corp later is hard, but I have access to some pretty good business attorneys who have assured me it's just not a big deal. Consequently, I went with the LLC--it's easy and familiar.

The next step is to actually set it up. In Utah we're lucky to have the One-Stop Business at Utah.gov. I set up my LLC online--including getting my Federal employer identification number (EIN)--like an SSN for the corporation--in about an hour. The only thing you don't get is an operating agreement.

If you're not blessed with an online system for doing this, you probably want to hire an attorney to get it done. I've found that not all attorneys understand the subtleties of this process, so make sure you're dealing with one who does. I've gotten good results for as little as $500 before, so it doesn't have to be expensive.

The operating agreement (don't confuse this with the articles of incorporation, which are filed with the state) specifies how the corporation will run, who capitalizing the entity, how ownership works, etc. If there's more than just you involved, the ownership issues can be the cause of a lot of consternation and hard feelings, so it pays to get it right. An attorney is a great help here.

Once the corporation is registered and you have an EIN, you can get a bank account. Don't mingle the corporation's funds with your personal funds--it will make your life difficult at tax time. I went to Washington Mutual because they offer free business accounts. Even if you don't have funding now, put $1000 in the account so you can pay for incidental expenses.

Now you're set: you've got a legal entity and a bank account. The next step: getting a clubhouse.

Tags: kynetx entrepreneurship startup

Two reasons:

1. Open source software - Read how Guy Kawasaki created Truemor, a new web 2.0 company, on the cheap.
2. Outsourcing - Read how easily you can outsource in today’s Wall Street Journal.

A website’s goal is to convert as many visitors as possible

The number of conversions depend on two factors:

1. number of visitors
2. % of total visitors the website converts

SEO practitioners optimize web pages so the pages show up high in search engine rankings. This drives more traffic to the page which increases the number of conversions. How high a web page shows up in a search engine ranking page (SERP) is based on three factors:

1. Strength of the domain (measured by links, trust, age, and possibly some usage factors)
2. Internal and external links to the page
3. Keyword in the title tag

Other pages I found helpful to understand SEO:
If Your Page Ranks Well, You’d Better Be Messing With It
18 Questions Your CEO Forgot to Ask When Building Your Website
The Basics of Search Engine Optimization
How to Build a Keyword List
Google Ranking Factors - SEO Checklist
Beginner’s Guide to Search Engine Optimization
Lots of links to other SEO resources
Before You Launch that Local Small Business Website — SEO basics for small companies