Techcrunch has a post about a VC firm that is subpoenaing the records of TheFunded.com. TheFunded is a site that allows entrepreneurs to rate and comment on the Venture Capital firms that they have dealt with in pursuing funding. All activity on TheFunded is done under a promise of anonymity. EDF Ventures is testing that promise with the subpoena. They want to know who had some bad things to say about them.

This is not good. I hope the judge throws it out the second it crosses her desk. What’s next? Will Yelp have to let McDonald’s know how to find me if I leave a bad review about a Big Mac? Maybe Al Gore will want to see the names of the people that didn’t vote for him?

I appreciate people that are willing to put their name behind a review or a grade or a vote. Anonymity can be a tool used by those who have no knowledge of the entity they are reviewing. It can be used by competitors to throw grenades. But anonymity can also be used by people who have legitimate concerns over repercussions of providing honest assessments.

TheFunded goes to great lengths to protect its contributors. SupplierView will do the same.

While elated, this isn’t the best time for a demo. Work is still in progress on the test site and the need to pull code together quickly for a demo wasn’t on the schedule. I even considered just using my mock-ups for the demo and that is still a last resort. My demo is this Thursday afternoon (7/31). I have 10 minutes. Though I’m 100% sure the evaluators will have seen applications and start-ups that are 100% cooler, I’m hoping the interest in Enterprise 2.0, the fact that Supplier View actually meets a need, and the domain knowledge that is behind the design of the tool will be factors.

One way or another this is going to be a great experience. It gets Supplier View on the radar of a some influential people. It gives me another opportunity to talk about Supplier View and the solution that it will be. I’ll have a blog update Thursday night or Friday and also will be letting the Twitter world know in near real time how it went.

5. Enterprise software 2.0. Enterprise software companies sell bad software for huge amounts of money. They get away with it for a variety of reasons that link together to form a sort of protective wall. But the software world is changing. I suspect that if you study different parts of the enterprise software business (not just what the software does, but more importantly, how it’s sold) you’ll find parts that could be picked off by startups.

One way to start is to make things for smaller companies, because they can’t afford the overpriced stuff made for big ones. They’re also easier to sell to.

Supplier View is in this space. From a functionality stand point Supplier View jumps the curve over what the Aribas and SAPs are doing in the supplier management and development space. The cost to any company, small, medium or enterprise isn’t even a blip on the the budget. Why should it be? I’m not paying an army of people to develop, market and sell outdated functionality that has been in the queue for 3 years. I’m a start-up that will sell to all types of companies at a reasonable price with a product that can grow with the customer in mind.

I don’t need VC funding, but I appreciate so much the article that Paul has written. It validates further that I’m working on the right thing at the right time.

For those of you that have signed up for the beta group, please be patient. It is coming. Soon. If you haven’t signed up for the beta group and are interested about how Supplier View is going to change how supplier performance management and development is done please do so at www.supplierview.com.

I land at JFK at 4:37 PM on June 30. The Yankees play the Rangers at 7:05 PM. So the first challenge is getting from JFK to the Stadium. I pulled this info from HopStop. According to this I should be able to make it to the stadium in plenty of time for the game. One problem…what do I do with my carry-on bag? Are there lockers at the stadium that I could stow that away during the game? Also is there anything about this route I should be aware of?

From: JFK
To: E 161ST ST and RIVER AVE, Bronx
Entrance near I-678
Take the JFK AirTrain from John F Kennedy Airport station heading to Jamaica Station
Get off at Sutphin/Jamaica Station
Transfer
Take the E train from Sutphin Blvd - Archer Av station heading Downtown / to World Trade Center
Get off at 7 Avenue
Transfer
Take the B train from 7 Avenue/53rd station heading Uptown / to Bedford Pk Blvd
Get off at 161 Street - Yankee Stadium
Exit near intersection of E 161st St and River Ave
Total travel time 1 hour 33 mins

Now that the game is over I have to get to Parsippany, NJ where my hotel and the customer meeting will be on Tuesday. 3 hours and 30 minutes? There has to be a better way. Any ideas?

From: E 161ST ST and RIVER AVE, Bronx
To: 909 PARSIPPANY BLVD, Parsippany-Troy Hills Twp, NJ
Entrance near intersection of E 161st St and River Ave
Take the D train from 161 Street - Yankee Stadium station heading Downtown / to Coney Island
Get off at 34 Street - Herald Sq
Exit near intersection of W 34th St and 6th Ave
Start out going West on W 34th St towards Broadway
Entrance near intersection of W 34th St and 7th Ave
Take the 12:34 AM NJ Transit - Montclair-Boonton Line from New York - Penn Station station heading to Hackettstown
Get off at Mountain Lakes
Exit near intersection of Midvale Rd and Romaine Rd
Start out going East on Midvale Rd
Turn right onto Intervale Rd
Turn left onto Glen Rd
Turn right onto Winding Way
Turn left onto Forest Dr
Turn right onto Parsippany Blvd
Total travel time 3 hours 21 mins

Alright blogosphere lets pull together and make this happen. Let the brilliant tips start flowing!

Now that I’m done with the boot camp I want to keep going with CrossFit and get back to the distance running. The boot camp broke the rut I was in. I’m thinking I’ll do a half marathon this fall. Either Philadelphia in September or San Jose in October.

I was given an assignment by a person a couple of rungs up my management ladder at the end of last week.  I thought it was completely ridiculous. I told her why I didn’t think it was necessary. I told her why the information was already there. She held firm though and said this was the expectation and that she needed me to do this. So what did I do? I procrastinated. I couldn’t get my mind around doing this because I thought it was stupid. I waited until the very last minute and then did really poor job on what she needed. Which then put her in a bad spot with her management. In the end I dropped the ball. Now I feel like crap because I let her down.

This isn’t about working at BigCo or a start-up. Everyone has people that rely on them for something. And that means sometimes you have to do some thing that you think is stupid. Maybe its hiring a lawyer to validate some color by numbers Terms of Service document or buying a fax machine so that the one person at that one big client can get you documents. Some things are worth fighting for or you can just knock it out and move on. I choose the wrong option this time. 

Dammit.

At the end of our meet-up we mapped out a timeline for the next couple of weeks. Part of this is that Monday I expect I’ll be working on a live site and maybe a week or so after that invite a few people for a private beta.

Supplier View will always be about a very iterative process on design, development and function. What is released on private beta day 1 will not be what the public sees on launch day 1. What the public sees on launch day 1 will not be what the public sees on launch day + 365. Rapid, meaningful iteration while meeting customer needs all the time will be the standard.

Haven’t filled out the private beta interest form, why not?

Because at my current place of employment finding a defect towards the end of testing will get your abilities as a human being questioned. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard somebody ask “Why wasn’t that found earlier in the testing cycle?” Which makes me want to jump through the phone and scream obscenities that would make Brad Feld blush. The purpose of testing is to find defects, to break stuff. You have a testing window and a plan because it takes time. You don’t test everything on Day 1 and then sit on your ass for the next 3 weeks. You test for the whole 3 weeks (or whatever). To try to make someone feel stupid or less of a tester because they found something at the end of the testing window is asinine. We should be giving out bounties. I’m getting off my soapbox now.

Note to self…when its time to hire a full time QA person for Supplier View, reward them handsomely.