Entrepreneur In Training

A note to myself from the future

Dear David,

It’s tough running your own company sometimes isn’t it? Remember those days at BigCo? There was lots of gravy but it was some pretty bland gravy wasn’t it? Remember what you read in that Founders at Work interview with Brewster Kahle?

Kahle: Having your own company means that its much harder to blame somebody else. If you are working inside a big company, you can always blame management, marketing, engineering or something. But when you are running it, you can’t, because its all your responsibility….

Another, I thought, was expressed really well by Don Yannias of Encyclopedia Britannica. He said “Now that I am running Encyclopedia Britannica, I have to be Mr. Sunshine every day.” Because people are looking to you, not just for the ideas, but for the general attitude toward how to make the whole thing work. Carrying a company is a lot of weight. You have to make sure that you keep on the uptick - not just financially, but also make it so that it’s a fun environment and people want to work there.”

So David remember that you WANTED to do this, you NEEDED to do this, and it was absolutely the RIGHT thing to do!

Keep your chin up, keep laughing and go out there and overwhelm somebody with greatness.

Sincerely,

David

Posted in Entrepreneurship | 4 Comments »

A really chill Saturday

I’m just taking it easy today. Work at HP was pretty intense this past week with lots of activity around a release occurring this weekend and some early indications of what the EDS acquisition will mean to my organization. I didn’t get much done on Supplier View, but did continue to make contacts in the entrepreneurship community in Salt Lake City in preparation for my move next month. One cool development was my first interview! A friend of mine writes a blog that gets a good amount of eclectic traffic. Aaron recently started an interview series and I was really happy to answer some questions.

The item that has me most in need of a day of downtime though is the completion of my first week of CrossFit boot camp. I was in the Army for 8 years and I’ve been running seriously for the last 4 years, but CrossFit is introducing me to a new chapter of fitness. If you aren’t familiar with CrossFit take a look at this video.

I’m doing my boot camp at Champions CrossFit. Matt is completely kicking my ass. Can’t wait for more of it on Monday!

Posted in Other Stuff, Running |

Cities and Ambition - my perspective

Two blog posts in one night. I’m on a roll.

Paul Graham writes a brilliant series of essays, mostly about the start-up world, and his latest really has me thinking. Isn’t that what a good essay is supposed to do?

In this essay Graham discusses the ambitions that drive a city. In New York it’s money, in LA its fame, Boston its intelligence and in the Silicon Valley area its innovation. As I prepare for yet another move, this essay make me think about the cities that I’ve lived in. One point that Graham makes is that not all cities have this single identifiable ambition. Great cities do. I’m not sure that I’ve lived in a great city yet, but here is my take on the cities I have lived in the last few years.

Colorado Springs: Colorado Springs is about being outdoors. Its takes great pleasure in being in the annual healthiest cities lists. It could be Boulder except it doesn’t have a great university. It has a very good college. It also struggles with the heavy impact the church and the military has on the community which tends to temper creativity. A nice place to live but not a place to grow.

Roseville/Sacramento: I only lived here for a year so it’s hard to provide a good analysis. Roseville was retail. Spending money, eating out, and driving new cars. The capital of California is in Sacramento but no one wants to go there. Try to setup a meeting in Sacramento and see what happens. This area is about being close enough to everything else. 2 hours to Tahoe, 2 hours to the Bay Area, 2 hours to Napa. It seemed like people lived here to be close enough to easily get away.

Houston: Again, only a year here so I’m no expert. The problem with Houston is that it’s huge, it doesn’t seem like anyone lives here by choice (birth or job is why they are here), and the economy is driven by energy which no one seems to be a big fan of these days. That being said there are some incredibly motivated people here that want to make Houston a destination for those with great ideas. I wish them luck.

The next stop on my migrant voyage is Salt Lake City. I don’t know what Salt Lake City is about. What is the ambition of Salt Lake City?

While I’m at it what are the ambitions of some of the cities that Paul doesn’t mention: Boulder. Austin. Atlanta. London. Tokyo. Seattle.

I would love to hear your opinions.

Posted in Other Stuff | 4 Comments »

An exciting day

Today was a very good day. It started with a 5K in downtown Houston. It was hot. I ran a 22:53 which is about a 7:25 pace. Nothing to be too excited about but nothing to be ashamed of either. The best part was getting together with some friends and driving into Houston, meeting up afterwards and just catching up on different topics.

Next up was some work. In the afternoon I posted this on Twitter

Though Supplier View is not launched yet, the web site is operational with a sign up page for the beta launch which will happen in the next couple of weeks. I was really excited about this partly because I had to learn a little about working with the Apache web server to get the page posted and the logos working. I was just sitting at my laptop with a big goofy grin on my face when I finally got everything working!

If you are involved in procurement at your company, interested in supplier development or supplier performance management, or Enterprise 2.0, I encourage you to sign up for the beta.

After that success I went and played 9 holes of golf with another friend and had a great time. It was even hotter but I hardly noticed. I hit some good balls, lots of bad ones and enjoyed every one of them.

This evening has involved getting the mail servers configured for Supplier View and continuing with my attempts to learn Ruby. I’m about to take it easy for the rest of the evening and maybe catch up on the backlog of Scrubs episodes on my DVR.

It’s been a great last day of May. June will be even better.

Posted in Entrepreneurship |

What the heck is Supplier View?

I’ve received some questions asking what is Supplier View. I’ve announced that I’m working on it, shared the logo, but haven’t explained what my intentions are. 

To help explain Supplier View I’ve been trying to come up with a high concept pitch. Here are a few that are bouncing around my head:

• Supplier Performance Management 2.0
• Yelp for the enterprise.
• Enterprise supplier performance management for your start-up budget.
• Supplier View provides the voice of the marketplace. The marketplace is a social gathering.

Any of those working for you?

My plans for Supplier View have been formulating for the last couple of years and there are many components to it. The private beta in June will just be a peek into the long term goals.

Posted in Enterprise 2.0, Entrepreneurship | 3 Comments »

Enterprise RSS thoughts

Doing my morning Google Reader/Twitter scan I came across this news bit passed by @chieftech. A company called KnowNow is shutting down after trying to provide RSS services to the enterprise. They had raised about $50 million over 7 years but evidently have failed to garner the business necessary to continue. RSS means “Really Simple Syndication”. The technology to deliver RSS isn’t too terribly difficult yet the justification for all of that capital was to allow “building products for companies requiring robust, secure software”. To me this is the problem. I work for BigCo (the enterprise)…people don’t care about the technology. They don’t care about the “product”. They want to know very clearly and very quickly why what is being sold will allow them to either

a) do things more quickly and efficiently

b) make more money

If your product isn’t doing that then they don’t care. And if you can’t explain it in 10 minutes or less then they aren’t listening. RSS does A. No doubt about it. But I don’t think the case has been made well enough, to enough people for RSS to sink in at this point. I’m trying to do it at work. There are lots of people that are trying to explain how RSS can make your work day easier. Common Craft does a decent job explaining RSS, but as soon as you say the words “code” and “paste”, these “do” words make people think more work. You’ve lost them.

News Gator is a company that I think is closer to getting it, but hasn’t quite cracked the nut. I use News Gator Inbox for my behind the firewall reading and its easy - for me. If I try to get some executive in my group or even most of my peers to set up News Gator Inbox, I hear the same thing - no time, didn’t work so I gave up, etc. The problem is that most people don’t understand that by investigating 30 minutes to get a basic understanding and setup done that you will save hours and hours shortly their after. Its a hard sell for some reason.

I’m going to have to do that at some point for Supplier View and I have to do it at work today for one of the projects I’m working on. I’m prepping for the blank stares and the multi-tasking while I’m talking about setting up feed readers and configuring Outlook plug-ins.

That $50 million should have been spent on a world class change management process to make people more easily understand and embrace the value of RSS. 

Posted in Enterprise 2.0 |

My hippie kid

No matter what I do I can’t get this kid to get a hair cut! I love him though!

Andrew

Posted in Home Life |

Supplier View update

I’ve been pretty quiet the last couple of weeks due to a lot of time away from home. Now that my traveling is done for the near future expect more updates. Just because I have been gone doesn’t mean anything has slowed down on Supplier View. Cody and Aaron have been busy on both design and code for the last couple of weeks. We will meet early in the week to make sure everybody is on the same page and set the course for the next couple of weeks. I’m looking at having something out there for Alpha users in mid-June.

One of my stops while gone was Las Vegas for Ariba Live. I was representing HP but the time spent further validated that what I am doing with Supplier View is needed and not being addressed. There is a huge gap in the so called 360 degree supplier view that the industry is not addressing right now. I’m more excited then ever about Supplier View and getting in front of companies to explain the benefits. The opportunities that are in front of Mucho Salsa are tremendous right now. On the flight back the phrase “Enterprise tools without the Enterprise cost” popped into my head. Make no doubt about I’m in this to make a healthy profit, but I’m also going to make this an easy choice for those considering the cost.

Another exciting development from my time in Vegas was getting to talk for a few minutes with Jason Busch. Jason writes one of the top blogs for the Spend Management community. Spend Matters covers many topics of interest to procurement professionals but one of the areas I think is covered extremely well is technology trends. I gave Jason a brief over of Supplier View and promised to give him one of the first demos. I’m looking forward to his candid feedback.

There is a lot going on but I’ll keep it short. Look for more updates in the near future and make sure to hit that subscribe button!

Posted in Enterprise 2.0, Entrepreneurship |

Change is in the air

I am writing this post while on a flight from Salt Lake City to Houston. I’m wrapping up a week of vacation in which I got a lot of sun, ate and drank just about anything I wanted and spent a wonderful couple of days in a great Salt Lake City hotel. To top it off I’m sitting in first class thanks to cashing in a couple of years worth of frequent flyer miles. First thing in the morning tomorrow I head to Las Vegas for a week of Ariba activities. I enjoy the luxuries I experienced over the last week and what I’m sure I’ll see in Vegas next week, but that stuff doesn’t drive me. And that’s why I feel like this week and next are almost a type of last hurrah.

Supplier View is going to happen. I just spent the last hour putting more effort into better articulating the vision I have for what this application is going to be. I have documented milestones from the group handling the development of Phase 1. In June, I expect to have a Beta version out ready for real live users. I’m anxious to talk with some of the people that have shown interest in what I’m doing, I’m still looking for that person that will be the Chief Technology person and a true ’skin in the game’ Supplier View partner.

The leather first class seats, margaritas on the beach and visits to the 40/40 Club are all great but I’m going to give that up for the opportunity to work on something that I feel will be a game changer or a curve jumper as Guy put it. If things go well maybe I’ll be sitting back up in first class again in a couple of years but until then I’ll happily sit wherever I need to to get this idea turned into reality.

Posted in Entrepreneurship |

Wrap up the week by doing some good

Did you scream at someone unnecessarily this week? Forgot to feed the dog before you went to bed? Ran a red light? If you need something to tilt karma in your favor this week then take a look at this story. The quick version is that Steve & Lyndsay are working hard to have a baby and will have to take some expensive routes to make it happen. The future baby daddy has an artist for a Mom and the future grandmother is putting her artwork on magnets and selling them for $2.50 each. That includes shipping. Here are a couple of samples from her collection

You can make your purchase at this web site: http://www.jawlfineart.com/Magnets.html

I just bought 4 and might go back later. I feel better already. 

Posted in Other Stuff |