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Wherein Matt Mower (aka rubymatt on FreeNode) rambles about technology, the love of a good MacTop, ruby coding, rails, topics, knowledge management and learning, and politics.

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Curiouser and Curiouser! on start-up http://matt.blogs.it/ RSS feed for topic start-up Copyright 2006 Matt Mower Squib/0.1 self@mattmower.com self@mattmower.com en-gb Budgeting is good for the soul Fri, 12 Jul 2002 13:19:57 +0100 <A href="http://radio.weblogs.com/0107789/2002/07/12.html#a530">Budgeting is good for the soul.</A>. <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <A href="http://radio.weblogs.com/0109827/2002/07/12.html#a403">Budgeting is good for the soul</A>. <BLOCKQUOTE><A href="http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/business/financial_markets/venture_capital/3636767.htm">Bad VC market a good time to start a company:</A>. "...while capital is scarce and returns on venture investments have never been poorer, the track record from previous downturns suggests that conditions for building a solid start-up may be the best they have been in years." [<A href="http://www.evhead.com">evhead</A>]</BLOCKQUOTE> Hey Mike, maybe doing the company thing isn't so stupid after all. You learn how to run a company on a tight budget! :) [<A href="http://radio.weblogs.com/0109827/">Brett Morgan's Insanity Weblog</A>]</BLOCKQUOTE> True enough mate, true enough. [<A href="http://radio.weblogs.com/0107789/">rebelutionary</A>] <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> » Well this is better news!  </BLOCKQUOTE> http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00000177.html Web credibility Thu, 01 Aug 2002 19:51:11 +0100 <A href="http://www.steptwo.com.au/columntwo/archives/000118.html">Web credibility</A>. The Stanford Persuasive Technology Lab has published a set of guidelines for ensuring web credibility. This is a good list, [<A href="http://www.steptwo.com.au/columntwo/">Column Two</A>] <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> » As someone founding a new company and thinking about building a good site I thought this was simple and useful guidance.  </BLOCKQUOTE> http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00000239.html Business Plan Archive Thu, 01 Aug 2002 20:21:30 +0100 <TABLE cellPadding=1 width="100%"> <TBODY> <TR> <TD vAlign=top> <H4 class=entryTitle><A class=weblogItemTitle href="http://www.businessplanarchive.org/">Business Plan Archive</A></H4> <Q>To help us learn from history, we are creating the Business Plan Archive (BPA) to collect business plans and related documents from the dot com era -- the "blueprints" that lay out the assumptions and strategies of Internet entrepreneurs.</Q> <Q></Q><A href="http://www.tmtm.com/insanity/2002/07/14.html#a193">Thanks Tony!</A></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE> [<A href="http://radio.weblogs.com/0103807/">The FuzzyBlog!</A>] <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> » This looks like a very cool idea and, as someone thinking about his business plan right now, a timely one.  Unfortunately there don't appear to be any publicly available plans right now...  </BLOCKQUOTE> http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00000244.html Some feelings about starting a new venture Fri, 02 Aug 2002 11:22:22 +0100 This passage from <A href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1576750310/treeoflifecoa-21">Synchronicity</A> by Joe Jaworski so accurately describes what it feels like starting my new venture (my first): <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> "At the moment I walked away from the firm, a strange thing happened.  I clearly had no earthly idea how I would proceed.  I knew next to nothing about leadership curriculum and development.  I knew no one who could help me on the substantive side of things, no network of experts.  The resources necessary for a national effort would be enormous, far exceeding my own capacity.  I had none of this, only myself."</BLOCKQUOTE> As Jaworski goes on to discover, myself is enough for now.  Already I don't feel so alone, I've met a lot of good people.  I'm starting to find my feet, define my purpose and understand my goals.  It's daunting, but not impossible. Jaworski's book is full of insight and inspiration.  It was recommended to me by my <A href="http://www.treeoflifecoaching.co.uk/">life coach</A> as useful for someone starting a new business venture.  He wasn't wrong!   http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00000248.html What money, users, and a five year headstart won't buy you Sun, 08 Jan 2006 22:24:21 +0000 Ari Paparo has <a href="http://www.aripaparo.com/archive/001456.html">written an insightful and, probably painful, post</a> about how Blink.com, despite many advantages, was eclipsed by Del.icio.us. <blockquote> This post wasn’t meant as a defense of Blink or my own decisions while I was there. My intent was to show that product design matters. We had more money, more users, a five year head start, and some really, really smart people working on bookmarking in 1999. The bottom line is that we simply didn’t get it right. Some simple innovations like using tags instead of folders, making public the default, building better discovery features, etc made the difference between being an also-ran and a hot acquisition target. </blockquote> Worth reading if you're thinking about introducing a product. I've become very sensitive to design over the last few years. That design is important is a lesson that <a href="http://paolo.evectors.it/">Paolo</a> hammered into me. I guess I have learned to value good design but still cannot produce it. Anyone who has seen the <a href="http://squib.rubyforge.org/">Squib</a> admin interface will vouch for that. But I try. I'm also going to be involved in launching another, much more significant, project this year. I've already realised that thinking hard about design and usability are going to be key factors in whether we can be successful or not. We don't have Ari's cash so we're going to have to make the most of our advantages! http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00003153.html