Category: General

I came across a great blog post about startups through a friend of mine. He helped me start (and stop) a company with some similarities to ContractBlast.

https://medium.com/startup-lesson-learned/why-i-turned-down-500k-pissed-off-my-investors-and-shut-down-my-startup-2645c4ca1354#.f1fvf6tm9

My filter for startup ideas typically revolves around the Pragmatic Marketing dogma. There are 3 critical hurdles a new idea needs to clear.

1. The problem I’m going to solve is pervasive in an industry. Lots of people have the problem and can quickly realize it as a problem if approached with my solution.
2. The problem is urgent. Solving it provides immediate benefit. Waiting to solve it is a real threat to the customer’s business.
3. The customer is willing to pay. This is where my buddy and I fell down last time. We created a great productivity tool and everyone agreed on the benefits, but it had a “should be a free app” feel.

ContactBlast missed on #2: solving the problem of contracting efficiency wasn’t urgent. The benefit would be realized over the long term, but that meant a longer sales cycles and greater commitment from customers.

Using the Pragmatic filters can sound discouraging for entrepreneurs, but I find it the opposite. The filters keep me refining my ideas until they meet all 3 conditions, and that can save a huge amount of time, money and energy.

Labor Day always feels like New Years Day to me.  Kids go back to school, summer’s over.

Last year was great building PowerWeek.com and using Google App Engine for the first time.  This year will be my next big GAE application and learning more about hospital scheduling.

I’ve got one son heading off to Wayland Middle School, the other starting Cambridge School of Weston.  Both boys are tech savvy, so what are the right devices to support their educational experience?

Wayland High School is giving every kid a Macbook Air.  My high schooler, thinks that’s a great idea.  But recently he was interacting with his school portal and everything posted there was an Excel file.  He’s also into having “different” stuff than everyone else.  Could it be that a Microsoft Surface RT tablet makes sense for High School?

The middle schooler just want’s a Nexus 7 tablet so he can read and play tablet games.  So that one is easy.  Nexus 7’s are about the most reasonably priced devices on the market.

You might be thinking that these tablet devices are not powerful enough for real gaming (and that’s what kids really want computers for these days).  Right-O.  They’ve both already got PCs loaded with games and other distractions.  The idea of a device for school is something that can do email, writing, basic web searches, play music, and not much else.

I’ve been relying on Skype as my primary phone at my Wayland MA office for the last 2 years.  It has been really good in general.  Then again, I’ve got super big pipes from Verizon FiOS (70mbs down/35mbs up).

Recently, I’ve had clients who prefer to use Google Hangouts.  On my Mac, it seems harder to get everyone assembled using the Hangout UX.  Also, the audio degrades for me after about 30 minutes.  If I disconnect and reconnect, then I’m fine again.

It is a pretty interesting story to see how Google has progressed to invade this space.  Check out the excellent chronology by the Verge here.

I just took the plunge and purchased a Jawbone UP for my 49th birthday. The idea is the little bracelet keeps track of how active you are (or aren’t) and reminds you to get more exercise. I was waiting for the Fitbit Flex to be released first, but now they are sold-out everywhere and have an 8 week waiting list. I was able to get an UP at BestBuy right next to Wayland, MA.

It just buzzed at me to indicate I’ve been stationary in my chair for 45 minutes. I’ve got to get up now and move around. I’ll be experimenting with the app and device the next few weeks and will report back how it feels.