John B Petersen III

Career Path 1.0: Make Uninformed Decisions

Mon, 20 May 2013 08:29:00 -0400

I am finally in a position where I am truly happy with my professional life. That doesn’t mean that everything is perfect or that I’m even remotely satisfied — far from it. Shit is more complicated and difficult now than ever, but I love it. I love what we are building, I’m incredibly fortunate to work with super smart people, and I walk into work every day fired up and ready for world domination. This makes me truly happy. I had no grand plan to be building MVPs at the NYC Dev Shop. It certainly wasn’t a direct path, but it’s been a fun ride so far. So here is my unabridged 4 Part answer to how it all came to be:

Career Path 1.0: Make Uniformed Decisions
Career Path 2.0: Learn to Hate
Career Path 3.0: Don’t Listen to Your Mother
Career Path 4.0: Learn. Improve. Adapt.

Career Path 1.0: Make Uninformed Decisions

Some of my earliest childhood memories involve building things — playing with legos on Christmas morning, building forts in the woods, and climbing up unfinished 2nd story additions to “help” my dad build houses. And when you play with legos as a child, people tell you that you’re going to be an engineer. After hearing it enough times as a child (and finally realizing that they didn’t mean operating a train), you start to believe it.

Eventually, the self-fulfilling prophecy became true. I was very good at math and science and generally didn’t appreciate reading, so more people kept telling me that I should be an engineer. As a 15 year old kid who was just trying to get drunk and make bad decisions, I now had to pick a career path that would determine the course for the rest of my life.

Uninformed Decision #1: I want to be an engineer

I had absolutely no clue what an engineer actually did on a day to day basis and I could barely spell the word correctly, but that’s what I wanted to be. Supposedly, you *build* things and you get paid decent money. It was like they plugged in my SAT scores and spit out a tiny piece of paper that said ENGINEER. Ok, good enough. Count me in.

Now that the Sorting Hat told me I had to be an engineer, I next had to figure out where I wanted to go to school. This seemed like more of a headache than I wanted to deal with. My friends were stressing out about how they had to write so many essays and schedule campus visits. Again, 15 year old me had more important things to do.

My college search process was methodical. Step 1: find colleges that had an engineering program. Step 2: Throw out all the ones that required an essay. And just like that I had a very short list. One pre-frosh weekend later (which involved cutting all my classes to play basketball and an all-time great performance on the beer pong table as a high school senior), and I no longer had to search for colleges.

Uninformed Decision #2: Stevens Institute accepted me early admissions with no essay. My search was over.

Sweetness. Now I got to watch my friends stress out about college acceptances and writing all those essays, and I could focus on the important stuff — whatever that happened to be at the time. I was really able to enjoy my senior year, but Stevens started bothering me to pick a major.

How the hell could I possibly pick a major? I barely knew what engineering meant, and I had no clue what an engineer actually did. So I looked over the choice of majors and the answer revealed itself.

Uninformed Decision #3: I like computers and I want to be an engineer. Therefore, by transient property, I want to be a Computer Engineer!

I can’t even try to put a spin on this decision. I took one “Intro to C++” class, and I immediately found the Change of Major form. Having to spend an entire 3 hour lab class trying to have a computer tell me that something is False when I already logically knew the answer 2 hours and 59 minutes ago. No thanks.

So I finally smartened up a bit and made a somewhat informed decision. By this time, I fully recognized I had no clue what I was doing and my track record of making decisions was comical at best. So I did what made the most sense to me at the time: I picked a major that would basically allow me to do whatever I want. They called it “Engineering Management” and described it as core engineering with a focus on business.

Jackpot — with a combination of business and engineering I no longer had to worry about making uninformed decisions that would determine the rest of my life. I just left the window wide open so that I could literally take this new found knowledge wherever I wanted to go.

And that’s how we arrive Career Path 2.0: Learn to Hate.

NY Tech Day 2013 Official Video This came out so good. It gets...

Sun, 19 May 2013 20:02:43 -0400

NY Tech Day 2013 Official Video

This came out so good. It gets me pumped up every time I watch it. Hope you enjoy it as much as we do.

1 Year Since TechStars Boulder

Tue, 14 May 2013 05:59:00 -0400

It’s crazy to think that’s it been one year since we first rolled up on the scene of the TechStars Boulder office for Day 1 of the program. I still remember that first day very well. Actually I remember most of my time Boulder rather well — The Uretsky Conflict Resolution Video, rap battles with the SalesLoft boys, so many late nights of Werewolf, and learning so much from everyone each and every day.

Now that some time has passed, I want to write more about my experience at TechStars, my time with DigitalOcean and all the fun things that were packed into a summer in Boulder.

This may be the funniest video I have from my time out there, but there are certainly some good stories and experiences worth writing about. Good luck to the new class that is just getting started — you are in for a wild ride!

Monthly Experiments

Mon, 13 May 2013 06:02:05 -0400

Now that we are PTD (Post Tech Day), it’s time to get back into a routine. That means adding some structure, changing some things up, and trying new things in both my personal life and in business. Change for the sake of change is a waste — it should be focused on improving or learning. That’s why it’s time to start experimenting.

These experiments are going to cover a wide range: some things I’m just curious about, other things I want to try or experience. I don’t have a full list yet of what these experiments are going to be, but I have a few ideas and will be sharing this growing list very soon.

The structure of these experiments is simple — try something new or different for an entire month. The ultimate goal is improvement. Hopefully some of these experiments produce positive results, and hopefully some of them stick with me after the month is over. That said, I am well aware that these are experiments and some of them just aren’t going to work out long term. Regardless, it’s going to be a fun test of will power and determination.

Now, onto the good stuff…

My first experiment actually started a week ago, and it wasn’t a result of any big plan or intended to be part of an experiment. It just worked out that way :)

For the month of May, I’ll be stepping up my work attire — business casual for this guy.

I know it doesn’t sound like much, and many of the future experiments are going to be quite different. When you’ve been wearing jeans, startup t-shirts, hoodies, backwards hats and sandals for the last year, it’s actually a lot tougher than you think.

We’re one week into the first experiment, and the results are quite interesting thus far. I’ll be writing a detailed post about the results of each experiment as well as what the future experiments are going to be. In the mean time, it’s time to dust off the old wardrobe from my financial life.

I'm Sorry Blog

Wed, 01 May 2013 16:05:00 -0400

Tech Day was amazing: Facebook Photo Album

Now that I am starting to get my life back, I’m going to start blogging regularly again. And I’ve got a lot of fun stuff to talk about :)

One Month Until NY Tech Day

Mon, 25 Mar 2013 06:05:00 -0400

We have exactly one month left until NY Tech Day 2013.

I’m super excited because we have so much cool stuff planned already. We tripled the size of the venue (now 77,000 sq ft) and we are doubling the number of exhibiting startups and attendees (450+ startups and 10,000 attendees). It’s going to be ridiculous!

That also means that it’s time to step up my game. Time to go into Beast Mode — working more hours than I’d publicly admit and than anyone else will ever know, no more drinking and partying (not that it was ever really all that much to begin with), working harder, smarter, being laser-focused, 6am workouts to keep me sane and 10pm jump rope sessions at the office to keep the energy up.

What that ultimately means is that you probably won’t see or hear from me until after April 25th. I apologize in advance to family and friends, but it’s what I have to do to ensure that this event is an ultimate success for all of our exhibitors, attendees and sponsors. Gotta leave it all on the field…

See you in May!

How Long Will It Take to Build My MVP?

Wed, 13 Feb 2013 12:38:00 -0500

This is a common question we hear when meeting entrepreneurs, and on that I came across on Quora this weekend. The question asked “How long is too long to release a minimum viable product?” and specifically referred to how Blekko was in development for over three years before launching. Naturally, I felt the need to chime in and then subsequently turn this into a blog post.

I think we need to defer to Gandalf on this one:

“A wizard is never late. Nor is he early. He arrives precisely when he means to.”

And so it should be with a Minimum Viable Product. Every startup is different and only the founders know precisely when is the right time to release their MVP upon the world.

To give a more actionable answer: a MVP by definition should require theminimum (really putting some extra emphasis on minimum here) amount of effort required to gain the maximum amount of validated learning to test the core assumptions.

That’s too many buzz words for me in one sentence, but I think it’s required to properly answer this question. The entire purpose of the MVP is to test the crazy assumptions that the founders have been dreaming up. Most of the people that approach us at NYC Dev Shop never explicitly identify the main assumption that they are trying to validate. That’s a problem.

Without knowing exactly what your core assumption is, how do you know what your MVP should do functionally let alone how long it should take to build before you release it? You are basically saying, “I want to build this solution even though I’m not really sure that I’m solving a problem for anyone but myself (sometimes not even for yourself).”

Once you have your core assumption identified, your decision making process is easy:

Will my MVP in its current state allow me to test my core assumption? If no —> keep building
Will this new shiny feature provide me with more validated learning? If no —> defer to Phase 2
Will spending countless hours on design and branding truly help me understand what people think about my MVP? If no —> be proud that you are embarrassed by your design

I had someone approach me with the idea of building a new MVP every single week for 10 weeks. I initially thought that the idea of throwing a bunch of stuff on the wall to see what sticks was a clever way to go about finding something amazing. After thinking through it a little more, I decided that I was very much against this. Putting an arbitrary time limit on an idea isn’t the correct approach at all. A week might be too long for a bad idea and certainly might not be long enough for a good one.

At the Dev Shop, our sweet spot is 3 weeks to 3 months of development, but of course it is entirely dependent on the project. Sometimes you can get it done in a weekend at a hackathon. Other times if you’re building a search engine or a Tesla, it could take a bit longer.

Biz Dev: Is it all out warfare?

Fri, 01 Feb 2013 10:40:43 -0500

Last night, I had the pleasure of speaking on a panel at the first ever #BizDevNYC meetup (amazing that there wasn’t already a Biz Dev meetup here). There were some really great questions, and I actually have quite a few takeaways of things I want to implement myself.

One thing that came up that I think warrants further discussion is this:

Is Biz Dev all out warfare? Is there a line that shouldn’t be crossed or is everything fair game?

I completely agree that it is your responsibility to feed your family — make sure there is enough food on the table for everyone to eat their fill. I am all about doing what has to be done in order to accomplish this goal, but I draw the line where one panelist forges ahead.

Is it ok to “lie, steal and cheat” in the name of the biz dev as this one panelist put it? Is it ok to do anything and everything “short of a restraining order” to try to make it happen? Should you tell white lies and make up stories of potential partnerships and customers to make your company look better?

I’d love to hear all of your thoughts on this, but for me the answer is clear. I’m going to do whatever it takes to succeed at business development, but I am going to do so in a moral and ethical way. I’ve gone as far as being called a marketing d-bag and I’ve certainly showed up places I don’t belong in order to make things happen, but never at the harm of anyone or anything else.

Our reputation is much more important that any individual sale or partnership. I plan on being in this industry for a long time and avoiding the route of a one-hit wonder, so for me the answer is clear. But to each his own…

Joe Flacco: the entrepreneurial quarterback

Tue, 29 Jan 2013 08:50:00 -0500

Despite my general dislike for the Baltimore Ravens (and some of their players who may or may not have been involved in murder and are now portrayed as a positive God-praising, role model), I am currently infatuated with the Joe Flacco story.

Let’s rewind to the preseason. The Ravens front office and Joe Flacco were in serious discussions for a long-term deal. Beginning his rookie year, Flacco lead his team to the playoffs each of his first 5 seasons including his rookie year. Since 2008, Flacco has the second highest winning percentage as a starting QB. in 2012, he was one play away from beating the Patriots in the AFC championship and leading the Ravens to the Super Bowl. Despite all of that, it seemed like he never got any respect — even from the front office of his own team.

So instead of publicly complaining about his situation, he took the ultimate entrepreneurial position and rolled the dice with millions and millions of dollars at stake. He was faced with a giant risk and massive uncertainty and let his belief in himself and his abilities guide his actions. He could have been angry with the team, but he repeatedly took the approach that he would not let the lack of a long-term deal affect his performance or attitude.

He basically said (and I’m paraphrasing here because I can’t find the actual quote):

“I’m not worried about a long-term deal because the longer they wait, the more they will have to pay me.”

Everyone laughed at this statement. He was ridiculed by sports analysts and his own fans alike who claimed he was just a middle-of-the-pack quarterback.

Fast forward to today. After leading the team to playoffs yet again, Joe Flacco has had an incredible run this post-season with 8 TDs and 0 INTs, beating the Colts and then the heavily-favored Broncos and Patriots lead eliminating 2 of the best quarterbacks of all-time in Manning and Brady. =

In the face of all this uncertainty, Flacco has lead his team to the Super Bowl with a chance to become champions this Sunday. His gamble has paid off nicely, and that’s why I’m rooting for Joe Flacco: the entrepreneurial quarterback.

[UPDATED on 2/4/13]

Despite the best efforts of a momentum-shifting, post-Beyonce blackout, Joe Flacco has lead the Baltimore Ravens to a 34-31 Super Bowl victory and earned himself the Most Valuable Player award. He went 22-33 with 287 yards and 3 TDs and 0 interceptions. He had an incredible post season run throwing for 11 TDs and 0 interceptions in 4 games.

Way to go, Joe!

MVP to World Domination

Thu, 24 Jan 2013 15:13:06 -0500

{This post is republished from the NYC Dev Shop Blog]

Sometimes, it is incredibly difficult to try to convince entrepreneurs that they should not be trying to “Conquer the World in Your MVP.” It is your job as an entrepreneur to be 3 steps ahead of everyone, so it’s completely understandable that you have a feature list 5 miles long. I get it.

You want your product to change the world. I’m all for it. In my opinion, you can’t dream big enough, but I need you to realize that Rome wasn’t built in a day. So I’ve compiled a list of some companies that I’m sure you’ve heard of but might not have recognized their lean startup approach or their MVP roots…

Twitter
1) Initial Idea — an individual would use twttr to communicate with a small group of friends via SMS
2) The MVP — The project was created internally within Odeo and originally allowed for messages to be sent to Odeo employees
3) Interesting — Dorsey, Ev and Biz purchased Odeo and all of it’s assets. The 1st tweet ever was from Dorsey: “just setting up my twttr”. The name Twitter was inspired by Flickr
4) Now — Currently preparing for an inevitable IPO rumored to be valued north of $11 billion

Groupon
1) Initial Idea —ThePoint.com = social media platform designed to get groups of people together to solve problems
2) The MVP — as The Point was failing fast, Andrew Mason made a pivot to use those groups to sell a deal for a half-price offer for the pizza place on the first floor of his office building
3) Interesting — the idea for The Point / Groupon supposedly originally came when Mason was trying to get out of his cell phone contract. The Point was originally not intended to make any serious amount of money. The group of “socially responsible” do-gooders went on to become the fastest growing billion dollar company in history
4) Now — On November 4, 2011, Groupon raised $700 million from its IPO valuing the company at $12.7 billion. As of 1/17 the company now has a market cap of $3.34 billion, not nearly where it IPO’d, but when was the last time you started a $3 billion company?

Microsoft
1) Initial Idea — to develop an implementation of the BASIC language for the Altair 8800
2) The MVP — Gates famously called Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems (MITS) offering to demo the implementation in order to win a contract with the company. He essentially sold a product that he hadn’t even built yet — the ultimate Lean Startup move!
3) Interesting — In 1975 (the same year Bill Gates and Paul Allen originally came up with the idea), Micro-soft pulled in $1 million in gross income. 40 years later there are startups that would kill for $1 million in revenues in their first year. The Microsoft IPO and rise in share price create 3 billionaires and 12,000 millionaires from Microsoft employees
4) Now — World’s largest software maker by revenues and one of the world’s most valuable companies

Amazon
1) Initial Idea — use the potential of the internet to sell stuff online
2) The MVP — sell books out of your garage because it would allow you to have a much larger selection than the brick-and-mortar stores at a fraction of the price
3) Interesting — In 1994, Jeff Bezos (inspired by the growth potential of the world wide web) created a list of things he could sell online including everything from music to clothing before finally deciding to go with books. Bezos used an extra door as a table in his garage to help fulfill the initial orders. To this day, many of the desks at Amazon are supposedly still made from doors.
4) Now — World’s largest online retailer

Dropbox
1) Initial Idea — make an extremely easy-to-use file sharing tool
2) The MVP — a product demo video of what Dropbox looked like with plenty of “easter eggs” and nerd humor helped the company attract a 75,000 wait-list with 24 hours. Based on the overwhelming response, they slowly allowed select users to begin using Dropbox as they continued to develop the product
3) Interesting — the idea was conceived by Drew Houston on a bus to New York when he planned to do some coding during the 4 hour ride but left his USB drive at home.
4) Now — Over 100 million users, $250+ million in venture funding, a rumored $5 to $10 billion valuation, approximately $240 million of revenue in 2011

Moral of the story: despite what Pinky and the Brain might think, you can not take over the world in one night. You need to be laser-focused on your idea, be prepared for the unexpected and remember that starting small can sometimes lead to some incredibly large and earth-changing results.

How to stop procrastinating (from Quora)

Sun, 20 Jan 2013 09:15:13 -0500

When I find things very interesting on Quora, I share them with the world because I know most people don’t spend nearly as much time on the site as I do. When I came across the question, “How do I get over my bad habit of procrastinating?” I had high hopes for some good answers. The answer from Oliver Emberton exceeded everything I could have ever expected. At the time of writing this post, it has become the highest up-voted answer in the history of Quora and that is saying a lot.

Without further ado, here’s the answer…

Read Oliver’s full answer here

I’ll answer your question, but first I need to explain all of human civilisation in 2 minutes with the aid of a cartoon snake.

Humans like to think we’re a clever lot. Yet those magnificent, mighty brains that allow us to split the atom and touch the moon are the same stupid brains that can’t start an assignment until the day before it’s due.

We evolved from primitive creatures, but we never quite shed ourselves of their legacy. You know the clever, rational part of your brain you think of as your human consciousness? Let’s call him Albert. He lives in your brain alongside an impulsive baby reptile called Rex:

(Rex is your basal ganglia, but that’s not very catchy so I’m sticking with Rex).

Rex evolved millions of years ago - unsurprisingly enough, in the brains of reptiles - and his instincts guide and motivate you to this day. Hunger. Fear. Love. Lust. Rex’s thoughts are primitive and without language.

Here’s the bit you’re not going to like. Rex makes the final call on all your decisions.Every. Single. One.

We like to think of Albert as “our true self” - the conscious part of your brain. He’s the talking, reasoning part. When we decide to go to the gym or write that term paper, Albert made that decision.

Rex does listen to Albert. Like a child, he will do a lot of what he’s told, as long as he wants to. But if Rex prefers to crash on the sofa to watch Survivor and eat Cheetos, that’s what you’re going to do.

The incredible ascension of mankind that surrounds us is largely possible because we’ve developed systems to nurture our reptilian brains, to subdue, soothe and subvert them.

Much of this this system we call “civilisation”. Widely available food and shelter take care of a lot. So does a system of law, and justice. Mandatory education. Entertainment. Monogamy. All of it calms Rex down for long enough for Albert to do something useful - like discover penicillin, or invent Cheetos.

Now let’s look at your procrastination.

You’re making a decision with your conscious mind and wondering why you’re not carrying it out. The truth is the real decision maker - Rex - is not nearly so mature.

Imagine you had to constantly convince a young child to do what you wanted. For simple actions, asserting your authority might be enough. “It’s time for dinner”. But if that child doesn’t want to do something, it won’t listen. You need to cajole it:

Forget logic. Once you’ve decided to do something, logic and rationale won’t help you. Your inner reptile can be placated, scared and excited. But it doesn’t speak with language and cannot be reasoned with.

Comfort matters. If you’re hungry, tired or depressed your baby reptile will rebel. Fail to take care of yourself, and he’ll wail and scream and refuse to do a damn thing you say. That’s what he’s for. Eat, sleep and make time for fun.

Nurture discipline. Build a routine of positive and negative reinforcement. If you want a child to eat their vegetables, don’t give them dessert first. Reward yourself for successes, and set up assured punishments for your failure. Classic examples include committing to a public goal, or working in a team - social pressure can influence Rex.

Incite emotion. Your reptile brain responds to emotion. That is its language. So get yourself pumped, or terrified. Motivational talks, movies and articles can work, for a while. I use dramatic music (one of my favourite playlists is calledMusic to conquer worlds by). Picture the bliss associated with getting something done, or the horrors of failing. Make your imagination vivid enough that it shakes you. We use similar tricks on children for a reason: “brush your teeth or they’ll fall out”.

Force a start. The most important thing you can do is start. Much of Rex’s instincts are to avoid change, and once you begin something those instincts start to tip into your favour. With enough time, you can even convince Rex tolove doing the things he hated. There’s a reason we force kids to go to school or to try piano lessons.

Bias your environment. Rex is short sighted and not terribly bright. If he sees a Facebook icon, he’ll want it. It’s like showing a child the start of a cool TV program immediately before bedtime. Design your environment to be free from such distractions: sign out of instant messenger, turn off notifications, turn off email. Have separate places for work and fun, and ideally separate computers (or at least accounts).

Once you know what to look for, you’ll start to recognise the patterns and control them.

There’s an impulsive baby reptile in your brain, and unfortunately he has the steering wheel. If you can be a good parent to him he’ll mostly do what you say, and serve you well. Just remember who’s in charge.

After 434 Checkins, 20 Photos, and 26 Badges I Love Foursquare More Than Ever

Sun, 13 Jan 2013 19:34:06 -0500

Listen, Foursquare doesn’t need any more cheerleaders, so that’s certainly not my point in writing this. Occasionally, I read something on the internet and I completely disagree with a point of a view. Even more rarely do I read something and feel the incredible urge to write a post explaining why I completely disagree. That happened again this morning when I read this post from Nat Salvione appearing on Business Insider.

Nat Salvione wrote a well thought out article about how he fell in love with Foursquare and then slowly fell out of love to the point where he just recently uninstalled the app. He details the 4 main reasons that led him down this path. Everyone is entitled to his or her own opinion, but I take the opposite stance here.

After using Foursquare for a little over a year, I love the app more now than ever.

I know I am late to the game compared to many of my tech peers, but I initially found no interest in broadcasting my whereabouts to the world. After overcoming my initial hesitation, I made my first checkin at a NY Tech Meetup event over year ago and it’s been a fun ride ever since.

I initially thought I would need to be competitive with leaderboards, mayorships, and badges in order to continue to use the app. I also thought I needed to be social to get the most value out of Foursquare. It turns out to be just the opposite for me:

I have only 19 Friends on Foursquare (which is more by choice than my social ineptitude)
I am continually in the middle to bottom of the leaderboard (even though I only compete with 19 people)
I’m only the mayor of 3 places (a made up venue, and 2 of my old office locations)

All that being said, I am continuously amazed at all the value I find in the app that keeps me coming back. Here’s my four-point counterargument to Nat’s post:

I find incredible value from Foursquare in single-player mode with no gamification or social features. I like giving them all of my location data without expectation of a monetary reward or any other type of real-world, tangible benefit. They give me things like this in return: my foursquare activities on Vizify
Foursquare Explore has essentially replaced Yelp, Google and any other recommendation engine for me. When I was in SF for the first time, we used Explore to decide every single place we ate lunch and dinner, and it exceeded our expectations every time. I use it even more regularly when wandering around unfamiliar parts of NYC
When I go to a new place for the first time, I always check out the Foursquare Tips for that location. It helps me figure out what’s the best item on a menu, if there’s anything I must do or try while I’m there, and just generally helps me get the most out of my visit
Timehop. I love me some Timehop. It’s all about me — well 365 day old me. It helps me relive and remember so many memories. I find myself checking in much more frequently because I know that there are things I can’t wait to see in a Timehop email a year from now
Bonus point: I know that the Vizify location visualizations and Timehop reminders are just starting to scratch the surface of what people will do to benefit me from my location data. The fact that they open their API for developers to build amazing things just enhances its awesomeness. Think about the future Nat!

I understand why Nat Salvione is quitting Foursquare. I think it’s something Foursquare is battling every day, and they need to do a better job because they still are losing completely engaged users like Nat. But I think Nat is doing it wrong through no fault of his own. I don’t think he is getting the full benefit of Foursquare. I won’t go into detail defending Foursquare from the first half of the article about how it won’t be around in a year (I think they will be just fine in case you were wondering), but for me Foursquare is becoming increasingly more valuable with every checkin.

Foursquare is staying on the home screen of my iPhone for two simple reasons: 1) I wish I started using Foursquare many years ago so it has more of my location data and 2) I wish I would remember to check in much more frequently.

Tips for Building an MVP

Sat, 12 Jan 2013 13:24:52 -0500

Based on a question from Quora I’ve put together this of list of tips and advice for building an MVP. These are things I find myself saying on a daily basis in some capacity or another. There’s certainly some more to be added to thist list, but for now, here’s the Top 8…

1. Read The Lean Startup by Eric Reis. If you haven’t read it recently, go back and re-read it (this time specifically thinking about how it applies to your idea).

2. Identify, study, and love the problem you are trying to solve. If you don’t know the problem you are solving, STOP! If you don’t know who else is playing in your space, STOP! If you don’t know how you are going to be 10x better than others attacking your problem, seriously pause and consider if you really want to invest effort into something where you might be marginally better than the existing solution.

READ THE LAST 6 TIPS ON THE NYC DEV SHOP BLOG…

My Personal MVP

Mon, 07 Jan 2013 06:21:50 -0500

I am going to use jbp3.com as my own personal Minimum Viable Product. It is an exercise to improve my design and development skills and to do some fun things I’ve had in my head for a while. It is going to be a slow process, but it will keep me entertained for now.

The new redesign is a weak first step — I couldn’t stand that old design, so I just used a very basic Tumblr theme and then customized the HTML as much as possible within reason. There’s still a few ugly things I will be changing soon.

I have a rails app I’ve been working on behind the scenes that still needs some more work before I can push that public. For now, directing the Tumblr blog to the site will have to do until the rest is ready. Fair warning: you are not going to see a lot of progress any time soon for three reasons:

I am writing every line of code by myself and teaching myself everything I need to along the way
I’ve got a lot to learn to be able to implement some of the things I’ve been dreaming up. Luckily for our clients at the Dev Shop, our development team is so much more talented that I could ever hope to be :)
Sadly, redesigning and developing the new site is a super low priority for me (although blogging more frequently is not)

This site is going to be my nerd-hobby. As always, looking forward to hearing your thoughts and feedback.

I am a scientist

Wed, 02 Jan 2013 12:26:21 -0500

I start this year with the same simple statement that I have made for the last several years:

“This year is going to be the best year of my life”

I say this now with no hesitation that 2012 was definitely my best year ever. It is a little awesome to look back upon all the amazing things that happened, and it brings a giant smile to my face.

Even though this sets an incredibly high benchmark for 2013, I am 100% confident that this year will be even better. How can I be so confident? The answer:

I am a scientist.

I have been performing experiments since I could walk, and the results of these experiments continuously make me a better. I remember one of my earliest experiments as if it just happened yesterday. I loved climbing trees as a kid. I started off small with the 10 ft. apple tree in my grandparents yard, then on to the 20ft pear tree. Clearly, those just weren’t big enough. I needed the ultimate challenge. I was going to climb to the top of the biggest tree i could find — a 50ft oak tree at my parents house. I was scared shitless, but I went up anyways. I look at that tree now with those tiny little limbs and realize how crazy I was, but the view from the top of that tree made me feel like I was on top of the world.

Side note: I feel like I have finally found a tree big enough in my profession life so that when I get to the top, the view is going to be quite amazing. That’s a story for another time.

Everything I do now is an experiment and I’m thirsty for answers…

how much sleep do I need to be on point
what’s the best diet for me
will I close more deals wearing a hoodie or a suit
what’s the most efficient commute to work
what would happen if I tried to make my own trail up to the top of a mountain in Boulder, Colorado
what’s the most ridiculous thing I could say to a woman at the bar to gain her interest
what would happen if I don’t cut my hair for 3 months
what’s the best way to tie my shoes
how many times can I say “good morning” to the doorman at my office before he acknowledges my existence

I perform countless experiments in the name of improvement. Some are epic failures and some are great successes. Most are fun. All of them make me better.

My theme for 2013: keep experimenting.

Smarter Than You...

Sat, 29 Dec 2012 15:22:57 -0500

I always try to surround myself with people who are better than me.

Better could mean so many things: smarter, more athletic, a better developer, designer, salesperson, more successful, more connected, talented, generous, kind, caring, loving, sympathetic, entertaining, outgoing, competitive, adventurous. Essentially, better than me in things I want to improve.

Using the sports example, if you are always practicing with people who are less talented than yourself, you are never going to take your game to the next level. The best way to learn and improve is to surround yourself with people that are better than you.

So when I came across this question on Quora, I was intrigued: How can you tell whether someone is smarter than you?

When I found James Gardener’s answer, I felt compelled to share it with all of you, not because I think I am smarter than you but because I think it is important to recognize and learn from people who are smarter than you. (This answer is based on his blog post which can be found here: 10 ways you know you’re with smart people)

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James Gardner’s answer to: How can you tell whether someone is smarter than you?

They don’t talk as much as you, because they know they got smart by listening.
They know lots of things other than what they’re specialised in. Theirs is the gift of a broad mind, constantly fed with the stimulant of being interested in what everyone else is doing.
They juggle home, work and personal interests with dexterity and never fall back on the tired old refrain about “work life balance”. And when they’re juggling, they somehow manage to seem 100% engaged with what they’re doing, on all fronts simultaneously, even though you know they’re taking appropriate steps behind the scenes to make sure their lives are perfectly, serenely balanced.
They probably do social media. Not always, but probably. It is not only another chance to listen, but one they use to ensure they can feed their brains with things they otherwise wouldn’t have come across.
Even when things go very badly wrong, they’ll be smiling. Smart people never get ruffled because their smart brains present them with alternatives faster than the bad stuff can happen.
They know they are usually the smartest person in the room, but they don’t spend their time dwelling on that. Instead, they take it as a personal challenge to see if they can make everyone else the smartest person in the room too.
If they are managers, they will make every effort to get people smarter, more connected and more popular than them in their teams. They’re not threatened because they know that smartness is synergistic. They also make sure that their smart people get to look smarter than them for the same reason.
They have hidden skills that never get rolled out until they’re needed. They don’t have any need to show their full capabilities for reasons of proving they’re better than others.
They may or may not have expensive educations. You’d never know, just by being with them unless you had their CV in front of you.
They never, ever, under any circumstances, make you look stupid, even though it would be easy to do so. They’ve learnt through bitter experience that the only thing that happens when you make someone look bad is you look bad yourself.

"It had long since come to my attention that people of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things..."

Sun, 09 Dec 2012 23:21:25 -0500

““It had long since come to my attention that people of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them. They went out and happened to things.””

- Da Vinci

Looking for: Amazing Biz Dev Person

Sat, 08 Dec 2012 18:21:35 -0500

We are growing. Fast. I used to be able to keep up with all of the great opportunities that were knocking at our door. Recently, it’s become more than one person can handle. I need your help.

We are the NYC Dev Shop and NY Tech Day. I’m not going to sell you on who we are and what we do — you can google that and see for yourself. What I need you to know is that you will be working directly with the founders and interacting with the leaders of the tech community to help bring in incredibly unique new business and partnerships.

As you can imagine, there is a whole lot of exciting work to do and we’re really only looking for someone who is hungry and ready to get their hands dirty. If that’s you, let us know.

My Lost Deal Process

Tue, 13 Nov 2012 10:57:59 -0500

I hate losing. No matter what it is, no matter how big or how small, I hate it. I hate losing a game of rock, paper, scissors. That’s just the ultra super competitive monster in me.

I’ve learned to embrace this monster to make me better at both winning and losing.

I’m getting better at winning deals and new business, and when I really go after something, we end up winning it more times than not. But it’s those not times that still eat at me, so I’ve create a lost deal process.

My Lost Deal Process:

Curse loudly if appropriate — I need to blow off the frustration before I can start thinking clearly about what just happened
Embrace it — 99% of the time, it really is lost and not coming back
Initiate intel mode — send an email, jump on the phone, basically do whatever I can to gather info on why I lost. Most importantly find out a) who won b) at what price c) what is their answer why I lost
Put the pieces together — review and relive every interaction with the potential client. There is a reason why I didn’t win (and sometimes that’s different from why they told me that I lost) and it’s really important to recognize exactly what happened
Learn from it — now that I have as much info as I can get my hands on, I identify what could have been done better and how I can tweak the sales process to avoid the same mistakes next time

It certainly doesn’t take away the sting of a lost deal, but it really helps me get some closure and make sure that the next time around I win!

AlecHartman: Startups, Get Organized

Sat, 10 Nov 2012 16:20:35 -0500

AlecHartman: Startups, Get Organized:

Some great stuff here to keep in mind. I know you know this, but you’re probably going to ignore it…

alechartman:

I work with a lot of startups - and its usually my job make their technology awesome. However, lately I’ve taken on another role as well - I’ve been helping my portfolio companies get focused.

All startups want to change the world - but its important for them to realize HOW they’re changing it, and WHO they’re changing it for. TechStars taught me how to approach this in an organized way and I love Nicole for this!

So, for my founder friends, here is some homework (send it to me and I’ll be happy to give you some feedback!)… answer the following:

I. Problem

What is the problem you are solving?

II. Solution

How are you solving the problem?

III. Market

Who are you solving the problem for?… and how big of a problem is it?

IV. Product

Why does your product do what others can’t? What’s the ‘secret sauce’ behind your success

V. Team

Why are you best suited to solve the problem you’re tackling?

VI. Traction

How are people responding to your solution and what do they specifically value about it?

VII. Plan

What is best way you can put your solution in the hands of people who need it?