No Snivelling blog

TeachStreet is Closing Down

noreply@blogger.com (DaveSchappell) — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 00:39:00 +0000

Today we are happy to announce that we're joining the AmazonLocal team. Sadly, this means that we will be closing TeachStreet. When we opened our doors on April 21, 2008 we had grand aspirations, to create a place to help lifelong learners find great classes and teachers, empower teachers with robust tools to manage their teaching businesses, and enable schools to more effectively generate leads for their classes. Over the last few years we have succeeded in creating what we think is the world's largest selection of classes and courses, and one of the richest marketing toolsets for teachers and schools, big and small. To our valued teachers, thank you for your support and being elemental in making TeachStreet something we can all be proud of. To help you through this transition we have built you a special export tool to save all of your data and created a dedicated FAQ to help answer all of your questions. And as always, you can contact us directly to answer any of your questions. To our investors, thank you. You put your faith in us. We wish we had accomplished more, but know that we sincerely gave it our best. And your investment helped us grow as people, and as a team. We're forever grateful, and will strive to pay it forward. To our current and past employees, thank you. The last few years have been challenging, but so rewarding for having gotten to know, and grow with, one another. We hope you'll all look back on your TeachStreet days with some fond memories (and that the beer will help erase the other recollections). And so it goes. Onward, Dave Schappell & Team TeachStreet

How one teacher made a huge difference in my life

noreply@blogger.com (DaveSchappell) — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 21:35:00 +0000

Clayton Leach - teacher at Schuylkill Valley High School

Most of us have that one teacher who really made a difference in our lives. Mine was Clayton Leach. He was my typing and accounting teacher at Schuylkill Valley High School, in the late 80s. In Internet terminology, he was the one teacher who applied adaptive learning to my educational experience (more on that later). He was also one of those people who always set the bar for what was possible much higher than where I wanted to comfortably put it, but where I had a feeling that I could reach, if I really gave it my all. He did that for many students who entered his classroom over the years.
I first met him in my typing class. Since I had been fiddling with computers for several years, I was already pretty good with QWERTY keyboard. He quickly realized that, and started giving more challenging assignments (numbers, characters, complicated letter types, etc.) He could have just taught me the same material, on the same schedule, as everyone else in the class, but that wasn't his style. He saw potential, and felt obligated to help it be attained.
I took his accounting class at about the same time. In retrospect, I have no idea why I'd take either of these classes. It was probably to take it easy, if I remember correctly, because 16-year-old Dave was pretty good at math and methodical tasks. But when I started, I quickly accelerated through the first several classes. Mr. Leach immediately took the same approach as in typing, and told me to do a chapter per class, when the rest of the class was spending a week on the same content. He quickly had me finish the entire first book, and proceed on to others. When I asked him if I could take it easy, at some point, he was upset with me! He challenged me to compete in the Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA) regional and state contests, and I ended up winning one of them (regional, I think).
This approach to teaching is now framed as Adaptive Learning, with companies such as DreamBox Learning, Grockit and Knewton leading the way. But great teachers like Mr. Leach made it work before it had a 15-letter name. He saw potential in students where the students didn't recognize it in themselves, and he then made it appear. He did it through sheer will, encouragement, and love -- he wanted to see us achieve our fullest potential, and for many students, I believe that their lives are markedly better and fuller for having learned from him.
Q: So, how did this impact my life? A: In pretty much every possible way. Before Mr Leach's accounting class, I had been applying to school as an aerospace engineering undergrad (I have no idea how I picked that either :-) ); after his class, I enrolled as an Accounting major, and later became a CPA. I did that for several years, and then pursued my MBA at The Wharton School and made a career transition to product development at Amazon.com. I later spent several years working in the microfinance sector, help build the JibJab team, and eventually started my own venture-backed business (TeachStreet), where I spent the first few years doing the accounting and payroll, growing the team and business, and often emptying the trash cans.
Mr. Leach was one of those people who taught me much more than any single subject. He taught me to always do a lot more than the minimum, and that pretty much any opportunity is available, if I was willing to put in the hard work to achieve it. He taught me to do things that I enjoyed, and to have fun doing it (yes, his classes were fun). He reinforced the importance of friendship, and unwavering commitment and support. He was a truly great teacher, and I'll remember him always.
To honor Mr. Leach, I aspire to treat my co-workers and employees similarly, by setting high goals (that I know/believe they can achieve), providing assistance when needed, and operating with a hands-off approach that allows for mistakes. Everyone needs the room and support to realize their potential, but they also need a kick in the pants every once in awhile. I'm so appreciative of the kicks that he gave me; they made my life so much richer.
--
This blog post is part of the Vittana "Make a Difference" blogger challenge. The contest invites bloggers from around the world to discuss various ways to make a difference in the world, as well as share stories on who or what has made a difference in their lives.
The winning blog post will be the post that drives the most loans to students in need. Please support this cause (and this blog!) by making a loan in my name: “Dave Schappell.” Be sure to type that in when you reach the checkout page (example screenshot) The more loans you make the more educations get funded and the more recognition and traffic my site gets!
Please support this blog and contest by using this special link to tweet about it (You can edit the tweet before it’s posted, but make sure this link (http://bitly.com/uNNFJn) and the hashtag #vittanachallenge is part of the tweet or Vittana won’t know you tweeted about me!)

Schuylkill Valley teacher Clayton Leach

TeachStreet Labs launches Road Trip Planning app

noreply@blogger.com (DaveSchappell) — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 23:15:00 +0000

We've all heard about Google's famous 20% time, right? It always seemed like a nice idea, but wasn't one that we worked into TeachStreet's routine. Then, we got a taste of Startup Weekend hackathon energy, and wondered if we could smash together the 20% time and Startup Weekend ideas, and come up with our own TeachStreet Hack Week creation. So, we did!

We asked everybody on the team to come up with project ideas that we thought we could create during a 4-5 day hackathon. Pretty much everybody submitted ideas, and the winner was the OnTheWay app.

It's a pretty simple idea -- that is, when you go on road trips, you almost never know about the great stuff that you're racing by at 70 miles per hour. I mean, just in Washington we have the World's Largest Shoe, The World's Largest Frying Pan, and much more :-) Plus, why eat at a terrible restaurant (the first you could find), when instead you may be passing withing a stone's throw of a 5-star rated gem, that's been frequented by many of your friends?

So, we built it -- or, more specifically, the team built it (while I dug out of my backlog of email, projects, and more). Of course, that didn't stop me from lobbing in my opinions at every available instance, but people very quickly told me to talk to the hand.

I'm really proud of what the team came up with. Go give OnTheWay a try. Just enter in your starting location, your destination, and then check out the interesting roadside attractions. We hope you love it!

Join me Oct 3 at Seattle's Social Innovation Fast Pitch event

noreply@blogger.com (DaveSchappell) — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 11:37:00 +0000

As you may have heard by now, Social Venture Partners is bringing an innovative program to Seattle, called Social Innovation Fast Pitch (SIFP). SIFP is an innovative training and fast-pitch forum highlighting New Ideas for Social Impact. I am signed up to mentor one or more of the contestants, which I’m enthused to get going on later this week.

SIFP has been incredibly successful in other cities over the past three years, and they're on a fast path to make it equally if not more successful for the Puget Sound region, starting on Oct. 3. And for the first time in the northwest, the fast pitch program is available to both for-profit and non-profit organizations, highlighting the growing trend of social impact startup investing alongside with building sustainable and innovative non-profit organizations.

The benefits to the SIFP contestants goes far beyond simply winning one of the cash prizes and include such things as direct mentoring from successful entrepreneurs, networking with other civic minded leaders, and introduction to a peer group in Seattle that is working hard to make out region a leader in forward looking social alternatives. The format of our SIFP program is optimized around this concept, with a heavy emphasis on coaching and mentoring, and with the Oct 3 event time split equally between the fast pitch program and casual discussions in a tradeshow-like format.

SIFP just announced their exciting list of 54 quarterfinalist contestants, selected from the 120+ who applied. The fourteen who end up on stage will be exceptional; hopefully one of them will be an organization I mentor. Take a look at the list and you'll see a number of well-known organizations, plus many you've never heard of. All are innovating for the benefit of the Puget Sound region.

The SIFP program and the grant fund are paid for by a combination of ticket sale donations, corporate sponsorships, and donations from individuals and foundations. SIFP’s plan is to have the entire event self-sustaining within three years. To do so, they really need a great turnout this year so that news of this innovative model of social innovation and community engagement gets around. LA's fast pitch program is a success we'd love to have here in Seattle - they are expecting 1,000 attendees in their third year of operation!

Would you join me in supporting these social innovators by attending the event on Oct 3? You can make a $100 donation to get a ticket here. 100% is passed through to the people you’ll see presenting that evening, and you’ll even get to vote via text messaging to determine the “Best Pitch” and “Most Innovative” of the finalists. This promises to be an inspiring and fun evening. Hope to see you there.

Onward!

Juggling flaming chainsaws, while on crack

noreply@blogger.com (DaveSchappell) — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 15:10:00 +0000

OK -- I admit that I've never done crack. And I'm not much of a juggler, even with tennis balls.

But, of late, I've felt like I'm standing on a stage in front of hundreds (my family, friends, co-workers, the Seattle (and broader) tech community, aspiring entrepreneurs and others) juggling an increasingly daunting mixture of flaming chainsaws and barking poodles, while balanced on a unicycle, all while on a crack high. Overly dramatic? Yes. Any less true? No.

The feeling (fear) reminded me of Jerry's blog, The Monster in Your Head -- I was letting the monster win. Thus, Jerry's last post was especially relevant, specifically this bit of wisdom from the Bene Gesserit (and that other Child of Dune, Brad Feld... and, Jerry, of course):

I read the above a few days ago -- it resonated, but didn't sink in. Then, last night, my wife helped simplify the situation even further, by asking a few clarifying questions. I won't share them. But, I'd highly recommend that you get your own 'wife'.

How hundreds of coffee meetings have paid off for TeachStreet

noreply@blogger.com (DaveSchappell) — Sat, 03 Sep 2011 16:34:00 +0000

Even though I keep my list of blog subscriptions pretty small, I've been weeks behind in my blog reading. Partially, that's because I feel like I see most of them in Summify (yes, I LOVE Summify!) and my tweet stream, but I sometimes miss the really good posts.

In that vein, I just read Mark Suster's post about the Importance of Doing 50 Coffee Meetings, as a way of expanding your network. After reading it, while walking the dog, I thought about how many of the successes in my last 4+ years with TeachStreet have been the result of non-agenda coffee meetings and the like. Many people look at these types of meetings as "the wasted-time-stuff-that-biz-people-do", and I admit that I sometimes feel that way about them too. But, another way of looking at them is as the types of things that 'create luck' for those who are willing to put in the effort. They're not activities with fairly-certain-outcomes, like writing code (where there's a definite output) or testing a paid-search-campaign, and that's what makes them so exhausting, at times.

If it helps, I thought I'd share some of the outputs of those types of random meetings -- I bet that none of these wouldn't have happened without the hundreds of meetings:

Our first $100k angel investor came from a friend's intro; the investor met me one time, and called me a few days later with the news of his investment. Upon hanging up the phone, I actually screamed out loud.
Almost all of my angel investors were originally soft-pitched over coffee, as were many non-investors; more often than not, the non-investors helped with other introductions, ideas or questions
I originally met Daryn (our CTO, and the person I consider my TeachStreet partner) via a random networking meeting, where I met he and David Geller, as they were working on EyeJot. And, I'd bet that more than 75% of our employees were introduced, or met, over coffee and/or network introductions.
I met Joe Heitzeberg, over coffee at Macrina, to discuss a role he had open at Snapvine; by the time of the meeting, I had already decided on TeachStreet, but it's a relationship that's grown since 2007. Oh, and he introduced me to our accountant, who's just awesome.
The idea for TeachStreet crystallized over a coffee discussion with Jason Kilar, while we were discussing a pre-Hulu startup-idea that he was starting to accelerate toward
While not a coffee meeting, we ended up licensing our software to a company in Australia; they found us because of a video presentation I gave at a Seattle Tech Startups event -- they caught the piece of the video where I said that "we'd be open to licensing our software", and reached out (note -- I also fielded ~30 of these international outreaches from others, that all went nowhere...)
I met Dave McClure years before any startup notions -- he was on the Board of Unitus (a microfinance organization, where I was the guy responsible for marketing); as fast as he could spew ideas, I was sitting on the fringes of the meetings implementing/testing them. That relationship took off quickly :-) Dave turned into a great friend, one of my earliest investors, and biggest advocates (and out of that grew uncountable press/blogger introductions for me, and referrals of Seattle-initiated-startups, by me, to 500Startups)
Out of a coffee-request overload, we created Hops and Chops, as a way to consolidate many of these conversations, and enable even greater early-entrepreneur interactions. Entire startups have been assembled there, and numerous friendships have deepened.
We recently got one of our first exclusive-lead bus-dev deals done, in days (after multiple attempts with the company), after a coffee meeting where I helped them with some candidate sourcing
Finally, one of my very first startup inspirations/enablers was Andy Sacks' Open Coffee, that he's been running, at Louisa's on Eastlake for 4-5 years, without fail. And, as I look back, that's where I met Tony Wright for the first time!

This is just a sample. As I sit here thinking about this, I feel like I could keep rattling off examples for hours. You just can't know where these meetings will lead you. It's important that you try to be selective (because the meetings will multiply, as people find you helpful/accessible), and do your best to limit them (maybe one per day?), but you absolutely need to put in the time.

Quite simply, TeachStreet wouldn't exist if I hadn't.

Small list of blogs that entrepreneurs should read (and no more!)

noreply@blogger.com (DaveSchappell) — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 05:03:00 +0000

Drinking from Firehose (via Deb Evans blog)

If you're like me, you've had moments in your life where you've added tons of blogs to your feed reader, and then you got farther and farther behind in your reading. Over the years, I kept trimming back, and present to you my list of must-read blogs for entrepreneurs (plus some bonus tools I use to keep the inbound information flow manageable):

Both Sides of the Table, by Mark Suster -- it's awesome, because he has repeat success as an entrepreneur, and is now an active and accessible investor. As an added bonus, he isn't based in Silicon Valley, so he knows that talent can be found anywhere. Reading his blog is very much like a daily peek into the questions in my head, and fears in my soul :-)
Ben's blog, by Ben Horowitz - like Mark, Ben writes with the perspective of a seasoned (and massively successful) entrepreneur. He's also a fantastic writer. He doesn't write often, so he's gentle on your feed reader, but when he does, it's worth grabbing a drink and settling in.
Essays, by Paul Graham - he's just a genius, and similar to Ben in terms of writing quality & depth. Also, like Ben, everything he writes is worthy of a sitdown and repeat-read.

As an added bonus, the YCombinator Library is an AWESOME collection of the best startup posts ever written

GapingVoid, by Hugh MacLeod - Art and Life - his back-of-business-card drawings (and larger artwork), along with minimally expanded explanations, do a great job of visually displaying the noise in my (our) heads
The Monster in Your Head, by Jerry Colonna - another infrequent poster. Jerry's a past-successful VC, and now entrepreneur career/professional coach. See the name of his blog - 'nuff said.
AVC, by Fred Wilson - he's the best. Great mix of broad-internet goings-on, personal stories, musical passion, entrepreneur education, and more. For me (and many other entrepreneurs), Fred was/is the original VC blogger, and he continues to rock it.

That's it -- unsubscribe from the rest of your blogs, unless they're close friends or something very specific for your market space.

Now, for some bonus tips, to manage the rest of your news overflow:

Don't try to read your Twitter feed! Just keep track of your @replies (and respond if relevant) and DMreplies. Then, dive in to the feed when you want a light distraction. But, it's not your responsibility to read all the tweets in your stream. That's one of the many things that's wonderful about Twitter, once you figure it out.
Twitter is an awesome way to casually spot hot stories, because if it's relevant to you, you'll probably see it sweep by you several times during the day. Read it, or don't -- your life won't end if you miss a story or two.
Subscribe to Summify - it monitors your social feeds, and you can set how often you'd like to have it email you a summary of the popular stuff. I have it send me an email one time each day, with 6 stories. It's amazingly good at picking out the articles that got lots of tweets/retweets/likes/shares and more, from the people I care about. You can control all of the settings. It's awesome (and, as an extra bonus, was created in Vancouver, BC!)
I also like Trove -- but, it's still developing. I'm not as big of a fan of services like News.me, Flipboard and others. But, that's just me. I find them more 'fun' to use, but lead to lots of time-wasting on my part. So, I ignore them when I'm in the work-zone.
In Seattle, I like GeekWire for my daily news summary (I prefer the daily email -- I scan it quickly, click thru to those that interest me, comment, and then dive back out)

Paying It Forward

noreply@blogger.com (DaveSchappell) — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 05:06:00 +0000

Begin Sappiness

I've been thinking a lot about what it means to Pay It Forward. What's funny, though, is that I've never seen the movie itself, so I went and added it to my Netflix queue -- I expect that it'll be a sappy two hours, but sometimes that's just what I need. But I digress...

Anyway, for the last several years, I've been trying to spend a little bit of time each week helping younger (or less experienced) entrepreneurs avoid some of the mistakes I've made, or at least be aware of the avalanche heading their way, as they start their own business. Last week, I gave a talk at Seattle's TechStars For a Day that became pretty emotional for me -- the topic was "What a Business Person Does in a Startup", but it turned into a bit of a heartfelt talk about why it's so fantastic working in a startup, or in your own business. Yes, tears were involved. I'm not sure why, really -- yes, the emotions got cranked up, but it could also have been impacted by several days of non-stop cross-country travel!

In the end, it's about giving it your all to create something new and wonderful. And surrounding yourself with a great team, and participating in their growth as well. And making mistakes. And, hopefully, being able to participate in the success of the next wave of explorers. I've found it very meaningful and enjoyable to give back, where I can, and I can't wait to have more time, someday, to do even more.

For now, I'm just trying to encourage experienced entrepreneurs to take a little bit of time each week to try to help somebody out -- it could be a quick conversation over coffee, an on-campus speech, or just attending an extra event every few weeks, to make yourself available to someone who has an eager question. And, reminding those I'm helping now (when they say thank you, and make me feel so great), that in a few months, or years, that I expect them to do the same.

Of course, I'm just Paying It Forward from folks who helped me along the way when my ideas were in nascent stages (and took my coffee, lunch and other brain-picking requests); folks like Andy Sack, Bill Bryant, Mike Mathieu, David Geller, Daryn Nakhuda, Todd Sawicki, Dave McClure, and many, many more (not to mention all the crazy angels who ponied up cash... those people are the TRUE psychos of the Pay It Forward Universe :-) )

Paying it Forward -- it really does feel good to help your friends and community.

End Sappiness

Is GroupOn REALLY keeping merchant commissions until redemption?

noreply@blogger.com (DaveSchappell) — Sun, 05 Jun 2011 06:47:00 +0000

I just posed this questionable groupon tactic 'question' on twitter, and got more than the average number of responses. That tells me that other people were just as shocked.

Here's what I previously thought was true about how GroupOn handled purchases (on average):

Customer buys a $100 Groupon (say, for $200 of skin bronzing ;-) )
Groupon earns $40 (40%) and Merchant gets $60 (60%)
The $60 to merchant is paid out 33% on Day 30, 33% on Day 60 and 34% on Day 90. This protects Groupon in case of merchant not giving service, going out of business, or other issues.

Note -- this is how Groupon USED to work, and how most other deal sites STILL work, as far as I can tell (this includes the biggest other competitor, LivingSocial, from what people tell me).

What I recently heard was that Groupon changed the rules, as they accumulated power, to only pay out the $60 (60%) if the customer actually redeems the Groupon. Their stated reason is because they're on the hook in case of a refund, etc. But, that's not what's really going on here. Instead, they're aware that breakage (or, lack of usage by customer) is HUGE in the coupon/deal space. So, they take advantage of the merchant, by getting them to promote these deals, and then I've heard that there's approximately 40% non-use (or breakage) by customers. Groupon just keeps that $24 (i.e. 40% * $60).

Now, you could argue, "why give the $ to the merchant, since they didn't provide the service to the customer?" I'd argue, that the Merchant DID supply a service, to Groupon, by lending their name and promise-of-service (at a deep discount, often 50% or more), to help Groupon generate the $. This also helped Groupon get more customers, because of referral incentives, etc. And, the Merchant is losing $ on many of the deals that they DO service, because of the big discounts. And, of course, the Merchant could STILL be held liable for any future refunds... but the Merchant would still be $36 richer, on average, even if they had to participate in the refunds.

Thus, it looks like Groupon decided to bite the hand that feeds them -- for a time, they were the dominant player/biggest dog in town, and they figured they'd abuse that power. I think it's going to come back to hurt them in a huge way. Living Social, and other big players (Tippr, Capitol Deal, Zozi, etc) will be rewarded by treating small/local businesses fairly. Commission splits will also move more in favor of small businesses, and ultimately, it seems like Deal Sites will ultimately start to look a LOT like the coupon business, that's existed forever. The new take has massive advantages to the old, of course (near-free email delivery, social networks to share, etc). But, seeing the dominant player take this heavy-handed approach could go a long way to turning businesses, and ultimately consumers, off the shiny new tool.

Updated -- I just searched for "Is Groupon really keeping merchant commissions until customer redeems?" -- this is a snippet of results. Looks like it's true:

Update #2 -- Full disclosure. I run a small deal site too, at TeachStreet Deals, but we don't make a dent in Groupon/LivingSocial's deal sales :-) And, yes, we pay out the full amount to the merchant after the 30/60/90 type payouts. So, we do take some risk on later redemeptions. And, we also help manage/operate the ServiceAlley deal site, which acts similarly. This post isn't meant to promote these services; rather, it was just a surprise to find out the witholding on breakage by the market leader, to see if I was being naive about this, or if it's more commonplace.

What do you think? Am I wrong?

What does the Business Person in a Startup DO?!?

noreply@blogger.com (DaveSchappell) — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 14:14:00 +0000

As part of the TechStars For a Day speaker series, I gave this talk about an oft-asked topic. We all (think we) know what the CTO or technical co-founder does, in the world of startups and internet wunderkinds. But, many wonder, "What does the non-value-add CEO/Product person DO?!?"

This master's thesis, years in the making, helps to illuminate all that is wonderful about the non-technical-member of the startup wonder twin pairing.

What does the Business Person in a Startup DO?!?

View more presentations from Dave Schappell

Speaker Notes / Details of slides (they roughly match)

Dave Schappell - Founder/CEO - TeachStreet.com
@DaveSchappell

1) Product Backlog / Definition (prioritization, shiny-object-mgmt, specs, mockups, copywriting, emails, ...)

2) Product Research / Customer Service (meetings, surveys, customer feedback, issue mgmt, ...)

3) Operations-HR/Legal (office, legal/incorporation, accounting/check-writing, payroll, patents/TMs, TOS/Privacy)

4) Endless Networking and Sales, for everything (recruiting, fundraising, bus dev, sales, publicity)

5) Operations-Finance (Fundraising, Debt-procurement)

6) Interviewing, on-boarding paperwork, perf rvws (PIPs/firing), weekly team mtgs, offsites, entertainment/morale

7) Contracts/Negotiator, for everything

8) Program Manager

9) Q&A / Bug-filing/testing/resolving

10) Marketing (SEO education, SEM, BD ptrship setup & mgmt, emails/ESP, twitter, facebook, blog, PR mgmt (press releases, outreach, contests, ...),

11) Metrics (GA / internal / operational), Chartbeat-Monitoring/Weblabbing/Testing

12) Investor Mgmt/Board meetings (monthly financials/projections, updates, presentations, cap tables, 409A)

13) Success is just Failure repeated often enough

14) Hard Word… get ready for it (from Mark Suster blog):
- The Harder I Work, The Luckier I get
- The problem with success, is that it's often disguised as hard work
- It’s always what I think now when somebody who doesn’t go the extra mile thinks everything comes easy to you. If ur a tech startupper I know u know what I mean. Just closed your $5M round & everybody around you’s thinking they could have done it. But they weren’t there in 2009 when you were up late nights shitting yourself whether you really were smart for pursuing this idea. That was back when VCs weren’t so quick to respond to emails.
- Nothing comes easy. There are few overnight successes in life. The best companies struggle – just not publicly. And the harder we work, the luckier we get. Good hard work to you all.

Take Responsibility for your Decisions

noreply@blogger.com (DaveSchappell) — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 21:21:00 +0000

I'm a huge fan of Gaping Void -- really enjoyed this artwork/cartoon on Acceptance that he posted today:

Text in the artwork:

ACCEPTANCE

You can't achieve your destiny until you've accepted responsibility for it.

I'm as guilty as anyone... Often I'll be grumpy about my situation even though I knew full well that (A) my situation is pretty darn sweet, actually and (B) I entered into the situation 100% willing.

Sometimes we have to remind ourselves... and keep reminding ourselves.

Get some practice fights before fighting Tyson

noreply@blogger.com (DaveSchappell) — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 01:45:00 +0000

Just a quick thought. Because I've recently had more than the normal share of young entrepreneurs pestering me for introductions to various angel investors, VCs, and the foul-mouthed super angel, Mr. McClure :-)

If I don't know you, I'm not going to be making any introductions. Even if I DO know you, if I don't like your idea or implementation, I'm not going to make any introductions either. And even if I think your idea's OK (but not great), I'm probably not going to send the mails on your behalf.

See, you may not be ready yet. And, of course, it's my reputation being put on the line (maybe even more than yours) when I make the call on your behalf. And that goes for all of the other favors that you try to cash in. Make the best of it (and only make intros when they're warranted), else you can start to expect a whole lot of silence when you make your next request (or introduction).

Just because you have someone who can make the intro to someone else, doesn't mean it's a good idea. Your product may not be there yet. You may not have pitched enough minor-leaguers first (and gotten feedback, iterated on your idea, and honed your delivery). Or, you just may be indicating that you don't want to do all of the hard work to get your legs under you. You may think that all you need is (a little bit of money, an introduction, someone to buy you, etc. etc.).

No, what you need to do is to sit down, shut up, and build something that large numbers of people are clamoring for (and for which you know specifically what you want from investors). THEN it might be time to call in some of those favors.

As for now, Shut Up and Row.

How I learned to stop worrying and love the unicorn...

noreply@blogger.com (DaveSchappell) — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 23:38:00 +0000

It's been said before. Unicorn is awesome. Here at TeachStreet, we've had a pretty good web server setup since our launch 3 years ago, which is mongrel + nginx. When we first looked at the hosting options for rails, fastcgi was (thankfully) on it's way out, and mongrel seemed to have snatched up it's place as a solid webserver. But, there have been a few drawbacks. There isn't much communication between them, so each individual process needs to be nannied by something else. This also means if one mongrel dies, nginx doesn't know about it, so it keeps sending requests to it. This is fine in a normally healthy case, but there are two that we care about: long running requests & deployments. Now enter 2011. There are a number of new webservers available for rails. The one that really caught our attention is Unicorn. It's based on mongrel (much like Thin & Event Machine), but it has some noticeable differences. First, there is a central process that spins up and manages the rails instances. This means it knows when a process is running (or not) and if it's still serving a request (or not). In addition, Unicorn supports pre-forking. This essentially means that when properly configured, it can load up a new application instance, and when that instance is ready, let it serve requests, and kill off the old process. This opens up a new world of support for two things: fast restarts and hot deployments. As a website, one of our biggest fustrations is downtime. And as a startup, we want to deploy all the time. We hate having to wait until later in the day when our traffic is low, and even then we're still disappointing customers (if only for a few minutes). With Unicorn's pre-forking, there's almost no need for downtime. You can push while people are using the site, and they won't even notice. The key setting this up is getting your signal handling correct in your app. Luckily, github blazed a trail for us, and we were able to adapt their config to our needs as well. Here's what we came up with: The only caveat here with our setup is that with capistrano, we flip the symlink, then begin restarting the app instances. This means that your assets (including images, external stylesheets and javascript) will get served ahead of your new application code. This should rarely cause an issue, but you should keep an eye out if it will. Same goes for database migrations - you migrations will run, then your apps will restart. So, if you are planning a destructive change (tables/columns getting removed), your application could have issues. If these cases could affect you for a specific, you should take your site offline for the push. Here's a snippet from our capistrano config for unicorn: And you're done! Since rolling this out we went from 1-2 deploys a day to 10 or more. All without having to serve our customers a "we're closed" page. And if you have no idea what I'm talking about, I'm horrible sorry. Please enjoy the game below. --

Designers, Marshmallows and Peace Doves

noreply@blogger.com (DaveSchappell) — Sun, 20 Mar 2011 00:22:00 +0000

Have you ever worked with a designer? If so, you understand where I'm coming from. They have a wonderful perspective on the world, as the put-upon world-weary souls who must deal with the soulless MBAs in their midst. They get to take the holy ground of "more is not always better -- more is never better" and countless other eternal truisms. They're the Siddhartha's in our midst. Harrumphing their way through the morass of the world.

Some day, I wish to work for a designer, and have them pay me every two weeks for me to give them my opinion.

I imagine that their highly profitable website will look something like this, and that we'll all have 9 weeks of vacation and have to work about 3 hours per day.

Pleasant, isn't it?

p.s. I dedicate this post to my favorite designer/developer, Greg Bowers, and the last month+ of his blog posts :-) He truly is talented. Just delusional, like the rest of us.

Relatively bad (stressful) week of healthy living for me

noreply@blogger.com (DaveSchappell) — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 12:27:00 +0000

For the last few months, I've been making a concerted effort to develop some healthier habits via a new service that I have a crush on called Health Month, including exercising very regularly (6 or more days per week), eating healthier (reducing red meat and pasta, and increasing vegetables and raw fruit intake), and the like. And the results have been pretty amazing -- not only have I lost more than 15 pounds, but I've had more energy, felt more creative and have overall been much more positive about life.

This week, however, was a turn for the worse. I had some poor/tired workouts early in the week, and then I just skipped yesterday and today, and will miss working out tomorrow (as I'll be traveling the entire day). I haven't missed 3 straight days since November! But, you know, I'm OK with it. It's so different that I'm actually aware of the bad week -- when I step back, it was an incredibly stressful week for me. I had an investor update presentation/meeting on Monday, and then a Board meeting today (despite lots of TeachStreet positive progress, it still always feels like a performance review at Board meetings for me!)

I'm feeling confident that I'll get back on the exercise horse during my vacation in Virgin Gorda, will sleep much more, and eat lots of fruit, veggies and do a complete de-stress. Plus, I didn't really let my diet go during the week (although I do admit that I ate an entire Kozy Shack tapioca pudding in one sitting...).

Here's to taking everything in moderation. Even moderation.

Learning about Venture Capital Investing and Terms

noreply@blogger.com (DaveSchappell) — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 00:37:00 +0000

A friend, new to the startup investment space, asked me today how to learn about all of the different terms, players/investors and approaches in startup investing. I started to rattle off some of my favorites, and then thought about sending a follow up e-mail with links, etc. Of course, a blog post is probably a better way to share these, so others can access them. Read these blogs (start 12+ months back, and read all of their posts) and follow their tweets:

Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures
Mark Suster of GRP Partners
Brad Feld of Foundry Group
Bijan Sabet of Spark Capital
Ben Horowitz of Andreesen Horowitz and their AH Resource Library
Paul Graham's essays are awesome
Ask The VC (by Brad Feld and Jason Mendelson)

Understand these startup incubators:

YCombinator and their amazing startup library
TechStars (Seattle, Boulder, New York City, Boston, etc.)

Because Quora is frequented by so many VCs, entrepreneurs and the like, it's also a great place to get almost any question answered about term sheets and colluding VCs :-) Great News outlets for startups:

Events to attend (not too often):

For Seattle entrepreneurs:

Seattle 2.0 has everything you're looking for (much more comprehensive list of links than I'd ever assemble!)

Startup Idea? Email-Initiated and -Processed Discussions

noreply@blogger.com (DaveSchappell) — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 00:38:00 +0000

Dave Schappell Idea of the Day

While I was on vacation, I had this idea. Maybe it already exists. But, if not, maybe one of you can build it and/or work on it at a Startup Weekend, or build a real business around it.

Feel free to ask clarifying questions and/or propose alternatives.

Idea: Email-Initiated and -Processed Discussions (that post straight to the web)

Scenario: I have a question that I'd like to get answered. I e-mail several people, and probably get a reply. However, it would be nice if that question (and the answers/discussions) posted directly to a webpage/service, where others could benefit (without requiring anyone to visit a website and/or register, if they don't want to). Or, they could e-mail a private reply. Or, they could visit the site and interact there, if they'd like. The idea is to give Disqus-like e-mail superpowers to recipients, to make it so much easier to post and share their knowledge.

So, what do you think?

Hacking Poverty -- Fighting Poverty with Mad Coding Skills!

noreply@blogger.com (DaveSchappell) — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 23:08:00 +0000

A friend (and ex-Unitus board member), Tim Stay, just e-mailed me with what I think is a really fantastic idea. His son, Zach (not related to Zach the Dog, by the way...),  is a 12th grader at Mountain View High School in Orem, UT.

He's inviting developers and companies to join him in fighting poverty through writing code (note; this could also be a very cool StartupWeekend focus -- wonder if there's one upcoming in Utah?)

If you're interested, full details are below:

My name is Zach Stay, and I'm planning a developers conference in a few weeks this January (2011) that will make applications that will assist in the fight against poverty.

We are calling this event "Hacking Poverty"!

I got this idea from reading about an event called "Random Hacks of Kindness," a developers conference that made applications that helped during natural disasters. One of these was a twitter application that was used heavily during the earthquake in Haiti. That conference was organized and funded by Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, and several other Bay Area firms.

There was no conference like this that I could find that was focusing on making applications to help fight poverty. I also thought we needed something that could get other high-tech companies (and developers) involved and do their part to fulfill their social responsibilities!

I thought you would be interested in helping support this event. These are the things specifically I was wondering if you could contribute.

1. Would you be willing to share this post with your co-workers or friends that work for other companies and promote this event? We would love to have as much support as possible. If they decide to come, have them RSVP at this location.

2. Would you look over our list of possible poverty-fighting applications and see if you would be interested in working on one of them or if you have another poverty-fighting idea that you want to submit for review to be worked on at the conference?

3. If your organization is interested in making a small donation, we would publicize your organization at the event. We are trying to cover the costs of the event, such as food through donations.

Here are the details:

Dates: January 21, 2011 3:00 pm - 9:00 pm
   January 22, 2011 9:00 am - 5:00 pm

Location: Mountain View High School
   665 W Center St
   Orem, UT 84057

Bring: - Laptop
   - Access to required programming tools
   - Additional ideas to be developed

We will provide wifi access.

The developers can come and go throughout the conference. If you can only make it there for a few hours, we would still love to see you. If you can be there the entire time, even better!

We will have a handful of applications we are working on to help fight poverty. The developers that show up will be able to select which application they want to help with. If they have a new idea to be involved with, they can do that as well. We will have application development leads assigned to lead out each project. This is a great chance to make important network connections with peers from other companies.

We will have a handful of VIP speakers who will briefly speak at various points throughout the conference.

We will provide food and snacks for both days.
Once the projects are completed, they will be made available for free download as open source code...

Respectfully,

Zach Stay
info@hackingpoverty.org
www.hackingpoverty.org

Facebook Group for Hacking Poverty

Funny (old) Infographic - Comparing Web Designers and Developers

noreply@blogger.com (DaveSchappell) — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 01:37:00 +0000

I know this one's already circulated, but it's so funny and dead-on. Thanks to @davidgeller for introducing it to me, and for the interweb and SEO bandits for it's creation :-)

Click Graphic to Enlarge

Attribution of graphic creation

Neil's wrong about why you don't have a job

noreply@blogger.com (DaveSchappell) — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 19:36:00 +0000

Entrepreneur and blogger extraordinaire Neil Patel just wrote a post called "You're the reason why you don't have a job". I saw the tweet, and clicked over, expecting him to talk about your lack of passion, innovative thinking, creativity and the like.

Instead, he covered the mundane basics -- things like having a 2-page (or shorter resume), personalizing your cover letters/intro mails, being on time, networking, etc.

Personally, I think the stuff he covered are the oxygen of job-hunting and interviewing -- that is, if you aren't doing those, you really are going to be out of luck forEVER in today's economy.

I think the real reasons that most people don't have jobs go far beyond his list -- these are the types of things that really get the door opened, and people paying attention:

1) Show Passion! Your cover letter should contain your login/profile for the website (if it's a consumer web company), your top idea(s) as to how to improve the experience, questions you have about things that puzzle you about the company, and more -- show that you've dug in and are willing to question the status quo.

2) Go beyond networking. Have back-channel feedback loops installed (i.e. ask a friend to introduce you, even if you've already made an initial outreach). Get active on blog comments and/or tweet streams. Show passion in user communities (i.e. if you're an active Twilio-an, you're much more likely to be noticed in the interview loop)

3) Volunteer/make a bold offer. No one wants people to work for free (at least, ethical employers don't want that), but we DO appreciate people who are willing to make us offers we can't refuse. That, plus a strong background, passion for our work, and social justification (#2 above), make it much easier to pull the trigger.

4) Get off your ass! So many people sit around 'waiting for people to hire them'; they're the same people who bitch and moan about being asked to put in extra effort once they're hired. Get used to selling yourself, your skills, your abilities, and your passions -- no one else is going to do it for you.

Also, refer to my 'how to hire/fire at startups' -- focus on the inverse of many of my examples -- look for things that are trigger points in the relationship, and then just think the inverse.

How I've lost 12 pounds in 6 weeks

noreply@blogger.com (DaveSchappell) — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 02:57:00 +0000

It's that time of year, right? In my own defense, I decided that my fatness had gotten out of hand all the way back in late November (everyone else decided the same thing back in July).

This is how I organized my most recent weight loss effort, starting ~December 1, 2010.

I set a goal to lose what I thought was a reasonable 2 pounds per week. To accomplish that, a 6-foot tall, 42-year old male needs to have a daily calorie deficit of ~1,000 calories (because 3,000 calories works out to ~2 pounds). So, this is my complex program:

* I started tracking all of my meals, using the Tap & Track Calorie Counting iPhone App
-- this helped, because it made me more aware of good & bad foods (from a calorie perspective)
* I set a goal to do at least 30 minutes of cardio exercise EVERY DAY in December.
-- I didn't make it every day, but I did make it for 26 of 31 days in December. That afforded me ~400-500 extra consumable calories each day (because of the exercise) and got the energy flowing.

In January, I've expanded my goals slightly:
* I added a goal to eat green vegetables every day
* I retained the daily cardio-exercise goal (I've missed one day so far in January), and added a goal to do additional strength exercises at least 3 days per week, in addition to the cardio
-- At Buster Benson's Quora-prodding, I've also started working on the 100 Push Ups goal

Finally, I've kept track of all of this using a new service, Health Month -- Health Month is about taking the SCIENCE of nutrition and behavior change and combining it with the SOCIAL GAMES of the recent social web to help people improve their health habits in a fun and sustainable way. I highly recommend that you give it a try.

And no, no fitness classes or nutrition classes were involved in this weight loss experiment :-)

Oh yeah... my weight's dropped from 207 to 195. I aim to be at 185 by the end of February, carrying around 22 less pounds! And, I'm looking forward to running the Vancouver Half Marathon on May 1, 2011 -- who else is in?

Ernest Shackleton got 3,000 Applicants for this Job Posting

noreply@blogger.com (DaveSchappell) — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 04:55:00 +0000

I'm having a great time at the Founders Institute event tonight in Seattle. Really enjoyed this image that Dan Fine included in his presentation, of an advertisement that Ernest Shackleton posted for explorers for his ship. It read:

"Men wanted for hazardous journey. Small wages. Bitter Cold. Long months of complete darkness. Constant danger. Safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in case of success."

I LOVE that! Remind me to edit our TeachStreet job descriptions going forward :-)

Best Practices for Hiring (and firing) Startup Employees

noreply@blogger.com (DaveSchappell) — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 22:23:00 +0000

I was fortunate to learn many of the basics of hiring (interviewing, job descriptions, networking), management (goal setting, reviewing performance, PIPs) and firing (layoffs, termination) in previous roles -- Amazon.com was extremely good at teaching me effective, behavioral interviewing practices, and many other elements of this presentation.

But it wasn't until I founded TeachStreet that I became the person wholly responsible for the implementation of the decisions throughout the process -- the presentation included below tries to summarize many of the lessons I've learned along the way.

The Founders Institute asked me to give a presentation this evening in Settle, covering the topics "Hiring, Firing and Co-founders" -- really, I think these principles apply to all early-stage startup employees (who all share characteristics of co-founders). I'm sure that I've omitted elements in the attached presentation, but I'd appreciate any feedback, and I hope you find this useful.

Hiring Firing Startup Employees (Founders Institute)

View more presentations from Dave Schappell.

I have the greatest respect for my current and (most of my :-) ) past co-workers -- I hope that the terminology in the presentation doesn't convey anything different than that -- I tried to use terms and imagery that will stick with the imagination and memories of the audience.

Keep in mind that employees can substitute the word 'employer for employee' in almost all cases -- that is, if your employer/boss sucks, you should fire them as quickly as posssible!

Everyone's asking Joe Paterno the wrong question

noreply@blogger.com (DaveSchappell) — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 02:33:00 +0000

Why is everyone asking Joe Paterno the wrong question? He continues to be asked the uninspired and unimaginative "when are you going to retire?" rather than asking him the much more important and inspiring question "when did you figure out exactly what you wanted to do as your lifetime vocation?"

Joe Paterno (right) and his son Jay (left)

I think it's because everyone's evaluating Joe Paterno through their own lens, that's dissatisfied with life choices, and counting the days until retirement, or as they like to think of it, when everything will be better/relaxing/wonderful. They don't realize that JoePa doesn't look at his role as a college football coach in the same way that they live their lives as announcers/accountants/fans or the like. He loves what he's doing and is surrounded by loved ones (one of his sons, Jay, even works on the Penn State coaching staff as the quarterbacks coach). He's aware that coaching isn't his job, but his life -- in his quiet moments, the idea of stopping coaching may scare him in the way that dying terrifies his critics and questioners.

I'd love to ask JoePa a few questions, or read the answers to them, if they've been asked before -- I'm sure the answers would be fascinating:

* how would you describe your vocation?
* when did you figure out what you were going to do?
* what would you recommend to others?
* if you weren't a football coach, what other jobs would you consider, and why?
* what people do you thinks you've had the biggest impact on?
* if you could change anything about your working career, what would it be?
* what coaching decisions would you change, if you could go back and do so?
* what vocation advice do you give your children (and grandchildren) and players?
* how does your wife and family participate in your work?

This line of thinking also reminded me of Ben Horowitz's post, about how he and Marc have a rule to not hire or invest in entrepreneurs who are already rich, because starting a company is 'fracking hard' (his words, not mine). They recently violated their own rule, and invested in Gaurav Dhillon, after doing a lot of due diligence. The article notes that "the only reason to start a company is because you have an irrational desire to do so, because it’s not worth the money. They had to find out if Gaurav was irrational enough to fund. After much investigation, they found Gaurav to be completely irrational—in a good way. "

I believe that great, deep-thinking athletic directors would violate their own hiring rules as well, and hire the 84-year-young JoePa on a moment's notice, to lead their program. Because like Gaurav Dhillon, JoePa has the same irrational desire to pursue his goals, despite the doubters. He knows that he can help shape the character of young men, and turn them into future leaders, community members and fathers; and that there's no age-limit on those endeavors.

Frustration gettting small home service projects done

noreply@blogger.com (DaveSchappell) — Sat, 20 Nov 2010 17:38:00 +0000

Woke up to leaking kitchen sink -- nothing earth-shattering there, but I sure wish there was a way to find a repairman where it isn't going to cost me an hourly minimum, because from past experiences, I know it will take all of 5 minutes to fix (for someone who knows what they're doing). I'll check HelpHive, AngiesList and RedBeacon (had a good experience with them recently). But, sure wish there were a way to get these tiny projects done more affordably (without resorting to just posting on Craigslist...).

On a side note, we just soft-launched a Washington DC Home Services website, in conjunction with the Washington Post -- it's very much a beta site at this point, but we look forward to continuing to experiment with it. Here's an example of my personal 'Favorite DC Home Service Providers' list.