Business Blog

A Cash Cow Business

2012-02-27T05:40:18+00:00

Venture capital investments are great. It allows people to focus on the business instead of day to day cash flow issues. For some businesses, venture capital is the way to go. There is no way Steve Jobs would have had a consulting practice on the side to help grow Apple. He needed all in complete focus to succeed. However, one mistake I think many entrepreneurs make is they think they need outside investment to grow their business. They get so focused on raising money they forget to look outside the box. One approach I have used for years to fund businesses is what I call a cash cow business. This is nothing more than one business funding the growth of another more important business.

Some businesses generate profits from day one - consulting business for example. Another example would be some sort of retail or service business. You mow someone’s lawn and they pay you. Profit on day one. Why not start one of these simple profit-at-day-one businesses to fund your dream business? I can illustrate this with two examples from my life.

Example #1.
When I was running my real estate development and investment business in the early 2000s I needed capital to fund my construction projects. Upon buying property we would build new or do a massive remodel, which cost money. In order to be successful I needed to build a team, which cost money. To solve these problems and cover these costs, I started a wholesale distribution company called OverstockMe (I know, crappy name). I was more or less a drug dealer. I would buy big pallets of high demand products, break them up into smaller batches, and sell to ebay sellers and other retailer types. It was a pretty simple model. I would setup a deal and often only hold the inventory for a small period of time. This business would have been very hard to scale into something big - in addition to that, I was not overly passionate about it. I knew the business would expire at some point, but still, with very little effort it kicked off enough free cash flow to help fund my investment business.

Example #2.
As many of you know Cloudmanic Labs, is my primary focus these days. We are building some pretty amazing software-as-a-service products for small business. Building and maintaining these products is pretty expensive and it takes a long time to really see any great profits. These products have a pretty high up-front cost. To help fund our growth, we have a consulting business. We leverage the skills we use day in and day out for our own products by offering consulting services - which, as I mentioned above, profit from day one.

You can even consider your day job as your cash cow business. Use your W2 paycheck to fund your dream business. There is some truth to the saying “Don’t quit your day job”. Yes I know I just bastardized the saying , but it fits this concept like a glove.

In a way Warren Buffet has stolen my model . Use the free cash flow from boring yet stable businesses to fund the core.

Yes, of course there is a drawback of not being able to truly focus on the core business. This is tough. However, I would also suggest that focusing energy on raising investor capital, and answering to a board of directors is also very distracting. I just think people should think outside the box and not get so focused on one single solution for raising the required capital to fund their dream business.

Why Amazon Is Amazing To Me

2012-02-11T19:08:46+00:00

I love Amazon.com. I buy almost everything I can from them. Retail, hosting, media, and more. I even own stock in Amazon. I am a very happy consumer and investor. However, what I find so interesting about Amazon is not my consumer joy or my nice gains as a shareholder; it is their business model. In so many ways they have re-engineered traditional business models. The single most fascinating aspect of Amazon to me is their way of monetizing business bi-products.

As an Internet retailer Amazon has to make major investments in data centers. Trust me: Amazon runs on more than just a Linux computer under Jeff Bezos’ bed. They have built data centers all over the world. Normally, this would be a cost of doing business. In order to sell products online they have to build data centers. Using the bi-product of having to build data centers Amazon built a billion dollar hosting business, Amazon Web Services. Amazon leverages their infrastructure and rents the use of this space to web sites all over the world. This is like Best Buy starting a construction company because they are building big box retail locations. Amazon turned what traditionally would be a fixed expense into a most likely very profitable business unit.

Another great example is Fulfillment By Amazon. Amazon has something like 60 different warehouses. They receive massive discounts on shipping. They hire tons of people that do nothing but take inventory off the shelve, package it up, and ship it. In fact shipping inventory is something Amazon does really well. Once again, this would be just an expected expense for an online retailer. With Fulfillment By Amazon merchants ship their inventory to Amazon and they store it until the inventory is sold. Amazon then packages up this inventory and ships it out for the merchant - for a fee of course - and this is valid for inventory sold on Amazon (Amazon Marketplace) or via the merchant’s own website. Amazon is allowing other merchants to sub-contract their warehousing, and shipping infrastructure to Amazon.

Some people might say there is a lack of focus here. How can you have all these different business units and maintain focus? Sort of a “Jack of all trades but a master of none”. In order for Amazon to stay on top in Internet retailing, they sort of have to be best in class in all of these areas. They are just opening up some typically private aspects of their business and providing a service. Running the best warehouses and data centers is something they have to do day in and day out anyway. Why not profit from the activity?

Amazon has a number of these examples. Of course online retailing is growing, but at the same time margins are decreasing. On the side lines, Amazon is building some very high margin businesses. This is why Amazon will continue to be an engine of growth for many years to come. As these high margin bi-product businesses grow they will out perform their retail peers. And I find that amazing.

Why Don’t People Think In Terms Of ROI?

2011-12-02T17:18:24+00:00

Something that bugs me is entrepreneurs who are starting a company or making an investment but do not think in terms of return on investment, or ROI. Simply put, ROI is an estimate: if you invest a dollar how much will that dollar grow to? Typically you calculate your ROI as a percentage. Lets say I invest a dollar today and 5 years from now that dollar is worth $1.20. That means you got a 20% return over 5 years (or 3.71% per year).

Also, for the record this rant is not in relationship to the Mark Zuckerbergs, Bill Gates, or Steve Jobs of the world. These guys all started companies when they had no financial worries. The only risk was failing and going back to college. I am speaking the commoners, those who already have jobs. Those who already have a family. Those who already have a mortgage and a car payment. I am speaking to the people who buy rental properties, start web companies at night, or quit their job to go all in on a ice cream shop -not kids in dorm rooms (many of us missed that boat)Something that bugs me is entrepreneurs who are starting a company or making an investment but do not think in terms of return on investment, or ROI. Simply put, ROI is an estimate: if you invest a dollar how much will that dollar grow to? Typically you calculate your ROI as a percentage. Lets say I invest a dollar today and 5 years from now that dollar is worth $1.20. That means you got a 20% return over 5 years (or 3.71% per year).

Also, for the record this rant is not in relationship to the Mark Zuckerbergs, Bill Gates, or Steve Jobs of the world. These guys all started companies when they had no financial worries. The only risk was failing and going back to college. I am speaking the commoners, those who already have jobs. Those who already have a family. Those who already have a mortgage and a car payment. I am speaking to the people who buy rental properties, start web companies at night, or quit their job to go all in on a ice cream shop -not kids in dorm rooms (many of us missed that boat)

Why does this bother me so much? Most people start businesses or make investments to get richer. I realize by default we tend to gravitate towards businesses we are passionate about or investments that make sense to us. This, however, is not always the best investment. If the goal is to maximize wealth why not think in terms of ROI?

The example I love is real estate vs. the stock market. So many people love real estate. They say it is “their thing”. If you compare the ROI of a stock market (or even a REIT) investment to buying a rental property a lot of times you will find a higher ROI in the stock market. The way I see it, therefore, learning about all possible investments and using ROI as a major metric in your decision is the smarter way to go.

Another example. Being in the web world I have friends starting web companies almost every day. Some are trying to build a non-ventured backed company for the “long run”. Some have or are trying to raise venture capital so they can sell their company in the future. One model has a payout via dividends and the other has the payout at the end when the company sells. I think in many cases the ROI for these different models is almost the same (of course it depends on the numbers you hit). When I compare companies such as 37signals, Mailchimp, Freshbooks, and so on to companies like Mint, Outright, and inDinero I think the ROI over 10 years is much higher for the former group of companies than the ladder.

Of course ROI is not the only decision making metric. Still, I think it is pretty darn stupid if that is not a top metric when deciding on investment or businesses.

Being An Elegant Business Programmer

2011-09-11T18:02:39+00:00

“I am a Java programmer.”

“I am an object oriented programmer.”

“I am an agnostic programmer, I can program anything.”

“I am a mobile programmer.”

When talking to software developers everyone is something. Today I am going to reveal what I am, creating a new category of programming, a completely new bucket of organization. Drum roll please.......”I am an elegant business programmer”.

Being Elegant

Ok maybe EBP is not the best name, I will work on a better one. For now, though, let’s define what it is. First let’s analyze the “elegant” part. Code can be a work of art or a tangled web of craziness. I consider code elegant if I can read it as I would a book. A well-written book reads smoothly, and uses words wisely to lead the reader along with the plot. Unnecessary wordiness may drive readers away. Similarly, with software development I should be able to start at the top of a file and read through the entire code at a consistent pace, not getting hung up on any section in particular, and not being flooded with unnecessary terms.

An example of “not so elegant” would be a 10 line sql statement just to return back a perfect sub-set of data, when a “Select *” would have done the trick. That 10 line statement often will cause someone reading the code to stop and spend a great deal of time dissecting. I am sure that block of sql took 100X longer to write then a simplified version that might have returned a little more data. Furthermore, that block of code is very hard to maintain and debug in the future.

I know what people may respond to the statement above with “performance is better with the ugly block of code”. You know what does not perform well? Software that never launches. Or software that launches with tons of bugs. Every performance decision should be made on “will my users notice the difference”. They will notice bugs. They will notice it takes forever for you to release new features.

Be a knowledgeable programmer: recognize when there could be better ways of doing something. However, when software is young, a focus on elegant, maintainable, bug free software is a far better approach.

Naming conventions: keep them readable. Anyone that has ever read my code will notice I use longer and more descriptive class, variable, and function names. Remember: your code should read like a novel. Don’t make your names so unreadable that no one can understand your code. Both Objective-C and Ruby have gone to great lengths to make naming conventions understandable. I try to follow suit.

Another less than elegant approach is being tough with your typing while you program, particularly in scripting languages. I really get annoyed when I see classes riddled with private and public restrictions. I really get annoyed when people go overboard with making sure every variable is typed just perfect. Yes, in some software this stuff really matters. In web scripting world this stuff does not really matter. It just makes you an OCD, control freak programmer. “I am a Java programmer.”

“I am an object oriented programmer.”

“I am an agnostic programmer, I can program anything.”

“I am a mobile programmer.”

When talking to software developers everyone is something. Today I am going to reveal what I am, creating a new category of programming, a completely new bucket of organization. Drum roll please.......”I am an elegant business programmer”.

Being Elegant

Ok maybe EBP is not the best name, I will work on a better one. For now, though, let’s define what it is. First let’s analyze the “elegant” part. Code can be a work of art or a tangled web of craziness. I consider code elegant if I can read it as I would a book. A well-written book reads smoothly, and uses words wisely to lead the reader along with the plot. Unnecessary wordiness may drive readers away. Similarly, with software development I should be able to start at the top of a file and read through the entire code at a consistent pace, not getting hung up on any section in particular, and not being flooded with unnecessary terms.

An example of “not so elegant” would be a 10 line sql statement just to return back a perfect sub-set of data, when a “Select *” would have done the trick. That 10 line statement often will cause someone reading the code to stop and spend a great deal of time dissecting. I am sure that block of sql took 100X longer to write then a simplified version that might have returned a little more data. Furthermore, that block of code is very hard to maintain and debug in the future.

I know what people may respond to the statement above with “performance is better with the ugly block of code”. You know what does not perform well? Software that never launches. Or software that launches with tons of bugs. Every performance decision should be made on “will my users notice the difference”. They will notice bugs. They will notice it takes forever for you to release new features.

Be a knowledgeable programmer: recognize when there could be better ways of doing something. However, when software is young, a focus on elegant, maintainable, bug free software is a far better approach.

Naming conventions: keep them readable. Anyone that has ever read my code will notice I use longer and more descriptive class, variable, and function names. Remember: your code should read like a novel. Don’t make your names so unreadable that no one can understand your code. Both Objective-C and Ruby have gone to great lengths to make naming conventions understandable. I try to follow suit.

Another less than elegant approach is being tough with your typing while you program, particularly in scripting languages. I really get annoyed when I see classes riddled with private and public restrictions. I really get annoyed when people go overboard with making sure every variable is typed just perfect. Yes, in some software this stuff really matters. In web scripting world this stuff does not really matter. It just makes you an OCD, control freak programmer.

Programming For Business

Now, for the second part of EBP. Developers often get trapped in making problems more complex than they really are. They often want to throw the latest and greatest bleeding edge technology at a problem. Developers are engineers, they are complex thinkers. This is all fine and dandy but there is a place and a time for it. The Google 20% time is a great example to be followed. Take 20% of your week and become really innovative. Play with bleeding edge stuff. Dive into deep complex thought processes.

Now, for the rest of the time, do what is best for your company. Most software developers work for a company or a client. Companies and clients are businesses that make money. I try to not lose focus on what really matters for the business: product, customers, revenue, growth, and so on. When making programming decisions I often start with the business reasons for what I am doing and make that a driving force. The computer science theory I learned in college is always second in my design making process.

Lastly, programmers often justify some complex design or bleeding edge approach by saying “I am thinking about the future, therefore I am thinking about the business”. Yes, you should think about the future but through small iterations. You should not slow down the growth of the business side of your company because you need time to build for the future. Get to the future through iterations and 20% time.

Elegant business programming is nothing more than 2 things. “Keep it simple stupid (KISS)”, and don’t let your computer geekness get in the way of the business execution.

Why I Don’t Blog About Investing

2011-07-25T22:20:22+00:00

I don’t blog much about investing in the the stock market. Which is odd because if you meet me in person I will talk your ear off about where I think the market is going or where I think the best investments are. The digital world might not know what an equities nut I am. I don’t blog much because unlike so many other topics I talk about I don’t see investing as a black or white type of thing. I am never 100% sure I know what I am doing. There are just so many data points. I never know if the data points that are important to me are the correct data points to look at. That is what makes a market, right? If we all were looking at the same data points and we all had the same point of view there would not be someone willing to be on the other side of my trades.

With that said I do not want to be another “talking head” telling the world why I am right and why they are wrong about an investment. More importantly I don’t want to get caught up in the rat hole of defending my thesis. There are already tons of “talking heads”; the world does not need me.

One of the things I hate about people who blog about particular investments is very often you do not know when they make the investment (if at all) and at what price. I love reading about what people are investing in as an idea generator, or as a rough sentiment measurement. Without a time frame, such postings are not really great guidance to what I should buy or sell. I don’t blog much about investing in the the stock market. Which is odd because if you meet me in person I will talk your ear off about where I think the market is going or where I think the best investments are. The digital world might not know what an equities nut I am. I don’t blog much because unlike so many other topics I talk about I don’t see investing as a black or white type of thing. I am never 100% sure I know what I am doing. There are just so many data points. I never know if the data points that are important to me are the correct data points to look at. That is what makes a market, right? If we all were looking at the same data points and we all had the same point of view there would not be someone willing to be on the other side of my trades.

With that said I do not want to be another “talking head” telling the world why I am right and why they are wrong about an investment. More importantly I don’t want to get caught up in the rat hole of defending my thesis. There are already tons of “talking heads”; the world does not need me.

One of the things I hate about people who blog about particular investments is very often you do not know when they make the investment (if at all) and at what price. I love reading about what people are investing in as an idea generator, or as a rough sentiment measurement. Without a time frame, such postings are not really great guidance to what I should buy or sell.

On that note, I want to start writing more about strategy. Not, buy Apple at X and sell at Y. I want to engage conversations about types of investments, hedging, value, growth, and so on. Nothing new but I think the blogging world does not strategize enough. Lets talk about buying leap options instead of common stock. Lets talk about capital allocation. Lets talk about how to build good investment thesis. Lets talk about stuff that will educate us to be better investors.

I like reading the blogs of venture capitalist. They often don’t write about “buy Groupon now”. They discuss the nuts and bolts of venture capital. “How do you build a good board of directors”, “How do you raise money”, “How do you get a meeting with a VC” and so on. When a VC blogs about these more strategy type topics it opens up the conversation. It is not about agreeing or disagreeing it is about adding to the conversation “Great strategy! Have you thought about XYZ? It worked for me”. I think the stock bloggers could take some lessons from VC bloggers.

The Internet is littered with “talking heads” giving stock picks. These postings have very little value and expire pretty quickly. I hope in the future we can have more quality content around strategy, which have long term value, spark smarter conversation, and expire at a much slower rate. In the coming months I plan to blog more about what is on my mind in terms of strategy to help re-engage my public voice on stock market investing.

Restaurants Telling Me To F-Off

2011-06-30T18:32:10+00:00

Sure, strong title. Yeah, maybe I am over dramatic, but let me paint a picture for you. I walk into a mid-grade restaurant. You know the type. The type of restaurant you go for a quick snack, or maybe a few beers with your buddies. Not a night club were there is a high chance of people getting drunk and making poor decisions. You might sit around the bar or outside on a patio. Then after being all friendly with the server and placing your order for your first round of drinks the server says “could I get a card to hold”? The server wants to hold on to your credit card to make sure you do not run out without paying the bill. I am never mad at the server I am sure it is a restaurant policy. By doing that, the restaurant management is telling me: “We don’t trust you to pay your bill, we need insurance”. I translate that to the restaurant telling me to “F-off”.

Imagine you walk into some sort of shopping store and someone greeted you and said “Let me see your wallet, I want to make sure you can really buy something here”. I would call that pretty insulting. Restaurants are doing the same thing. They are insulting you.

I know the restaurant takes the risk of serving you food before you pay. I am asking the restaurant to take all the risk here. Yes, I am sure people dine and dash every year at almost every restaurant. However, I am rather certain that the percentage of people that pay vs. those who try to steal is very inbalanced. I would think I would go as far as estimating that less then 1% of the customers try to steal from the restaurant. A restaurant is telling us ‘we would rather say “we don’t trust you”’ to 99% of their customers instead of just taking the loss on less than 1%. Sounds like greed and not caring about the customer.

I write this rant because in recent weeks I have been studying companies that take a real focus on the customer (or, in the Internet world, on the user), companies with a number one core value of always pleasing the customer. I want to learn as much as I can from these companies. The companies I study which put customers / users above everything else always win. They out perform their peers consistently. These are companies that really strive to have every customer experience with the company be as wonderful as possible.Take Apple, Google, Zappos, Lowes, 37signals, Umpqua Bank, and more as examples. Most of these companies even put making their employees happy above profits too.

I realize focusing on the negative is seldom productive. In an odd way, however, I think highlighting the flaws of companies or industries that have piss-poor, not thought out policies with a negative effect on customers is a good thing. Hopefully we all can learn and not make the same mistakes.

Happy customers often lead to happy profits!

Spicer 2.0 (my new website)

2011-06-21T20:42:05+00:00

Overall I am pretty ok with myself, and I am embarrassed with very few things in life. However, one thing that has embarrassed me for years has been my personal website and how little time and effort I have put into it. This embarrasses me for two reasons.

Reason one, I am always telling people they must get a personal site up. They must blog, they must share ideas, they must share with others “what they are selling”. Whenever a friend loses a job, my first advice always is: start a website now. No one cares about your resume. No one cares how good your cover letter is. Good employers, investors, advisers, partners, and so on will spend way more time getting to know you via your personal website. After giving all this advice I chose the first wordpress theme I could find and released. Very little thought into my personal brand. In 3 years of having a personal domain I invested practically no time on my site.

Reason two, I build websites for a living! While not a designer, I really pride myself on building amazing looking sites. I do this by surrounding myself with the best designers I can convince to work with me, and never letting a less then perfect design go live. Some people view the Internet as a tool, not caring what it looks like. Who cares what your hammer looks like, right? Others see the Internet as one big art project. Why can’t the Internet be both? I think I would enjoy building a deck if my tools were more enjoyable (well maybe not but….). Heck my wife certainly makes sure the cleaning tools match. She tries to get everything in red for the kitchen, green for the backyard, blue for the car wash . In my professional life, I have always demanded things be as useful as possible while being enjoyable to look at. Web programing meets top notch design.

As of today I am happy to announce I am no longer embarrassed. The new spicermatthews.com is here and will keep getting better! Never again will I let my personal brand suffer. If you are looking for something that did not make it over to my new site you can check out My Old Site here

All Categories Of Business

2011-03-21T18:23:05+00:00

I have spent my entire professional life at the decision making level with early stage companies. Some companies I founded and some companies I was invited to join. I have been part of a failing team nearly as many times as I have a winning team. These are not all just web start-ups, many traditional businesses as well. This past year I have been reflecting and seeking conclusions to what sets a company up for success and what sends a company to failure. I realize there are no right or wrong answers, but from time to time I am going to start logging my thoughts on my blog. I am hoping to start a conversation with others around these thoughts to help strengthen these ideas.

The Different Aspects Of Business

Particularly in the web start-ups, a company starts with a thesis; “The product we are going to build will change the world because we are going to solve XYZ problem”. Founders get so focused on building this product they do not define the other categories relevant to their business and they give these categories no attention. What do I mean by “categories”? I mean all the other relevant aspects of your business unrelated to building your product: sales, marketing, pr, business development, market research, hiring, branding, fund raising, paper work, and so on. So many founding teams just think they will deal with these things once “the product” is done.

Grow Your Categories Of Business

The successful companies I have been part of have defined the relevant categories and measured month-over-month growth of these categories. Thus, my suggestion to new businesses is: define these categories of business from day one. Determine who is in charge of each category, and measure progress every month. When a founding team is building their product they are often measuring month-over-month progress of the product development.

The rule of thumb that I have seen succeed more often than not is ensuring each category grows in some fashion every month. It does not matter how much. Each category has to make more progress in the coming months than in the past months. If on month one you have an introduction meeting with a possible business partner, on month two you should have one more meeting and maybe sign a letter of intent with the meeting from the previous month.I have spent my entire professional life at the decision making level with early stage companies. Some companies I founded and some companies I was invited to join. I have been part of a failing team nearly as many times as I have a winning team. These are not all just web start-ups, many traditional businesses as well. This past year I have been reflecting and seeking conclusions to what sets a company up for success and what sends a company to failure. I realize there are no right or wrong answers, but from time to time I am going to start logging my thoughts on my blog. I am hoping to start a conversation with others around these thoughts to help strengthen these ideas.

The Different Aspects Of Business

Grow Your Categories Of Business

The successful companies I have been part of have defined the relevant categories and measured month-over-month growth of these categories. Thus, my suggestion to new businesses is: define these categories of business from day one. Determine who is in charge of each category, and measure progress every month. When a founding team is building their product they are often measuring month-over-month progress of the product development.

The rule of thumb that I have seen succeed more often than not is ensuring each category grows in some fashion every month. It does not matter how much. Each category has to make more progress in the coming months than in the past months. If on month one you have an introduction meeting with a possible business partner, on month two you should have one more meeting and maybe sign a letter of intent with the meeting from the previous month.

In a lot of ways all the time saved building a product in a rapid pace goes to waste when a company has to slow down at the end to catch up on the other business categories,

I have never seen, however, a start-up company fail if every category of business grows in progress month over month.

Why I Did Not Answer Your Call

2011-03-07T05:32:20+00:00

Growing up there were really only 2 forms of non-face-to-face communication: land lines (phones), or snail mail (letters in the mail). You used either one of these forms of communication based on your particular needs. Dialogue that was time sensitive or required a lot of back and forth was done over the phone. Dialogue that was less time sensitive was done via snail mail. Both of these forms of communication, for the most part, were very controlled by the recipient. If I received a letter I controlled when I’d open it, and when I’d respond. There is nothing interrupting about a letter. On another note, in the days before cell phones, a phone call only interrupted a person who was near the telephone device. Back then, if you were at work all day you were not home to answer your phone. Likewise once you left work, your work phone would not be distracting to you.

Fast forward to today. The majority of communication is instant. An email shows up in my inbox instantly. A tweet, Facebook message, or IM all reach me instantly, and could reach me 24 hours a day. While all of these are instant in nature, one form of communication really stands out as distracting: The phone ringing in my pocket. All other forms of communication, I can choose to ignore until I am ready to respond, just like the snail mail letter. When it comes to the phone call, however, if I do not respond right then, the caller may leave a message, and I might call back at a time that is not good for that person, starting a loop, a “phone tag”.

The Distraction Called “The Cell Phone”

Let’s say I am sitting at my computer writing a blog post, like I am doing right this very second. I am deep in thought organizing all my thoughts and all of a sudden my phone rings. That switch in context from writing to saying “Hi how are you....” can be very expensive. Once I am done with my phone call it will take time to get back to were I was, sometimes never getting back into the groove I was in.

The gang at 37signals often talks about office interruptions, how in a traditional office your work day is just filled with 10 - 30 minute blocks of focus. In a traditional office, people are constantly distracting each other with the “tap on the shoulder”. With this model employees have to work late or very early in the morning to get any focus. Real work is often not done during the work day. The phone plays that part of “tap on the shoulder” for me. If I paid any attention to it ringing in my pocket I would be distracted breaking my day into blocks of focus instead of continued focus.

I have a habit of managing my time is the most productive and rewarding way I know how and answering the phone is not part of the equation.Growing up there were really only 2 forms of non-face-to-face communication: land lines (phones), or snail mail (letters in the mail). You used either one of these forms of communication based on your particular needs. Dialogue that was time sensitive or required a lot of back and forth was done over the phone. Dialogue that was less time sensitive was done via snail mail. Both of these forms of communication, for the most part, were very controlled by the recipient. If I received a letter I controlled when I’d open it, and when I’d respond. There is nothing interrupting about a letter. On another note, in the days before cell phones, a phone call only interrupted a person who was near the telephone device. Back then, if you were at work all day you were not home to answer your phone. Likewise once you left work, your work phone would not be distracting to you.

Fast forward to today. The majority of communication is instant. An email shows up in my inbox instantly. A tweet, Facebook message, or IM all reach me instantly, and could reach me 24 hours a day. While all of these are instant in nature, one form of communication really stands out as distracting: The phone ringing in my pocket. All other forms of communication, I can choose to ignore until I am ready to respond, just like the snail mail letter. When it comes to the phone call, however, if I do not respond right then, the caller may leave a message, and I might call back at a time that is not good for that person, starting a loop, a “phone tag”.

The Distraction Called “The Cell Phone”

Respect Who You Are Communicating With

Anyone that knows me knows I have zero time in my day to talk on the phone. There are 3 things I do with my day: work, hangout with people (my wife being a big part of that), or “Spicer time”. When I am working I need to be as focused as possible. When hanging out with people I typically do not like to answer my phone because it is just rude to the people I am around. “Spicer time” might be snowboarding, reading, watching TV, or tinkering with some new technology, but it is typically a time when I want to be left to myself.

In 2010 I had over 1500 voice mails in my inbox. Let’s say I answered all those calls, meaning I stopped whatever I was doing and took the call. Let’s say I spoke an average of 10 minutes per call. That works out to 10 days of time spent taking on the phone. 10 days of my life in 2010 could have been dictated by someone else’s schedule. That is just crazy.

Ok fine, I know you are all going to say a good number of those voice mails were people calling back a second time, so if I just handled it when they first called I would not have wasted as much time. Sure. However, the point is: its still a lot of time.

Although I do not have one right answer to this time-wasting dilemma, I risk to affirm that knowing your counterpart’s preferred way of communication and understanding your own are good steps towards successfully saving time.

Music In Your Lives

2011-03-02T12:36:36+00:00

So we all know her, or him but to tell a better story we will keep it to a “her”. The girl that stops everything when “her song” comes on the radio. The girl that will interrupt almost anything you are saying to sing at the top of her lungs whatever song is playing in the background. The girl that can not even drive a block in the car without putting in her favorite CD in the CD player and dancing all the way to the next block. You know what I say to this girl, “Come one!!! Really?? Its one freaking block!!”.While I am wildly annoyed at the above mentioned person, I am starting to realize this behavior is something she can not control. I have spent my life being a computer geek / business man / engineer; a world of black and white, right or wrong, one or zero. This music thing is unexplainable. How can music be so consuming?

Don’t get me wrong. I really like music. I listen to music of all types. I have attempted to play many instruments in my life and have been known to sign a song or two after a few drinks, but never once have I felt so consumed that life has to stop. I am ashamed to say it, but for many years I felt it was inexcusable when a person was so consumed by music that life stopped and complete disregard for the person around them kicked in. Today I realized something. I was at an Eric Clapton concert and I saw the musicians on stage just moving their bodies as if they had no control. That same trance Michael Jackson was so famous for. Mind, body, and soul just taken over by the music. I realized that is the same consumption I have seen from my friends when just the right song happened to be played.

I am always on a quest to understand the world better. To learn from others. To really understand what makes others tick. The power music has to take over one’s being is beyond me and I may never learn to understand it, but I think I can learn to respect it.

Ok music lovers, let’s make a deal. I promise to attempt to understand when the sound of the music is just too strong and it takes you over interrupting me mid-sentence. I promise to support this uncontrollable urge you feel. I promise to continue to evolve and try to understand. All I ask in return is you do the same. Respect that not everyone around you loves the song that is playing. Not everyone around you is taken to that special trance. Most importantly not everyone wants to hear you sing the song at the top of your lungs. If I am ever going to respect music or any one particular song I need to enjoy the original artist, not your dubbed-over version.So we all know her, or him but to tell a better story we will keep it to a “her”. The girl that stops everything when “her song” comes on the radio. The girl that will interrupt almost anything you are saying to sing at the top of her lungs whatever song is playing in the background. The girl that can not even drive a block in the car without putting in her favorite CD in the CD player and dancing all the way to the next block. You know what I say to this girl, “Come one!!! Really?? Its one freaking block!!”.While I am wildly annoyed at the above mentioned person, I am starting to realize this behavior is something she can not control. I have spent my life being a computer geek / business man / engineer; a world of black and white, right or wrong, one or zero. This music thing is unexplainable. How can music be so consuming?

Don’t get me wrong. I really like music. I listen to music of all types. I have attempted to play many instruments in my life and have been known to sign a song or two after a few drinks, but never once have I felt so consumed that life has to stop. I am ashamed to say it, but for many years I felt it was inexcusable when a person was so consumed by music that life stopped and complete disregard for the person around them kicked in. Today I realized something. I was at an Eric Clapton concert and I saw the musicians on stage just moving their bodies as if they had no control. That same trance Michael Jackson was so famous for. Mind, body, and soul just taken over by the music. I realized that is the same consumption I have seen from my friends when just the right song happened to be played.

I am always on a quest to understand the world better. To learn from others. To really understand what makes others tick. The power music has to take over one’s being is beyond me and I may never learn to understand it, but I think I can learn to respect it.

Ok music lovers, let’s make a deal. I promise to attempt to understand when the sound of the music is just too strong and it takes you over interrupting me mid-sentence. I promise to support this uncontrollable urge you feel. I promise to continue to evolve and try to understand. All I ask in return is you do the same. Respect that not everyone around you loves the song that is playing. Not everyone around you is taken to that special trance. Most importantly not everyone wants to hear you sing the song at the top of your lungs. If I am ever going to respect music or any one particular song I need to enjoy the original artist, not your dubbed-over version.

Overall, there are many wonders of this world, music being one of them. We are all attracted to different wonders. I hope to at least understand as many wonders of the world as possible in my life time. “Let the beat rock” ~ Black Eyed Peas

Content Management Systems

2011-02-23T11:39:33+00:00

Content management systems (CMS) have been on my mind for a while now. Several months to be exact. A content management system for the web is a system for publishers, producers of content, to easily distribute content without needing a PhD in computer science. Allowing the producer of the content to focus on the content not the technology. Once a CMS is setup a publisher just logs in to a private admin area to add content. Adding content in most cases is as easy as updating your status on Facebook.

Content Management On The Brain

The reason I have been thinking about and playing around with different content management systems is I have had this good guy bad guy thing going on. As a programmer I have always just felt managing content is for non-programmers. If I need to create a new web page I will just open up a text editor and build that page with my programing skills. Who needs that extra layer of fluff? I have used almost every CMS on the market in the past for client work and personal blogs. I always felt they were great if the primary user was not a technical person. Over the last few months I have had this unexplainable urge to prove to myself that I need a content management. I have been on a quest to find a CMS that speaks to me. Diving deep into each CMS offering in search of a CMS that delivers the flexibility I need as a “programing power house” while at the same time giving me features and interfaces to manage my content in a more effective way.

I spent a great deal of time with Wordpress, PyrosCMS, ExpressionEngine, Drupal, Joomla, and FuelCMS. Almost all these content management systems provided really nice ways to build pages, and a blog (which I am sure is a majority of the CMS market). They all had their pros and cons for customizing into a platform to run my web empire. On several occasions I concluded I was just going to write my own CMS (like every web developer does) but then realized there is a lot to it, hat tip to all you CMS developers out there. Then I went into a phase of “I will just build whatever I need on top of which ever CMS I choose, and maybe contribute the code back to the community”. This was a great idea but felt like there was too much custom hacking going on for the commercial products I manage.

Finally, I fully committed to Expression Engine (EE), the only commercial, non-free, CMS of the bunch. I have been playing with EE for years but always thought it was not suited for my particular needs. I was pretty wrong about that. EE is the most flexible and robust CMS I have ever used. Its channeling system, templating system, and asset manager really allows me to build web applications the way I want and not structured around some restricted way of doing things the CMS developer chose. My team and I at Skyclerk recently fully converted our public marketing site to EE. We are very proud of what we completed and are very excited about the flexibility EE will offer for us to grow in the future.Content management systems (CMS) have been on my mind for a while now. Several months to be exact. A content management system for the web is a system for publishers, producers of content, to easily distribute content without needing a PhD in computer science. Allowing the producer of the content to focus on the content not the technology. Once a CMS is setup a publisher just logs in to a private admin area to add content. Adding content in most cases is as easy as updating your status on Facebook.

Content Management On The Brain

The reason I have been thinking about and playing around with different content management systems is I have had this good guy bad guy thing going on. As a programmer I have always just felt managing content is for non-programmers. If I need to create a new web page I will just open up a text editor and build that page with my programing skills. Who needs that extra layer of fluff? I have used almost every CMS on the market in the past for client work and personal blogs. I always felt they were great if the primary user was not a technical person. Over the last few months I have had this unexplainable urge to prove to myself that I need a content management. I have been on a quest to find a CMS that speaks to me. Diving deep into each CMS offering in search of a CMS that delivers the flexibility I need as a “programing power house” while at the same time giving me features and interfaces to manage my content in a more effective way.

I spent a great deal of time with Wordpress, PyrosCMS, ExpressionEngine, Drupal, Joomla, and FuelCMS. Almost all these content management systems provided really nice ways to build pages, and a blog (which I am sure is a majority of the CMS market). They all had their pros and cons for customizing into a platform to run my web empire. On several occasions I concluded I was just going to write my own CMS (like every web developer does) but then realized there is a lot to it, hat tip to all you CMS developers out there. Then I went into a phase of “I will just build whatever I need on top of which ever CMS I choose, and maybe contribute the code back to the community”. This was a great idea but felt like there was too much custom hacking going on for the commercial products I manage.

Finally, I fully committed to Expression Engine (EE), the only commercial, non-free, CMS of the bunch. I have been playing with EE for years but always thought it was not suited for my particular needs. I was pretty wrong about that. EE is the most flexible and robust CMS I have ever used. Its channeling system, templating system, and asset manager really allows me to build web applications the way I want and not structured around some restricted way of doing things the CMS developer chose. My team and I at Skyclerk recently fully converted our public marketing site to EE. We are very proud of what we completed and are very excited about the flexibility EE will offer for us to grow in the future.

Great You Picked A CMS But.....

I started out this blog posting complaining about how I did not like content management systems because I could just manage the content with my own programing skills, and then flip flopped to “I picked the best of breed and now I am happy”. You might be asking yourself “what gives?”

Through my CMS soul searching I realized what makes a good content management system worth its weight for a programmer is the focus on the content. For me at least, producing content and programing websites relies on different parts of the brain. If I am mixing the two I am not giving 100% to either. A solid CMS allows me, the publisher, to focus completely on the content I am trying to produce and less on how this content will get to the world. That solid focus is very much worth it for me.

Future Of Content Management Systems

While on my path of exploring content management systems I came to realize there has not been much innovation in the CMS world in the last 5 years. Sure, these systems are always improving but nothing has really knocked anyone’s socks off in a Steve Jobs kind of way. I think there are several reasons for this but I would guess the biggest is legacy support. Since so many sites on the Internet are driven by content management systems you can not just flip a switch and release the next big thing and not support the slow adopters.

Here are some ideas of what I think are important to the next generation of content management systems. I hope myself or my company someday will be a part of bringing some of these next generation content management systems to life, but we have much different fish to fry at the moment so we hope more that someone beats us to it.

Content should be managed in-line. It is very clunky and web 1.0 to manage your website from some admin panel. Content creation is a bit of an art. Giving an artist a canvas to create on in real-time is a much better way. Let me see my content as I am creating it. It is very time consuming and disconnecting to build the content in one place and then review it in another. Now-a-days there is no reason for this separation. A few are working on this. MojoMotor for example, from the makers of ExpressionEngine, has done a pretty good job of bringing this concept to life. I hope someday some of the ideas from MojoMotor make it into EE.

Where is the content management system for web applications? Yes, there are platforms like Force.com, and Google App engine but they are more plays from their cooperate leadership to lock customers into subscription fees. As a web application developer, every application I write is nearly the same. Data in, data out, and data reports. If I am building an accounting system (http://skyclerk.com), or a system for personal trainers (http://elevationfit.com), it is all the same interaction. We spend more time on the “theme” layer customizing the UI to meet the needs of the particular industry. Our back-end code has gotten so generic in nature that building a super generic CMS for applications is not too hard and I think would be very useful in this world. Imagine if every business owner could build their own web application to help manage the particular data of their organization with a few clicks, as easily as installing Wordpress - which most business owners can do these days. Imagine a plug and play system for mobile developers to help manage the content on their mobile application instead of having to build something custom. A CMS like this could have been very useful for a company like Four Square in their early days.

Drop & Drag building of sites. Why are / were Front Page, Dreamweaver, and iWeb so popular? Because people do not have to be a front-end programmer to build pretty nice sites. A user can drop and drag assets into the site editor and move things around until they have built the site of their dreams. I have seen many sites built using these systems from someone who has no idea how to program html. The problem in the past was these systems were not very robust, nor were they very maintainable. I think with HTML 5 we can build systems that allow users to engage in just that manner while being robust and maintainable. I think this type of process belongs in a CMS - and it might go well with my in-line editing idea above. Many sites are working on this, including google sites, but I am not sure the big players have jumped on-board yet.

Overall, I think the next generation of content management systems is around the corner and I look forward to being an early adopters of them or maybe even a contributor.

Love Of Evernote & The Art Of Reflection

2010-12-05T08:18:27+00:00

I have never really been a note taker. For the most part I always have a pen and paper nearby in case I want to jot something down, but often I do not use them. I do not know what constitutes a good memory, but given the fact I can often remember most everything (minus names, spellings, and phone numbers) I am going to say I have a good memory.

This brings me to my new favorite product, Evernote. Evernote is a note taking solution that makes it easy to remember things big and small from your notable life using your computer, phone, and the web. I am going to go as far as naming it my 2nd favorite product of the year. My 1st favorite product is Skyclerk, of course!!

For over a year now I have been looking at Evernote thinking “cool product, I really want to use it, but I am not a note taker”. A few months ago I just took the plunge and started putting anything and everything into Evernote and my life has changed because the use of Evernote has taught me the art of reflection.I have never really been a note taker. For the most part I always have a pen and paper nearby in case I want to jot something down, but often I do not use them. I do not know what constitutes a good memory, but given the fact I can often remember most everything (minus names, spellings, and phone numbers) I am going to say I have a good memory.

This brings me to my new favorite product, Evernote. Evernote is a note taking solution that makes it easy to remember things big and small from your notable life using your computer, phone, and the web. I am going to go as far as naming it my 2nd favorite product of the year. My 1st favorite product is Skyclerk, of course!!

For over a year now I have been looking at Evernote thinking “cool product, I really want to use it, but I am not a note taker”. A few months ago I just took the plunge and started putting anything and everything into Evernote and my life has changed because the use of Evernote has taught me the art of reflection.

Evernote as a reflection tool has really opened up my mind. What do I mean by that? After any sort of meeting I will sit down in front of Evernote and replay the meeting in my head transcribing all relevant notes into it. As I write these notes and upload supporting material I am able to reflect about the meeting in ways I have never done before. “What was that person trying to get at?” “Did I come on too strong?” “Shit, I meant to tell the person XYZ”. Taking the time to make such reflections is really helping me grow in all aspects of my professional life. I think we all do those types of reflections in sort of a micro way as we jog our memories from time to time. Taking all these micro reflections and forcing yourself to combine them into an aggregated document to me seems so much more powerful.

The point of this posting is of course to highlight my new favorite tool but more importantly highlight the importance of taking the time to personally reflect on any interaction in our life that has something you can learn from or requires some future action on your part. Evernote is a tool that really jives with me. I am sure there are many other tools out there that do the same. Pick whatever tool or process that works for you and give it a shot.

The New Age Business Man / Woman

2010-06-10T02:56:04+00:00

Something that has been on my mind for a while now is; What does the new age business person looks like? As more and more consumer dollars are being spend online and less and less spent in person on the streets, how does this affect the first time entrepreneur? Really great companies have been built by people with simple resumes. I see in many ways it is becoming harder and harder for a first time entrepreneur to break ground on their dream because they have to do business on the web.

It use to just take someone that was willing to work long hard hours and maybe some start up capital to build a truly profitable business. Whatever business the entrepreneur was going to go into they did not have to have 20 years of experience working in the industry, however in many cases that helped. I have a close friend who went to college and graduated with a business degree. Other than odd college jobs this friend did not have much of a resume. He knew one thing; he did not want to work for "the man", and he was willing to work his butt of to make it happen. After much research he raised a small amount of capital and went into the fast food business. Today he has grown the business rather successfully. All this friend had was a passion and a good head on his shoulders.

The New Skill Set Needed

The above example is getting harder and harder with the move to the web. To launch even a basic business you often have to surround yourself with domain experts in all sorts of different niches. If you want to compete on the web. You need to hire a designer, web programmer, mobile programmer, sysadmin, web marketer, experts on understanding your market, and more. You can not just sit on a busy street count the people going by to understand your market. You can not just lease a space and open your doors. You have to surround yourself with domain experts that often are not cheap. So a good head on your shoulders and some start up capital turns into a bunch of people with good heads on their shoulders and tons of capital.

How Do We Solve The Problem?

The problem I want to solve; Is how do we move the world to the web but keep the "all you need is a dollar and a dream" way of business alive? I know there is not a simple answer and as the Facebook generation morphs into business people they will already be hitting the streets with a leg up on my generation and older generations, but I would like to find better ways to bridge the gap.
Something that has been on my mind for a while now is; What does the new age business person looks like? As more and more consumer dollars are being spend online and less and less spent in person on the streets, how does this affect the first time entrepreneur? Really great companies have been built by people with simple resumes. I see in many ways it is becoming harder and harder for a first time entrepreneur to break ground on their dream because they have to do business on the web.

It use to just take someone that was willing to work long hard hours and maybe some start up capital to build a truly profitable business. Whatever business the entrepreneur was going to go into they did not have to have 20 years of experience working in the industry, however in many cases that helped. I have a close friend who went to college and graduated with a business degree. Other than odd college jobs this friend did not have much of a resume. He knew one thing; he did not want to work for "the man", and he was willing to work his butt of to make it happen. After much research he raised a small amount of capital and went into the fast food business. Today he has grown the business rather successfully. All this friend had was a passion and a good head on his shoulders.

The New Skill Set Needed

How Do We Solve The Problem?

AudioBox - Real Cloud Based Music

2010-05-17T02:55:52+00:00

When it comes to hardware and operating systems I am one of the biggest Apple fan boys out there. When it comes to software and control I am truly annoyed by Apple. As a side note I am an Apple share holder and I love what they do from a business stand point. Apple has held back music players for years. They released iTunes a long time ago and it blew all the music players out of the water. Back then compiled desktop based software was cool. Then they went full speed ahead with the Apple iTunes music store. This was amazing from a lets kill cds standpoint.

I have a library of music that I have gotten from all different sources; Amazon, iTunes, cd rips, and so on. I want to stuff all this music in one bloat free place and have it with me everywhere I go. If I am 100% an Apple user this place is iTunes, but I am not. I have an Android phone, a windows netbook, linux laptop, Apple desktop, Apple laptop. There is no easy way with iTunes to keep all these devices in sync when it comes to my music. Nor do I want my 13 Gig music stash living on all these devices. The service that was about to do all this was Lala.com until Apple purchased them and closed them down. Grooveshark.com has sort of done it but their way of doing things is a little odd and they use way to much flash.When it comes to hardware and operating systems I am one of the biggest Apple fan boys out there. When it comes to software and control I am truly annoyed by Apple. As a side note I am an Apple share holder and I love what they do from a business stand point. Apple has held back music players for years. They released iTunes a long time ago and it blew all the music players out of the water. Back then compiled desktop based software was cool. Then they went full speed ahead with the Apple iTunes music store. This was amazing from a lets kill cds standpoint.

I have a library of music that I have gotten from all different sources; Amazon, iTunes, cd rips, and so on. I want to stuff all this music in one bloat free place and have it with me everywhere I go. If I am 100% an Apple user this place is iTunes, but I am not. I have an Android phone, a windows netbook, linux laptop, Apple desktop, Apple laptop. There is no easy way with iTunes to keep all these devices in sync when it comes to my music. Nor do I want my 13 Gig music stash living on all these devices. The service that was about to do all this was Lala.com until Apple purchased them and closed them down. Grooveshark.com has sort of done it but their way of doing things is a little odd and they use way to much flash.

Finally!!! AudioBox to the rescue!! AudioBox is a service that gives me a complete cloud-based music solution. I pay them a small fee and can upload all my music. I can play their music from any web browser. They have a mobile platform, and best of all they exposed an API that allows me to have complete control over my music collection. While I am sure the rumors that Apple is working on a cloud-based version of iTunes is true, I am 100% sure they are not going to give you complete control over your music nor are they going to make it very easy for me to use my music on non-apple devices.

Below is a little PHP script I wrote to mass up load my music to AudioBox. I am using AudioBox 100% from now on! I am sick of plugging my phone into my computer. I am sick of writing sync scripts to keep my mp3's up-to-date on all my devices.




/*

	By: Spicer Matthews 

	Date: 5/16/2010

*/



$email = 'user@example.org';

$pass = '**********';

$dir = '/my/music/folder';

foreach(get_filenames($dir) AS $key => $row)

{

	if(preg_match('/.mp3/', strtolower($row)))

		exec("curl -F media=@'$row' -u $email:$pass https://audiobox.fm/api/tracks");

}

	

//

// Get all file names in directory. (thanks CI - http://codeigniter.com/user_guide/helpers/file_helper.html)

//	

function get_filenames($source_dir, $include_path = TRUE, $_recursion = FALSE)

{

  static $_filedata = array();

  		

  if ($fp = @opendir($source_dir))

  {

  	if ($_recursion === FALSE)

  	{

  		$_filedata = array();

  		$source_dir = rtrim(realpath($source_dir), DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR).DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR;

  	}

  	

  	while (FALSE !== ($file = readdir($fp)))

  	{

  		if (@is_dir($source_dir.$file) && strncmp($file, '.', 1) !== 0)

  		{

  			 get_filenames($source_dir.$file.DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR, $include_path, TRUE);

  		}

  		elseif (strncmp($file, '.', 1) !== 0)

  		{

  	

  			$_filedata[] = ($include_path == TRUE) ? $source_dir.$file : $file;

  		}

  	}

  	return $_filedata;

  }

}

?>

Power, Greed, & Money Does Some Good

2010-04-22T11:52:34+00:00

As many of you know, I am a big follower of the world in terms of money flow. I love all aspects of investment. I love all aspects of business. No one would ever call me a hippy. I am as capitalistic as they come. Most would say I would sell my first born to make a buck. While not true you get the point.

All while I aline myself with the group of people that think profit is the end all be all. One thing that I think capitalistic America does so well is giving back. This is something I do not think any other capital based country does as well as the US. We give back on a constant bases and will really rally when called to action.

I write this while I watch American Idol's "Idol Gives Back" show, (http://www.americanidol.com). It reminded me of the show that aired a few months back to raise funds for Haiti.

There is plenty to complain about American Greed. There is plenty to complain about our profit motivated society but one amazing bi-product is the give back americans have and the speed at which we can give back if call upon.

Have you given back lately?As many of you know, I am a big follower of the world in terms of money flow. I love all aspects of investment. I love all aspects of business. No one would ever call me a hippy. I am as capitalistic as they come. Most would say I would sell my first born to make a buck. While not true you get the point.

All while I aline myself with the group of people that think profit is the end all be all. One thing that I think capitalistic America does so well is giving back. This is something I do not think any other capital based country does as well as the US. We give back on a constant bases and will really rally when called to action.

I write this while I watch American Idol's "Idol Gives Back" show, (http://www.americanidol.com). It reminded me of the show that aired a few months back to raise funds for Haiti.

There is plenty to complain about American Greed. There is plenty to complain about our profit motivated society but one amazing bi-product is the give back americans have and the speed at which we can give back if call upon.

Have you given back lately?