Project Idealism

Episode #13: William Carleton and I discuss the JOBS act

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Wicklander) — Thu, 30 Aug 2012 22:06:00 +0000

After an extended hiatus, the Project Idealism podcast returns with William Carlton, a Seattle based attorney who specializes in startups. William and I discuss a variety of things about the new JOBS act, though much of our focus is on the crowd funding provisions.

For an excellent resource on the JOBS act and a variety of other topics, check out Williams home on the internet at http://wac6.com.

Big thanks again to William for taking the time to share his knowledge with me and our listeners!

As always, you can subscribe to the podcast in iTunes or listen to the show in your browser via the embedded player below.

My blog has a new home

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Wicklander) — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 17:31:00 +0000

After launching Brytter, I moved my writing over to the new platform which you can get to at http://project idealism.brytter.com.

I initially pointed the Project Idealism domain to the new Brytter blog but that ended up breaking all my previous post links from Google. So until I get that straightened out I pointed the domain back here.

In the meantime, check out my latest posts at http://projectidealism.brytter.com.

Product Launch: Brytter

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Wicklander) — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 19:02:00 +0000

I launched a new product yesterday called Brytter, and it's a super easy, super fast blogging platform. You can read more about it via the announcement on the Byrtter Blog.

Over the next couple weeks I'll likely be transitioning to do all my writing full time on Brytter, as opposed to this blog which is currently hosted on Blogger.

Whether you subscribe to the RSS feed, visit the website, or receive email updates you won't have to take any action to continue receiving my posts, but the site will look different if you're used to visiting in your browser.

I know my writing has been a little sporadic lately and I should start being a bit more consistent again soon. Not as an excuse, but just to explain, we've been pretty busy over here and unfortunately my writing has suffered.

My wife Maile opened an awesome new yoga studio in October, which led to me building a product called Tula Software, a yoga studio management software, and I've also hired two new full time employees for Ideal Project Group.

It seems as though sometimes I get a backlog of things I'd like to write about in my brain, and then I get stuck because I don't want to write something else until I get the backlog of ideas cleared. This, of course, leads to gridlock.

And pretty much all the things I've been wanting to write about are Maile's studio, the new software, and my new employees. Hopefully this post will get me a little unstuck on that front.

I've learned more than I ever imagined I would know about collecting money online, point of sale systems, merchant accounts and a host of other things I'll be sharing soon that you'll hopefully find useful.

Happy Super Bowl Sunday!

Why we need to stop SOPA and PIPA

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Wicklander) — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 06:31:00 +0000

You may be aware that a number of websites took their services offline yesterday to protest two laws being considered by the United States congress.

These laws would legalize internet censorship in our country, and put us on par with countries such as China and Iran when it comes to internet freedom. Illinois Senator Dick Durbin is a Co-Sponsor of the PIPA legislation. You can call his office at (202) 224-2152 if you would like to voice your opposition.

Please take a few minutes to understand how these laws would impact the internet, and you, by watching this great tutorial on the laws by the Khan Academy.

The technology is the easy part

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Wicklander) — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 14:15:00 +0000

Of course, this doesn't mean the technology is easy. It's just that when it comes to building a product, giving it a great design, marketing it, getting people's attention, and inspiring them to part with their money for what you've made...... the technology is the easy part.

I think about this whenever people ask me whether I think a product they want me to build could be successful. Indeed, one person asked me how long I thought it would be until he could receive the return on his investment should I build out his product.

The problem with that question is that it's relative, and the answer depends on so many factors beyond the technology that it's impossible to answer. The only way to respond is with a series of other questions:

How many people read your blog? How many other products do you have that people use and love? How many people do you have on a mailing list? How many press relationships do you have? How many investors do you know? And on and on and on.

The mistake people often make (I've made this mistake too) is that they assume the technology is the hard part, and that if they could only get their product built, if they could only find the right engineer, that everything else would take care of itself.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

It's true that sometimes you do need to build something in order to sell it. Just know that of all the things you'll need to do to be successful - the technology is the easy part.

Opportunities are progressive

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Wicklander) — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 04:14:00 +0000

Sometimes, we fall into the trap of thinking opportunity is a huge, one time event that rolls by, and if we miss it, we're doomed never to see another one like that again.

I think though, that most opportunities are built upon the foundation of previous, smaller ones gone well. So while each is bigger than the earlier; progressively they're only slightly larger.

Maybe, what looks like a really big opportunity out of nowhere is more like a wave on an ocean in which we've been able to put ourselves. It can be hard, but I like trying to make myself look at things this way, because what happens is I see that there are little opportunities all around us - no matter where we are.

Very likely, someone with what looks like a big opportunity had a lot of good execution behind the smaller ones we didn't see.

Mark Cuban's terrible idea

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Wicklander) — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 16:23:00 +0000

Mark Cuban has had a lot of good ideas. He's an entrepreneur who is smart, wealthy, owns a world champion basketball team, and has been making cameo's on HBO's hit show Entourage.

He's seems pretty awesome actually.

But they say that in order to have good ideas, you need to have a lot of bad ones, and this truth is reflected most recently in his blog post titled "An Idea for the Economy that will Freak Out a lot of People but could be Fun to Discuss."

In it, Mark makes the argument that what our economy needs is jobs, and that the way we should do that is to allow companies to self identify themselves as companies that could create jobs, and get loans directly from the government. The idea being that a business could say "If I had X dollars, I could make Y jobs" and that this would be more efficient than the government trying to create jobs.

I like this idea.

It drives me nuts that the Federal Reserve prints money, gives it to banks with almost no interest, and then we pay the banks somewhere between 3% and 6% when we borrow money. And this idea of directly injecting capital to people that could create jobs is great.

Where his idea goes terribly awry though is in who he thinks should get these loans. Here's his criteria:

Of course you will have to set some minimum parameters in order to prevent the dreamers, crazies and who knows whats from clogging up the system. I would set those minimums including: The company must be in business for at least 10 years. They must be have at least 100 full time employees. They must do 100mm in revenues. And of course they must be up to date on their taxes and Im sure there are other things to think of as well.

Before the commentary, let's just list a some companies that would be eligible for this program, and those that would not be:

Eligible

AIG - one of the root causes of our financial crisis
Citibank - Full of liars and crooks
Bank of America - Liars and crooks
General Motors - Maker of cars that still have the same gas mileage as 15-20 years ago.
Etc. Etc. Etc.

Not Eligible

37signals - Creators of Ruby on Rails, catalyst for some of the biggest innovations our economy has seen in decades.
Chargify - the company he just invested in that has constant job openings.
Tesla - Makers of the worlds only electric engine that gets a range of over 300 miles.
My wife's new yoga studio - a new brick and mortar business in the neighborhood where we raise our kids.
Countless technology startups
Community banks that invest in local businesses.

The reality is that many companies that would be eligible under Mark's plan are the very companies that need to die. And giving them loans would only keep them on life support longer. Moreover, they are the less productive than smaller companies.

We'd be giving loans to companies so people could sit around conference room tables shuffling power points back and forth instead of giving the money to the doers that are actually getting things done right now.

In a rain forest, when an older tree dies, the younger trees literally race towards the sky in an attempt to become the tallest where their leaves get the sun. Mark's plan is akin to bringing in bulldozers - trampling all over the small trees - and holding up the dead trees with hooks and chains.

It's paying $1,000,000 per year keeping your brain dead 110 year old grandmother on life support instead of putting money aside so your children can start their own businesses.

Mark's idea to allow businesses borrow money directly from the government at extremely low interest rates is a good one.

But he's horribly, horribly mistaken on who should actually get the money.

You should use Formstack

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Wicklander) — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 04:51:00 +0000

I've been working on a few different projects lately, and it's occurred to me that Formstack has become one of the software tools I rely on most heavily. In fact, it has become almost as important as the 37signals products. Which is appropriate I suppose, since I first heard of them about 3 years ago or so on the now discontinued product blog.

If you're not familiar with Formstack, they make it very easy to create online forms. Now, I know what you're thinking. Ooooh, online forms......seriously? But seriously, they're awesome, because there's some pretty great stuff you can do for your business by using them.

Integrations all over the place.

Before I get into some of the specific things you can use them for, it helps to understand that Formstack can act as another way to get information into other systems. They've integrated with customer contact systems, Merchant Accounts, email providers, and a bunch of others. I describe them as a window into many other systems. Okay, now that we understand part of their awesomeness is that they hook into a bunch of other stuff, some specifics.

Accept money online. Beautifully.

PayPal is of course one of the most common ways to accept money online. Problem is, their interface for entering in credit card information leaves a lot to be desired. Since Formstack integrates with them though, a $30/month merchant account from PayPal (they also hook into tons of other merchant accounts as well) allows you to create a seamless buying experience for your customers. Formstack has these same integrations with tons of other providers, AND, they now integrate with Chargify - which is a recurring billing system.

My point is - you can set up an awesome online payment system with little effort that is extremely friendly to your users. I used this for Maile's payment setup for her yoga studio which you can check out here if you want to see it in action.

QA Scripts

For another project I'm working on right now, we're collecting a bunch of user feedback on a specific application. There are certain sections we want to understand better, what users found intuitive, where they had issues, etc.

By using Formstack I can send out a single url to many people at once, collect a bunch of information from them, and use the report generator to visually look at the data. This makes it easier to spot issues quickly and better understand the main problem areas inside an application.

Mailing Lists

If you want to collect email addresses you can do so easily, and have everything flow into an email service provider like Mail Chimp.

There are a host of other things you can do with these guys, and whatever your business, there's probably a good chance there's at least one thing they can make you're life easier with.

Fuel for inspiration

I personally think having Formstack, if only for integrating with a merchant, is worth the money. Even if you're not selling anything yet.

One of my very favorite quotes is by Jason Fried; that "Inspiration is Perishable." He explains that ideas last for ever, but the inspiration to act on an idea - that's fleeting. And so when you're inspired to do something new, or try doing an old thing in a new way, that you should act immediately. Because you'll never be more motivated to do that than when you first have the idea.

And so ultimately, that's why Formstack is so great. Because it helps you harness your inspiration, act quickly and - and this is very important - create an experience for your users that feels elegant.

I simply can't recommend these guys enough.

Look Back

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Wicklander) — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 03:32:00 +0000

I was on a camping trip in the Grand Canyon many years ago with a good friend of mine. One of the interesting things about hiking their is that unlike many others, the climb comes at the end of the hike, instead of the beginning.

I remember climbing our way up the rim, after hiking for 6 days, and that it seemed like it took forever. We'd look ahead and be sure we were nearing the top, only to come to a turn and realize that the end was still far, far away.

This happened over and over again - for hours.

At one point, we turned around, and we were stunned. There we were, staring at the enormity of the Grand Canyon, with the same views as we had on our way down. When we were looking ahead, slowly climbing, and gauging our progress by looking forward, it seemed like we weren't making any progress at all.

It was only when we took a moment to turn around, and look back, that we realized how far we had actually come.

I think about this with business too. You often hear people telling you not to dwell on the past and to focus on what's ahead of you. Don't dwell on failures, pick yourself up, learn more, make more, ship more, etc.

But too often we get so caught up in focusing on where we want to be, that we forget how far we've already come.

Sometimes, the only way to tell if we're moving forward is to stop and look back.

Every Business is a Lifestyle Business

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Wicklander) — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 22:01:00 +0000

I feel like I've been hearing the term "Lifestyle Business" a lot lately.

If you're not familiar with the term, it generally refers to businesses that are small, run by people who have determined the kind of life they want to lead, and are generally worried more about sustaining themselves than they are with growing their company on some large scale.

What bothers me is that this term is almost always referenced in a derogatory way. People will say things like "Oh, it's 'just' a lifestyle business". Or, "I wanted to do something bigger than just have a lifestyle business".

The thing is, every business, every single one, is a Lifestyle business.

If you're a social media superstar traveling the globe giving speeches - that's a lifestyle. If you're Donald Trump, you're living a certain lifestyle and building businesses that support it. If you're hustling to raise money for your startup, that too is a lifestyle.

The other thing is that using the term in a negative way simply doesn't make any sense. Built into the definition is that someone thought about what they wanted out of life, decided what made them happy, and then built a business that could support the life they wanted.

There's nothing trivial about doing that, it certainly doesn't come easily, and it's definitely not something to look down your nose on.

People should run whatever kind of business that makes them happy, fulfilled, and allows them to live the life they want to lead. But just because one person's ideal life is running a huge corporation, and another's ideal life is being a freelancer doesn't make it any less of a lifestyle choice.

Every business is a Lifestyle business. Be sure you're building the one you want.

Gay Rights: An issue of liberty, not biology

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Wicklander) — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 21:37:00 +0000

I went on a bit of a twitter rampage the other day when NY Giants football player David Tyree came out against Gay marriage.

Like most people fervently against Gay marriage, David uses God as his primary justification for being against it, (there's just too much love in the word!) claiming that it threatens to ruin marriage. Never mind the fact that his mom was divorced when he was one year old. Never mind the fact that his daughter was born out of wedlock. David has found God and is now justified in telling our Gay friends how they should live their lives.

In other words, pretty typical hypocritical bullshit that's usually espoused by these people. Apparently David didn't get the memo about Jesus living a life of poverty. His house sure does look nice.

The problem I'd like to address though is that these debates eventually spiral into a debate about whether Gay people are born gay or whether they choose to be gay. And unfortunately, people ALWAYS take this bait.

Please. Stop it.

It doesn't matter, it is irrelevant, and it's harming your cause.

The problem with the "born this way/made this way" argument is that it accepts the premise that being gay is inherently wrong, but that it's "okay" because gay people were made that way.

It does not matter one bit whether you are gay because you were born that way, because you feel safer with a partner of the same sex, or because you ate a bunch of ecstasy one crazy night in college that changed your world forever.

Frankly, I don't really care why your gay. I care a lot that you are able to obtain the same rights that my wife and I have.

Being a rational human being with the intelligence of at least a five year old, I of course know that people are born gay. I'm just saying it doesn't matter and it's irrelevant to the debate over why Gay people should have the same rights as straight people.

The opposition will always find some "expert" or "convert" to "prove" that being Gay is a choice. Fine. Who cares?

The reason people should have the right to marry someone of the same sex is not because of the way they were born. In our country, grown adults (and in some cases teenagers) are allowed to enter into a legal partnership with a person of their choosing. Period.

The only argument required for this debate is one of liberty.

Some people in our country are allowed to receive the legal benefits of a legal partnership, some are not.

That's discrimination, and that's why it's wrong.

Please, stop falling into the trap of whether you were born gay or made gay. It's hurting your cause and accepts a flawed premise that you are somehow flawed but just can't help it.

As a free American, the reason you're gay is irrelevant.

Make the argument about liberty, not biology.

By the way, here's David Tyree doing his absolute best to honor the lord and all his creations. I'm sure Jesus would be proud David.

UPDATE: I changed the title to more accurately represent the context of the post. Original title was "Dear gay people, please stop making this argument"

Also, good job New York!

Podcast Episode #12: Mike Hostetler and Jonathan Sharp of appendTo

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Wicklander) — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 23:53:00 +0000

In this episode of my podcast I interviewed Jonathan Sharp and Mike Hostetler of appendTo, a JQuery development shop that was founded by the two in 2009.

They took the time to talk about the growth of their organization, how they go about getting clients, being a small business that works with big clients, and the point at which they turn business down.

We also talked quite a bit about pricing, managing teams that are geographically dispersed, and the benefits and challenges that come with working from home or in a small office.

Mike and Jonathan are really nice guys, and I'm very thankful they took the time to sit down with me to talk about their business, how they run it, and how they're going about growing the company. Thanks again guys.

As always, you can listen to the podcast right here in the post, or you can subscribe to the podcast in iTunes.

Thanks for the intro and exit music this time around goes to Peter, Bjorn and John. The Swedish band makes a bunch of their music available to podcasters at Music Alley.

Flash:

Quicktime:

Cash flow and the posture of your business

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Wicklander) — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 16:10:00 +0000

One of the many things I've learned over the past few years is the importance of cash flow, (h/t Ryan) and that understanding how it affects your business can have a dramatic affect on it's health.

It used to be that when I would hear about or think about cash flow, I simply thought it meant having money in a bank account. And since I knew having money in my business account was good, I felt like the concept of "cashflow" was synonymous with "having money in the bank".

I realize now that I completely misunderstood the concept of cashflow, and my guess is that a lot of other small businesses and freelancers do as well.

Instead of thinking about cashflow in terms of the amount of money coming into your business, and how frequently it's coming in; you have to think about it in terms of when that money comes in - pinned to a moment in time, and an activity that you will be doing for that money.

Before I understood how important cash flow was to a business, whenever I was engaged on a project I would do the work, and then get paid for doing the work. I'd do this whether I was running a project, building a website, making an app, or pretty much anything else.

The problem with this is that you're constantly flat footed because you're always loaning something out (usually your time) before you get something in return.

Instead, I now charge 50% up front for fixed bid work, and then bill the remaining 50% when it's completed. This of course is not unique and a lot of folks do this - but I never fully understood how big of an impact it can have until I saw the affect on my business.

Likewise, for ongoing services, I now try as much as possible to get paid before the service is provided - instead of after.

Billing this way allows you to invest customer payments into your business more quickly, and it can set you up so that if you bring on additional help - you already have money in the bank to pay for them.

Compare this with putting money into hiring someone before a customer pays you and you start to see the ramifications pretty quickly.

The result of getting paid at least something up front is a very forward leaning posture that allows you to grow and invest in your business in ways that you can't do if you only get paid once the work is completed. There are also a host of other positive affects such as knowing who is serious, working with people that have shown they can pay on time, etc.

Essentially, it's a way to pre-screen potential clients.

Those of us that work in service businesses are often eager to help people, and tend to be quite generous with our time. For anyone that's currently billing only once your work is entirely complete, I'd encourage you to start billing a bit up front.

You'll find you have better customers, more money in the bank, and a posture that allows you to invest more time and money into your own business.

New design for Ideal Project Group

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Wicklander) — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 19:05:00 +0000

I've been wanting to redesign the Ideal Project Group website for a while, but between client work and SignalKit, I hadn't made it a priority. I finally got to the redesign this week, and I'm really happy with how it turned out. Here's a screenshot:

There were a few key things I wanted to address with the site, and also some areas where I wanted to practice.

Reflecting where my business is right now

First, I needed to make the site a more honest representation of who I am, what Ideal Project Group is, and how it and I relate. In other words, I am Ideal Project Group, and Ideal Project Group is me, and it was time for my website to reflect this reality.

I wrote a month or two ago about the lesson Maile taught me about accepting where you are, and I really wanted to make a site that didn't portray where I hoped to be in a few years - but showed where I was at right now. I think I got it right this time.

Easy to update portfolio

The other thing I needed to do was have an easy way to update my portfolio. I was really slacking on keeping my site up to date with my latest client work, and I needed to fix that. The site is entirely hand written by me, but I plugged in Perch - the really little content management system I learned about from Ryan Singer. They have an awesome (no, seriously, it's amazing) portfolio app that allows you to add an image gallery, light boxes, and some other goodies.

Now, when I want to update my portfolio, I simply go to the Perch admin section, write a paragraph, upload a photo, and I'm done.

Attention to Typography

Something I've been practicing with more lately is typography, and choosing fonts that work well together and portray the right message. I've been using TypeKit lately, and I love it. I used Georgia and Garamond throughout the site, and in the left sidebar where I call out the things I create, I used the Angie STD sans-serif font.

I'll probably keep playing with the sidebar font, but overall I'm very happy with how things turned out.

Quickly showing products and publications

One thing I liked about my blog that I wanted my site to replicate was showing all my info on one page. Now, right on the landing page, I outline what I do, who I do it for, what my products are, and what my latest blog posts and podcasts were.

It's a challenge to show this much information without it being overwhelming, but I think I've managed to list it all without the site looking too busy.

Pricing

The last thing I wanted to do was make my pricing clear and easy to understand. Instead of listing out products, services, and pricing though, I took a slightly different approach. Where I describe my services, I outline my typical fees under the description. Then, in the portfolio section, I say what a similar website build would cost.

This allows new visitors to get a decent understanding of my pricing model, and to see if I'm right for their budget.

Let's see what happens

Of course, I don't know how this new site will perform yet. But, I think it's a unique site with a bit of personality, that definitely stands out - especially when compared to many of the other sites that show up in the same search queries as mine.

I'm definitely open to feedback and curious to hear peoples thoughts, so if you have any you'd like to share - I'd love to hear what you have to say.

How the Patriot Act affects my small business and makes me racist

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Wicklander) — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 18:15:00 +0000

For almost the past five years, I've been running my little software company. Sometimes employing people, sometimes sending along work to independent contractors, working to build wealth with software, and feeding my kids and paying my mortgage with the skills that I've acquired.

In short, I'm a small business, and a productive member of the economy of the United States.

I've realized though that there's something terribly wrong.

I'm worried that the government is listening in on my phone calls, reading my emails, and looking into my bank accounts.

Why?

A few weeks back I was contacted by another small business person who wanted a website built for their company. They found me via my ad on Sortfolio, and they were looking to get the first version of a website built.

Perfect. It's one of the things I do.

The only thing different about this client from a host of others is that they're based out of the United Arab Emirates. We do live in a global economy now, and it's wonderful that someone in the UAE can have me, in Chicago, build a website for them.

So what's the problem?

The problem is that according to US law, since I've now been having Skype phone calls with someone outside our borders, and I've been sent money via PayPal, (from the Middle East no less) the government can basically look, listen, and investigate anything they want without any warrant or oversight.

This, of course, is horse shit.

And I bring it up and write about it because everyone seems to think that the Patriot Act is some far off - "doesn't really affect me" kind of thing. But it's not. It affects you, your friends, and people you work with.

And maybe your kids.

And the kicker is, that this is happening all while Obama is supposedly trying to "reset" the relationships that Americans have with Arabs. So essentially, Americans are being told to remember that not everyone from the Middle East is a terrorist, that we have a lot of shared values, etc.

Oh, but if you talk to any of them, we're going listen to your phone calls. And if you do business with them, we're going to look into your bank accounts.

This is exactly the kind of behavior that is exhibited in abusive relationships.

And so what happens is we start asking ourselves, "do I want to do business with this person because they live in xyz part of the world?" or because their name is unfamiliar, or because they have an accent.

And that behavior; of judging someone before you know them, questioning whether they're safe to do business with for no reason other than their name, or the part of the world they live in, or the color of their skin - that's racist.

And so that's what the Patriot Act really does. It increases paranoia, makes people afraid, and promotes racism.

The stark reality is that we live in a country where a small business person has to worry about the government listening in on their phone calls, and digging into their finances for doing nothing more than making a website.

Osama Bin Laden may be buried at sea somewhere, but if the American government can listen to my phone calls simply because I made a website for someone.....

Then guess what?

He won.

A new app for SignalKit

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Wicklander) — Tue, 31 May 2011 13:41:00 +0000

Over the weekend we launched a new app for SignalKit called 37,000ft. SignalKit, as you may know, is a suite of web apps I'm working on that adds tiny bits of functionality to the 37signals products.

If you've been reading my blog for more than a few weeks, you know I rave constantly about the software made by the Chicago based software company, and I use Basecamp to manage my projects, and Highrise to keep track of my business and the people I work with.

37,000ft takes all the tasks assigned to someone across all their projects, and Highrise, and lays them out on one page. You can read all about the application on the SignalKit blog post announcing the app. If you use the products made by 37signals, I hope you check it out.

Learn how to build a website

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Wicklander) — Mon, 23 May 2011 22:01:00 +0000

There's a new website/service that just launched in Chicago called Dabble. The idea behind the site is that if you're interested in learning something, you can sign up for a class and "Dabble" a little bit to see if you want to learn more.

Likewise, if you know how to do something and are interested in teaching other folks how to do it, you can sign up to teach a class.

They have everything from photography, to welding, to drawing. It's a great site, and a great idea.

Using Dabble, I'm happy to announce a class I'll be teaching on Saturday June eleventh titled "Build a Great Website on Your Own". The class will start at 10am and go until about 1pm, and will be held in my office that I share with some other entrepreneurs in Wicker Park.

I'm limiting this first class to 5 people so I can ensure enough attention will be paid to everyone, and that you'll be able to walk out of the class with your first website built and launched.

I'll talk with everyone individually to understand what kind of site you want built - whether it's a marketing site, a personal site, or a blog - and then work with you to pick the best platform for your needs and get your first site launched.

If you've been wanting to build a website but weren't quite sure where to start, sign up for my class on Dabble. It's a small fee of $20 - which is also the minimum price Dabble allows you to charge - and I'll donate any proceeds I earn to the Greater Chicago Food Depository.

I hope to see you there!

UPDATE: Received word today (Wed. 5/26) that this class has sold out.

The developer is the customer

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Wicklander) — Fri, 20 May 2011 15:11:00 +0000

I've noticed quite a bit of conversation lately around non-technical co-founders trying to recruit developers to work with them on their projects - and what kinds of things they can do to bring them into the fold of their product/company. Likewise, there seems to be endless demand right now for quality programmers/hackers/developers, and if you have the words "Ruby on Rails" anywhere on a public resume you've likely received a call from at least a few clueless recruiters - and probably more.

I've been fortunate in that I've worked on a number of projects with some great developers, and I know a number of people from iOS developers, to PHP programmers, to RoR hackers, to Android folks that I can work with to make an idea real for either myself or a client. And I'm working with two awesome developers on SignalKit.

I'm realizing that the fundamental difference between myself and other people that are considered "non-technical" is in my stance and posture towards developers, my clients, who I ultimately look at as "the customer", and that I have a different definition of "technical". I'd like to explore these differences in this post.

Defining the customer

In my mind, the customer is not just the person that pays you - it's the person that enables you to get paid. This slight tweak in defining who the customer is changes a lot in my posture, and quite frankly, who I'm going to work to make happy.

Traditionally, the person writing you a check is the customer. Period.

But we're living in a world where everything is being upended - from media, to publishing, to business models - and so it only makes sense that our definition of customer should be upended as well.

Simply put, if I don't have good relationships with good developers, then I can't make my clients happy. If I can't make my clients happy, I don't get paid. If I have good relationships with good developers then I can make my clients happy and I get paid.

The customer is not the person paying you; it's the person enabling you to get paid.

You need to bring value to your customers

Now that we understand who the customer is, the next step is to bring value to your customer. Yes, money is valuable, but if all you're offering developers is money then you haven't really separated yourself from anyone else that's trying to land that customer.

Something fun to work on, autonomy, a workplace of their choosing, freedom from dealing with middle management BS, exposure(!), and the freedom to work on and explore their own ideas independent of yours are all things that most people find valuable.

This of course is a short list - there are many other ways you can provide value to a developer.

Other than money, why should a talented developer work with you? What can you offer them? If you can't answer this question you'll have a hard time making the sale.

What you think is technical isn't technical

There was a time when not everyone knew how to use Excel, and Word, and Outlook. And then people had to learn how to use these tools because management said so. But no one ever says "whoa - wait a minute - I'm not a technical person so I can't send email."

I believe we have entered an age where "business" people need to learn how to use a new toolset.

Should a product manager really require a programmer to change text, or insert a different image, just because they haven't learned how to use .git and textmate? I think those days are disappearing quickly.

The reason people had to learn how to use tools like Outlook is because that's the way people started communicating. Developers have a way of communicating - and it's often done with checking code in and out.

I don't think you have to be a programmer to understand the file system of an application; I think that's merely learning how to use new tools in the modern workplace.

You don't own your customers

You would never expect a customer to have only one vendor, and business people shouldn't be trying to own their developers. Far too many people think they need all or nothing from a developer. "Either you're working only on my stuff, or not with me at all!"

I think that approach is a mistake.

Instead, I've had the most success working with people that have their own companies, are working on their own ideas, and then they also work with me on some of my apps or my client projects. Good developers are able to manage their workloads and get work done for you - even if they have other project they're on.

There's good customers and bad customers

Just because the developer is the customer doesn't mean they have ALL the leverage. In the same way a service company might fire a high maintenance client, so too might I not want to work with a high maintenance developer.

This isn't to say that developers don't need good product people, good business people, good marketing people, or anything else. They do. Just like a traditional customer might need a vendor to run their business, so too do good developers need great business people to work with.

Understanding who the customer is though, is a very important part of the equation.

Fixing things that aren't broken

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Wicklander) — Wed, 18 May 2011 00:00:00 +0000

In the world of software development, we're always iterating.

Websites can look nicer. Web-Apps can have a better user experience. Designs can be more modern. Messaging can be clearer. And on and on we go.

But I've been thinking lately that this iterative attitude might not always be healthy. At least, not unless we're thinking about it the right way. When we're working hard to make things better, I'm learning that we need to be paying careful attention that we're not breaking the things that are working perfectly.

Because part of the art of iterating I suppose, is to understand what you want to leave alone just as much as understanding what you want change. And if making the change you want is going to disturb that which you want to leave alone, then maybe the best thing you can do right now is nothing.

Doing nothing is really hard to do, because it means we have to accept where we're at, which can itself be challenging.

But maybe, sometimes, doing nothing is actually the right answer.

Fifteen Years

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Wicklander) — Thu, 12 May 2011 06:18:00 +0000

A few weeks ago my family went out to California to pay respects to one of Maile's uncles that had passed away. He was in his mid/late 50s and died of a massive anurism.

It was pretty sudden when it happened, and his family was of course devastated. While at the funeral though, I kept thinking about his daughter Angelina, who's 20 years old.

It got me thinking.

My daughter Leila is 5, which means that should she lose me at the age of 20, we have 15 years left with each other. (And my son Kai is 3.)

I've written about loss before, and I do so not to be morbid, or depressing, but merely to understand and accept the reality that life is short, fleeting, and unpredictable.

We've been taught that to live our lives without a little planning, or without saving money for retirement, or without working hard to build something, can be a careless way to go through ones life. And this is true - to an extent. If I reach 70 or 80 or 90, I'd like to still be able to support myself financially.

But I've come to believe that living our lives in a way that assumes we'll live until old age is equally careless.

Because if we were to know our children only had 15 years left with us, we might not be quite so willing to accept that 2 hour commute every day. We might have a little less patience for a job that didn't give us the autonomy we need. And we certainly wouldn't give up a family vacation to work on a project unless it was meaningful and rewarding beyond the bills that it paid.

So while I still want to build a company that's great, and I still want to save money for when I'm old, I also try to let the idea of what would happen if I only had 15 years left with my kids influence me.

Because I think living my life that way is likely to make me happier today, and in the future, regardless of how long I actually end up living.

Podcast Episode #11: Ryan Singer of 37signals

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Wicklander) — Tue, 10 May 2011 13:58:00 +0000

For this episode of my podcast, I was joined by Ryan Singer, a designer at 37signals who kids that his "cocktail title" would be a product manager. Much of what I know about web design comes from listening to what Ryan has to say on the matter, and I really appreciate the time he spent with me.

We talked about how teams work together, design, how work gets prioritized, and the kinds of things that influence their decisions - about both design and the process of getting their work done.

Ryan shares some great insights, and I hope you find the talk as valuable as I did. As always, you can listen right here in the post, or subscribe to the podcast in iTunes.

Ryan writes regularly on the 37signals blog Signal vs. Noise and occasionally posts articles on his site feltpresence.com, where he's also posted some great videos of talks he's given. You can follow Ryan on twitter at http://twitter.com/rjs.

Thanks again Ryan, I really appreciate you joining me.

And lastly, as has been the case a number of times, the intro music comes by way of the Smashing Pumpkins and their Teargarden by Kaleidyscope project.

Links

The People and links Ryan mentioned:

Compliments are harder than criticisms

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Wicklander) — Tue, 03 May 2011 22:25:00 +0000

One of the things I've realized about creating things (whether a web app, blog post, or something else entirely) is that criticism is actually really easy to take. At first, you might think that being criticized is hard and requires you to have really thick skin, but I've learned that's not the case.

I suppose it doesn't hurt; I just don't think it's all that important.

When someone criticizes you, they might have different taste, a different perspective, or maybe they've just been doing it longer than you have. So, it's really easy to shrug it off, defend yourself, or point out your view on things. Most things are opinions anyway, and, odds are, anyone that's creating something themselves is probably less likely to criticize you in the first place.

What's hard though, which was unexpected to me, is being complimented. When someone reaches out and says, "hey, that blog post really meant a lot to me", or "you taught me how to do something I didn't know how to do", suddenly, someone's made themselves open to making a connection.

And opening yourself up to making a connection with a stranger that compliments you is a lot harder than putting up a defensive wall against someone that criticizes you.

And this, I think, is where most of our challenges and opportunities lie. Not in arming ones self for attacks and criticisms, but by being open to being changed, making connections, teaching, and working to help others.

It's not easy - but as the saying goes - few things that are worthwhile are.

What to do if you're a PlayStation subscriber (or if you ever lose you're wallet)

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Wicklander) — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 05:02:00 +0000

It's been all over the internet today that Playstation had a major security breach, and is telling customers that subscriber information has been stolen, possibly including credit card information. They've even taken down their network at this point.

Playstation mentions in their release, but it's sort of buried, that consumers can call the fraud alert line of any of the three major credit bureaus. Here are the numbers:

Experian: 888-397-3742; www.experian.com; P.O. Box 9532, Allen, TX 75013
Equifax: 800-525-6285; www.equifax.com; P.O. Box 740241, Atlanta, GA 30374-0241
TransUnion: 800-680-7289; www.transunion.com; Fraud Victim Assistance Division, P.O. Box 6790, Fullerton, CA 92834-6790

If you're a PlayStation subscriber, call one of the above numbers, let them know to put a fraud alert on your SS#, and for a certain time period (I can't remember exactly, I think it's 6 months) they won't issue new credit under your SS# without calling you up first.

I mention this because I lost my wallet a few years back, along with my ID and credit cards, and doing this gave me a lot of peace of mind.

The PlayStation communication sort of makes it sound like it could be a big hassle:

Note, however, that because it tells creditors to follow certain procedures to protect you, it also may delay your ability to obtain credit while the agency verifies your identity.

This is not a big deal.

It just means you won't instantly be able to get a credit card at the Gap or Banana Republic or Target. You don't really need that anyway, do you? And, if you're buying a car or a house, when they check your credit let them know you have a fraud alert on your account, and you'll have to approve it with the creditor. Again, not a big deal.

Any hassle you might have to deal with trying to get credit will pale in comparison to trying to dispute something later.

Podcast Episode #10: Lance Walley of Chargify, Engine Yard, Parallax and more

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Wicklander) — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 14:43:00 +0000

In my latest podcast episode I interviewed Lance Walley, who has been building businesses for over 20 years. Most recently Lance co-founded Chargify - a recurring billing system, and before that EngineYard - a Rails application hosting company.

Lance spoke candidly with me about launching new ideas, scaling a business, failure, success, investing, and more. It was great talking with him and he shared a ton of great information. You can follow Lance on Twitter at @lancewalley.

As always, you can listen to the show right here on the blog, or subscribe to the podcast in iTunes.

Thanks a bunch Lance!

(Once again thanks to The Smashing Pumpkins for the intro and exit music.)

Interview with Beyond the Pedway

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Wicklander) — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 16:46:00 +0000

There's a video podcast done in Chicago by a guy named Tim Jahn, and he interviews entrepreneurs about their work, their companies, how they got started and all that good stuff.

Tim interviewed me a couple weeks ago for his show, and we talked about creating things, how products can be a form of advertising, money, and how I define "success".

You can check out the interview over at beyondthepedway.com, or right here below.

Thanks again Tim, I had a blast chatting with you!