You, yes you, really can achieve anything
One individual can have tremendous impact. And that can be
anyone, whether they have technical skill, business savvy or some
combination. Especially you. Wherever and whoever you are.
“Alright Karel, so why aren’t you Zuck? Why aren’t you a
billionaire, you lame hypocrite.” Ow! Could you please think that
more quietly? Well. I did lack talent in key areas, and I didn’t
have an internet growing up, but most significantly, I never
dreamed of becoming a CEO at 21. I dreamed about becoming an
author once I’d collected some experiences. And only lately am I
learning the art of practical dreaming, where I actually find steps
to take towards my dreams.22
Building a website is easier than ever, the barriers have come way
down. Facebook was Zuck’s third or fourth website attempt as
you’ll read below, and my Facebook product friend Noah has built
a few websites, and I have one out and a few in the works. Seems
26 Inside Facebook
Copyright, Karel Baloun, 2006. All rights reserved.
21 Noah: “I honestly don’t like this part. No one cares about your opinion yet. Save
this section for a second book once you have credibility. I feel this is boring and
not entirely true.” Karel: Well, Noah, thank you. Talk to the hand. Did you buy
this book? I didn’t think so. Let me ask the people who matter.
22 Now my dream is to rebuild society on equitable and ecologically sound
foundations, so global peace and cultural diversity blossom. I’ll get back to you in
10 years on that one.
like everyone has their own blog, and content management
systems like Joomla, Mambo, Postnuke, Plone and others or
hosted site creation systems like Ning, make even more complex
sites not so hard. Ruby on Rails and PHP are much easier to learn
and prototype quickly than Java/JSP or Perl/ModPerl/Mason.
Bandwidth and hosting are cheap, easily under $50/month. A
technically savvy kid could put together a nice website in days or
weeks, and a software engineer or two can build a complex site in
a few months.
So anyone and their cousin seems to be building a site, which they
say is a web 2.0 social site, because that’s what’s hot today.
Seven years ago everyone was building a portal for this or that
audience. Two years ago everyone had a blog with a twist. Now
even magazines and stores want their own “social network”,
because frankly, who wouldn’t want to have and operate a
growing social network!
If you want to build your own startup, it comes down to having a
powerful idea, and building it out to completing, and marketing it
right23. None of these are easy. Building it out as a prototype is
easier than choosing the right idea to build out, especially if the
idea is simple enough. As the web matures though, while the
tools get better, the good ideas that haven’t already been done
get progressively harder. Building it right, so that it runs fast,
Karel Baloun 27
I’ve found something to put here. Your turn.
23 Noah: More important than the idea is having execution. I can’t even count how
many ideas I have heard from friends, but I can count how many have done them.
Zero.
doesn’t lose data and scales to millions of users, is still hard, but
that type of good engineering is easier to buy if the site concept is
proven to work.
To find an idea, Noah suggests to think about something people
do 30 minutes a day that frustrates them and see if you can
automate that or do something that cuts the time in half for them.
What other mind games can we think of to identify easily doable
services that would save people a lot of time or effort?
Perhaps the most difficult choice for an entrepreneur to make is
when to give up on an idea which is failing. Lets say you are
running with a startup idea that hits a big roadblock, like no one
coming to your completed site no matter what you try to do, and
another exciting idea comes teasing you from another friend, or
another corner of your brain, or from second position on your
own list of exciting ideas to try. I’d bet you that too many
people24 give up too soon, so once you commit to an idea25, force
onto yourself a list of actions you promise to complete before
giving up, and just go through them, satisfied simply that you are
taking actions, thereby forcing yourself though the inevitable
setbacks and challenges that make startups worthwhile. Fold only
once you’ve kept all of the promises you made to yourself, and
28 Inside Facebook
Copyright, Karel Baloun, 2006. All rights reserved.
24 most notably to myself are the people named me, myself and I
25 so analyze whether the idea is worthwhile before you commit to it. this book is
taking a ton of time to write, time which my wife and children would just love to
have, and gee right now i feel i’d love to give it to them instead, but instead I’ve
committed myself to finishing it. and only you, my dear reader, can judge whether
it was worthwhile.
convinced yourself that you idea was really not good. Remember
you’ll want to apologize to everyone who gifted their time, money
and energy to your cause.26 If it were psychologically easy to force
yourself though rejections and setbacks, everyone would be an
internet millionaire.
How do you successfully build a site in a garage or dorm room?
Take the most simple part of your idea, and prototype it as
quickly as possible. Then show it to your intended audience and
see if it sticks. Don’t just listen to feedback, watch what people
actually do. Watch how passionately they use it, to see whether it
is really solving the problem you intended for your audience.
Odds are it won’t on the first pass, so do not just give up on your
original idea to solve another problem for the same audience.
Can you find a more appropriate audience? Actively modify your
site until it works to do what you intended, and monitor what
works27. Beyond the numbers, look at your key relationships with
your core users and business or technology partners: are your
most important people getting more excited and passionate? Are
Karel Baloun 29
I’ve found something to put here. Your turn.
26 Those who care about you or will continue to be important to you will forgive
you. If you gave it your all, you must have learned enough to make everything
worthwhile, to all of you. Your next idea won’t be any easier to complete, but you
will have successfully struck out once. The number of times you get knocked
down doesn’t count, only the number of times you stand up. A young guy goes up
to a business guru and asks, “How can I become like you?” The wise man answers
“Make right decisions.” “Oh wise guru, how do i do that?” “By making wrong
decisions.”
27 you must track usage and use patterns, otherwise you are flying completely
blind. you can write your own code for this as Facebook did, or use on of any
number of services: statcounter, urchin/google, coremetrics, onestat, etc.
you building enough of the right relationships to get your ball
rolling? Remember the rock to which you are clinging is your
original vision, and keep your passion on that.
Lastly, how do you define “a successful website”? Is it simply
becoming widely used and very popular, ideally with only a
small investment of your life-span, like digg.com being 24th on
the alexa list of US sites by popularity, about a year and a half
after initial launch? Is it being tremendously rich and profitable,
like Micro$oft, Dell or Walmart28, all the while telling yourself that
this is because you produce excellent products at an amazing
value? Quickly transforming yourself into a free market liberal
economist, you’d argue that the market has correctly estimated
your value, and your profits are simply a reflection of how much
more valuable you are to your customers than the competition,
because if the competition were as good as you, you’d need to
lower your price and profit. Sure, and Bill Gates is also the Easter
Bunny. Is it some combination of popularity and real user value,
estimated in some highly qualitative fashion from how much you
mean to users and how much they love you? Wikipedia and Ebay
probably score high here, among their large and loyal user base.
Or is it something else? Perhaps just a feeling that you’ve done
well? Empowering others to be more than they thought possible?
How about making a small group of your friends happy, or even
just getting your creative ideas out?
30 Inside Facebook
Copyright, Karel Baloun, 2006. All rights reserved.
28 Mallwart gets cheap prices by lowering wages here and throughout the world,
while occupying 4 spots on the Forbes billionaire top 20.
Pardon me? Oh! all right. Here’s more about how Facebook
accomplished creating their site.
One individual can have tremendous impact. And that can be
anyone, whether they have technical skill, business savvy or some
combination. Especially you. Wherever and whoever you are.
“Alright Karel, so why aren’t you Zuck? Why aren’t you a
billionaire, you lame hypocrite.” Ow! Could you please think that
more quietly? Well. I did lack talent in key areas, and I didn’t
have an internet growing up, but most significantly, I never
dreamed of becoming a CEO at 21. I dreamed about becoming an
author once I’d collected some experiences. And only lately am I
learning the art of practical dreaming, where I actually find steps
to take towards my dreams.22
Building a website is easier than ever, the barriers have come way
down. Facebook was Zuck’s third or fourth website attempt as
you’ll read below, and my Facebook product friend Noah has built
a few websites, and I have one out and a few in the works. Seems
26 Inside Facebook
Copyright, Karel Baloun, 2006. All rights reserved.
21 Noah: “I honestly don’t like this part. No one cares about your opinion yet. Save
this section for a second book once you have credibility. I feel this is boring and
not entirely true.” Karel: Well, Noah, thank you. Talk to the hand. Did you buy
this book? I didn’t think so. Let me ask the people who matter.
22 Now my dream is to rebuild society on equitable and ecologically sound
foundations, so global peace and cultural diversity blossom. I’ll get back to you in
10 years on that one.
like everyone has their own blog, and content management
systems like Joomla, Mambo, Postnuke, Plone and others or
hosted site creation systems like Ning, make even more complex
sites not so hard. Ruby on Rails and PHP are much easier to learn
and prototype quickly than Java/JSP or Perl/ModPerl/Mason.
Bandwidth and hosting are cheap, easily under $50/month. A
technically savvy kid could put together a nice website in days or
weeks, and a software engineer or two can build a complex site in
a few months.
So anyone and their cousin seems to be building a site, which they
say is a web 2.0 social site, because that’s what’s hot today.
Seven years ago everyone was building a portal for this or that
audience. Two years ago everyone had a blog with a twist. Now
even magazines and stores want their own “social network”,
because frankly, who wouldn’t want to have and operate a
growing social network!
If you want to build your own startup, it comes down to having a
powerful idea, and building it out to completing, and marketing it
right23. None of these are easy. Building it out as a prototype is
easier than choosing the right idea to build out, especially if the
idea is simple enough. As the web matures though, while the
tools get better, the good ideas that haven’t already been done
get progressively harder. Building it right, so that it runs fast,
Karel Baloun 27
I’ve found something to put here. Your turn.
23 Noah: More important than the idea is having execution. I can’t even count how
many ideas I have heard from friends, but I can count how many have done them.
Zero.
doesn’t lose data and scales to millions of users, is still hard, but
that type of good engineering is easier to buy if the site concept is
proven to work.
To find an idea, Noah suggests to think about something people
do 30 minutes a day that frustrates them and see if you can
automate that or do something that cuts the time in half for them.
What other mind games can we think of to identify easily doable
services that would save people a lot of time or effort?
Perhaps the most difficult choice for an entrepreneur to make is
when to give up on an idea which is failing. Lets say you are
running with a startup idea that hits a big roadblock, like no one
coming to your completed site no matter what you try to do, and
another exciting idea comes teasing you from another friend, or
another corner of your brain, or from second position on your
own list of exciting ideas to try. I’d bet you that too many
people24 give up too soon, so once you commit to an idea25, force
onto yourself a list of actions you promise to complete before
giving up, and just go through them, satisfied simply that you are
taking actions, thereby forcing yourself though the inevitable
setbacks and challenges that make startups worthwhile. Fold only
once you’ve kept all of the promises you made to yourself, and
28 Inside Facebook
Copyright, Karel Baloun, 2006. All rights reserved.
24 most notably to myself are the people named me, myself and I
25 so analyze whether the idea is worthwhile before you commit to it. this book is
taking a ton of time to write, time which my wife and children would just love to
have, and gee right now i feel i’d love to give it to them instead, but instead I’ve
committed myself to finishing it. and only you, my dear reader, can judge whether
it was worthwhile.
convinced yourself that you idea was really not good. Remember
you’ll want to apologize to everyone who gifted their time, money
and energy to your cause.26 If it were psychologically easy to force
yourself though rejections and setbacks, everyone would be an
internet millionaire.
How do you successfully build a site in a garage or dorm room?
Take the most simple part of your idea, and prototype it as
quickly as possible. Then show it to your intended audience and
see if it sticks. Don’t just listen to feedback, watch what people
actually do. Watch how passionately they use it, to see whether it
is really solving the problem you intended for your audience.
Odds are it won’t on the first pass, so do not just give up on your
original idea to solve another problem for the same audience.
Can you find a more appropriate audience? Actively modify your
site until it works to do what you intended, and monitor what
works27. Beyond the numbers, look at your key relationships with
your core users and business or technology partners: are your
most important people getting more excited and passionate? Are
Karel Baloun 29
I’ve found something to put here. Your turn.
26 Those who care about you or will continue to be important to you will forgive
you. If you gave it your all, you must have learned enough to make everything
worthwhile, to all of you. Your next idea won’t be any easier to complete, but you
will have successfully struck out once. The number of times you get knocked
down doesn’t count, only the number of times you stand up. A young guy goes up
to a business guru and asks, “How can I become like you?” The wise man answers
“Make right decisions.” “Oh wise guru, how do i do that?” “By making wrong
decisions.”
27 you must track usage and use patterns, otherwise you are flying completely
blind. you can write your own code for this as Facebook did, or use on of any
number of services: statcounter, urchin/google, coremetrics, onestat, etc.
you building enough of the right relationships to get your ball
rolling? Remember the rock to which you are clinging is your
original vision, and keep your passion on that.
Lastly, how do you define “a successful website”? Is it simply
becoming widely used and very popular, ideally with only a
small investment of your life-span, like digg.com being 24th on
the alexa list of US sites by popularity, about a year and a half
after initial launch? Is it being tremendously rich and profitable,
like Micro$oft, Dell or Walmart28, all the while telling yourself that
this is because you produce excellent products at an amazing
value? Quickly transforming yourself into a free market liberal
economist, you’d argue that the market has correctly estimated
your value, and your profits are simply a reflection of how much
more valuable you are to your customers than the competition,
because if the competition were as good as you, you’d need to
lower your price and profit. Sure, and Bill Gates is also the Easter
Bunny. Is it some combination of popularity and real user value,
estimated in some highly qualitative fashion from how much you
mean to users and how much they love you? Wikipedia and Ebay
probably score high here, among their large and loyal user base.
Or is it something else? Perhaps just a feeling that you’ve done
well? Empowering others to be more than they thought possible?
How about making a small group of your friends happy, or even
just getting your creative ideas out?
30 Inside Facebook
Copyright, Karel Baloun, 2006. All rights reserved.
28 Mallwart gets cheap prices by lowering wages here and throughout the world,
while occupying 4 spots on the Forbes billionaire top 20.
Pardon me? Oh! all right. Here’s more about how Facebook
accomplished creating their site.
No comments:
Post a Comment