The email came in at 7pm... I knew it would... I was not selected to present at TechCrunch20. I do love San Francisco, Kitten and I fell in love there. It really would have been grand.
I'm not quite ready to let the cat out of the bag as to what exactly I'm building, but here are a few questions and answers from my "Presenting Company Submission Form":
Company name: Trell.us
Web site: http://www.trell.us/
Date founded: June 21, 2007
Number of employees: 2 (me and Kitten)
Money raised to date / investors: $0
Was I too honest? Did my application really get through to Heather? Was my penmanship too sloppy? Too bad I didn't get any feedback from the judges.... I'm sure MC Hammer is a busy guy.
I was, along with all the other non-finalists, offered to demo at the "Start-Up DemoPit" if I shelled out $1247.50 for two tickets to the conference. I've only spent $59.99 on this project so far, so I'm not ready to drop that kind of dough quite yet. Maybe next year, if I haven't already sold Trell.us for ONE BILLION DOLLARS (stop laughing, it could happen).
Showing posts with label PR. Show all posts
Showing posts with label PR. Show all posts
Friday, August 3, 2007
Monday, July 30, 2007
Yikes, competition! Where did that come from?!?!
I was watching CNBC today when a story came up about a couple of Web 2.0 companies... the first is a well established company (you have all heard of this company) that I've viewed as competition for my current project and the second is a new one that I hadn't heard of. When I conceived of my project, many years ago, there was definitely no competition. Now, in seeing that there is some competition, I was confident that my novel slant on this area would perhaps not blow the competition out of the water, but at least give me a fighting chance to create and capture my own niche. Company number two is doing exactly what I was going to offer... Damn it!
I supposed ignorance is bliss, but that is no excuse for keeping my head so down into the code that I am not aware of others in the field. I thought I had identified all the possible competitors until this one came out of nowhere.... they are VC funded, been around for several years and have a product that they are actively selling. They were even mentioned on Techcrunch in April (I must have skipped that day, sorry Michael!)...
I heard that if you have an idea, 5 others in the world also have that same idea, it's simply up to you to decide to run with it or not. Maybe I should had run with this idea six years ago when I first wrote it down instead of continuing to struggle with Company X?
Fear not, my loyal readers. I've learned a few things from Company X; competition can catch up fast and a CNBC mention does not make a company golden. And after doing the most minimal research on this company's web site, I can already see that they have expenses in body count and infrastructure that I'm hoping to avoid and still provide world class service. I've also got some ideas on how users interact with my product and a different focus of what the product accomplishes that they haven't touched on... yet. Unlike six years ago, I'm a veteran of small company strategy, finance, marketing and have the wounds to prove it.... just ask my wife, Kitten.
I think I'll post a question for my friends over at Found+READ and see if anyone has some advice on keeping my paper bag covered head held high. I just hope the folks over at TechCrunch20 don't have a memory that goes all the way back to April (that's centuries ago in Internet time, right?).
I supposed ignorance is bliss, but that is no excuse for keeping my head so down into the code that I am not aware of others in the field. I thought I had identified all the possible competitors until this one came out of nowhere.... they are VC funded, been around for several years and have a product that they are actively selling. They were even mentioned on Techcrunch in April (I must have skipped that day, sorry Michael!)...
I heard that if you have an idea, 5 others in the world also have that same idea, it's simply up to you to decide to run with it or not. Maybe I should had run with this idea six years ago when I first wrote it down instead of continuing to struggle with Company X?
Fear not, my loyal readers. I've learned a few things from Company X; competition can catch up fast and a CNBC mention does not make a company golden. And after doing the most minimal research on this company's web site, I can already see that they have expenses in body count and infrastructure that I'm hoping to avoid and still provide world class service. I've also got some ideas on how users interact with my product and a different focus of what the product accomplishes that they haven't touched on... yet. Unlike six years ago, I'm a veteran of small company strategy, finance, marketing and have the wounds to prove it.... just ask my wife, Kitten.
I think I'll post a question for my friends over at Found+READ and see if anyone has some advice on keeping my paper bag covered head held high. I just hope the folks over at TechCrunch20 don't have a memory that goes all the way back to April (that's centuries ago in Internet time, right?).
Friday, July 27, 2007
YUI for that Web 2.0 interface
The big buzz these days is about AJAX. You constantly see press AJAX enabled site that does this and does that... but AJAX is really only a way of getting data back and forth between your browser and the web server without having to refresh the page every time... what really gets people excited is how that data is displayed with interactive controls. Just as I felt it necessary to spend "Big Bucks" on the design of my site it seems that having these interactive controls is the user perception threshold that is required to truly be a well regarded Web 2.0 site.
For "Company X" I looked at using ASP.NET AJAX (formerly codenamed Atlas), being a C# Microsoft .NET shop it was a pretty logical choice. It's free (as long as you've already dropped the bucks to have IIS servers, .NET development environment tools, etc.) and is, even in it's current 1.0 version, an extremely full featured library with lots and lots of controls. The main idea of ASP.NET AJAX is to hide the dirty details of hooking up AJAX, JavaScript, DOM (Document Object Model) on multiple browser types from the programmer and make it seem just like plain old ASP.NET programming. I expect to see ASP.NET AJAX embedded into the next version of Visual Studio. But we are on a budget here, so what a poor PHP programmer to do?
I went to my handy Google Search box and typed in "AJAX interface library" and the first item on the list was the Yahoo! UI Library (YUI). The kind folks at the Yahoo! Development Network have release this library of cross browser compatible JavaScript controls (many of which work with AJAX methodology) under a BSD license... which means gives them some credit, but otherwise it's all yours to do with as you please.
Along with a bunch of base utility functions there are some great controls such as AutoComplete (a favorite among AJAX aficionados), Calendar and, my personal favorite, TabView. They also have a neat little app / control called Logger that allows you to put debug statements in your JavaScript and then watch them fire off in a floating control panel. Should be extremely useful for tracking down those inevitable JavaScript bugs.
Just for giggles I figured that if Yahoo was giving this out, their natural enemy must also have an offering. After look around a bit (I typed "google javascript UI" into Google) I found the Google Web Toolkit. It has many of the same features as YUI except that the AJAX part is already built out, but only for the Java language. So if you're doing your project under a Java server this toolkit might be more appropriate that YUI.
For "Company X" I looked at using ASP.NET AJAX (formerly codenamed Atlas), being a C# Microsoft .NET shop it was a pretty logical choice. It's free (as long as you've already dropped the bucks to have IIS servers, .NET development environment tools, etc.) and is, even in it's current 1.0 version, an extremely full featured library with lots and lots of controls. The main idea of ASP.NET AJAX is to hide the dirty details of hooking up AJAX, JavaScript, DOM (Document Object Model) on multiple browser types from the programmer and make it seem just like plain old ASP.NET programming. I expect to see ASP.NET AJAX embedded into the next version of Visual Studio. But we are on a budget here, so what a poor PHP programmer to do?
I went to my handy Google Search box and typed in "AJAX interface library" and the first item on the list was the Yahoo! UI Library (YUI). The kind folks at the Yahoo! Development Network have release this library of cross browser compatible JavaScript controls (many of which work with AJAX methodology) under a BSD license... which means gives them some credit, but otherwise it's all yours to do with as you please.
Along with a bunch of base utility functions there are some great controls such as AutoComplete (a favorite among AJAX aficionados), Calendar and, my personal favorite, TabView. They also have a neat little app / control called Logger that allows you to put debug statements in your JavaScript and then watch them fire off in a floating control panel. Should be extremely useful for tracking down those inevitable JavaScript bugs.
Just for giggles I figured that if Yahoo was giving this out, their natural enemy must also have an offering. After look around a bit (I typed "google javascript UI" into Google) I found the Google Web Toolkit. It has many of the same features as YUI except that the AJAX part is already built out, but only for the Java language. So if you're doing your project under a Java server this toolkit might be more appropriate that YUI.
JavaScript UI Controls (Yahoo! UI Library): $0
Total cost of project to date: $59.99
Friday, July 6, 2007
Why are the simple things so hard?
I spent the last six days putting together my application for the TechCrunch20 conference.... massaging ever word to properly convey (in 500 words or less) my "Pitch"
Damn that's hard! As I have stated before, I'm not a writer, but I have found that once I get into the groove it's way too easy to keep going and going and going.... you get the idea. Trimming words to meet a 500 word maximum is really difficult to do, especially when it took such effort to get them out of me in the first place.
Is my idea terribly complex? No, not really. Is my idea revolutionary? I haven't seen anyone attempt it before and the few people I've shared it with seem impressed. Can I explain it in 500 words? Sure... but explaining something and truly conveying every special nuance are two different things: especially an idea you've had brewing around in your brain for the last five years.
The business model explanation section was easy. Competitive landscape too. "The one liner" kept throwing me for a loop because I kept coming up with one good "one liner" after another as I wrote the 500 word pitch. I'm definately going to need a good PR firm once this thing gets out of beta.
It's 11pm eastern on Friday night, the final due date for the application is at midnight (I assume pacific time, but I could not be sure). After having my loving wife (let's call here Kitten... I do!) gave it a once over, I draft a nice cover letter email, attach the application in word document form and send it off from my gmail account.
Ah, what a relief. A week of work accomplished and sent off to the benevolent folks at TechCrunch to consider... then, 30 seconds later, I get the following automated email response back from the TechCrunch email server:
What the hell!!!! Maybe their mail filter doesn't like .doc files generated by Google Docs? So I export the application document as a PDF, recreate my cover email and send it off. A minute later, BOOM, I get the same message back from their server. Could it be that they don't like attachments at all? I quickly copy the material from my document, paste it into yet another copy of my email cover letter and send that off. You guessed it, a minute latter I received the same error message.
Now I'm a be panicked / perturbed... so I write an email to 20@techcrunch20.com that explains what I'm experiencing and asks for HELP!!!! I start scanning the TechCrunch blog to see if anyone else was experiencing the same issue when I get a letter from Heather Harde, the CEO of TechCrunch. She says that they haven't detected any errors with their email account, but since I was having issues I could send my entry directly to her email and she would be happy to confirm receipt. I'm saved!
I email the PDF version off to her... wait a white (biting my nails off) and then receive a email from her saying that she has received not just one, but three copies of my submission. Now, I can go to sleep.
Thank you Heather for diligently manning your post late on a Friday night.... This Unknown Founder is truly grateful.
Word Processing (Google Docs): $0
Email Service (gMail): $0
Total cost of project to date: $7.99
Damn that's hard! As I have stated before, I'm not a writer, but I have found that once I get into the groove it's way too easy to keep going and going and going.... you get the idea. Trimming words to meet a 500 word maximum is really difficult to do, especially when it took such effort to get them out of me in the first place.
Is my idea terribly complex? No, not really. Is my idea revolutionary? I haven't seen anyone attempt it before and the few people I've shared it with seem impressed. Can I explain it in 500 words? Sure... but explaining something and truly conveying every special nuance are two different things: especially an idea you've had brewing around in your brain for the last five years.
The business model explanation section was easy. Competitive landscape too. "The one liner" kept throwing me for a loop because I kept coming up with one good "one liner" after another as I wrote the 500 word pitch. I'm definately going to need a good PR firm once this thing gets out of beta.
It's 11pm eastern on Friday night, the final due date for the application is at midnight (I assume pacific time, but I could not be sure). After having my loving wife (let's call here Kitten... I do!) gave it a once over, I draft a nice cover letter email, attach the application in word document form and send it off from my gmail account.
Ah, what a relief. A week of work accomplished and sent off to the benevolent folks at TechCrunch to consider... then, 30 seconds later, I get the following automated email response back from the TechCrunch email server:
This is an automatically generated Delivery Status
Notification
Delivery to the following recipient failed
permanently:
20@techcrunch20.com
Technical details of permanent failure:
PERM_FAILURE: SMTP Error (state 16): 554 The message was
rejected because it contains prohibited virus or spam content
What the hell!!!! Maybe their mail filter doesn't like .doc files generated by Google Docs? So I export the application document as a PDF, recreate my cover email and send it off. A minute later, BOOM, I get the same message back from their server. Could it be that they don't like attachments at all? I quickly copy the material from my document, paste it into yet another copy of my email cover letter and send that off. You guessed it, a minute latter I received the same error message.
Now I'm a be panicked / perturbed... so I write an email to 20@techcrunch20.com that explains what I'm experiencing and asks for HELP!!!! I start scanning the TechCrunch blog to see if anyone else was experiencing the same issue when I get a letter from Heather Harde, the CEO of TechCrunch. She says that they haven't detected any errors with their email account, but since I was having issues I could send my entry directly to her email and she would be happy to confirm receipt. I'm saved!
I email the PDF version off to her... wait a white (biting my nails off) and then receive a email from her saying that she has received not just one, but three copies of my submission. Now, I can go to sleep.
Thank you Heather for diligently manning your post late on a Friday night.... This Unknown Founder is truly grateful.
Word Processing (Google Docs): $0
Email Service (gMail): $0
Total cost of project to date: $7.99
Sunday, July 1, 2007
TechCrunch wants me!
Okay, well not exclusively me... but they do want submissions from the best company's they can find to launch new products at their conference. And what can be newer than a company that just started a few days ago!
Thank goodness, TechCrunch specificly stated "no business-stage requirements". Innovation, I've got. A business model, I've got. Competitors? Sure, but that just shows that there is a market! Application due date is July 6th for the conference in September... Doah! Looks like The Unknown Founder (TUF) will be once again burning the midnight oil.
Thank goodness, TechCrunch specificly stated "no business-stage requirements". Innovation, I've got. A business model, I've got. Competitors? Sure, but that just shows that there is a market! Application due date is July 6th for the conference in September... Doah! Looks like The Unknown Founder (TUF) will be once again burning the midnight oil.
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