The Startup Curve Looks Way Too Familiar

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Fred Wilson wrote a great article on this this morning. The graph is from Paul Graham. Together they are two of the best thinkers on start-ups and technology business today. The curve looks all too familiar:

Infinity Softworks has been through this curve. While we didn’t have a TechCrunch initiation, we definitely had this spike in 1998-2001 as we ramped sales on Palm OS, expanded the product and formed incredibly good partnerships that meant massive distribution and awareness. Then everything flattened for a few years before the bottom fell out in 2005 and our crash of ineptitude occurred in 2007 when we tried to develop a math education Windows and Mac product that no one cared about and a BlackBerry app that made the sound of a deflating balloon on launch.

We began to recover in 2009 (not before we both spent a brief time consulting for someone else to make ends meet) with our iOS app and hit the wiggles of false hope when the iPad launched in 2010. We’ve been in those wiggles ever since.

Come on, Promised Land! Papa needs a new pair of tennis shoes!

Rationalizing Rash Decisions

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I’m not good at emotional decisions. It doesn’t mean I don’t make them, just that I hate it when I do. I’m a very rational person and prefer making decisions with my head, not my heart. When I do make a decision with my heart I tend to fret about it until I can rationalize it.

This weekend my wife, daughters and I were at the mall across town. In the mall is a place called The Hannah Society, which provides full service support for adoptive pets. They start with a matching service and then, for a reasonable monthly fee, provide everything you will ever need for your pet, including food, toys, vet visits, everything.

We have been in there before with no specific reason except to let the girls play with the dogs, cats, rabbits and guinea pigs, but this time I connected with a puppy and made the snap decision to adopt him. He is a beagle mix (they say Austalian Shephard, we think terrier), 3-4 months old. We have lost three pets in the last few months and our dog is getting older. A puppy will take us through our kids graduating from high school.

I had a horrible night Saturday. I couldn’t sleep, woke up regretting my snap decision, fretting over it all night, ready to back out. But Sunday morning my wife and I talked through it, rationalized it, and decided it was the right decision.

We get to bring Charlie home this weekend. It will be fun to have a puppy around the house again.

 

Changing the World, One Entrepreneurial Teen At A Time

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If one person, just one person does it they may think he’s really sick and they won’t take him. And if two people, two people do it, in harmony, they may think they’re both faggots and they won’t take either of them. And three people do it, three, can you imagine, three people walking in singin a bar of Alice’s Restaurant and walking out. They may think it’s an organization. And can you, can you imagine fifty people a day, I said fifty people a day walking in singin a bar of Alice’s Restaurant and walking out. And friends they may thinks it’s a movement.

– Arlo Guthrie, “Alice’s Restaurant”

My daughters turned 6 and 4 recently. I have been thinking very seriously about their future. My goal is to help them understand that anything is possible, that they have control over their own destinies, and that the best way to achieve their goals is to maximize their talents.

I also recognize that my influence over them is waning. My older daughter, in kindergarten, is building friendships that will increasingly have influence over her. It is not that my wife and I won’t influence both of them, it is that there will be competing interests that may or may not steer them in the right direction.

But this isn’t just about my daughters. When I look at the United States I see a country that has too many dependent on others. Someone else provides the jobs, some one else makes sure we don’t go broke during retirement, someone else ensures we get an education. And I see that, given the debt confronting our country and given the changes in demographics, that much of what my grandparents generation and my parents generation have come to rely on will not persist, at least not in its present form.

I don’t see this as doom and gloom. I see this as a chance to emphasize these factors I list above: achieving goals, controlling our own destiny, maximizing talents. So when I hear about teenagers who are forming an art gallery in New York City or another teenager who is writing and releasing mobile apps, I want to celebrate that.

While I try to teach my kids what it means to be entrepreneurial, I recognize that it is their peers as much as me that will influence their direction. And if one kid stands up and does it, well, maybe he’s nuts. But if 50 do it… by gosh, I think we have a movement.

On Naming Macs and iPads

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The biggest surprise of the new iPad announcement was none of the specs or features, it was the name. Most predictions were iPad 3 or iPad HD. Instead, it is just iPad.

At first this caught me by surprise but then quickly realized it made sense. With one major caveat, Apple only uses brand extensions for product form factors, not for individually identified models. So we have Macbook Pro and Macbook Air. We have iMac and Mac Pro. We have Mac mini. We have iPod touch, iPod nano, iPod shuffle and iPod classic. And we have Apple TV. Each successive generation of these devices are still known as iPod touch, iMac, etc.

How do we differentiate? With iMacs and Macbooks most people refer to the screen size. I have the 13″ Macbook Pro. To differentiate even further it generally is referred to as the year purchased but that doesn’t really matter to most people and I rarely hear that mentioned except among the technorati. [2]

So iPad, going back to being named iPad, actually is following this model. It is confusing temporarily because the iPad 2 is still around, but I think this will be resolved in the fall or next spring when Apple launches a second iPad screen size. I think we will be talking about the 10″ iPad and the 7″ iPad instead. To continue talking about the iPad 3 with the 7″ screen defeats Apple’s traditional naming conventions.

I mentioned a caveat and that, of course, is the iPhone. The iPhone, though, is different because it is the one device sold extensively by a third-party: carriers. It is one thing to have an Apple-trained person needing to know which device you are carrying. Apple has control over that and can train their folks specifically. But could you imagine the confusion at an AT&T store if you walked in needing help with a non-descript iPhone? That person really needs to know which model of iPhone you are carrying.

In addition, how does one person identify their iPhone to another person? With an iPod, for instance, the form factor is unique. Same for a Macbook because of the screen size and soon the same will be true for iPad. But with an iPhone there is little to differentiate an iPhone 4 from an iPhone 4s, except the name.

For these reasons I believe Apple will continue giving names to the iPhone and it will remain a unique convention for Apple’s naming schemes.

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[1] Yes, I bought an iPad yesterday with 64GB of memory, wifi+4G, black, and a different smart cover color to differentiate from the iPad 2 we have here. If I wasn’t a developer would I have bought it? Yes. I’ve been waiting for the retina version since Apple launched the iPhone 4 almost two years ago. Given that, I wouldn’t have bought the second generation iPad 2 as the first generation was good enough for me.

[2] We don’t get this with the Mac Pro or Mac mini, though, since those don’t have screens but in both of those cases I have only ever heard them referred to by those names. Technorati may also comment on the processor speed.

Spam Comments

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“You are a coward and a impoverished reporter.”

This comment on my Prompts post was caught in the WordPress spam filter. It might be the best spam comment I’ve ever received. Not only is the grammar horrible but I wonder how much success they are getting with an author-insulting comment. I got a good laugh out of this one.

By the way, isn’t “impoverished reporter” redundant?