The Atomic Unit of a Product/Service

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Fred Wilson had an interesting post about a month ago on the atomic unit of a product or service:

This isn’t exactly about a feature. Features are the verbs of a web/mobile product. Objects are the nouns. And one thing I always like to think about is what is the most fundamental object of all in your service. I like to call this the “atomic unit.”

He goes onto list a number of examples from the Union Square Ventures portfolio and then reveals the punchline:

When you think about an MVP, it’s really important to identify the atomic unit and make sure you focus the product crisply and cleanly on that object. If you think you have three or four atomic units, you are going to end up with a clunky and bloated experience and that is what you want to avoid at all costs with your MVP (particularly if you are mobile first).

I’ve been thinking a lot about this idea over the last month. It is imperative to be focused very specifically, not just at launch but throughout the life of the company. I believe very strongly in the theory that customers hire a product to do something for them. By being very clear about the atomic unit of the product/service, it also should clarify to customers how this product fits into their lives.

Reflection

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Marco Arment, founder of Instapaper, on Build and Analyze Episode 92, which is my favorite podcast:

I’ve lived under this constant stress for the last two years, since it’s been my full-time job, this constant stress that I’m going to wake up in the morning check Twitter and check my email and find that someone has launched and taken all my customers away. I literally dread checking my email every morning and dread checking Twitter every morning just a little bit because I think this might have happened.

I have never worried about all my customers going away, but I always wake up with a dread that yesterday’s sales are going to be 0, that I never have enough money in the bank, that I’m never going to realize the vision I set for this company.

I turn 39 today. I was 23 when I started Infinity Softworks. 16 years have passed with a blink of the eye, the ups and downs, the business growing and the business shrinking. Only twice in that time did I ever consider leaving to join another company, once Intel and once Nike. Both times I decided it wasn’t right for me and realized I probably wouldn’t survive a big company’s culture. I’m not very good at being a cog.

There’s days when everything seems to go well, every decision goes the right way, every dollar made is ten times what it was before. And then there are other days, when nothing seems to go right, where the task list is too high, when I look at my kids and realize they are growing up too fast and I have no time to figure out how to stop it.

I spent years trying to figure out how to stop this roller coaster. I’ve come to the conclusion that there is no way to do it, enjoy the ride instead. Experience teaches me that the lows are never as low as I think and the highs are never as high as I think, and that the coaster always goes the other direction eventually.

And when it all gets overwhelming or I have big issues to think about, the best way to handle them is to go for a bike ride.

And that’s where I’m headed right now! See ya!

A Very Controversial Programming Opinion

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James Hague references a post titled 20 Controversial Programming Opinions and adds a few in his own post titled Hopefully More Controversial Programming Opinions. I don’t usually go for list articles but this one that James came up with jumped out at me immediately:

Computer science should only be offered as a minor. You can major in biology, minor in computer science. Major in art, minor in computer science. But you can’t get a degree in CS.

Don’t know why this one would jump out at me! Oh, right… I majored in business (accounting), minored in CS.

In some ways, that was an invaluable experience. Majoring in business has helped me immensely in the years I’ve run Infinity Softworks. It gave me a grounding in the finances of a business and how to project. I also happened to be in college so long that I came very close to degrees in finance, management and marketing, too, all of which I’ve used in this business.

What did I lose by getting a minor rather than a major? From what I could tell at the time, a lot more mathematics and a lot of theory. To be honest, though, my eyes glaze over with theory. I always want to jump into the code.

The one class I wish I would have had that I didn’t was compilers. I think it would have been a fascinating class as thinking through text and how a computer can break it down to derive meaning is very interesting. I even bought the compilers book thinking I’d self teach. I never got the time.

The irony, of course, is that Infinity Softworks hasn’t developed an app without a big compiler on the back-end in 12 years. Our compiler breaks down mathematical equations and turns them into templates and results. The good news, though, is that I don’t have to write it, update it or maintain it. My technical partner takes care of that!

The Problem With Software Patents

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A friend sent me, along with a number of others, an article on the Apple-Samsung lawsuit. I haven’t commented on the trial here because I see it as a sideshow, one that means very little in the grand scheme of things. But one place where I think it means a lot is in the realm of software patents. My comment back to the crowd was this:

It’s not a loss for the American consumer, as Samsung said. Think they will vacate the market? Ha!

What it is is a reaffirmation of the supremacy of the patent system, which is bad news for every small company.

I was asked to explain. Here it is:

When I talk, I am talking specifically from a software perspective. None of what I say here applies to biotech, hardware, pharmaceuticals, or any other business with real costs to manufacture or huge up-front expense to get it to market.

First, patents do not lead to innovation. In fact, I would argue that patents cause a dearth of (again, software) innovation. Software is always built in layers. One guy’s idea is used to generate the next set of ideas, of which the next guy builds on. Interested in Twitter? What if SMS had been patented. Or instant messaging. You’d never had seen it. How about Facebook? What if News Corp had patented the timeline for MySpace. There is very little invention in the software space. Almost all has some lineage to something that came before, physical or otherwise.

Okay, so I filed for a patent this year on some stuff we are working on. When my lawyer did a review he found two patents that were in a similar area, both by Microsoft. He felt we were fine and had more than sufficient distance from their patents. But all the same. Let’s say we release our app and Microsoft decides we infringe and comes after us. It makes no difference how strong my patents are. The case would never make it to court. After all Microsoft pays each of their lawyers more per year than my whole company makes. They could lawyer me to death.

What if my lawyer had decided that our technology was too close to Microsoft’s? Maybe I would have bailed on the project instead of risking Microsoft’s wrath. These are patents that Microsoft is not using, they are just sitting on them. That means my innovative and potentially world-changing product would never have been developed because the threat was too great? How is that helping innovation?

Big companies hold all the patent chips. Big companies act as trolls against little companies, they have the muscle to force us into compromising positions. As with almost everything else in this country now, the little guy can’t win this fight. Software patents need to go.

Powering Your Own Nuclear Facility Via Amazon.com

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Maybe you’ve made the connection, but there are an awful lot of odd products sold at Amazon. Take, for instance, this can of Uranium Ore. The reviewers say it all:

I purchased this product 4.47 Billion Years ago and when I opened it today, it was half empty.

Or the classic:

Picked this up for use in one of my kid’s ‘diversity’ projects in school (Great Success!), and stuck the leftovers in the cabinet next to the baking soda. Ran out of toothpaste, and remembered how you’re supposed to be able to use baking soda to clean your teeth, so of course, I accidentally used this instead, and Wow! all I can say is, my teeth have never been cleaner! They sparkle, they tingle, and for some reason, they STAY clean now, no matter what. Highly recommended!

However, when I ran out of that fire-ant killer powder stuff, I figured I would try some for that too. Big mistake! Boy, it sure did not kill those ants! Fortunately, those suckers get slower as they get bigger, so I have been able to use a shovel to take care of most of them, one at a time though, the sneaky devils. And the darn trash man refuses to take them away..

I would have given this product 5 stars for the teeth and the project on embracing diversity, but I deducted one star because of the giant mutant ants.

Nice to know that Amazon would have completely changed the plot to Back To The Future, my favorite movie when I was 12. We wouldn’t need the gigawatts of lightening strikes at all if Marty could just hand Doc Brown a can of uranium to drop in the tank. Damn you, Amazon!

What cracks me up even more is that customers who viewed this item also viewed whole milk in one-gallon containers, a testicle self-exam kit, wolf urine, UFO detectors, and some report on the outlook for wood toilet seats. Party at Bob’s house Friday night!

Oh, and if that isn’t enough, Amazon likes these “buy this and get this other thing” deals. You’d think it’d be bundled with a Geiger counter, right? You’d be wrong. How about canned unicorn meat.

Some things you just can’t make up.