Every business needs cashflow (and profit) to survive like the body needs oxygen, food, and air.  Just because a business has cashflow, doesn’t mean it’s a success, much like we aren’t a success in life just because we sat around and survived.

If you have to mislead to make a dollar, it’s like tricking a girl into liking you.  You might make some money/trick her for a while, but it won’t last.

The better the mutual fit, the better the relationship.  As is often the case it’s best to see if you can work well together.  The client, or the vendor, alone, can’t make the relationship work.  Both have to be present.

As for finding the right work..

Know your product.  Know the value you deliver.  Know the clients it will benefit.  Only sell to them and you’ll have a lasting business.

Always generate more value than which you are paid. Otherwise your client turnover rate after they feel “had” will be much higher than it needs to be.

It’s easy to try and be someone else in business.  The problem is it always comes back full circle.  If you like honesty, and integrity, and when people eat their own cooking before giving it to you as advice, do it yourself.

Not every customer values it, but not every customer is for you.  There’s a big difference between a good dollar and a bad dollar.  It’s tough in the start but it’s worth it.

Be a defender of keeping goodness and kindness fashionable.    Your startup is your declaration of your moral and professional independence.

Trying to start Apple Mail would leave me with a message of “Mail had quit unexpectedly.”..

A distant lightbulb went off in my head and I realized it might have to do with my Marketcircle Daylite software and it’s plugin to the Apple Mail, and the Daylite server, which syncs my calendar, todo, projects and contacts automatically over the air.

I switched over to Daylite which was running, and it had a dialogue which told me that Daylite needed to re-connect to the server (I guess the connection gets turned off when you put your computer to sleep).

I let Daylite re-establish it’s connection, and once it did, Apple Mail fired up just fine.  This lead me to believe that the Apple Mail Plugin was looking for something from Daylite that it couldn’t access.

How does Daylite accomplish it?  They have a Daylite Mail Integration plugin for Apple Mail that lets you link each and every email to any number of projects, people, etc.  Daylite, combined with Daylite Server and Daylite Touch is the real deal for productivity.  The more and more I use it (and let myself spend some time with it) the more I think I am forever hooked to it.  I just hope they come out with a version of Daylite Touch for Android and other devices.

For one of the original software development bloggers, at the center of the startup, micro-isv movement to make a decision like this, it seems a little strange at first..

Joel mentions a number of reasons that I think are interesting of what a startup may face, once a startup has.. started up.

1. Part of the reason he’s no longer writing is that he has so many customers that his blog posts seem to deeply offend one of his clients in one way or another.Plausible? Sure. But isn’t differentiation what a product is built on?  I think this could be the topic of a blog post on it’s own by Joel to see what kind of things others in startups have to look forward to when you get large(r).
2. Growth means there’s revenue for traditional advertising. I would think, though, that tools for developers are ultimately best directly connected to them instead of magazine ads?

Joel might be big enough and he doesn’t need to, or can’t benefit from blogging as he did prior…  With Stack Overflow taking on the answer / thought market and opening things up beyond him, maybe there’s room for a lot more voices, that can be found easily.

Maybe Joel was developing the best bug tracking software in the world, and attracting the best developers in the world, so that when FogBugz reached it’s sweet spot, he can go onto building the best software company in the world?

Who knows.

I do know that writing, and sharing doesn’t leave you once you start, and know the value of being shared with, especially after many years.

Joel’s posts have helped so many that I don’t think many will lose their value or relevance.  Whether it was the pay-scale matrix, or why the command and conquer or econ 101 management won’t work with software developers, it’s rare to have reasonably concise, applicable, exploratory rants that were sane as it’s readers most of the time, and willing to have it’s share of mind-stretching ideas like anyone being stretched by growth.

If this is the last of Joel blogging, thanks for doing it.  The fact that Joel replies to emails and shared what he learnt so others could join the movement to make the world a better place with better software.

Will it be the last we hear from him in books, conferences, articles elsewhere..?  Doubt it.  His recent introduction to mercurial at www.hginit.com is a prime example.

I hope Joel continues to create and write, and if not, we see his writing has inspired others to write and share.

Joel I know you read more than you ever let on, so if your eyes reach here, which I’ll do my best to ensure, remember that with our talents we have a responsibility to share what has been shared and taught to us by life and others.  No guilt trip intended, the world owes us nothing.

Let’s step back from this and see the general picture.

Does this decision by Joel mean blogging is ultimately useless for startups? I don’t think so. At all.

Most companies, indeed, do use their blogs for boring news releases is relevant.

Blogs are all about relevancy. Blogs, like products that provide relevancy thrive.

Blogs will always have their place to share information, and for us, resources for startups looking to reach their market through the public seeking their content.  If you don’t have the marketing money, a blog is a key way to demonstrate and share expertise and knowledge.

I can say that the last year of writing this blog has showed me that I need to write more, and often.

This event is a groundbreaking start for the software startup community in Edmonton.. I’ve had a chance to meet the organizers and it’s definitely folks who eat their own cooking and are pursuing startups of their own.

Working in startups can be isolating at the best of times… This is a fantastic opportunity to meet your peers and see where things are headed with events, and your input.

See you there!

Find out more at StartupEdmonton

In building secure applications that let me sleep at night, I have learnt a few things:

1. Security is relative. You must keep up, and ahead of the curve.  Your thinking and design must be steps ahead of what’s happening and what may be possible in the near future.  In the end, if someone wants to, given enough of their time, resources and money (more than what you have spent) it, still, conceivably, is possible that security may be compromised.
2. Security vs. Convenience. Unless you are a expert of making complex security disappear “under the covers”, there is still a fundamental  acknowledgment that has to be made.  The more security you implement in an application, the performance, and usability of that application becomes less than simple.
3. The path of least resistance. Instead of building a big, thick wall of security, consider building many, thinner walls. Just like someone who asks you a question instead of googling it, someone wanting access to a system will want to do so the quickest way possible.  If they are out to find the next outpost, they will move on if there is layer after layer of security, like an onion skin.

   Why?  Most unscrupulous attempts to access a system aren’t really about you.  Most valuable is the most generic.  Your server resources to be illegitimately used to send out spam, etc, and not necessarily for what your application itself does.  The reality is most attempts to break into your site will be automated scripts/botnets that sweep the entire internet.  While you can build mega security features, a lot can be said by good design and putting up multiple “walls” instead of one big “wall”.  Design your application to inherently check and enforce security as much as it can internally.  Package it with smart public facing interfaces, properly hardened and tested with client and server side scrubbing and validation, and we have a start.

4. Passwords be safe. Do your best, reasonably to secure the single, most vulnerable part of your system.  Relative to the sensitivity of what is behind the password, implement password security measures.  Logarithmic delays between failed attempts.  Log and report invalid attempts. Encrypt your passwords.

   One of the biggest things you can do if/where necessary is to store your passwords securely.  This is a great article on How to safely store a password.

If you have any ideas to add to this list, please leave them in the comments.. I’ll update the list!

The past few weeks I’ve been thinking about how I’d like to continue to build in 2010.

Whether you are on the business side of technology, or the implementation side, there are some common elements to all projects no matter the viewpoint.

Great software systems:

• Make users great. Make your users awesome at what they do when they use your software.  If you don’t, you have a dud.
• Are mature. People manage the system, the system manages the details.    Immature: People make their own systems, manage their own details, nothing is connected, or consistent.
• Understand the data is the system: The data is the system to the end-user.  Not your software.  The software is merely packaging to the information they need.
• Understand the integrity of the data: What is the data. What does it mean.  What states does it exist in.  How does it interact with other data.  Why is this important?
• Keep the edge: Software is built around the competitive advantage of magnifying and fueling the existing best practices of “This is how we do it here”.  Don’t lose it by doing it your way.
• Are invisible: “Don’t make me think” when I use it.
• Self-Monitor: Bring things to my attention
• Master the Complex: It ’s easy to make things complex.  It is hard to make complexity into something simple.  Understand that complexity is not the issue most of the time.  It’s confusion.

Maybe this will become a growing list!  Add your own below!

Check out the slide show here, my thoughts below.

No One Cares About Your Stupid Little Startup

I have often wondered how a relationship between specialist (Web, designer, programmer, etc.,) can sometimes turn into the customer believing they understand everything better than the specialist, and how to do it.

This is when phrases like:

“Couldn’t you just..”

“All you have to do..”

“It should be pretty simple..”

“Can’t we make it really simple on the screen?  Why would that be more work to do it all behind the scenes?”

become more, and more common.

Problem? I don’t know. If you ignored everything clients say in this case, and only look at what they were doing, the client is basically saying they know better than you.  One could argue there’s something missing in the requirements phase.  Even when clients are the ones  that hired you to help them meet that impossible deadline that they didn’t know was a ton more work than they ever imagined?

Still, I’m not sure if it’s entirely the client’s fault for being this way.  I think it might be a mix of both client and specialist.  Clients tend to oversimplify and over-trivialize anything to make it something they can feel confident about so they don’t get taken advantage of.

What is true is this.

It is hard to make the complex simple, and easy to make the simple into something more complex.

Would we second guess or suggest doctors do something differently, or that engineers build a bridge differently (and without a plan) because we feel it shouldn’t be complicated?  I don’t know.

This leads back to the oft-referred issue of what color to paint the bike shed.

Why? Well, the less you involve and empower your clients, the more they will feel your craft is a magical dark science.  Of course, I’m the first guy to say I want to build systems and tools for people, not BE the system and tool through which they maintain their systems.  So, I’m forever doomed to try and involve clients as much as they would like to be and educate them.  It is already a luxury to feel understood by anyone, and it’s nice when you clients are able to join you if they so wish.

With that being said, I have a responsibility to first learn, and then demonstrate that I understand the needs of my client and how to best solve them in the way that best serves the client.  Maintaining or enhancing the clients competitive advantage is critical. It’s not about making my life easier, it’s about making life easier for my clients, and their clients.  This rings very true even when working on a startup.

I get it.  I’m pretty good at what I do and can reasonably be thrown down a well and come out okay.  Do I make it look easy?  I don’t know.  I have 15 years of experience and 4 vacations to show for it.  I read 2-3 hours a day on technologies and problem solving approaches.  I keep the saw sharp and keep busy sawing.  All to keep my value high to myself and the projects I work on, and to ensure my clients receive the best possible outcome.

Still, I hear, “well, can’t you just do this”.  I have accepted that this on some levels will always be the case.  I think helping clients understand that what I can do in 1 hour is only possible after 15 years of experience doing what I do, and that 1 hour of their time, while likely very valuable in the needs requirement of it, likely would not compare, must like I would be lost in their business.

I think I am going to explore the idea of “highest and best use” and incorporating that in to my working philosophy on all projects.  When we focus on everyone’s highest and best use and simply keep our nose out (or in) no more or less than it’s needed, it’s where 1 + 1 = 11 in terms of gains in productivity.

I put a lot of time on my 15″ Macbook Pro.  An average of 8-10 hours a day.  Every day.  The last 3 years since I switched back to Mac (since we all started on Apples in elementary school) have been incredible.  No longer have I been tied up dealing with Windows to do the smallest things like connect a new camera to get a photo to fight with drivers.  For the most part Mac just works, gets out of the way and let’s you focus on the task at hand.

Then, there was the day the music died.  November 16th, 2009, for me, to be exact.  I remember it, like it was yesterday.  I am working at the office, no problems.  Arrive at a clients, and the screen won’t turn on.  Try to reboot, no luck.  Everything seems to be turning on, except the screen.  Strange.

The HP/Compaq technician in me from the late 90’s speaks up and tells me this might be that nasty Nvidia chip failure affecting the Santa Rosa Macbook Pros, which I own.  But was it?  I’ve seen a video card or twenty fail in my life and its usually a graceful fit of annoying colors, lines, pixels not showing correctly that leads to an eventual death.

A screen just to go black with that?  I didn’t even get to say goodbye, or try to copy off my latest working files. What would I do if I didn’t have a recent backup?

Enter AppleCare.  You see, for years I was happy that Compaq (and then HP when they acquired Compaq) had nearly the world’s best extended warranty. They did, and likely still are very high.    AppleCare, I had heard was another beast.

I get on the phone and get booked into my local Apple store with an appointment 60 minutes later.  Total fluke, as they’re always booked up.  It was a cool feeling walking in and seeing my name as the next customer in line.  It was even cooler as the Apple concierge wondered how I hacked myself to the top of the list without having been in the store.  Nothing an AppleCare rep can’t put you on hold and get done, I guess.

After speaking with the knowledgeable rep, they ordered me a new system board.  Problem, I’m leaving town 2 days later.  They manage to pull it off and I make it rain chocolates at the store.  Everything is back and running.

Until it died again.  I got the dreaded spinning wheel on grey screen.  I felt like throwing my laptop into the water, pulling it out, and then throwing it in again.  But I didn’t.  Called AppleCare and they tried to help.  No luck.

On my way back to Edmonton, I was in Vancouver for the day.  I stopped by the AppleCare store and they had the part I needed.  And they would change it for me before my flight left!  Two flukes?  I doubt it.  There’s no way this kind of service is to be expected or reasonable, but I’m so glad they stepped up.

I’m tired, and fly back home. The repaired laptop awaits it’s glorious return to productivity. I turn it on in the next morning.  Same problem.  Did someone forget to turn on the computer fully?

My heart sank, to the bottom of my feet.  I could have just bought another Macbook Pro, smashed this one up, made a video for Youtube and mailed it to Apple stating I couldn’t handle 2 bad system board replacements in addition to my original failure.

I called AppleCare like someone might call an counseling hotline.  I spoke of the great help I received, but the poor results.  Brian, my original contact, quickly escalated me to a senior adviser.  He took a few minutes to read everything I had endured and at this point likely noticed I should have been screaming and foaming from the mouth, but wasn’t.  He got how frustrated and let down, and paralyzed I was.  Running a backup of your mac on a mac mini isn’t the same.  Yes, I didn’t lose anything, but I wasn’t gaining either.

The senior advisor said I had gone through enough.  He wanted to heal my shattered heart with the warmth of a replacement machine. I was skeptical.  I told him I had been hurt before.  What if this replacement had issues because it was the new macbook?  I might be crazy to turn down new equipment, but I like what I have and it works well.  He assured me he felt comfortable reccomending it so I decided to take the plunge to a new Macbook Pro, at a reasonable cost.

Now I wait.  Hurry up China.

Why your IT Sucks.

This was a follow up to the previous article of The unspoken truth about managing geeks and I must say it clearly presents some great points.

1. GIGO GIGO GIGO.

Can’t say it enough.  It’s so true.

Garbage

Back in the fifth grade, I was in a school musical, The GIGO Effect, in which the evil Glitches attempted to corrupt a computer named Mabel with “dirty power.” The point of the show was that technology is unable to produce intelligent results without intelligent direction, a truism encapsulated in the formerly popular computer acronym GIGO, “garbage in, garbage out.”

So, if you don’t begin with the end in mind, you will fail.

Doesn’t make sense?  Let’s start with this passage from the article.

Information technology is the art of managing an organization’s processes by establishing and maintaining computing frameworks.

If we can agree on that definition of “IT”, that means IT touches and deals with the entire business.  It is the electricity, the power, the force, the connector, and the enabler of achieving your business goals much, quicker, better, and more profitably.

For an IT strategy to succeed, everyone needs to see the use of Information and Technology in Business, what I call Business Technology as a critical enabler and vehicle for delivering the results of the business.  Gone are the days of “my mouse isn’t working.”  The more integrated the view of IT with the rest of your business, the further IT will help you succeed.  IT alone is not a magic bullet.  Technology needs business.  Business needs Technology.

Getting all parties, executives, IT, staff, managers to see one strategy that IT is meant to help everyone succeed at getting more done with less effort, and not offset workload from one person or group or another is the foundation of a great IT presence.

Check out the article, I’m sure you’ll find it to be great.