August 10th, 2009
Tr.im closing, and thoughts on monetizing on the web
If you haven’t heard, the URL shortening service Tr.im is closing down. It’s a shame because it was my favorites, and I wasn’t alone. In a busy space, the tr.im product wasn’t particularly unique, but it was easy, clean and offered a couple features that no else did. And it was free.
But all of the url shortening services are free. Some have freemuim models, some, like tr.im, are meant to drive traffic to the company’s other products. Free is a big topic of discussion right now, and a lot of people building web apps struggle with it. What do we give away, and what do we charge for? What will people pay for? How do we make money off of free? Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: chris anderson, free web sites, monetizing, saas, tr.im, url shortening, web apps
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July 22nd, 2009
What if you had to pay for clicks?
Google has made a million dollars on their pay-per-click adSense, but that’s not what I’m talking about. I’ve been reading books like the 4-Hour Workweek and there’s a big push for efficiency. It’s great. “Check your email twice a day. Not more. Really. You’ll survive.” It’s amazing – I never thought I could do it, but it feels good, and is actually more efficient. Less changing gears. But I digress. This sort of tip has made me think about efficiency in front of the computer. Things like thinking things through before even touching the mouse. Putting pen to paper. Working on one project at a time. Like that.
And then I realized a great measurement would be clicks. Imagine if you had to pay for clicks? Or there was an odometer on yr mouse? How efficient would you be! I’ve tried to think about how to do things in fewer steps, fewer movements, fewer mistakes. I’ve gotten better about focusing, and def am more efficient. Give it a try and let me know what yr results are!
Tags: clicks, efficiency, focusing, GTD
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July 15th, 2009
You Don’t Know What you Don’t Know
This keeps coming up lately and I think it’s an interesting concept. Making informed decisions implies yre informed. When trying to solve a problem, I have to understand the problem, the possible solutions, and also usually the context in which the problem sits. That’s a lot of learning, but it can be done most of the time. If I’m laying out a web site and I want to separate two areas with a line, I dig around the web and decide to use <hr>’s. There’s my problem and my solution. By styling <hr> tags is inconsistent, so when I move onto the CSS, I need the larger context of the browsers and maybe some knowledge about SEO. Now what I need to know is much larger and more vague.
The wildcard that makes this scenario really hard is other people. In the above example it’s just me against the web. The more common scenario is when a boss or client hands you a project. They have expectations, and that’s a scary word. They may do a great job laying out the requirements (a.k.a. the problem) and your knowledge and experience may perfectly fit (a.k.a. the solution), but, man, if they leave out one little thing, or you happen to be checking Twitter when they explain one small detail, it can be disaster.
Here’s my short list that I use when taking on someone else’s problem: Pay attention. Ask lots of questions. Ask them again. Take notes. Do planning, wire-framing and iterations. And over communicate while yre working. At times it feels unprofessional, but better safe than sorry.
Tags: expectations, knowledge, project management
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June 15th, 2009
Lessons I’ve Learned: Delegate
As I’ve discussed a little bit before, I’m used to being and doing everything myself. This isn’t a “I have to do it all myself” instinct, necessarily. It’s more that I grew up an only child and never had to share. I think I got used to taking on different roles in any project I did (I’ll admit my parents helped a lot with that 6th grade science project about volcanoes). I have of course come to learn that being the only one responsible for all aspects of a proect can be bad, stressful and dangerous. Also there are often situations where you are simple expected to share the work load. I’ve learned that delegating can definitely be a good thing. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: delegating, Lessons
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May 22nd, 2009
I’m… so… alone…
I’m currently on a Bob Walsh kick. Between the Micro-ISV book and his marketing e-book, I’m going to master everything micro-ISV and take over the world. Anyway, a question I’ve been pondering lately is about running DubFiler and whether it’s wise to try to run it all alone. (Can you take over the world by yourself?) Since I’m looking to Bob for all the answers right now, I thought I’d send him an email. His answer is the resulting blog post on his blog.
To Partner or not to Partner, that is the question.
This is one of those questions that feels huge when I think about it, but then I stop thinking about it. What I mean is that the amount of attention it’s paid in writing makes it feel big. The reason I asked is because in most books they tell you in bold letters, “Don’t go it alone!” But it still doesn’t feel right to me. I do most things on my own. So when I stop thinking about the question, things feel right again and I go on my merry way.
Once again there’s no clear answers.
Dammit.
I’m looking forward to his subsequent posts about finding the right person. Perhaps understanding the ying to my yang will make me search for someone to spoon with, business-wise.
Tags: Bob Walsh, collaboration, parters, sole proprietor
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May 15th, 2009
Lessons I’ve Learned: Get sleep
Lessons I’ve Learned: After reading Dr. Maas’ book on sleep called Power Sleep a few years ago, I was convinced that there is good science and reasoning behind getting enough sleep. he’s a Cornell professor so who am I to disagree? He talks about how it takes a few weeks, but once you get caught up on sleep, you’ll feel better, happier, healthier and smarter. I was running myself ragged and felt like crap all the time. I was sick a lot. So it struck a chord for me. I worked hard to get caught up following his guide and I definitely experienced a huge difference for the better. And still do when I’m sleeping enough. There are exceptions, but I try. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Dr. Maas, power sleep, sleep
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July 20th, 2009
Great comments on life in a start-up
Onstartups has a great collection of comments made about one of their articles.
Tags: comments, insights, link, onstartups, start-ups
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