The Birth of a New Company

One of the things I love about running my own business (and life really) is that in two or three months, you can find yourself doing something you never would have expected.

This happened to me once again recently, and I'm announcing today a new company I've started named Duarlander. I had no idea two months ago that I would be doing this, but here I am, starting my second company. So, how did this happen?

Readers of this blog know that Ideal Project Group just recently launched our first internal product called GoFind!, which is a mobile application for the Android Operating System. While we were working on the project, we noticed there were some minor differences in the way the application would work on the G1 vs. the myTouch - both phones that run Android. There were a couple minor bugs that needed to be fixed, but that only appeared on the myTouch. In most cases the bugs were very minor, but when present caused the application at times to not even open.

I thought to myself, how am I going to know if this application works on all these other devices that are coming out? Then I thought, everyone that's developing applications for Android is probably going to have this question. That's when I decided to start Duarlander.

Duarlander is an application testing business where we'll test Android applications for developers on every device. We have purchased every Android phone that's been released in the US, and we'll continue to do so as more devices become available. I hope that at some point we'll also buy devices that have been released in other countries, but for now we're starting with just the US market. You can learn more about Duarlander by checking out the website.

I don't know of course what's going to happen in the long run. Is it possible Android 2.0 is going to solve all these issues? It's possible, but I suspect as handset manufacturers continue to customize the User Experience, differences in the way some apps work on various phones will continue to persist. Either way, I feel this business has very real potential and I wanted to give it a go.

I'm also trying something somewhat unconventional with the launch of the business. I honestly have no idea what we should be charging for the service, so I'm not going to pretend I know. We're going to offer our services for free for a little while, and in exchange we're asking the Android community to answer two simple questions:

1) How much should we charge?
2) How much would you be willing to donate today?

We're going to take these two pieces of information and determine our pricing structure in about a month - unless it becomes clear sooner than that. In the meantime, if you're a developer shoot us an email to get your app tested on all the devices that have been released so far. I'll keep posting updates about the business on this blog, and hopefully we'll have exciting news to share in the coming weeks.

Lessons from a birthday party

Two weeks ago, I threw a surprise party for my wife's 35th birthday. The sole purpose was of course to have a good time and celebrate my wife Maile. In the process of planning the party though, I learned (or in some cases re-learned) some pretty valuable lessons about running a small business. Most of these lessons seem simple and obvious, but they're worth recognizing and calling out none the less.

Initially, I was going to have the party at one of our favorite neighborhood restaurants. The food is good, it has a great atmosphere, and I thought it would be nice to give the business to a restaurant in our community. After all, restaurants are feeling the impact of this recession as much as anybody. After a lot of back and forth and numerous phone calls, I still had the party in our neighborhood - but it was at a different place than I had originally wanted.

So.....what happened? It wasn't one thing, but was instead a series of events. First, there was an issue with how much space I needed and the owner was concerned about having to turn away too many people. Once we worked that out, then there were concerns over whether we could really have an open bar. Once we came to an agreement on that, then there were problems over how much food would be available and what kind of food would be included. At one point I even asked, "well, can I just make a reservation for 30 people and pay for everything on a normal tab?" The answer: "No, because you guys might end up staying all night and my tables wouldn't turn over."

Over the course of our conversations the price changed three times, the "open bar" became pre-purchasing a certain number of drinks, and reserving our space became having the space unless there was a chance someone else wanted it in which case we might have to split our party up. Then a contract came over, via fax because the owner didn't have an e-mail address, outlining a different agreement than what we had discussed.

All I wanted to do was throw a nice little party for my wife, and all of a sudden it felt like I was planning a full blown wedding reception. It was getting ridiculous.

The final straw was when the owner said: "You know, we're going to have 30 people eat at our restaurant whether you have your party here or not." With that single statement he told me that he didn't care one bit about getting my business or me as a customer.

Contrast this with ElCid, a great little Mexican restaurant in Logan Square where I ultimately ended up having the party. I called them up and told them how many people I was having. They had a room upstairs available that we could use and there was $100 deposit. They told me how much the open bar would be per person, or if I wanted I could just pay as we went like a normal tab. He e-mailed me a menu that I selected a bunch of appetizers from to get started and then allowed people to order whatever meal they wanted once they arrived.

Everything was easy.

When I saw how simple it was to work with ElCid, the decision was made. I'm a firm believer that the way someone works with you before an engagement begins is how they'll work with you throughout an entire project. The experience with the other restaurant left me wondering how much, or what kind, of a headache I was going to have to deal with the night of my wife's birthday.

There are a host of lessons coming out of this experience that I want to remind myself of and apply to how I run my own business:

Lesson #1: If you can't, or don't want, to do something - just say so. If the first place had just said "hey, we'd love to help but we don't do parties" everything would have been fine. I'd still be a happy customer. Instead, they irritated me to the point where I don't want to give them any of my business.

Lesson #2: People like it when you trust them. No one at ElCid even asked me for a credit card until the end of the party - it was quite refreshing to have that level of trust given to me. Everything has gotten to the point where we're always trying to protect ourselves from any possible loss, that we're very likely alienating people that might otherwise do business with us because we act like they can't be trusted.

Lesson #3: The easier you are to work with, the more people will enjoy working with you. If you make people use a fax machine, you aren't easy to work with. Period.

Lesson #4: If you put something in writing - it better match exactly what you said verbally. If you send over something in writing that doesn't match exactly what you said - you either look like an idiot or a liar.

Lesson #5: Know your business. The fact that the first place struggled mightily with the open bar, when every other restaurant I ever talk to knows how much they would charge, tells me that they don't have a good grasp on basic financial components of their business.

Like I said at the beginning of this post, most of these are obvious, but it's easy to forget these lessons when entering into discussions with a potential client. I'm going to try and make sure I keep these at the front of my mind next time I'm discussing an opportunity with someone.

GoFind! has been released

I'm really excited to announce that we've launched the Android application we've been working on called GoFind!. It's available in the Android Market for purchase right now. So, what is GoFind!?

GoFind! is an application that was designed to solve a very specific problem - getting two people together who are trying to find each other. For example, let's say you're at Lollapalooza or Taste of Chicago, or you're just in the park. But you look around and realize...you need to meet up with your friend, and you have no idea where they are. Now what? You can text each other and try to give vague directions ("I'm by this big tree...you know, the one we were by earlier? By the other tree?") or you can call each other and attempt to be heard over the noise ("Where are you?" "What?!!" "What?"). OR, you can now GoFind! each other.

Using Global Positioning Systems, the internal accelerometer and text messaging the app is really powerful, but very simple to use. Try it! You will be lead directly to your friend as the initiator of the GoFind! request, and as the Target you will see what direction your friend is coming from. It's pretty awesome.

The finder screen points the finder to their friend:



















The target screen tells the target where their friend is coming from:

Art by a three year old

My daughter Leila goes to a public Montessori school in the city of Chicago. According to the teacher, "after learning about Piet Mondrian, students used his artwork as inspiration for their own artwork." This is what Leila made:

Business related? Nope - just have the proud father thing going on and thought it would be fun to put on my blog. Happy Friday everyone.

When everything is a priority, nothing is a priority

If everything you want to do is a priority, it's no different than not having any priorities at all. Everything can be important, but it can't all be the most important.

It's very easy to get caught up in all the various things we want to do, and this is something I struggle with myself. Sometimes I'll feel like I'm having an explosion of ideas, but there's simply no way to do everything. And as we all know, an idea with no execution behind it isn't going to get you anywhere.

While there are a host of theories about how to best prioritize projects (and I have my own opinions about how work should be prioritized) the first step is at least understanding that you do indeed have to come up with your priorities. Without prioritization, everything gets a little attention, but almost nothing is actually completed. Even worse, you're probably losing a lot of momentum on almost everything and expending a great amount of energy with very little return. (For more on this, please see the importance of momentum.)

This seems sort of obvious, but I think a lot of companies still struggle tremendously with this concept, and it's understandable. It's really hard taking what may very well be a great idea and pushing it off until later. It's tempting to try and take on that one additional thing without having to give up anything. The problem is, it almost never works out that way - something always has to give.

I think this is why so many people (and I certainly put myself in this category) don't get enough sleep - we simply don't make it a top priority.

If you're finding that you aren't getting as much work done as you think you should, or if you feel really busy but don't have as much to show for your work as you would expect, you may simply need to take a step back and prioritize your work.

Sometimes pausing everything and figuring out your priorities is the best action you can take.