Incremental progress is very marginal

I recently read a book from a guy who I have a lot of respect for.  Kevin Kelly has a great blog  and his book "what technology wants" is fantastic.  

In this book he tells the story of a missionary who is working in china.  In the village that he works with all the people gather crops manually without the use of any tools.   Of course the missionary saw how inefficient this was and wanted to help so he ordered a Sickle from his home country and had it sent.  Of course the villagers at first thought the technology was great.  The sickle was going to save them so much time and labor.   But that evening the villagers had a meeting among themselves.  The next morning the chief told the missionary the sickle must be destroyed.  Why the missionary asked?  The Chief explained that the tribe was concerned that a thief would get a hold of the tool and be able to steal all of their crops in a single night.  

This is the plight of technology, all technology has some good points and and some bad points.  Many people will tell you your idea is bad or that technology is the demise of our culture. However, all imaginable technology is neither 100% good or 100% bad.  Technology and ideas are some combination of both good and bad.  So the question that really must be ask is, does this technology's good points outweigh the bad.  As long as the idea is 49% bad and 51% good then we are making progress.  That means we are helping society.  Today cars kill 40,000 people a year.  What if we built "robot" cars that drove themselves and took people places but accidentally killed 20,000 people would be clamoring to say that we needed to remove the robot cars despite less people were being killed.  Progress comes in incremental levels 1% at a time. 

Only the best survive- Founder Institute Houston

Here are the latest from my founder institute class.  We've lost a lot of members between the first night and the third session.  If you are thinking you are ready for a startup incubator you better make sure that you've thought a lot about your idea, and you know what you're made of.   This program isn't for people who think they sort of kind of might want to start something someday and wow look cool the Mint guy is a mentor so I'll join.  If that's you don't waste your time or your peers and mentors, there's a good chance you'll not make it.

It's also not for people with thin skin in the third session not one person who pitched their idea was told "hey that sounded great let's tweak it just a little".  No you were pushed hard on the how and why of your idea? Is the market big enough?  What problem are you solving and one of the main questions is always "What are you building again?"   While that seems easy I think founders are "cursed with knowledge" to borrow a line from Chip and Dan Heath's Made to stick  .   They've thought about their idea so long it seems to them like everyone should just naturally understand it, guess what THEY DON'T. You better get to the point you can explain it in one sentence in a way your mom knows what you're talking about.  Simple, Simple, Simple

Founder Institute is really a challenge and I find it stretching my abilities in a good way.   It's rough traveling from Oklahoma once a week but as they say what doesn't kill you.   Here are some of my takeaway's from the 3rd session.

1. You aren't going to be the first person with this idea and if you are it probably sucks or is too early.  This goes right in line with what I remember reading from Steve Blank's blog a few weeks ago, which talks about the first to market fallacy.
2. While you need to be lean and flexible (see lean startup) but you can also rule out a lot of ideas with research. and lots of it.   You need to know how big your market is?  Who are your competitors (yes there are some) and what kind of market are you in (again you think this part is easy but it's not) 
3. You can find a lot of this using competitor's blogs, press releases, twitter, delicious, etc, there's a good chance they've done a lot of the research for you
4. Figure out how to get to $100 million in revenue in 5 years if you expect to build an enduring company.
5. Know your value proposition as Dave McClure says "Your solution is not my problem" if it isn't a pain point for people you are going to have a tough time convincing people to use it.

In summary, Be flexible with a very simple idea with a great value prop, in a big market (greater than 1Billion) by doing a lot of research and interviews. 

The Beginning

In mid October I found out I was accepted to the Founder Institute.   While honored to be accepted after taking the test and completed the application, I figured Houston was just too far to commute for 14+ weeks.   After thinking about it further and realizing that my friends where tired of hearing the ten thousand start up ideas I had I decided to see if I had what it took to create and manage my dream company.   I told my employer about my intentions to make the weekly commute to Houston and to my surprise they were so supportive of what I was doing they offered to become early "investors" by paying for me to fly down each week.   I can't say enough times the group of guys I work with you'd never find anywhere else.

Enough with how I arrived and more about the program itself.    Entrance into the program is based on an application and a couple of tests that test your ability to learn, and adapt.  The institute is a top notch program, I did my research.  Adeo, the founder has created over 2 Billion and value in companies he has either started or been involved in.   The CEO mentor list reads like a who's who in Silicon Valley, mentors from  household names like Mint, Evernote, QIK, techcruch, Evernote, Blippy, eyefi, etc.   The program is structured for those of us who still have "day jobs" as all the classes are at night.   This is different than other startup incubator programs like techstars or Y combinator.   Also different from those other programs you don't have to have a co-founder (which I do not) or have a set idea, yet Founder Institute is the largest startup incubator with classes all over the world.

The first class reminded me of the first day of western civ in at a university I attended.  It was the make or break class.  Adeo, made you question your resolve to see if you were really going to finish what you start.   He was clear about the effort required and that many people don't make it.  BUT if you do make it to graduation you'll have an awesome company.    I was also astounded how he was focused on your idea (if you had one) and was all business but took a genuine interest in you and your idea.   He's a pretty amazing person in my dealings thus far.  The first night we were divided into groups and given a pretty lengthy assignment to separate those who where there to check it out and those who were ready to get to work.

I was also lucky enough to schedule some "office hours" with him the next morning.  This was one of four 30 min sessions he offered to help you to refine your idea.   I had about four and he was quick to help me narrow it down.   Again, he showed he really wanted me to succeed.

Our small group has proven to be made of some pretty spectacular people.   They are all very smart with great ideas but the thing I like most is their willingness to help you with your idea.   Our group in the 3 meetings we have had thus far has proven to be awesome with lots of sharing of ideas and improvements to others ideas.  I can't wait to see what these guys build.

The first "real" class was on vision and values and our speakers where Matt Mandell who founded DC snacks and City Centric, Phil Libin of evernote and of course Adeo.  All the talks were good enough I went back and re-watched some of them on the FI site.   The next assignment is proving to be quite a chore but one I'm looking forward to getting it done.     There's no doubt I'm going to learn something through this process.    Who knows if I'll be successful but I'll have tried and learned and that's worth the price of this effort regardless.    

To the highest bidder

 

One of the problems with all the app stores is "app discovery" it's searchable but if it's a common keyword maybe you don't find exactly what you are looking for.  I can't imagine it's much longer before apple and google begin to sell "adwords" for apps.   My guess is that it would work exactly like adwords works today on the google search site.   Based on rankings, downloads, and price you are willing to pay some of the results will be sponsored ads.    It's pretty easy money for both Apple/Google and really helps those in the marketplace who have a great product "buy" their way to critical mass.   

We are retuning to "walled gardens" and closed systems, Google was smart to get into the moblie space in a big way, if they are going to maintain growth it will need to be through mobile and that will mean more than just ads on search.  

HI MOM! Look I'm on TV

I'm so bullish on video and the idea that you can see anyone, anywhere, anytime.   I can Imagine Dr's talking to patients without the person leaving the house, or for example I'm dealing with a car insurance issue currently what if though a video chat I could show the adjuster what he needed to see?    Not to mention the obvious use of families making connections.  Video Communications breaks down physical barriers.  It's a technical, and social evolution.

Of course all this is dependent on a few things.  Facetime, Skype, gtalk, AOL, Facebook etc etc all need to agree on a common set of protocols and connection methods.   We need a "DNS" for video calls.  Email systems work this way, as to plain telephone networks.  It doesn't matter who makes my home phone or who I have service with, I can call anyone else with a landline.  We don't both need Bell South, we both don't need a panasonic phone land line calling just works.    Common set of protocols and a common directory will have to happen for the idea to get traction.   Service providers or Hardware manufactures can then work on providing enhanced services if you both have have an Apple phone for instance.

The other issue is just the social issue of having to look at someone.  There's an awkward gaze and it seems wrong to multitask while having a conversation.   However, I think  social barriers will break down.  Apple has helped this a lot by including facetime on the ipod touch.   A generation will grow up talking to their friends while looking them in the eye.   Once this happens the stigma of needing to be physically present will fade way, and going somewhere will become more rare, work will change, relationships will change and the world will change.

Pony express now delivers letters every day.

One of the most common criticisms I hear of online interactions is they aren't real.  I'm not sure what "real" means except to say that i expect to most people it means face to face.    While face to face communications are still important and will alway be, they aren't required any longer to maintain relationships.

I've seen several articles like this one  that state teen driving is down.   I think this is a real fundamental switch in the way people interact.   When I turned 16 I got my drivers license that same day.  I drove to town so I could meet others and go where I wanted, all to "maintain" relationships.   But that was before myspace, facebook, twitter, AIM, xbox live and most importantly SMS.

Now relationships are created, developed and cultivated over the air, on our mobile phones, computers, and  consoles.   Take for example that some 20% of marriages now were the result of meeting online.  Even if the relationship isn't formed online, once you form a real relationship you can do a good job of maintaining that via online services and text messaging.  

Finally,  I think that is a real reason that the older generation just doesn't get "social networking" and wonder why would someone text hundreds of messages a day .   At one time the barrier to getting a "typed" or printed document to someone was very high.   There was a high cost to typing or writing a document and then mailing or somehow getting the document to recipient wasn't trivial so what you wrote down NEEDED TO BE WORTHY OF THE COST.   Thus the follow through that these people think online updates are full of mindless dribble about what someone had a for lunch.   The same people wouldn't hesitate to tell someone face to face what they had for lunch but by typing it somehow transforms that to meaningless information.  However, that's not how the current generation sees it, they see it as maintaining a REAL relationship.

End of the line

Efficient markets demand that supply and demand are in equilibrium. One place that currently isn't the place is waiting in line. I think that waiting in line is still an example of bad markets. There's more demand then supply at the time. But usually it's peak demand that people haven't planned for. Mobile technology can help to alleviate some of this wasted time.

This can be done in two ways. The first is that mobile allows people to be more productive while waiting around. Now because people have smart phones they can check email. Update their status, text or talk to others etc. But more importantly mobile tech will evolve the "check in" into actually reserving a place in line. There's really no reason this can't happen today.

Imagine that you go to get your haircut rather than just sit there you check into your shop before you arrive you see how long before someone can meet with you, you ask to get a text within 10 min of when it's time to get your haircut. Now you can be busy doing other things. What about the store? You see how long lines are before you arrive, you get notified when it's your turn to checkout. Getting your oil changed or other car repair, The dr.'s office, etc .

Mobile tech should be the "end of the line", this should improve everyone's life and create more efficiency  in the market.