Monthly Archives: January 2008

31st Jan, 2008

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Weak Dollar Means More European Business

I recently started seven straight work days with phone calls to Europe. That was a little jarring at first but made some sense because we’d just run successful networks for conferences in London and Berlin. What took me a little longer to figure out was how little pushback I got on prices. The conversations we’re all about whether it was a good fit, not whether they had budget available. At first I thought it was just a different style of negotiation. But then I realized that with the weak dollar our prices are extremely cheap.

That’s a good thing when you’re trying to bootstrap a business. I’ve often wondered if it would be easier to start this business if I lived in Brazil (my aunt has an apartment there) where costs are low but continued to sell to the US where prices are comparitively much higher. Lucky me: I found the exact same dynamic living here and selling to Europe.

I’ve been wondering if other small businesses are on to this trend. Apparently, yes. Marci Alboher (who interviewed me for this NY Times piece on small business blogging) published an article in today’s small business section: Weak Dollar Has Small Businesses Thinking Globally.

The main reason CrowdVine has been so against taking investment or debt is because as programmers we think it’s more rewarding to run an independent company than to run a company that’s dependent on VCs or credit card companies. It wasn’t all personal preference, a lot of trends were pointing this way. Cost of development went way down. So did hosting, hardware, and bandwidth. And now there’s an entire continent of wealthy customers.

Not everything about the weak dollar makes me happy. I’d like to travel in Europe for example. But it is an opportunity for small business, and that’s fine by me.

25th Jan, 2008

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Web2Open

Sarah and I just signed up to organize Web2Open, the unconference that runs inside of Web 2.0 Expo (April 22-25). It’s free, so you should come even if you weren’t planning on going to the rest of the conference.

We’re just starting our planning but I wanted to announce it in case anyone has any feelings.

Some of the things we’re thinking about:

  • Highlighting individual and independent contributions to Web 2.0. At least with the data portability and open social movements there’s a battle being waged with press releases. It’d be nice if the unconference could cut through that so you could figure out what’s real, what works, and what tools are out there.
  • Coordinating some of the sessions with sessions from the main conference track. The idea is that you could go to the conference session to learn about something and then come to the unconference to discuss/hammer out the details.
  • Have some pre-planned sessions. Past Web2Open’s seem to have done this successfully. I’m a lot more interested in discussions than I am in individual presenters. The strength of unconference sessions is that they have a personal feel and every attendee can also be a speaker. I’m lobbying for “I spoke at Web2Open” stickers in order to encourage people to speak.
  • Dropping the MashRoom. People just used it to check their email last year and no code actually got written. Come to think of it, I can’t remember the last time someone showed me a mashup. However, I would be a little sad if we didn’t produce at least some code. Noodling on this.
  • Get strong cross-pollination between people pushing the boundaries of Web 2.0 and the people who are just learning. If you’re an alpha geek, you’re lazy if you just talk to other alpha geeks. Branch out. Most of the attendees at the conference, let’s call them beta geeks, are there to find cutting edge ideas they can apply in more traditional settings.

More announcements to come!

13th Jan, 2008

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What are you reading?

For the new year, Sarah and I instituted a no “random laptopping” after 10pm rule. That means if we’re not doing productive work we shut the laptops and move on to something else. Right now there’s some debate about whether Scrabulous constitutes random laptopping, but for me, at least, the rule has resulted in a lot more reading (a good thing because I picked up a pile of books over the holiday).

I loved Warren Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist. He’s a fantastic example of the benefits of independent thinking. Obviously he’s been amazingly successful financially. However, if you read the book you’ll see he also created an amazingly fun job (for him). Compare that to the unhappy millionaires of Silicon Valley, the only place where “single-digit millionaire” can be used as a pejorative.

Born Standing Up, the Steve Martin autobiography, has been a big hit around the house. Sarah’s mom read it in two days. I charged through it in three days. If you want to borrow it you’re going to have to get in line behind both Sarah and my mom. The thing that I find so interesting about comedians is how much time they spend bombing while developing new material. You could also see that in Jerry Seinfeld’s documentary, Comedian. The entire profession has taken the mantra “fail fast” to heart.

I’ve moved on to The Science of Success by Charles Koch. He’s the CEO of the world’s largest privately owned company. I’m not far enough in to say if I can recommend it.

If you’re looking for more reading material, I just ran across this Personal MBA reading list. I love the descriptions and there are some real gems in this list. The guy has put together a DIY MBA program. Some people like to knock traditional MBA programs for being a waste of money but I can’t say one approach is clearly better than the other. Sarah is in school at the Berkeley Haas MBA program, loves it, is learning a lot, and is building a great network. I’m in the school of hard knocks, love it, am learning a lot, and am building a great network. One thing I can say, is that in year one the school of hard knocks is definitely not cheaper. I gave up way more in salary than Sarah gave up in tuition.

So, what are you reading?