Derek Sivers of CDBaby and MuckWork on Startup Success
Even in this age of fear based news, war and famine, contentious politics and avian flu, it is difficult to be a pessimist with people like Derek Sivers in this world.
Derek Sivers is the man behind CDBaby and now MuckWork who parlayed the simple need to publish his own CDs into a company to sell his friends albums as well into a scalable web business into a massive payday, which he parlayed into a tremendous charitable organization designed to aid independent musicians in a much more comprehensive way.
In this interview Derek speaks candidly about his journey from a musician into the big business of music showing that tremendous success can come from following natural, compassionate intentions and be fed back into scaling those intentions to a tremendous degree.
http://startuppodcast.wordpress.com/2009/10/07/show-40-derek-sivers-cdbaby-and-muckwork/
If you're into the business site of the web, I highly recommend subscribing to this podcast. It's worth going back and listening to the entire season.
Going Open Source 2 – “Will work for greater vision”
This post is going to be like the movie The Usual Suspects. I'm going to show you the end then let those of you who are interested start from the beginning and take the long way back:
... so after dipping the strip into a bunch of sites, here are the ones that turned a favorable color:
The Micropreneur Academy and
47Hats - The MicroISV Digest
Subsequent posts in this series will focus on my journeys in these realms.
Do-do-de-loop x5 (the moving back in time noise with fingery hand waving)
In the first article in this series, I talked about my strategy of taking a code base that had been developed through a number of client projects and 'going open source' with it. There were two goals that I was trying to achieve with the work I outlined back then:
- to have a stripped down tabula rasa code base to build up from, and
- to come up with a detailed, itemized, prioritizable list of steps to build the first package release.
I now have a fairly realistic idea of the time commitment needed to have a coherent engine together. I have also designed a 'first module', if you will. In classic programmer fashion it is a module that will aid people in building other modules... 
So, yes, I do think I'm on track for the next step:
A step back
During this process, I realized a fundamental aspect of my approach to this project concerning what I call my point of action. As usual, I've been working from intuition, which leads to familiar patterns.
I've spent quite a lot of time with the code and the ideas and strategies to release it both to the open source community and as a basis for an ISV. I have a solid plan, mostly still in my head, to the steps I will have to take in order to achieve open source as well as perceive a need that this could fulfill on a subscription basis. These thought processes span a half dozen disciplines (marketing, accounting, support, etc..), all of which have to be implemented to support the greater idea.
It was not a surprise to me that I fell into the familiar pattern of diving into the code with the focus to take the code all the way to open source before putting substantial work into the other facets of a project / business that are necessary to support it.
If I go straight forward, I will have a sourceforge bill sitting on my monthly credit card accounts that leads to a spartan project page with a sad, lonely release with perhaps a dozen downloads and maybe one or two inactive contributors.
Tapping some experience
I've come across a lot of entrepreneurs that work to help entrepreneurs. There's a lot of genuine folks out there selling access to valuable experience and community, but there's also a lot of charlatanism. I have done a large amount of researched based on the free trials, posts and media out there.
My litmus tests for entrepreneur coaches:
- Have they done this themselves?
- If no, then close the browser tab
- If yes, then, did they get it right the first time?
- If they struck it the first time, close the tab but keep an eye on their blog/product. These folks are awesome inspiration but I've found that style and inuition doesn't come through in a practical manner.
- If they have tales from the trenches, more mistakes learned from than brilliant magical success and an authoritative tone of voice that's the result of excitement and energy tempered long by the pressures of experience then I keep them on the list.
- Do they have an active community surrounding their work?
- Better be yes, because I want to be able to say, "I've been working at this damn phase for months and not one person has come to my site!" then for them to say "Try x." and for me to spend one hour outside of my preprogramed approach comfort zone and smack myself on the forehead for all the 'learning experience' 'character building' hours behind me.
- Do they have good hair in their headshot? Absolutely essential. I mean they can't take themselves too seriously. If I wanted to staple myself to a rigorous routine I would go work in the financial district.
The following are the blogs / communities that I have decided to participate in to develop the greater vision
Inside look into successful design shop
A List Apart is running a great article by Simon Collision, a driving force behind http://erskinedesign.com/. Simon gives an intimate account of how his shop began with just two people, ran into the traps and pitfalls indemic to such a venture, but then systematically overcame them with clear vision and sound operating priciples to move past the problems and grow to (what seems to be) a very successful six person shop. As half of a small business myself I closely identify with the challanges and am inspired by Erskine's solutions.
Read the full article here: http://www.alistapart.com/authors/c/simoncollison
Here's a video interview with Simon that looks interesting but is too long for me to watch right now because I'm eye-brows deep in one of the pitfalls that stems from setting out on the frontier: avoidance stemming from stress resulting in a dual whammy of lack of setting of clients expectations and allowing projects to run far over schedule due to lack of client engagement: http://www.colly.com/comments/starting_from_the_beginning/
Update: If you like the article on alistapart and are hungering for more check out the 9 part writeup on the Erskine website. Simon has a great passion for what he does and puts it out there with fearless abandon. If I had a hat I would tip it to him.
Strategies for creating web traffic and revenue
If you're looking for a practical, down to earth resource for building a niche site and generating web traffic, check out http://www.doshdosh.com/. Rarely does a website do such an exacting job of focusing on a niche and expanding upon the subtitles therein without loosing focus on practicality. It's an inspiring site in both form and content.
Client / Project Development Meditation Exercise
In order to get what I have to do done, I have to be able to choose what to do next now without wasting hours and energy (both of which are at a premium these days.) To do this I have to gain a perspective on all of the things on my plate, which requires a certain distance. Here's one way to do that:
- Clear off your desk and close all the windows open on your computer.
- Cultivate a distance and perspective: what sort of responsibility is this?
- Begin to think through all the things that you have (posses) to do.
- Think about the state of that project / relationship / etc...
- What is your next step? Visualize yourself doing it.
- Make a mental note of any thoughts, emotions, etc... that arise while meditating on that task. (Just note it, don't follow where it will lead.)
- Move on to the next thing.
Doing this makes it less likely that I forget things and let them slip away. It also helps me shake out the unhealthy connections to my responsibilities so that I can make the best decision on what to do that my current sensibilities allows.
Why does this come up?
On any given day as an entrepreneuer it's common to juggle up to a dozen different things. These may be simple discrete tasks such as answering a question, filling out a form or writing (or paying) an invoice. Some are more involved concrete tasks such as performing the next step in an ongoing project or preparing for a meeting. Others are potentialities or more theoretical tasks such as sending out an email to keep a perspective client or parter excited about an idea or project that you're cultivating or researching a skill set that seems as if it will help you strengthen a weak area in your work.
Pretend that this desk is my brain and you'll get the idea.
Things to do vary widely and require vastly different forms of attention and action. As these responsibilities build up, they can become overwhelming. I find that the hardest thing about my job is keeping the things I have to do in perspective so that I can make determinate choices about exactly what I should be doing now so that I can do it. When I can't make a clear choice I feel like a guy using an old gas powered lawn mower; no matter how much I pull the chain, the engine won't engage.
Getting Real with 37 Signals
37 Signals is a web company that delivers web productivity tools. It was founded by the folks who developed Ruby on Rails. So besides recommending their web products, which is not worth a blog post, why am I talking about them?
They wrote a book called Getting Real and parsed it into a free website. And even better, it’s a book written in straight forward language that cuts across philosophy, procedure, business, design, code, and just about everything else. I’m sure you’ll agree, there are few things digital that are better than such an effort.
It’s really easy to think about ideas that will save the world, or at least help millions and get you rich in the process. It feels really good, makes for great conversation and is a generally pleasant way to pass the time. This is especially true in the world of web development where anyone with a minimal level of experience can, theoretically, reach a billion people without having to leave their parent’ s basement.
Sitting down and making those ideas Real is a different story. If you’re the sort of person inclined to roll up your proverbial sleeves and go head to head with reality, this book is for you.