Letter from a VC

I just got this email via LinkedIn from a Swedish VC. That got me thinking about what my college acquiantances are currently doing. So I started to track some of them down via LinkedIn and realized that most of them are still in… Sweden. Which was quite a disappointment. Especially seeing some of them in suits, flustering their best Colgate smiles on their company websites.

Most of them have become their parents, desiring the same kind of corporate paybacks: careers, club memberships, company cars… Spending more time at the office has become an societal award.

And then I think about my own life: carefree, jeans and t-shirt, startup life, California sun, no memberships, no old world desires, freedom of expression, outside of ratrace, access to beach…

Yeah, I got the shorter stick!

My Nocturnal Adventures

One of the first thing that one of my old Yahoo! managers said when he came onboard was that he wanted people to be committed, not just engaged. Then he told the story about the chicken who is delivering eggs but survives and the pig the sacrifices himself to deliver ham. The chicken is only engaged but the pig is committed. You get it.

That story took me back to my college years when we used to stay up all night to get our university magazine ready for publishing or when we planned new projects during the weekends. The use of the night-time was showing true commitment to the current mission at hand.

These nocturnal adventures continued as I ventured into the mid-90s startup world of Stockholm. We stayed up until the work was done. When you are committed, there are no rules when you should go to work or when you should quit. You keep charging ahead until you are either done or dead tired. Then sleep and repeat.

So as I have slowly getting used to being back in the startup world over the past few months I’ve also started to use nights and weekends for work. Our future is like an unpainted canvas and as any artist knows: creativity never sleeps.

So this past Saturday I woke up at 2am in the morning and realized that my head was full of ideas. I grabbed a coffee, the laptop and got to work. That was one of the most creative sessions I’ve had over the past few years. My commitment – I realized – came from being trusted, empowered and accountable for my work but also from really caring about the outcome.

I think the nights and the weekends are crucial to the success of a startup. That’s when you get time to look back at the past week, get overall perspective and think about the future. If you live in an entrepreneurial network – as I do – it’s the best time for sharings and learnings. It’s also the best time to get work done.

Book Widgets Are The New ISBN Identifiers

I authored my first book a few months ago, about our sabbatical in Argentina. It’s a 40-page, hardcover dynamo story about the Missus’ and my photographic experiences in Buenos Aires with surroundings. The reviews have been raving – both from mother and mother-in-law.

As most people on this globe, I’ve dreamt of being published. You know having an ISBN number, being found on Amazon et cetera. So I subscribed to their Merchant Pro service for an introductory price of $19.99 per month and started to upload my book with all associated data. Now, I thought I would be properly exposed to their 29+ MM users world wide and the dream of infinite richness would be reality.

I learned that I didn’t have to have an ISBN number but did realize that I had to add 50% on top of the production cost of my book to get to break-even. Furthermore, how would people find my future bestseller? There is no way that I could compete with the bigger publishing houses and their relationship with Amazon for potential readers eyeballs and wallets.

That’s when I realized that my blog will probably deliver more sales than Amazon, just by adding a promotional module in the sidebar, linking to my Blurb Bookstore. That’s cause my blog is my community, where I interact with friends and family. They are the most likely book buyers of my literary and photographic musings. They are my long tail!

If they like my book, then they will probably recommend it to their friends and family. That means that my URL at Blurb is more valuable than mine at Amazon but it’s much cheaper – it’s actually free. That means that I only need to sell a fraction of books to make the same profit. And over time, my audience will grow and I’ll finally become filthy rich.

Startups are the new rock bands

I got the Led Zeppelin III CD yesterday, ripped it today and have been listening to it over the past few hours. It’s so insanely great that I’m getting chills. Plant’s voice, Page’s guitar riffs, Bonham’s drums and Jones’ base. It’s the perfect combination of raw talent, energy and team work that comes together and just creates magic.

That’s how I see startups operate. You have a bunch of smart, passionate and energetic souls that come together in achieving a higher goal by collaboration, challenging each other and searching for excellence.

Small, agile musings…

The last few weeks have been very busy at my new gig. We have been exhibiting our products at Macworld and Imaging US, planning for a new release and getting some new folks on-board. Staying focused on execution is the key survival strategy for a startup. Speed is everything once you have stepped out in the marketplace and banged on the jungle drum.

All that and more has resulted in fewer blog entries. It’s not that I’m thinking less or have fewer opinions about things, just that I’ve prioritized work over my writings. But here are a few bullet point:

• Peter Jackson deserves his additional $250MM from New Line. The co-chairman Bob Shayne thinks Mr Jackson is greedy and that he has gotten enough money. Anyone that cannot see through that lame argument – when has a company ever said that their profits are enough? – should be locked in. Bob, give Jackson his money so that the world can enjoy the Hobbit. (I’ve heard that New Line no longer has the rights to The Hobbit after 2007 so this media outburst could just be some stalling tactics.)
• What is up with the weather in California? I did not move her to have to walk to work in 38 degree cold winter weather. It’s just not right.
• Barack Obama – the whitest black man on the globe – is running for president in 2008 and I think he’ll win. Just think about how cool the newspaper headlines could read: Obama captures Osama – not beating around the Bush!

To Fire On All Cylinders II

I’ve really connected with my current startup environment – Blurb.com. It’s hard to express how fun it is to be back in the startup world. Everyday is a new huge step into the future with cool new prototypes, plans and ideas. Just the experience of going from idea to prototype in a few days is insanely great. I’ve stopped thinking about next year and try to focus on tomorrow and the next few weeks.

Every large milstone is made up of a number of smaller milestones. Small steps can sometimes beat huge intended leaps. In a startup you need to focus on executing in the short-term and hope that the management got the direction covered. But every step forward is a victory.

Btw. I just had my first release going live yesterday. Check it out at Blurb.com.

Shoshin – The Beginner’s Mind

I’m reading this fabulous book on project management called ‘The Art of Project Management’. It’s written by a former Mircrosoft employee – Scott Berkun – and as much as I dislike what the ‘Evil Empire’ has contributed to the world I salute their process to get things done.

“Staying curious and open is what makes growth possible, and it requires practise to maintain that mindset. To keep learning, we have to avoid the temptation to slide into narrow, safe views of what we do.”

I really appreciate that attitude. Too many people are spending too much time showing off what they know instead of being open to learning new stuff. I’m trying to live by the Shoshin to learn as much as I can – at least one new thing a day which is very satisfactory.

A Blurberastic Day

My first day at Blurb.com was yesterday and the only reason I didn’t post the traditional “My First Day At Work” entry was that my brain was still spinning in loops by the time I got home. The amount of data that was thrown at my tiny little brain would make any average processor explode. But I got home after a brisk 30-minute walk and to my delight, the Missus had prepared a fantastic Cheese & Shrimp Stuffed Poblano Pepper w/ a Red Bell Pepper Sauce. That fab dish and a few glasses of Villa Antinori had me knocked out by 9pm. I slept like a baby!

The good night sleep helped me digest all the new acronyms, the new impressions and all the new challenges. But man, what a fresh breath of air my new work life is turning out to be. Words like disruptive, uncharted territory, challenges, opportunities, passion, commitment and smart people is getting a complete new meaning. There is something insanely great and real about being back at a start-up with a business model.

To coolest thing is that for the first time in my career it’s fairly easy to explain what I do: I’m the people’s publisher. Anyone can publish a book with us. User generated content doesn’t only need to be hosted on the web, it can also result in very tactile real books. It’s the essence of technology: to make the unimaginable possible.

It’s not web 2.0 but soo web 3.0. It’s going beyond all the talk of Ajax, Ruby, social media et cetera and just focus on disrupting one of the oldest monopolies in the world: the distribution of free speech. Gutenberg would have been proud. He would have fit right in at Blurb.com.

A Blurb About My Future

“It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.

Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’
We are not now that strength which in the old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal-temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”

From Alfred Tennyson ’s Ulysses

I think the more we are willing to risk the more we are alive. The decision to leave something great was hard but the mere thought of not making the most of the chances we get in life unforgivable. After 11 months on the road I’m now venturing back into the tech world for a new chapter in my life. I’ll be starting at Blurb.com in 10 days, working on their desktop client for the everyman storyteller across the world. It’s an awesome product and a very passionate team.

I feel that I’m back where I started, on a higher level but still curious and excited about the present and the future. The excitement of just diving into a new world is quite overwhelming. I feel like I’m on my way to first day in school. There are new people to get to know, new ideas and thoughts to bounce off and new challenges to embrace. I’m writing another chapter and it still just feels like the beginning.