Finding Free WiFi

Redfin's CEO "Where Do Ideas Come From"

Spent the evening listening to Glenn Kelman, one of the most engaging entrepreneurs I've heard in Seattle.  He gave a speech at a UW Business Plan Competition resource night entitled "Where Do Ideas Come From?"

Some random notes worth sharing:

"Trying to imagine what user #! wants, if you aren't user #1, is very hard."  Yep.

He added some things he wished there was, including a computer monitored digestive tract for his biking, an environmental yahoo, and Resident Evil 5, with strafing.

"It takes time to build something that's fundamentally valuable, it's better to be better, not first.  First to market is not a long term strategy."

"You have more time than you think to do something really good."

"You have to solve real pain or really capture consumer delight"

"History writes out the bad stuff," apparently Redfin started with a fistfight. 

"Squash the competition,"  I'm willing to bet he likes Lance Armstrong (as do I, ask me about my Lance Armstrong stage 5 in Montargis story)

"Make haste slowly" from Roman Emperor Augustus.

Redfin's financials can be seen on Guy's blog here.  Very helpful for anyone writing their first business plan.

Speeches- The End Equals the Beginning

When was the last time you gave a speech?  I gave a big one a month ago, and I practiced my butt off.  Midway through, I realized something...my intro was great.  I knew it like the back of my hand.  I'd messed up somewhere in the middle so often and restarted so often that I'd said the beginning about 50 times.  I said the middle probably 25.  The end...maybe 10. 

I'm listening to the Republican debate right now.  Mitt Romney just spent a great two minutes talking...then blew it with a weak ending.  All politics aside, the ending ruined an otherwise very strongly argued point.

Seth talked today about first dates, first impressions, and how well crafted they are.  But what happens at the END of the first date?  Matters probably more than when you pick her up?  Mess up the first kiss?  Have you ever seen Hitch? 

When I realized I knew the beginning of the speech I spent a lot of time practicing the end.  Your last sentence has to be as good as your first.  So next time you have something big, sure, practice the handshake, but have a plan for the goodbye.

The last impression almost lasts a lifetime too.

Caffeinated Developers in Seattle

The SeattleTech Startups list had a thread recently discussing the best coffee shop for networking.  It's not a short list, but if you're in Seattle, and want some free wifi, check em out:

http://tinyurl.com/2y657u

Our Favorites (in no discernible order)
Trabant, 45th and the Ave (and new Pioneer Square location)
University Zoka, behind U-Village
University Bookstore Cafe, 43rd and the Ave (in the back, near the apparel)
Cafe on the Ave 42nd and the Ave (big tables, my favorite spot in the summer for shady outdoor seating)

At some point I'm going to go around and take pictures of the places where Athleon's been built.  Includes a lot of coffee shops, UW libraries, and kitchen tables.

List off the others top off my head at the moment: Starbucks: Both on the Ave, at Bell Square, 3 of the 5 (yes 5) in U Village, across from Nordstroms at Westlake, on Ballinger Way, Top of Queen Anne, Bremerton.  Tullys: in Wallingford, UDistrict, Belltown, Woodinville, Alki Beach, Tacoma, Lincoln Square.  Third Place Books in Lake Forest Park.  Kahili Coffee in Kirkland.  Brown Bag Cafe in Kirkland.  Cherry St. in Belltown.  Specialty's in the U-District.  Yunnie on the Ave.  Starlife on the Ave.  Cafe Umbria in Pioneer Square, Elliot Bay Book Company Pioneer Square.  Trabant in Pioneer Square.

Wow...that is a lot of tea/coffee or illegal use of the free Wifi.  Also, basically all of those outside of the U-District equal meeting places....that's a lot of meetings.

The coffee shop is definitely the new garage (and probably cheaper than rent and heating of such a place anyways) 

Future of the Web

Wow...go Huskies

From MSNBC, read the full article here.

Researchers at the University of Washington have created the prototype for a bionic contact lens — recently tested on rabbits — that includes light-emitting diodes, basic wiring for electronic circuits and even a tiny antenna. Future versions, the scientists believe, could serve as a flexible plastic platform for applications such as surfing the Internet on a virtual screen, immersing gamers in virtual worlds and monitoring patients’ medical conditions.

"The Riskiest Thing They Can Do Is Play It Safe"

"It's often a 5 or 10 or 15 year process people start finding their voice,
When they realize the safest thing they can do feels risky the riskiest thing they can do is play it safe"

The video of Seth Godin is below.  Seth, throughout his various works and blog posts, often talks about how students are encouraged to take the straight path, to agree without questioning, are punished for being 'curious, and taught to 'skip the tough questions and answer the easy questions first.'

Starting a company is certainly not the safe thing to do.  A friend of mine who's had multiple companies, his current one quite successful, gave me a great quote a few months ago.

"People always talk to me about the lack of job security in a startup, yet, because of the people I've met doing this thing, my job potential is better than it ever has been.  Should I need it, I have far more job leads from starting a company than I'd ever have sitting at a desk with blinders on, only knowing a few of my co-workers."

The riskiest thing he can do is play it safe. 

Coffee Shops in Seattle that Offer Free Wifi

Seems to be the definitive list...and places you can get a beer and do work in case tea just isn't doing it for ya.

Caffeinated and Unstrung

Continuing Entrepreneurship Education, Week of Jan 14th

This is the first post in a linking effort to organize all the sites that I learned from this week.  Great reads for any entrepreneur, things that I talked about, thought about, or most likely things I just didn't want to close out of their firefox tab as I figured they'd be useful later on.

12 Learnings from my first turn as startup CEO- by Jason Goldberg, former CEO of Jobster,

Freedom=Success, and not the other way around- Polly Labarre, author of Mavericks at Work

Facebook extended profile- Joshua March, founder of iNetworkMarketing, if only because I'm not on the facebook app bandwagon (i truly miss thefacebook.com how it used to be, and my usage shows it), and I agree with his points on what a real viral facebook app is.

Do Entrepreneurs still need to write business plans?-Susan Wu, VC at CRV.  Read this after spending much of December hanging out in excel and word changing our assumptions from last June.  We've learned so much from business planning it's amazing, and to any wannabe entrepreneurs don't think you'll be escaping excel. 

The Long Tail of Business Models- Fred Wilson, VC at Union Square/VC blog king, interesting, as we have quite a few intertwining revenue streams in our model, some of which are quite creative to our demographic...yet they could definitely fit in his categories. 

I'll try and limit it to 5 a week, and I recommend to both you and all the college kids I speak with to continue your education daily from all these great minds who offer pieces of themselves for free.  Add all of Seth's posts to your daily reading too.

All the Lonley People Hanging Out In The Coffee Shop

From the Seattle Times, adlibed by Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill Church:

"Seattle has unleashed this weird phenomenon on the world called the coffee shop.  The coffee shop, thanks to Starbucks, is the place where socially isolated, lonely, needy people gather together to ignore one another.  All these lonely people go to the coffee shop to open their laptop and drink their burnt coffee and put in their ears their iPod so they can ignore one another...in community,"

Sweet, It's a Leap Year

Worked today for 12 straight hours without really realizing...one of those "Oh, wow, it's 9 already," kind of days.  Reminded me of a few days ago when my cofounder and I were planning schedules for the month.

We had some dates in february...and he said "Sweet, Its a Leap Year," meaning we had one more day to get this company of hours to where it needs to go.  I had thought the same thing a few weeks earlier.

I don't know when it swtiched, when you're in school you hate leap year, it means one more day before spring break, one more day before summer.

I guess that's one of the perks of being an entrepreneur, you wish there was more days, more time (more money even), to make the dream a reality.

Spent another 3 hours works tonight after leaving that coffee shop...and don't really want to go to bed, want to keep building....

I think I have a problem.

Storage

Just needed to store a link to this...I'll assume you've seen it