The Road to Entrepreneurship...

A tech startup to serve a low-tech business?

Mon, 16 Jan 2012 08:00:06 -0600

You’ve been there. It’s a cold and rainy evening here in Chicago as you stand outside a restaurant waiting for your valet parked vehicle to be pulled up for you. While waiting, you realize that you do not have enough cash on hand to pay for your valet ticket (let alone tip the attendant) but you do have a wallet full of credit (or debit) cards.

Why is it that in this day and age, a service operation continues to only accept paper currency as a means of payment?

That is the question I asked myself, and the valet parking attendant who eventually pulled up my vehicle. The answer I got led to an observation that maybe not all business operations want to embrace technology - unless they have to!

I spent sometime digging deeper into why a service business such as a car parking operation would not want to accept credit cards, allow customers to request vehicles ahead of time, or even print out receipts for business travelers who would like to expense a valet tab? Luckily, I was able to get in touch with a contact down in Atlanta who works with a small car parking operation such as one you will find at a Chicago restaurant. His answer was simple. It is most advantageous to the car parking company to remain low tech regardless of the customer experience because it keeps cost down thereby maximizing profits. He goes on to say that a car parking business offers a unique value proposition to its customers to the point where the service itself becomes somewhat of a necessity - especially in cities such as Chicago where parking on a weekend night at a busy restaurant can be a nightmare. It is this combination that provides little incentive to invest in technology that would improve the customer’s experience.

Whether his assertion that these car parking businesses are indeed a necessity is true or not, there is something to his point. Take a look at another business with similar characteristics - the Chicago taxi cab business. How many times have you heard your cab driver say the credit card reader is not working? It took city mandates, companies such as Uber, and visionaries like @chicagocabbie to force the hand of taxi cabs into adopting new technology that serve to improve the customer experience. That is what it is going to take to move the car parking industry as well.

Currently, there aren’t a lot of strides being made to improve the overall customer experience at a valet station - especially at the local restaurant, bar, or night club. This is probably because of the close-knit nature of the industry, or because many of us, customers, are not making enough noise about our experiences. How can we make a better customer experience if the service providers themselves are not willing to do so?

This is the beginning of a Chicago startup.

Top Social Media Usage Peeves

Tue, 15 Feb 2011 10:52:54 -0600

I am really lucky to be living in a time where it is possible to have a real time pulse of events around the world, easily keep tabs on with my favorite people, and share my thoughts on a public forum. I believe that social media has become one of the greatest by products of the Internet. With that said, I have noticed some things that ruin the social experience for me while on social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook. On this post, I will highlight my top social media (mainly twitter) usage peeves. The underlying theme you will notice is that all the highlighted peeves have to do with noise in my feed.

First, let me acknowledge that I do sometimes partake in these practices and that I am sometimes part of the problem.

Oversharing
Twitter and Facebook updates are a fantastic medium to spread our thoughts, messages, and agendas. In fact, Twitter started by asking the question - what are you doing right now? However, that does not mean that you need to share this every minute of everyday. I do not need to know that you are eating a tuna sandwich and enjoying it or that you are standing in line waiting for your venti latte. Far as I can tell, there is no prize for sending the most amount of tweets in a day.
Social games
FarmVille - Need I say more? Play your social games but please stop sending milestone posts to all your followers.
“Follow Friday”
Ah yes, the #FF tradition where a twitter user suggests other twitter users to follow. While this is a valuable tradition that will highlight interesting twitter users, I have a problem with twitter users who create umteen posts trying to #FF EVERY user on their following list EVERY Friday. Doing so not only creates noise on your followers’ feeds but it also does not add any value to anybody. Its just a list of twitter use ids that mean nothing to anybody. If you must #FF a twitter user, simply send the #FF tweet of the user and maybe why this person should be followed by your followers.
Public conversations
Sticking with the noise theme of this post - another peeve that I have is twitter users having otherwise private conversation in public over Twitter. There is no reason why two users should make day plans over public replies. That is what Direct Messages (and email) are for. Keep these conversations out of the public feed.

Inspired & Revitalized

Sun, 13 Feb 2011 10:30:33 -0600

Hey there! It’s been a while - almost 3 months to be exact. I recall sounding really confused and unsure on how to proceed on this journey. Do I build on my podcasting hobby “Geeks in Running Shoes” or should I follow up on some other web ideas? You know, this journey gets quite frustrating sometimes that’s for sure. It just seems to get more confusing as I go on along it. Oh well, I am really excited now! I feel like this week I was hit with 10,000 volts of electricity and I am out of the funk that I was in. It is exciting!!

So what happened? Well I got introduced to some local Chicago tech blogs - Technori and Flyover Geeks. Maybe it was the content on these blogs or just the stars aligning in a particular way but something about these blog sites got to me. Reading through them reestablished the enthusiasm that got me into entrepreneurship in the first place. I saw local entrepreneurs around my age doing the kind of things that I have been talking about over the years. I realized that Chicago is indeed a tech startup city just like San Francisco, and Austin. I remember looking out to these cities and wondering what it would be like to be part of their communities. That is, cool tech startups comprised of young people my age. I never thought to look in my own backyard. I have uncovered an excitement around tech startups in the city. An era of excitement that I am anxious to be a part off and help shape.

So what’s next? Well now that I am aware of this community and I have access to it, I am going to be a part of it! I’ve already signed up for a few meetups and yeah I am working on a project - details to come :)

So expect to see me out there Chicago!

Change in Direction

Sat, 20 Nov 2010 16:09:00 -0600

Its been a fun and very engaging 11 weeks. I think enrolling in the New Venture Lab and being forced to think about my business everyday of the course of the quarter has been very valuable. However, I think it is time for a change in direction in regards to Sportycus (or should I say, gameFigrs).

I feel like as the quarter progressed and as we discussed the customer value concept, my passion towards Sportycus has faded. Maybe it is because I am coming to terms that the Sportycus business idea is indeed a “candy” idea or maybe it is because I have been putting most of my free time towards growing the Geeks in Running Shoes show.

Earlier this week, I had a conversation with my mentor, Corey, where I mentioned the loss of passion towards Sportycus. His response was straightforward:

If you’re not all into Sportycus, I’d stop now. Don’t waste time

So of course I followed his advice and did not really put a lot of work into Sportycus this week. I did however want to complete the milestone that I had set for the week - that is put some finishing touches on the Sportycus prototype.

Anyway, on the Geeks in Running Shoes front, this was a very productive and rewarding week. I have been talking with Steve and Kevin in regards to building the show brand and raising awareness towards the show. Some good ideas came out of these conversations and I created a milestones to have the show reviewed and/or featured on a running community blog. Well this week it paid off, I (and the show) was featured on the popular athletic social site (DailyMile) community blog. Check the out the post.

With this change in direction, I plan to use the concepts that I have learned from you all these past 11 weeks and apply them to the Geeks in Runnings shoes show and the “Geeks in” brand in general. Hopefully, you will keep reading the this blog to follow my progress.

Thank you all for a great quarter, you have certainly helped me progress on this entrepreneurial journey.

Featured on DailyMile Community Blog

Sat, 20 Nov 2010 15:32:02 -0600

Featured on DailyMile Community Blog:

My other project, the Geeks in Running Shoes podcast, got a lift this week as I (and the show) was featured on the popular athletic social site (DailyMile) community blog.

Check out the post (http://www.dailymile.com/blog/uncategorized/featured-dailymiler-running-podcaster-raymond-king)

Another week, another milestone

Sat, 13 Nov 2010 16:44:55 -0600

This week, I wanted to look into the different ways a business such as Sportycus could get funded. As I have said before, I believe that such a business does not really need outside funding to get off the ground. However, I found it to be an interesting exercise to look in what is out there.

First of all, I am always impressed by the amount of resources that are available for tech start ups. Just a simple google search on “funding your startup” of course returns a lot of entries. Interesting though is the amount of results that talk about tech startups. Most of these results returned the same amount of information that was already discussed in class. I did not pay much attention to these results because they were very high level and did not offer anything new. I guess this speaks to the value of the New Venture Lab course. In case you want to know what these generic funding options such are, here you go:

Borrowing from Family, Friends, and Fools (3Fs)
Angel funding
and of course VC funding.

Anyway, I have identified three avenues that I could follow when the time for funding arises:

Apply for business incubators around the chicago land area. I have identified two of such incubators here in chicago. Most note-able is the Excelerate Labs.
Tapping into my network of high net individuals. I am fortunate enough to know a couple of people that could be considered high net individuals. However, far as I know, none have ever made direct investments into startup ventures.
Approach seed fund companies such as Lightbank that specialize on providing seed funding for early stage tech startups.

So this weeks milestone was more of an educational one rather than a customer value oriented one. Oh well, till next week.

Week 8 - Another Week has Passed...

Sat, 06 Nov 2010 17:46:00 -0500

Its week 8 already…the New Venture Lab course is quickly coming to an end. This week was good. I was able to work on my milestone of completing a working prototype of Sportycus. I however was not able to get all the features and scenarios that I had initially planned on at the time of writing this milestone 8 weeks ago, but I made progress. Users can now login, create a team, and start recording game data stat. Really cool!.

I think finally have a working prototype of the product concept will serve as extra motivation to finish out the project. I know over the past couple of weeks I have been wavering on whether I should even finish out this project. Well, I was lucky enough to get some help by reading the Do More Faster - TechStars lessons to accelerate your startup book (Thanks Mike Gardon for letting me borrow it). I spent sometime this week reading through this book and it was really insightful to see how other tech companies got their start. These companies all had one thing in common when starting off. That is, they were able to put out a simple version of their product and continue iterating as feedback from customers came in. I always thought that this move was a good first to market strategy but I think the reason why such companies made this move was to keep themselves motivated. Techies like myself do need to show something tangible in order to keep ourselves motivated. That is why I have been so motivated with the Geeks in Running Shoes podcast and it is also why having a simple prototype this week has revamped my excited about Sportycus.

I hope to grow on this weeks build and have a much better product over the next three weeks. However, I do realize that I did set a lofty milestone of having a beta product ready by the last week of class. A milestone that is most likely not going to happen. What is going to happen however, is a much better version of Sportycus.

For this coming week, I set up the milestone that I will identify sources of funding for Sportycus. While I do think that I can start Sportycus without any outside funding, it will be an interesting exercise to identify where to get money for such a product. At the very least, it will be and educational experience.

Week 7 - Fail!

Sat, 30 Oct 2010 12:42:53 -0500

This was one of those weeks that define why it is sometimes hard to be a part-time entrepreneur. Balancing work, life, and Sportycus was tough this week. I guess, life happened, so I should not complain. I had to split a majority of my time between weird work hours and being held up by other life obligations. Both of which at this point take precedent over Sportycus. I wonder when (or if) Sportycus will actually begin taking precedence over these other two?

In any case, I was able to do very little towards my goal for the week. I had planned to get into some front end/marketing material design. This would have been a good next step after the last week I had - that is preparing the site to be more customer ready. But of course, I did not get very far with that. I did however, get some ideas on how I want the marketing materials to be laid out on the web page as well as flyers that I will passing out at local softball games - so it was not a complete loss.

At this point, I am starting to become a bit worried. I went into the New Venture Lab course really ‘gong-ho’ about Sportycus and business opportunity that it presented, but as the weeks have passed by that enthusiasm is slowing fading - partially due to not just having weeks such as the one I just had. I have not got as far as I would like to be in terms of getting a prototype of Sportycus ready. Maybe deciding to self develop was a bad a idea after all. In any case, that decision has already been made, so I just need to remain focused and continue developing. I hope to have a solid prototype that I can actually show off (in class) sometime this week.

Oh well.

Week 6 - A Look Back

Sat, 23 Oct 2010 16:00:45 -0500

It’s already been six weeks! This is going really fast. This week I set the milestone of signing up beta users for Sportycus. This was an exciting milestone because it was a truly customer related milestone. The question of course was how would I accomplish this.

Well, I already had two individuals who already agreed to be beta users from the start. So I went into this week knowing that I had something to work with. Also, Russ Gottesman from Commuter Advertising had offered to introduce me to one of his contacts who had shown interesting beta testing the product.

I however wanted to sign up at least 5 more beta users. So I took a page out of my mentor’s (Corey) book towards building a web app. He creates a mailing list and invites users to sign up to be beta users. This way, he can update his beta users to changes and keep them engaged even before a single line of code has been written. So I created a mailing list through MailChimp. I am in the process of setting up a public form and Sportycus blog so potential beta users can sign up.

So this will be another successful week of accomplishing milestones. Looking back though, I wish I set some more customer focused milestones such as this one. Next week, my milestone is building upon what I started this week. I plan on expanding the Sportycus blog and setting up the marketing/front end of the website. Excited!!

Interesting Dilemma

Sat, 23 Oct 2010 15:25:58 -0500

Earlier this week, I was faced with an interesting dilemma that provided some very good experience in prioritizing.

As I mentioned in a post last week, my other project - the Geeks in Running Shoes podcast - is beginning to gain some level of success as I am STILL working through the prototype phase of Sportycus. So I was faced with an interesting dilemma - which of the two projects should I put more time and effort into? This was a tough one. For Sportycus I truly have an idea of where how the project could go as a business, while a clear business opportunity has not yet been defined for the podcast.

I reached out to my de facto advisors - Raman Chadha from the DePaul Coleman Entrepreneurship Center and Russ Gottesman from Commuter Advertising. I posed the question

What’s a good way to judge the amount of time that I should spend on each?

As usual I got prompt and excellent responses from the two of them. Both responses centered towards value creation. That is, which of the two projects was posed to present the most value to its potential customers in the long run because that project will eventually be the most viable business opportunity. Also, both seemed to agree that focusing on one will provide the best chance of success in growing the project.

So taking in their responses, I decided that I should remain focused on Sportycus. Sportycus is the project with the better business opportunity. I will continue to focus my time on developing the prototype and selling the idea to potential users. However, I am still continue with the podcast. It began as a hobby, and I will continue to treat it as that. If it continues to grow into something larger, I will revisit this question then.

Anyway, I hope this experience would be as helpful to you as it was for me.

Net"Working"

Sat, 16 Oct 2010 07:06:00 -0500

I bet you have heard the saying over and over again…

“It’s not always what you know, it’s who you know.”

Nothing reasserts my belief in this saying more than when I actually see it working.

Over the past few weeks, I have made some connections through the New Venture Lab at DePaul. I have received feedback from people in my network that are more than willing to give an introduction to potential customers in their own network. The problem I face with Sportycus is that I do not yet have a complete prototype to show to a prospective customer. Therefore, I have been making excuses why I do not want to start pitching to customers. However, the people in my network are doing the pitching for me. In one case, the person that I will be getting introduced to is already excited and willing to beta test the product. I am already ahead on my week 6 milestone of signing up beta users!

This does not only relate to the work I am doing with Sportycus. I also did see results of my network “working” this week on my other project - the Geeks in Running Shoes podcast. As part of our last show, we had on Pete Larson from RunBlogger.com. Pete is fairly well known, and respected through the online running community. Through Pete’s network the reach of the show increased to the point where it has been ranked the number one (#1) amateur sports and recreation podcast on iTunes for 3 days straight now…AND…we are in conversations with a potential sponsor.

So it was really a great week for me. Sportycus and the Geeks in Running Shoes podcast is on a good track to gaining customers. This is thanks to my network…..working.

Week 5 in Review

Fri, 15 Oct 2010 16:22:44 -0500

Its review time! This week, I set a milestone to really structure the development of Sportycus. I wanted to review the technical requirements of the application. Technical requirements detail out all the specifications of an application. This includes wireframes of each major section of the site to detailed use cases from the end user and administrative user point of view. This then makes it possible for any developer to code it.

So this was really important for me to accomplish even though it is probably one of the easier milestones that I have set. As part of this milestone, I also wanted to learn how other developers approached this kind of development. So I consulted with my mentor Corey on his philosophy on building a web app such as Sportycus. His advice was to finish up the common and fundamental sections of application in a prototype and then iterate based on feedback. So using this feedback, I was able complete wireframes for the common sections of the site and prepare some use case scenarios.

I also got feedback on the improved prospective customer pitch this week.

Sportycus is a web-based service that will change the way you share that dominating performance you had at last weekend’s softball game. If you are a social athlete who loves to play in amateur and recreational softball leagues, with Sportycus you can record, analyze, and present your game statistics anywhere on the web from Twitter and Facebook to your own team website. You are an athlete, show off your performance!

An important take-away from the feedback was that I should be careful with words such as “dominating.” Such words could be taken out of context and be offensive to certain people. I decided to keep the word in the pitch for now because the demographic that I am going after uses such words and will get emotionally charged by them. Overall, the feedback was good. The pitch identified the product and the target customer.

So this was another good week, even though I had relatively easy milestones. I am looking forward to next week. It will be a challenging one as I will be looking to sign up at least 5 prospective clients who are willing to beta the application once it is ready.

Week 4 in review

Sat, 09 Oct 2010 10:14:16 -0500

As another week comes to an end, its time to review how it went. This week, I set the a milestone that was along the lines of finalizing a prospective customer pitch, which can also be referred to as a value proposition pitch.

I started working on this milestone early in the week. I was lucky enough to get some feedback on Monday from fellow classmates. Here is the pitch that I presented in class:

For amateur and recreational softball players who wish to share more than just highlights with friends, family, and fans - Sportycus provides a game data hosting platform that allows them to record, analyze, and present game statistics.

The response from the class was somewhat cold, which reinforced to me that I am indeed selling a ‘candy’ product. However, I got good feedback. Feedback such as:

Mention product/company name within the first sentence.
Use less vague or technical terms. Cater terms to the audience. “Game Data Hosting Platform” might make sense to someone in IT but may not mean much to anyone else.
The emotional value to customer was not portrayed in the pitch. SInce this is a ‘candy’ product, customers will only sign up if the pitch invokes some sort of emotional experience for them.

So taking in all that feedback, I worked on revamping the pitch. I found customer pitches from similar companies, and incorporated my competitive advantage over the competition. Here is the close to final pitch that I will presenting in class this Monday. As you will notice, I focused on making it personal to the prospective user.

Sportycus is a web based service that will change the way you share that dominating performance you had at last weekends softball game. With Sportycus you can record, analyze, and present your game statistics any where on the web - from twitter and Facebook to your own website or blog. You are an athlete, show off your performance!

On the coding end, I started this week contemplating outsourcing the development of the site. I wrote a post about it and eventually decided that I am going to continue building the site. I was able to complete the team member invite feature this week. This feature will allow the team administrator to add team members to a team.

Overall, it was a good week. Matt Geiger (from HoopBook Live) did a good presentation that gave me the recharge I was looking for!

Meet Corey!

Wed, 06 Oct 2010 22:50:43 -0500

I want to introduce you all to Corey Butler. Corey is the co-founder of Ecor Group Consulting. I met Corey back in 2004 at Bradley University while working on my undergraduate degree. From the day I met him, he has been the definition of an entrepreneur. I like to think that I get some of my motivation from seeing what he has accomplished over the years through hard work and dedication. So you can imagine what an honor and privilege it was for me to have him agree to mentor me through my entrepeneurial journey.

Corey, like me, is a techie. He is an awesome developer that is still carrying on the Coldfusion torch. He too started many ventures that were solely technology based. However, where I think he has me and many others beat is the way he was able to expand beyond just being a techie with a good application idea. He started Ecor Systems (that evolved to become Ecor Group) back in 2002 part time while still working for a Fortune 500 company. Over the past 8 years, he has gone from doing small business intelligence consulting to creating a legitimate small business catering to all kinds of business, large and small within a variety of industries.

I asked Corey to mentor me because we are alike. We think alike and I stand to learn a lot from him during this journey. If you are interested in learning more about Corey, you can follow him on twitter (@goldglovecb) or check out his personal blog (www.coreybutler.com)

Buy vs. Build

Tue, 05 Oct 2010 22:40:21 -0500

Ok, I admit it - I am getting stuck. Not enough time in a week to work on the business and develop the site. I am contemplating outsourcing the development of the site while I focus on consumer centric activities such as pitching the idea to potential users. However, I feel that I will be missing out on the entrepreneurial journey by not building this site myself BUT on the other hand, the reason I came back to school was to learn how to start a business - NOT code.

So given this dilemma, I posed the question to my mentor, Corey Butler(founder of Ecor Group Consulting) and he had the following advice:

It really boils down to how much window of opportunity you have. If you have the time, I’d do enough to get a beta out the door. This keeps the competency in-house without giving up any ownership or spending any money.

[…]

The best way out of that [question] is to determine whether you can bootstrap the business and how long your own personal funding will last. That’s what determines your window of opportunity and therefore determines whether it’s better to build or buy.

Given that response, I have decided to step it up and stay head down coding. The goal is to get a working beta version by the beginning of the spring softball season - so I do have time. Besides, I do not have that much extra personal funding to pay for a quality consulting house to develop a quality product.

That said, I did set some tough customer centric milestones between now and november. I guess I just need to work that much harder to achieve those milestones while still code - that’s the fun part of entrepreneurship right? :)

A Website for your Business

Sat, 02 Oct 2010 15:21:55 -0500

In talking with other aspiring entrepreneurs over the past couple of weeks, it has become apparent to me that creating a web presence (especially a website) for a new startup is somewhat of a pain to such people - especially those that claim to be non tech savvy. However, it should not be. These days, with tools such as Squarespace.com the focus on creating a website for your business should be less on the technology involved and more on content that it contains.

The first question that you should ask about your startup is - Why do I need a website? It seems that it has become the norm for every business to have a website, regardless of whether it is necessary or not. Unless your business involves some facet of e-commerce or it revolves around the web - like Sportycus - a website is no more than one leg of your business’ web presence. Therefore you should treat it like that and not stress out about it.

Eventually though you will need to build a website. When that time comes, you should then ask, What kind of website is right for me? This is something that I think everybody fails to understand and it is the reason why some startups end up with $5000+ quotes from a developer to build a website. Again, assuming that you business needs a website just for web presence, then a basic, informative website with no more than five pages that would cost you less than $200(for one year) will suffice. The five pages that you need are:

HOME - This is your primary marketing page. Visitors will primarily use this page to make assumptions about your and your business.
ABOUT - Detailed information about the business, you the entrepreneur, and other information that would entice a prospective customer to trust and want to work with or buy from you.
SERVICE/PRODUCT - Detailed information on the service or product that your business provides including pricing and how to acquire your services or products.
FAQ/FEEDBACK/BLOG/NEWS - This is the page where you will interact with your customers. Post news releases about your business, common questions and answers that customers have (or may have) about your business etc…
CONTACT - This page will contain detailed information on how customers can get in contact with the business. Make sure you post a street address, an easy to remember email address, AND a phone number. You’d be surprised how many websites do not include this information.

Thats it! Anything more than that will be overkill. Notice that with just 5 web pages you can spend more time on creating good content for your website rather than focusing on the technology behind it.

As I said earlier, this is a quick post for those who are intimidated by thought and process of building a website. You can certainly find more in depth information elsewhere on the web AND I do encourage you to do so!

Creating a Business, not a Product.

Sun, 19 Sep 2010 00:59:41 -0500

Another week has gone by and I am chugging along with Sportycus. I got some more scenarios coded up this week although I am still behind schedule on delivering a working prototype. However, as I take the time to reflect on the idea of game data hosting, I cannot stop but think - am I creating a product or business? Good and Bad businesses provide great products. However only the good businesses with the great products tend to become successful.

The goal here is to make sure that I am not creating one of those businesses.

My history has shown me that I tend to focus more on creating web products rather than paying attention the business that will deliver the product. As I mentioned in a previous post - Are you also suffering from the “Entrepreneurial Seizure?” I had created at least one web product a year just to see them fail because I did not focus on creating a business. Part of the reason why I did not focus on the business aspect is plain simple - I did not know how to. Besides that though, I think the biggest reason is due to the fact that I am a just a geek who is infatuated with the Internet. Therefore, milestones and deliverables tended to be based solely on creating the web product - that was the exciting part. I need to overcome this tendency if I want to create a business and not just another web-based product that goes nowhere

A step towards this will be through the New Venture Lab course that I mentioned in a previous post. This course requires that I create weekly milestones for the next 10 weeks (the duration of the course). The milestones that I have set place emphasis on creating and launching the business. For instance, the milestones that I have set for this upcoming week are to:

Finalize the Sportycus Business Model.
Identify at least two marketing channels for the target users.
Review and lock down the Sportycus feature sets.

This is certainly a different approach for me as two of the three milestones have nothing to do with the product - Hope it works!

On to the next one?

Thu, 09 Sep 2010 12:50:00 -0500

This fall, I am excited yet intimidated to have my final course at the DePaul University MBA program with Dr. Chadha, the Executive Director of the Coleman Center for Entrepeneurship. Excited because I get to work with other like-minded individuals under Dr. Chadha’s watch while getting the extra motivation I need to successfully start a venture. However, kind of intimidated because I am still not certain what to expect from my classmates.

This is my first blog entry after an almost three month break from writing. I kept myself busy this summer working on a prototype of ‘Sportycus’ in preparation for an Alpha launch this fall and launched a weekly podcast – Geeks in Running Shoes - on amateur running.

Sportycus

Sportycus is the web application that I had teased about in a previous post.

Sportycus is a game data-hosting platform designed for recreational and amateur sports teams. At its core is a proprietary web application that hosts game data. This enables teams and individuals record, analyze, and present their statistics on their own websites, blogs, and through social media sites.

Sportycus will enable social athletes make their game data available to those that matter to them - a problem that such athletes currently face due to the lack of official league game data collectors and the tedious nature of actually collecting game data.

Geeks in Running Shoes

Geeks in Running Shoes is a podcast about two self-proclaimed geeks, Jason Kehl and myself who decided to take up running this year. The weekly show will chronicle our training and follow us as we discuss different running topics and events. The show started ten weeks ago and has grown to over 100 weekly subscribers.

So as I prepare for this new venture lab, do I proceed with my original plan and build out Sportycus OR do I build and grow the Geeks In Running Shoes podcast? Decisions, decisions…

My thoughts on quitting Facebook

Mon, 24 May 2010 23:13:00 -0500

As early as six months ago, Internet juggernauts such as Jason Calacanis and Leo Laporte have been calling for a mass exodus of Facebook due to the questionable security policies and unethical business practices by it’s founder Mark Zuckerberg. Well it looks like all that talk has finally grown to be something big. May 31st has been designated as ‘Quit Facebook Day’ where, more for protest rather than disruption, some in the tech community are planning a boycott of Zuckerberg’s Internet empire - ironically, a Facebook fan page has been created for this. So far almost 15,000 people have pledged to do so. It is quite a noble and necessary cause that I think could serve as an eye opener to the company.

I have been a Facebook user since 2004 - when it was only available for .edu accounts but I no longer consider myself a heavy user. My last login was almost a month ago and I can’t remember when I logged in last before then. For me the initial value of Facebook was to reconnect with friends from high school and college. More recently, I have used it to promote this blog as well as other self-promoting activities. I never saw it as a private extension of my real life social network. For me, everything on it was public anyway and everything I posted on it reflected that. The reason I bring this up is because I am not the typical Facebook user. Deleting my account should not impact the company in any way whatsoever.

So why am I considering deleting my account? The answer is simply that I do not actively use Facebook. Deleting my account would be one less account there that I need to worry about. However, if in doing so, I am part of a cause that will send a message to Zuckerberg and his team over at Facebook that our data should be managed fairly and with great respect, then so be it.

"I am one of these people who does not really care about being right, I just care about success."

Sun, 16 May 2010 18:54:36 -0500

“I am one of these people who does not really care about being right, I just care about success.”

- Steve Jobs, Co-founder of Apple