Rahul Pathak : My Personal Blog

As part of the product planning process at Judy’s Book, the primary document is a high level functional spec. In addition to this, at Andy’s insistence (thanks for the nudge, Andy) I created a one page summary which matched features in the spec to our core priorities, listed out the proposed phasing of work and the all important “what we’re not doing” section.

The spec (even though it isn’t always read in detail) is a great resource for working with our engineering team; the 1-pager was a good way to work with the management team. In a prior startup, I was told that communicating isn’t about what you think you said, it’s about what the other person thinks you said. I realize this is bloody obvious, but it’s easy to overlook.

In this case, I thought I was done when the spec was produced, but without the additional documentation and the one on one meetings where the same message was being delivered (albeit in different packaging) I wasn’t communicating effectively. If you’re not communicating, the right things aren’t getting done and that’s not ideal.

The other huge benefit of this is that all the communication really helps you understand what the hell you’re talking about.

On my drive (mercifully short) back from work, I heard a great interview with Bob Iger (CEO of Disney) on NPR. In it, he talked about the power shift from content producers and distributors to consumers of content. He said that at Disney, they were focused on the user experience and on using digital technology to drive incremental consumption. The user experience focus was great to hear about. (Dave’s written about companies that don’t get this and I highly recommend his post.) I’m sure spending time working with and dealing with Steve Jobs has contributed to this focus on UE.

In those instances, they were very much the result of the strategic vision that was outlined, which in those cases was to use technolo gy to reach more people, more often, in more convenient ways, to really think of the consumer and the power and the authority the consumer has in today’s digital world and serve the consumer better.

Apparently, a successful TV series consists of 22-25 episodes of which avid consumers watch 1/3. Making shows available for $1.99 via iTunes is a way to capture incremental revenues.

Really interesting interview and it did seem like Disney was embracing, rather than fighting digital content.

Here’s a link to the interview (audio/transcript) on NPR’s site. Enjoy.

Andy has a great post on his blog about negotiating term sheets. In it he also alludes to what I think is one of the most important things you can do in business - forming a network of people who want you to succeed.

…life is long and you don’t know whether this company is going to make it (in fact odds are against you)….so if you want to do another company, you want the group of people who want to support you to be as big as possible. Those people who support you when you’ve got nothing –who took a risk on the company not because of the company but because of you…those are the people you want to keep happy and close to you.

It’s all too easy to trade off the short term for the long term and it seems that people have a tendency to do that.

Great post on Startupping in which entrepreneurs are asked about their best and worst decisions. Some that stayed with me:

Ross Mayfield - Biggest Mistake — Not taking bigger risks earlier.
Maybe because in hindsight all risks are clear, but I always find myself regretting not taking bigger risks earlier. For example, open sourcing the Socialtext code was something we waited on until the company had strong footing. Partially because we thought there would be cannibalization, partially because we were understaffed to really engage with the community. But I believe if we bought this bullet earlier in the history of the company we would be reaping better rewards. As a planning exercise, now I always try to ask two questions: “How could we take more risk?” and “What risk can we take that creates the greatest amount of options?” I find there is always a way to do a little more, in particular by getting past instinct to control prevalent in so many entrepreneurs.

John Battelle - Pick one constituency and stick to it. Very early on, we decided that FM would be “author driven”. We could have made the company “advertiser driven” but it struck me the core business had to do with the folks who produce the sites we work with. At Wired, it was all about the ideas. At the Standard, it was all about the journalism. One clear core driving force helps clarify decisions during the tough early years.

Dick Costolo - I’ve made loads of mistakes so I’ll try to think of one with a good lesson for startups - one of the biggest mistakes I made in a previous company was accepting a high dollar contract once for something that wasn’t core to the vision of the business we were running at the time. While the revenue initially feels great, there’s nothing worse than pursuing a piece of business that isn’t core to the startup’s vision.

I highly recommend this post since although experience is a valuable teacher, it’s far better to learn from the experiences of others where you can.

Sounds obvious, but it’s easy to forget. Mark Hurst’s post on Richard Branson prompted me to read the Fast Company article he was talking about. It’s fantastic. One thing jumped out at me while reading it:

What Branson understood two decades ago is just now beginning to be embraced by other corporate leaders: We should be having fun when we’re spending our money…

…He takes on intransigent industries that treat customers inexplicably badly and shows that he can offer not only a better deal but a truly entertaining experience. The approach has made Sir Richard a multibillionaire and Virgin a beloved brand–as well as a $10 billion-a-year operation.

Helping your customers have fun doesn’t seem important (or profitable) but I think it’s critical. If people feel good while giving your their money, I think you’ve pulled off something amazing and it’s likely that they will do it again.

Mark, thanks for making me think and for pointing me to a great article.

This is the classic problem facing startups looking for talent. Do you hire someone who’s been around the block, been knee-deep in the industry for years, or do you look for someone who’s smart, hungry and can figure things out?

There’s no question that experience can be valuable, but there are times when it can work against you. As Andy Monfried writes:

Frequently, people with experience would say, “Media planners won’t do that.” “Agencies wont commit budgets without a site list…” Turns out the media planners did. Because we were not afraid to change the language — we did not know any better, we sold it - and it worked. Had there been someone internally, beating us over the head, with all their previous media experience, telling us NOT TO DO IT - we probably would not have.

The trick is to find people who have had enough experience that they can avoid common pitfalls but who are receptive to learning from the environment and who are willing to challenge the status quo. The market today isn’t the same as it was 15 years ago; not all of the experience gained may be applicable. Someone who can take in today’s input with an open mind and process it in light of prior experience is invaluable. This sort of person is also extremely rare.

When you’re setting out to do something different, sometimes people without experience are the ones who find a way. There’s a great post on Ask the Wizard in which Dick Costolo talks about hiring the ‘Best Available Athlete’ which is right in line with my thinking.

As with all people-related decisions, there’s no right answer, but I would pick someone I enjoyed working with who got stuff done and could adapt over the ‘perfect on paper’ candidate every time.

P.S. I’m reserving the right to change my mind about this in about 15 years or so.

When you screw up, admit it. Sometimes, even when it’s not your fault, you should take responsibility (those of you with significant others know exactly what I’m talking about.)

Jetblue is one of my favorite airlines and they screwed up big-time. I just got this in my inbox from them:

We are sorry and embarrassed. But most of all, we are deeply sorry.

Last week was the worst operational week in JetBlue’s seven year history. Following the severe winter ice storm in the Northeast, we subjected our customers to unacceptable delays, flight cancellations, lost baggage, and other major inconveniences. The storm disrupted the movement of aircraft, and, more importantly, disrupted the movement of JetBlue’s pilot and inflight crewmembers who were depending on those planes to get them to the airports where they were scheduled to serve you. With the busy President’s Day weekend upon us, rebooking opportunities were scarce and hold times at 1-800-JETBLUE were unacceptably long or not even available, further hindering our recovery efforts.

Words cannot express how truly sorry we are for the anxiety, frustration and inconvenience that we caused. This is especially saddening because JetBlue was founded on the promise of bringing humanity back to air travel and making the experience of flying happier and easier for everyone who chooses to fly with us. We know we failed to deliver on this promise last week.

My experiences with them have been stellar and I hope they come out of this well, but that’s neither here nor there. I like their apology a great deal. And granted, after what happened, it needed to be good. What I like about itis the repeated use of “we did this…” and “we did that…” - they made it personal.

Taking responsibility is critical. We own our actions (or inaction) and there’s no escaping that. Once you take responsibility for the screw-up, you commit yourself to fixing what went wrong. It’s a lot easier to sweep things under the rug when your reputation isn’t what’s at stake. “I have to fix it,” follows much more readily from “I screwed up,” than it does from “the weather screwed things up.”

We all screw up. What’s important is what happens next.

You’re not done until it’s tested, deployed and running.

When working hard to build a site you think users will rave about, it’s critical to not lose sight of the operations support required to test, deploy and keep your site running. The best site in the world is a complete waste of time if pages load slowly and you constantly have to be apologize for being offline.

The unfortunate reality of infrastructure is that if it’s performing well, it’s invisible. Most of the time most of us in the United States never think about electricity, running water or being able to pick up the phone and call someone. (This wasn’t the case growing up in Nigeria, but that’s another story.) The same is true when we think about websites. We focus on what we can see and interact with and not on what’s behind it, unless something is not working.

At Judy’s Book, infrastructure and ops form a significant part of what we do. Interacting with data feeds (inbound and outbound), setting up and configuring machines for development, test and production, managing builds and monitoring servers all take time and resources. Planning for and anticipating the ops impact of your product decisions is critical.

Make sure your ops team doesn’t feel like they are invisible.

There is a fantastic post on ‘On Startups’ (a blog I highly recommend) talking about why ‘me-too’ companies aren’t always a bad idea.

“Yes, there are competitors, but nobody has built a product yet that users really like…”

And there, quite simply is the crux of the motivation.  It is easy to discount companies as being “me too”, but the reality is we have seen a fair number of successes in the past in categories that we have felt were already crowded.  The reason is that nobody had really solved the problem quite right.  This is what motivated Matt, and this is why you shouldn’t let me (or others) talk you out of a startup idea simply because it might be labeled a “me too” idea.

This makes a ton of sense. Until the use case is really nailed, there is opportunity for new entrants. I think a critical element to consider, however is that your take on the idea shouldn’t require users to change existing modes of behavior. If they can do what they’re doing on the existing sites but get better results and more utility from you, then you’re on to something.

Andy Monfried has a great post on his blog about having the courage to make decisions that aren’t safe and goes on talk about how he doesn’t want to build another cool company, but rather to change how media is bought. Not only is this post though-provoking and right  on the money, it’s engaging and extremely well written.

I’ve never met this dynamic young lady – but her adventurous journey, made me think about many of the opportunities we all take, and others we miss out on.

How many times have we said to ourselves that we will be more daring, take on more challenges, and generally just confront life head on, more aggressively?

Time is NOT on our side – (as Jagger and Richards wrote) – time works against us, and each day that passes in our lives makes, joining the proverbial circus, harder – more difficult, and more fraught with risk.

I’ve made a decision.

It’s really easy to get caught up in incremental improvement and to not take the intellectual steps needed to even dare to think big. Funnily enough, Andy Sack and I were having the same conversation last night. Maybe there’s something in the air.