One year later: Slingbox for Mac
October 31, 2006
I bought my Slingbox more than a year ago without realizing it didn’t support OSX. Finally, the public beta Slingbox client is available for download here. Now where did I put the Slingbox… [update: I can't get it to work - will pay someone to set it up. Had our guys out to my house and they can't figure it out...HELP!!!]
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1000 Lbs Web Hosting Gorilla: Amazon?
October 27, 2006
If you are in the hosting business I would look over your shoulder, because your favorite bookseller is making big wins in the web hosting business. What? Yes, Amazon is really making an impact in the space and big hosting companies are starting to feel it. We are incorporating their services in EVERYTHING we are doing. The Amazon web services products (Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud - EC2 and Amazon S3) are built for the little guy AND the big guy.
For the Small Guy: I like to call Amazon’s web services “zero point capital” for startups. For no money (i.e. the zero point) you can build as many servers as your web application needs ~ your startup only pays when it uses Amazon’s computing resources (i.e. when you have users/customers). I know of more than ten startups in Dallas that are using Amazon’s services as a way to start without spending any money on servers, bandwidth and colocation. This is big.
For the Big Guy: If your web service is successful, but need a quick way to scale Amazon is the perfect solution. Architel was working with Linden Labs (Second Life) this summer to help them with a data center solution here in Dallas. Working with PAIX/Switch & Data who would provide ping, power and pipe (i.e. the data center) the Architel team would provide the support. Linden Labs planned to install one rack of servers each week for the foreseeable future. Since we would be responsible for unpacking and installing each server we suggested they consider Amazon’s EC2 and S3 instead since we could support it just as easily. Today Linden Labs uses Amazon for their client downloads (this is especially important when they update their client for all 1MM users). Jeff explains how it is working:
In case you’re curious, we switched over halfway during release day; but even for the tail 8 hours of the download rush, we averaged roughly 70 gigabytes of viewer download per hour. Then it settled down to a relatively steady stream of about 20-30 gigabytes per hour. In the last 23 hours we’ve transferred a total of ~900 gigabytes so far- which I’d estimate to be around 30,000-38,000 downloads. This does not include the first several hours of the download rush, which are typically the highest. In case you’re wondering how the client auto-updater works: it actually contacts the website for a special script, which finds the latest version, and then makes a request to download the file through HTTP, just like a regular web download. This is why the Amazon S3 switch is transparent, even to the auto-updater; when the auto-updater makes a request to get the file through HTTP, our website receives that says, “Aha! You really want to go to this Amazon S3 URL, here ya go.”
Flat Stanley’s 72 Hour Flickr Vacation
October 26, 2006
My son, Ethan, has a little school project to send Flat Stanley on a vacation. I was supposed to mail Flat Stanley out a few weeks ago, but somehow the assignment slipped through the cracks. I decided that instead of using the postal service to mail Stanley I would use Flickr. I posted a hi-res scan of Flat Stanley here with instructions.
Not familiar with the Flat Stanley Project? Learn more from the Wikipedia entry.
Perhaps you can help. What do you do? Download the hi-res version of Ethan’s Flat Stanley, print him out in color (he should be about 9 inches tall) and then take your photo with him (let us know in your email what you did). Try to get something ‘iconic’ in the background so it is obvious where you are located. Email it to me before Monday. To make up for the fact that I sort of dropped he ball, I was hoping to surprise Ethan by sending his Flat Stanley worldwide. Your help is appreciated.
Don’t skip the start! There is a Plan B.
October 26, 2006
Pascal said that things are always best at the beginning. I suspect he was referring to math problems, but I think it works for startups. Raising venture capital at the VERY start is like skipping high school and going directly to college. You get done quicker, but miss some of the most important learning.
Okay, so you drank the koolaid and raised capital from the best VC in town, but realized very quickly that you made a mistake. Which would you choose? Plan A: just keep trying to make it work (i.e. the never give up plan) or Plan B: buyout your VC and start building something great (i.e. the I am done with you guys plan).
If you are Ev Williams, the founder and CEO of Odeo (according to Valleywag), you choose Plan B. Ev is buying back the shares his investors (Charles River Ventures) bought when they funded Odeo. It helps that he sold his previous startup to Google (Blogger). Ev figured out that Odeo wasn’t figured out when iTunes launched their podcast directory in November 2005. He was in a pickle, but he was stuck with his venerable VC partner (for almost a year!). He didn’t take his own advice in a blog post he titled, “Ten Rules for Web Startups”. I wrote about it in a post titled “Be Narrow, Be Tiny”: Don’t Raise Money!!” ~ at least at the start…
So what is next? Ev has announced that his new company, Obvious Corp., will acquire the assets of Odeo and Twitter. Ev explains,
Obvious has purchased all the assets of Odeo, Inc.—including odeo.com and twitter.com from the investors and other shareholders and will continue to run these services. Obvious is fully funded by me and, eventually, will create other things, as well.
Conference of the week: AstriCon
October 25, 2006
Light posting week given the fact that the team is split between the Astricon Asterisk conference, Digital Hollywood and the Business Blogging Summit. The Asterisk conference is where I am at (with Alex Leverington). Asterisk HAS changed the telecom world forever ~ and we haven’t seen anything yet. More on Asterisk later! Here are photos from Astricon:
Rails eating PHP’s lunch. . .
October 25, 2006
Robin Luckey at Ohloh says “PHP Eats Rails for Breakfast.” Robin is right, but soon Rails will be eating PHP’s lunch. As Robin points out in the following graph (via Brad Feld):
Lots of new PHP lines are being added each year, i.e. PHP has been dominating Python and Perl for some time, but in 2005 (the year Rails began) Rails came out of nowhere and showed up as a blip on the lines of code chart. But as you see in the following graph the number of new project in rails three times as much as PHP, Python and Perl combined. Whoa!
Brad Feld explains:
This was the chart I found really interesting. Ruby is clearly the trendy new language. Given normal supply / demand lags, you’d expect that this is a leading indicator of a significant uptick for Ruby on the other two charts in 2007. My conclusion is different than Robin’s – while PHP appears to be dominant today, the rapid growth in new projects in Ruby indicates that it is currently positioned as “the language of the next wave of applications.” This is consistent with what I’m hearing and seeing from many new startups.
Dallas INFOMART Booming!
October 25, 2006
Our primary offices are located in the INFOMART and Architel manages technology for the building’s owners, Palo Alto based DCI Technology. The INFOMART is a 1.6 million square foot technology mecca located just on the edge of downtown Dallas. Every major telecom provider has space within the building, not to mention several of the leading providers of hosting, colocation and managed services.
The new owners are investing millions in the building (everything from free wi-fi ~ provided by Architel, to a new health club). The results of that investment are evident in the increased level of activity in the building. Over the summer the building leased over 120,000 squre feet of space within building (including our own expansion). Dan Shryer, in an interview with the Dallas Business Journal, explained,
“Most people saw it as an office building that has been through some bad times,” he said. “We saw its value in terms of replacement costs. It would take $350 million to $400 million to replace this building; we paid $102.5 million. When you add in the value of the data centers, it would probably push the replacement cost over $1 billion.”
John Hensley’s Fancast Interview
October 25, 2006
The Big in Japan fancast (a podcast by the fans of a show - in this case Nip/Tuck) is hitting its stride with the most recent interview with John Hensley. In the first installment of the fancast Kelly Carlson was interviewed by five fans. In my view it was annoying the way that all five questions were posed and then Kelly answered them all. I thought it might be better if the system would have allowed Kelly to answer one question at a time and allow the recording to reflect one question, one answer in order until all five were answered. This is how it worked this week with John Hensley’s interview. Check it out here.
When big is good. . .
October 24, 2006
Dad is blogging (When it absolutely, positively needs to get to Siberia!) about a shipment he is making to Siberia using the world’s largest cargo plane. How do you get half a million pounds of electronics across the planet in less than a week? Evidently the only way to do it is using the Antonov An-225. Oh and evidently Houston does not have a runway long enough to allow it to take off fully loaded (they are going to have to load the plane somewhere outside of Houston). Sometimes bigger is the only way to go. . .
Most VC deals are now outside of Silicon Valley
October 23, 2006
Has anyone ever heard of the internet? I hear it is changing things, making location not as important. Fred Wilson commented on a meme that Paul Graham started titled, “Houston can kill your startup!“ Fred’s point? More than two thirds of all venture capital dollars are spent on non-Silicon Valley startups. Randall Stross with the New York Times suggested that more than half of all Web 2.0 deals were outside of the bay area. Fred points out of the three biggest deals done during the past three years, Skype, MySpace and YouTube, only one of them was from the Valley.
I love the bay area and to a lesser extent Silicon Valley, but I realize that entrepreneurship is going global. The internet, in all of its Web 2.0 glory, is removing the geographic barriers that have held back entrepreneurs, from places like Houston, for years. There was a time when smug programmers sitting on Market Street could be sure they were on the bleeding edge of whatever they were working on. Today they better look over their shoulders because there are thousands of smart, talented and connected people all over the world - from Bangalore to Beijing to Baltimore. Its the internet stupid ~ get on, or get run over…
Note: I am adding Fred back into the reader ~ he is everywhere and his batting average is higher than mine. “Shark reset.“
Advice is free ~ capital is expensive. . .
October 21, 2006
Yesterday a friend of ours brought a young entrepreneur by the office to pitch his idea. We listened for a bit, but soon began offering our ‘advice’. We assumed ‘advice’ was what they were looking for since we have been very public in our decision to stop funding outside deals. I suggested that the entrepreneur lose the Powerpoint and replace it with a simple prop. I also suggested some minor languaging changes - e.g. drop statements like “no one else can do this”. Finally, we recommended that he talk to a couple of local entrepeneurs with experience in the space.
His idea is very cool ~ not sure if it will work, but if it does I suspect he will do very well. When he explained how little money he needed to build his technology I quipped that we might as well fund/build it. The conversation became more serious and then I explained the advantages and disadvantages of working with us. Advantage? No more fund raising, we just execute and move forward now. Disadvantage? We take control. We become ‘partners’ owning atleast 51% of the deal. Nightmare!
What would I do? Easy, raise venture capital. I explained that if I were in his shoes I would pack my bags and move to the Bay Area, get involved in the tech community, find a partner with experience building a startup and raise money from the best venture capital firm I could find. Dallas might be a better location for talent (telecom hardware), but with the turmoil in the local VC market (Sevin Rosen shuttering their latest fund) it might be easier to fund a deal in the Valley (oh and it is easier to build a Googley Workforce there). Too bad because this deal would be right up their alley ~ Jackie Kimzey might be the perfect guy to lead the startup on an interim basis.
Full Ratchet Anti-Dilution Protection
October 20, 2006
The word “dilution” has several meanings in deal making; it is critical to understand the context. An investor in any given round of financing is concerned that the next round could be at a lower price per share than what he is paying this round. Therefore, the investor will insist upon anti-dilution protection.
If pressed for justification, the investor may explain that if the value of a company declines between rounds, management must be largely responsible. The investor maintains that he shouldn’t be penalized for management’s deficiencies. There are two common types of anti-dilution protection: full ratchet and weighted average. This post will examine full ratchet anti-dilution protection.
Do we need a new name for Fancast?
October 19, 2006
Since June of this year we have been talking about Fancast (our entertainment version of PodServe). In fact we presented it at Under the Radar where it won “Best in Show” and the “Peoples Choice.” In July we entered into an agreement with FX Network to deliver fancast for use on the popular series, Nip/Tuck. Before we picked the name I did a quick check on the USPTO site to see if anyone had registered it as a trademark - the only application was rejected.
So I was surprised when I got a fax from Comcast this afternoon indicating that we were infringing their use of the name Fancast. The letter explained that they filed an application with the USPTO on August 22, 2006 to register Fancast as their trademark and in the coming months plan to use the name in trade. The letter was nice enough, indicating that they did not think our “infringement” was intentional (how could have it been since we started using it before they applied for a trademark on it?), but they insist that we stop using it immediately. The letter explained that thought we began using the name on September 26 - i.e. the date I blogged about the launch of the Nip/Tuck Fancast.
I responded to the fax from Comcast and explained that we had used the name in trade prior to their application and offered to talk about it with them tomorrow. Anyway, I hope it will end there, but you never know Comcast could eat us for lunch if they wanted to (oh and I get my internet access through them) - perhaps we will have to change the name of our service. Any ideas? How about COMcast? Wait, where have I heard that before?
Best Business Prep for High School Students?
October 18, 2006
For me it was policy debate. I got to travel around the country, meet smart people and argue with them. The summer after my junior year of high school I went to the University of Vermont to study debate under Alfred “Tuna” Snider. I could have gone to Baylor or another school to study in their programs, but if you are looking for unique, off-the-wall and winning strategies Tuna is your man - he wrote the book on debate. And he has a blog - the Global Debate Blog! Oh, and the gyros at UVM are great!
Why policy debate? Each year you spent the summer writing a ‘business plan’ to support your point - by the first debate tournament your plan was ‘perfect’. Then team after team would tear your plan apart. Win or lose you would spend the next week reworking your plan, changing it up, fixing it, making it more perfect. The next week your opponents (some new, some old) would find new weaknesses in your plan. This would go on week after week all year long. Wow! Where else can you get this sort of practice dealing with this sort of intellectual pressure?
You have to be creative, you must think on your feet - did I mention that the AVERAGE speed for delivery on the national circuit is 6-8 words per second (350-400 words per minute). Don’t believe me? Check it out here , here and here. Not only do you have to hear and comprend a person talking ‘crazy fast’ you need to take notes ~ something we called “flowing” ~ we would create flows for each point or argument made by each team.
Did I mention that each judge might have a different paradigm (or combination of paradigms) for deciding the burdens of each team? Not only do you have to know your case and that of your opponent, you have to understand your judge. Some judges would walk into a round and indicate they judged based on one or more of these common paradigms: stock issues, policymaker, tabula rasa, games player, or speaking skills. No problem? Well what if you have three judges or five with different paradigms? It happened ALL of the time! It is just like real life - it is just like business - it is just like raising money. I owe a bunch to debate and great coaches like Tuna!
Houston Can Kill Your Startup!
October 17, 2006
Starting a business in Houston? Paul Graham suggests that you get out while you still can. According to Paul the decision not to start your business in Silicon Valley, Boston, Seattle, Austin, Denver or New York is a mistake that can “Kill” your startup. He singles out Houston as a “Bad Location” for startups. His explaination,
Startups prosper in some places and not others. Silicon Valley dominates, then Boston, then Seattle, Austin, Denver, and New York. After that there’s not much. Even in New York the number of startups per capita is probably a 20th of what it is in Silicon Valley. In towns like Houston and Chicago and Detroit it’s too small to measure.
Why is the falloff so sharp? Probably for the same reason it is in other industries. What’s the sixth largest fashion center in the US? The sixth largest center for oil, or finance, or publishing? Whatever they are they’re probably so far from the top that it would be misleading even to call them centers.
It’s an interesting question why cities become startup hubs, but the reason startups prosper in them is probably the same as it is for any industry: that’s where the experts are. Standards are higher; people are more sympathetic to what you’re doing; the kind of people you want to hire want to live there; supporting industries are there; the people you run into in chance meetings are in the same business. Who knows exactly how these factors combine to boost startups in Silicon Valley and squish them in Detroit, but it’s clear they do from the number of startups per capita in each.
Really? When I was growing up I spent a few years in Houston and I seem to recall lots of companies doing fairly well in the city. This year Forbes ranked Houston as #3 in the nation for “Best Places for Busienss and Careers” (#1 in Texas ahead of Dallas and Austin). According to Wikipedia, Houston is second to New York City in number of Fortune 500 company headquarters. It might be easier to raise money if you locate your business in the Bay Area, but you might be able to build a ‘better’ company in Houston. Just a thought. Paul, give Houston a chance…
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