Friday's career advice

I recently was asked by a freind for some career advice. He as trying to decide what to do next. He currently is a VP at a small public company that is struggling through a transition.
His choices were:

  1. Start a new company
  2. Join a company that just closed a 2 million venture round
  3. Look for a job in another public company.

He had already decided to leave his current firm where he had been for 3 years. He's 40 years old and has 3 children. His current salary is $225K. Here's what I told him about his options.

  1. Start a new company -- this is great if you know what you want to do. There's a lot of risk but there's also a lot of reward. This is the height of creation. It basically means giving up on salary for at least 6 months and quite possibly 12 months. You're likely to end up owning anywhere between 15% and 50% of a company if you're the founder post a round of financing. You're going to have to work harder than you thought possible. The two big pluses of this direction is that you're your own boss and you get to define teh company culture...plus you're there when the equity gets divided.
  2. Join a funded start up -- if you don't have the stomach or the idea for starting a company this is a great way to learn about start ups.  The good news is you can get paid on day one. Your likely salary as a VP is about 120K to 160K and you'll get anywhere from 1% to 3% of equity that vests over 4 years.
  3. Join a public company -- Also, a viable choice but the bureaucracy is usually in place. You don't play a meaningful role in establishing the culture of the company or the management team. You likely are paid 200-300K and may get equity in the 0.3% up to 0.75% depending upon the maturity of the company. This equity also vests.

There's no right answer. You've got to decide what it is you want to do and assess the risks and rewards. He told me today that he is going to join a funded start up. I think this is a great choice for him.

Secrecy surrounding the Apple iPhone

 I loved this vignette:
Apple chief Steve Jobs relishes a level of secrecy that the CIA would admire. Unlike other electronics companies that spread new gizmo prototypes around like candy, Apple guards its prototype iPhones like weapons-grade plutonium. An example: At this year's big cellular phone industry trade show, Apple had an employee personally fly an iPhone to Randal Stephenson, the chief operating officer of AT&T, which will provide wireless service to the iPhone. Stephenson got to show off the phone for a few minutes. But even he confessed that was the first time he ever held an iPhone -- and he runs the company. The anonymous Apple courier in blue jeans then whisked the phone back to California.
If you want to read the whole article you can do so here.

Managing speeding and parking tickets

I got a speeding ticket in the state of Washington about 3 months ago.  I was going about 90 mph in a 65 mph zone but the policeman didn't get me with a radar gun. In Washington, you have 3 choices to respond to a ticket.

  1. Plead guilty
  2. Plead guilty with mitigating circumstances
  3. Plead not-guilty

I chose to plead guilty with mitigating circumstances. I wasn't exactly sure what circumstances were mitigating but I thought I'd go for it -- the ticket after all was north of $400.  I figured I'd get a penalty reduction just for showing up and thought it would be an interesting experience.
This morning I went to court (which was an awesome educational experience but more on that later).  It turns out that there is a fourth option in the state of Washington -- you can ask for a 1 year deferment once every seven years if your driving record is relatively clean.  I opted for and requested this deferment option. The judge took her time and looked at my driving record. Ultimately, she told me I need to slow down (which I do) ....I'm usually an 80mph driver....and then granted me a deferment. Now, I need to keep a clean driving record for 1 year from today. If I'm successful at keeping a clean record then this infraction is dismissed and never goes on my record nor to my insurance. If I do have another traffic infraction during this time, then this deferred transaction comes back and I need to pay it. I thought that it was a pretty good trade off. I give myself 65% odds of keeping a totally clean traffic record over the next year. I'd give myself more but you know the saying..."You can drive out of Boston, but you can't take the Boston out of the driver."

A new trend with cell phones and voice to text

I've been hearing and reading about a company called simulscribe which is a company that allows you to read your email. Essentially, they have paid labor (supposedly in a low cost English speaking country like India or South America) that transcribes your voice mail once per day and emails you. It's a pretty cool service that I'm thinking of trying out.
What I think is even cooler is some of the business applications for this.  Guy Kawasaki's new site truemors did a deal with Simulscribe (I think -- though I'm not 100% sure) to power their 1-800-truemors number.This is a low cost way for businesses to add a whole new market.
I suspect there are going to be lots of applications like this in the next 24 months. I'm so confident in that fact that about 9 months ago I made a small angel investment in a company called jott that does some similar things. Worth checking both companies out. 

A toyota family

We're now a 2 hybrid car family. Last night I bought one of the last hybrids available in the Seattle area.  We've owned and been really happy with the hybrid Camry....so much so that we went out and bought a prius!  Need I say anymore?
There were 3 interesting things about the purchase for me:

  1. Demand for Priuses is super high and getting higher as the price of gas continues up. So much so, that supply is short and this makes the Toyota dealerships ("appropriately"?) snotty. I went to buy a prius and was already pre-sold before I walked in the dealerships door. Once there, I asked them if I could put a deposit on one of their last 2 cars but wanted to check with my wife on color. i.e I wasn't sure my wife would like the color and wouldn't prefer to wait 6 weeks for the color and style she wanted. (it was her car). The dealer said no -- they wouldn't hold the car for 24 hours. That I either had to buy it or not because someone was going to buy the car tonight. That's what I call sellers advantage.
  2. I ultimately didn't buy the car at the above dealer. I got into my car; looked up another dealer in the area on my cell phone, called the dealer, and made the purchase over the phone. There was one snafu-- they wouldn't  accept a fax signature as a signed deal. They ended up coming to where I was eating dinner and getting me to sign the purchase agreement.
  3. The analysis of purchasing a prius is simpler than ever: reliable car, great gas mileage in a more costly gas environment, and feel good for the environment PLUS excellent value retention.

Standing out on stage

I just came back from my daughters musical.  There were about 150 boys and girls ages 6 to 12 performing. The wide variety of different styles, movement, and confidence that was displayed when you get a group of young people together was awesome. Inevitably, there are one or two kids who just seem natural up on stage ...singing, dancing. Their confidence is palpable and engaging. It's awesome to watch and it makes you wonder what they'll be like in 20 or 30 years.
I had a similar observation when I picked up a copy of Ben Casnocha's book -- My start up life. His insight, confidence, passion are palpable and his book is awesome.  I recommend his book and his blog. Heck, I recommend him. I haven' t finished reading the book yet...but my thoughts at the musical made me think of Ben and how unique he is for his age group. He's unique for any age group -- but when you put him up on stage with a group of other 19 year olds he really stands out! Way to go Ben.   

Serendipity from Boston

I had a phone call with a guy who was operating in the technology scenes in Boston in the mid to late 1990's. We hadn't really spoken before but knew lots of people in common. He mentioned a store called Cybersmith which was a retail operation that opened in Harvard square around 1994. I remember it like it was yesterday. Lots of buzz around it -- a cool retail concept that I don't think ultimately worked. Do you remember it?
It was fun to reminisce with him about that time

Seattle Open Coffee continues

I thought that after the long weekend there would be a drop off in the Open Coffee meeting -- I was wrong! We had 22 folks there today.  Good networking, good conversation, good coffee, and good times. Last week we had our first venture capitalist come by and join the conversation -- Michelle Goldberg from Ignition attended.
We also got written up by John Cook of the Seattle PI...check out the post here. One correction -- I'm the organizer of the Seattle OpenCoffee -- but the original idea and credit rests with a friend and fellow entrepreneur Saul Klein of London.

The American Girl Phenomena

Over the weekend, I had the pleasure of watching the movie Samantha with my daughter. Samantha is one of a series of movies put out by the American Girl company.  This company is amazing. The company is based in Chicago and started as a doll company. The company sell dolls that are characters from American history. In so doing, the company manages to tap into the "educational" doll market -- making parents and grandparents believe somewhat justifiably that the doll purchase is contributing to the education of their child.  Each doll comes with a book that you can also purchase that tells the story of the doll in history. Samantha - for example - comes from the early 1900 to 1910 period and covers the woman's suffrage movement and the industrialization of America as well as the explosion of New York, its immigrants, and its subway system.  Sounds pretty neat, huh?
Well, I suspect the economics of the business are even neater. The dolls retail for $200 to $300! The books retail for about $15. You can purchase period level clothing (dresses, nightgowns, evening gowns etc) for approximately $30. And the movies / DVDs just top it off. My wife and daughter recently took a long weekend vacation to go to the American Girl factory in Chicago -- quite the factory tour. This company is in the same lines as the Build a bear stores and Disney. 
All this is off topic --  this weekend, I watched  Samantha and it was a great movie. I was nearly moved to tears by this completely cheesy, contrived tear-jerker of a movie. A great take as a movie ...go figure.

Fatblogging: 2 steps forward 1 step backward

Last Wednesday, I tipped the scales at 200.5 naked. That was my lightest weight yet this year...and probably my lightest since 2000. I then went on a long weekend in Vegas. I ate and drank without thinking. I had chocolate croissants, scotch, and 4AM snicker bars. It was an indulgent weekend -- I was there celelbrating the sale of Kefta with the management team. I've returned to Seattle reality and worked out this AM for the first time in a week. My trainer had me due sprints. I nearly puked. I haven't gotten on a scale because I know what it's going to say. So, I'm back on the saddle. 2 steps forward and 1 backward for me and my fat ass.

Transferring old file formats

Now that I'm back on the Mac, I was thinking about transferring a handful of old files that are on my Mac SE. Big problem -- no one has 3.5 inch floppy discs anymore....and even if you (or I) did, once you get tthe data onto a disc, how would you ever be able to read the disc on a new computer --i.e. there are no more disc drives. I may be stating the obvious but it's not a probelm I've encountered in the domain of computer data.
I'm reminded of the advice my father in law gave me recently. He suggested I go and buy a new VHS before the players go into extinction. That way, I'll always be able to read my old catalog of VHS tapes. He insists that it's much easier than trying to transfer all those tapes.
Does anyone know how to do deal with this floppy disc and data transfer problem? 

Converting from PC to the Mac

I threatened to make this switch months ago and well -- I finally did it 2 weeks ago.  I am now 100% on the Duel 2 GHz Power/PC G5 with 1.5 GB DDR SRAM.
With the first 2 weeks of interface transition idiocy behind me, the switch in retrospect was relatively painless.  My biggest problem so far has been re-learning keyboard shortcuts for certain things. My second biggest problem is that Rhapsody doesn't work on teh mac and I used to like to use that service a lot. 
Much thanks to Chad for helping me through this transition!

LineBuzz Rocks

I just installed a new widget on my blog called LineBuzz. It's a simple but very powerful concept for bloggers: it allows inline commenting on a blog post.  I just installed it and am pretty excited about the application ....please try it out and let me know what you think.  My hunch is that this thing has viral legs....let's watch it run together. It was created by a new friend of mine in Seattle -- Mark Maunder....a cool guy I met at the Seattle OpenCoffees.