Archive for January, 2009
January 27th, 2009
We have four folks on the waitlist at this point and will have to turn away anyone who drops in without a reservation. The back room at Hobees in Palo Alto is our smallest venue. We are now running four breakfasts a month, please consider attending another one in February instead. If you have registered you will get a confirmation, and a request to give up your seat if you know you won’t be able to attend so that we can let someone from the waitlist know that they should come.
We have a lot of first time attendees signed up for the Feb-6 breakfast, please try and arrive a few minutes early (I know that 7:30 is already very early, but try and shoot for 7:25) if this is your first time. Because we have a full house and a speaker at this event you will be asked to shorten our normal two minute introduction to 30 seconds, please rehearse your introduction so that it fits in 30 seconds. Eric Ries (blogging at “Startup Lessons Learned“) is our speaker and his topic is customer development. If you have questions for the group please have them prepared as well, you can put them on the table after your introduction and we will work them into the discussion period after Eric gives a 5-10 minute bio and talk on customer development. After 9am we still have the room for another 30 minutes which can be used for follow-up and networking.
We also have a great program scheduled for Milpitas the following week, on Feb-13 which you should consider attending: “Protecting Your Invention.”
January 26th, 2009
Philip G. Armour wrote an interesting column in this month’s Communications of the ACM “The Ontology of Paper.” It’s an argument for moving away from software specifications that are predicated on text (which he refers to as paper, ignoring any ability to draw or diagram using paper). What follow are his concluding sections (emphasis added).
Given that software is a knowledge medium, the future of software engineering clearly lies in constructing software artifacts using media, tools, and representational forms that:
- Can integrate knowledge both locally and remotely,
- Use different (and preferably programmable) representational forms than text that better lend themselves to the time- and state-based structure of the problem we are describing,
- Allow linking and manipulation of ideas remotely (for both machine operation and human understanding) and, most importantly…
- Are executable.
Steam Engines
It is a common cliché that we are currently going through an “Information Revolution” that may be more profound in its consequences than the development of steam engines was in the Industrial Revolution. This is undoubtedly true, but it is missing one important point: the Industrial Revolution did not occur when we built steam engines, it occurred when we used steam engines to build steam engines.
The true information and computing revolution will not occur until we use software to build software; until we really use executable knowledge to create executable knowledge.
It’s an interesting paper. We don’t normally associate exponential growth with bootstrapping, but to the extent that a surplus is re-invested in the business and it generates a consistent (if not increasing) return, you can think of a bootstrapping business as one that exists as a sequence of prototype businesses, each giving birth in turn to a new business that is more robust, if not more profitable, than its predecessor.
January 21st, 2009
Bootstrappers Breakfast(TM) announces Pete Tormey “the Patent Guy” (http://www.actionpatents.com) as invited guest to discuss when you need a patent and tips for getting one. Patents provide an important competitive advantage, and young companies need to develop an understanding of patents to maintain this competitive advantage.Bootstrappers Breakfast will meet at Omega Restaurant in Milpitas, Feb. 13, 2009 at 7:30-9am. Mr. Tormey will give a short 5-10 introduction to set the table for a roundtable discussion on protecting inventions. Bootstrappers Breakfast brings together leading entrepreneurs who eat problems for breakfast and are serious about growing their business.
“Pete Tormey is a registered patent agent who specializes in providing patents for Software, Electronics, Life Science Instrumentation and Business Methods. Action Patents is a great website with a lot of practical advice. He has a number of excellent podcasts — take a listen to Patent Basics for a great example — where he speaks in very clear and practical language about patent related legal and invention issues,” said Sean Murphy, CEO of SKMurphy.
About Action Patents
Action Patents provides fast affordable patent protection to young companies and entrepreneurs. As an experienced entrepreneur, Mr. Tormey is rare among patent agents and attorneys because he provides solid financial analysis on the value of patents before recommending patent protection. Mr. Tormey has an MBA in Marketing from St. Mary’s College in California, and a BS Electronic Engineering from San Francisco State University. He practices exclusively before the US Patent Office.
January 11th, 2009
MB Deans, who attended a breakfast November in Milpitas wrote Elaine to let us know that she is offering a multi-part workshop on building a good on-line profile that’s appropriate for both job seekers and bootstrappers. The three parts are separately priced and will cost between $50 and $200 (early bird) depending upon how many you sign up for:
- LinkedIn and Beyond: Building Your Job Hunt Strategy with LinkedIn and Facebook
- Blockbuster Profiles: Write One That Will Have Recruiters Calling You
- I’m on LinkedIn: Now What? Get the Next Steps to Success
She is offering them four times in January:
A LinkedIn profile is important for a several reasons:
- Prospects will check it either before they contact you or as they are doing more background checking on your company.
- The testimonials that are posted there have authenticated authorship and should also be posted on your website.
- It’s a convenient mechanism for reconnecting with old co-workers and other folks you have had prior shared success with.
MB also has a blog “Working for a Living” that has an interesting “Turn Of Your TV” set of posts:
- Turn Off Your TV & Increase Your Focus
If you’re one of the growing number of people feeling the pinch of this recession we’re in, turn off the TV. There’s little good news and much of what the pundits are talking about is incomprehensible to normal human beings. The problems are too big and complex, and they are oversimplified in the effort to explain.
- Turn Off Your TV & Good Stuff Happens More Than You Think
One particularly bad stretch a couple of years ago when everything seemed to be falling apart, I started keeping a weekly list of everything that went right…pull them out and re-read them and you discover that aren’t all that bad, and more good stuff happens than bad.
- Turn Off Your TV & Find Your Passion
Dreams are wonderful things–I have big plans and goals for my own future–but unless they translate into projects, tasks and accomplishments they mean nothing. I’m not saying dreams are bad; I am saying you need to convert them into concrete, achievable goals and then act to achieve those goals.