Cameesa - The Blog

   An American businessman took a vacation to a small coastal Mexican village on doctor’s orders.  Unable to sleep after an urgent phone call from the office the first morning, he walked out to the pier to clear his head.  A small boat with just one fisherman had docked, and inside the boat were several large yellowfin tuna.  The American complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish.
“How long did it take you to catch them?” the American asked.
“Only a little while,” the Mexican replied in surprisingly good English.
“Why don’t you stay out longer and catch more fish?” the American then asked.
“I have enough to support my family and give a few to friends,” the Mexican said as he unloaded them into a basket.
“But… What do you do with the rest of your time?”
The Mexican looked up and smiled.  “I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take a siesta with my wife, Julia, and stroll into the village each evening, where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos.  I have a full and busy life, senor.”
The American laughed and stood tall.  “Sir, I’m a Harvard M.B.A. and can help you.  You should spend more time fishing, and with the proceeds, buy a bigger boat.  In no time, you could buy several boats with the increased haul.  Eventually, you would have a fleet of fishing boats.”
He continued, “Instead of selling your catch to a middleman, you would sell directly to the consumers, eventually opening your own cannery.  You would control the product, processing, and distribution.  You would need to leave this small coastal fishing village, of course, and move to Mexico City, then to Los Angeles, and eventually New York City, where you could run your expanding enterprise with proper management.”
The Mexican fisherman asked, “But, senor, how long will all this take?”
To which the American replied, “15-20 years. 25 tops.”
“But what then, senor?”
The American laughed and said, “That’s the best part.  When the time is right, you would announce an IPO and sell your company stock to the public and become very rich.  You would make millions.”
“Millions, senor?  Then what?”
“Then you would retire and move to a small coastal fishing village, where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take a siesta with your wife, and stroll to the village in the evening where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos…”

I came across this post at 200 Nipples, and it really struck a chord with me:

http://blog.200nipples.com/2008/12/why-is-effort-uncool/

I see this in myself and in others.  It’s definitely a defense mechanism: if I don’t succeed, then I can say that I wasn’t really trying anyways.  That way I don’t look like a less intelligent/capable/successful person.

But it is BS.  We are trying very hard with Cameesa, and I am most proud of how far we’ve come.

I am going to carry this attitude over into other things in my life.  If I am not trying hard at something, then I shouldn’t be doing it at all.

Choice quote:

“Now is a particularly good time to try most anything, in fact. The sheep are terrified, and resources are cheap.”

Thanks for the inspiration 200 Nips!

I had the chance to watch a little cable television when I was at my parents house over the holiday break.  I normally don’t watch any tv, as we don’t have cable in our house (by choice).

As someone trying to grow a company, I found myself focusing more on the commercials than the content, although it seemed they shared equal screen time.  What really jumped out at me was how generic some of the company tag lines were.

I always thought that company taglines should be a memorable description of what the company does. For example,ours is “Crowdfunding Fashion”.  Sure, the word crowdfunding is a bit esoteric, but we want to latch onto the word and help define it.

Here are some of the least best (one of my favorite phrases from my UPS days):

“Do Stuff”… and yes, that is service marked.

So, is this the intended consumer thought pattern?

“I want to do stuff… with things.  I think I’ll go to Radioshack.”

Something about “You, Happier” feels a bit like Idiocracy to me.  What does the company actually do?  Perhaps Best Buy is so pervasive that everyone knows what they do, but the promise that they are going to make me happier just doesn’t resonate with me.

Those are just two examples, what are your favorite lame company taglines?

Jeff Howe has an interesting post about the limits of crowdsourcing.  In it, he sights how the crowdsourced news site Digg is experiencing another user revolt because the site has removed 80 some nefarious user accounts.  Digg works by allowing users to vote for news stories, and displaying the most popular ones.  The offending accounts are accused of attempting to game the service by automating the voting process.

There is a high perceived value in having a story with many votes, as it will be seen by a large number of people.  Enterprising deviants will obviously try to find ways to promote specific stories because it gives them a sense of control over the media and free press for whomever they choose.  It’s like a value added service almost.

This exposes a key flaw in online voting based crowdsourcing: the ability for minority control.  The values of crowdsourcing espouse democracy and wide-range group thought.  However, on the internet one person can appear as many by writing programs to manage multiple user accounts.  How do you combat this?

First, we need to examine to value of an anonymous online vote, or “digg” as it’s called.  If I digg something, what does that actually mean?  Ideally, a digg should be a reflection of my tastes.  I would have read the story, found it useful, and “dugg” it to say to the world: “I endorse this”.  But the ideal scenario breaks down because of the anonymity of the internet.  On the internet, nobody knows you’re a dog.  So digging a story really says nothing about the real life you.

The value of a digg is therefore worth the amount of time it takes you to click the “digg this” button.  But what if you could write a program to do that?  The value of a digg then approaches nothing.  Therefore, the challenge for the Digg team, and anyone in voting based crowdsourcing, is to encourage users to care about their reputation.  It is the only way to give currency to a digg and meaning to the system.

Instead of trying to give currency to a virtual object (a digg), why not just use REAL currency to allow people to signal their intentions?  That is what we are doing with Cameesa.  We realize that an online vote has little value, due to anonymity and inherent gaming, and believe that true group opinions are best taken online with crowdfunding.

So you complain about your current full-time job and keep saying “I need to get out of here.” Do you actually mean that or are you just saying it.  Mind you, that I truly think that there is nothing wrong working for “The Man” as long as you are enjoying what you do.

I’m guessing that you have a full-time job? What time do you get home from your job?  6pm?  What do you do from 6pm until you go to bed? Do you come home and watch t.v.  and go back to work the next day and complain about your job again? Groundhog day?

This is the final advice that I am stealing from Jason Fried, and Gary Vaynerchuk (from 37signals & Wine Library TV).  They both said that you should always be working on something on the side.  Whether it’s a small project or a huge one. If you love these post-work projects then you will constantly be coming closer towards “Escaping the 9 to 5 full-time job.”

Always have something on the side (in this case, on the side of your full-time job) : this video says it all

The coolest software since sliced bread.  Why?  Because it solves my problem.

How many of you use more than one computer? Let’s say you have a file KamilIsCool.doc, and you are editing it on the PC in your bedroom, but then want to work on the file on your Mac laptop downstairs while watching tv.  How do you go about doing this?

Probably in one of 3 ways: 1)  you e-mail yourself the document and then open it on your Mac; 2) you save the file on a USB pen and then load it on your Mac; or 3) you share a drive on your PC, and map this drive on your Mac (this is the geek solution).

Well, I will list a problem with all of the above solutions: 1) you have to be online to receive email; 2) to save it on USB, you must own a USB pen, and this method is time consuming; and, 3) you have to be on the same network, and online to pull the file from the shared drive.

Dropbox to the rescue.  This software: a) allows you to share the same file between many computers, b) allows you to edit the files locally from your hard drive (you don’t have to be online to do this), and c) synchronizes the file when you connect online again (so you have the most recent version of the file on both computer simultaneously).

There is a 2GB limit on the storage for the FREE version of DropBox, which is plenty for me, and I just wanted to say that I completely love this software and highly recommend it for those with more than one computer.

Imagine this:  you are a beer enthusiast and can’t stop thinking about beer.  You love the way it smells, tastes, the way it is brewed and the entire process.  The problem is that there are no websites out there that tell you EVERYTHING you want to know about beer.  Once in a while, you go on a rampage researching a specific beer for days.  Last week, you spent four straight days researching how to brew a Guinness Draught, and perfected it.  Your friends tell you that you have a problem, and you agree.  You just can’t get over beer facts, it’s composition, smell and taste….if beer was a woman you would not be single any longer.

How is this related to writing your first web application? Well…..solve your own problems first.

So let’s visualize a little more. 

If your dream beer website existed: how would you want it to look? how would it smell? how would you use it?  why would you need it? how would it scratch your itch? why would you love your website?

My dream beer site:

Would be simple (like Google search) with a tan background (the color of beer), and would smell like a Guinness (it’s my favorite beer).  I would want to go onto the website and type in any beer name in the search and get EVERY detail about that beer.  I would need it because I could learn everything about any beer on one site, instead of spending 4 days researching beer on different sites.  It would scratch my itch by having all the information I ever dreamed of.  I would love my website because it would be simple, informational, and community-driven.

So the solutions mentioned above sound like a beer-wiki if you ask me.  So there are your answers of what your website should do and how it should look.

So, in chronological order, this is how you write your first Web Application:

1. Define your own problem (beer love)
2. Solve your own problem (write a web application that scratches your beer-love itch)
3. Try not to do too much (after defining your dream application, launch with only 3 features, don’t try to take over the world just yet)
4. Write your web application (should take a few months to launch)
5. Find people that are like you (other beer lovers)

In summary, you have to find your own problem, solve it with a web application; then, find people that are like you to use it.  Notice that other people don’t come into the equation until you have written your application (Step 5).  So, you should be focusing on solving your own problem and launching it with a few features, and then getting user feedback.  The main point is that you are not asking “what will people use?” from Day 1.

This advice is slightly based off of Jason Fried’s advice to solve your own problems first.

p.s. I’m not a beer enthusiast, although I do like beer, but here are some cool websites:

Beer Advocate

Real Beer

Rate Beer

My wife, Ariel, and I went to CarMax tonight to sell her 1999 Oldsmobile Alero.  We’ve had the car about 4 years, and it is fully paid off.  I’ve attempted to sell my own used car in the past, and it was a terrible experience.  The biggest issue for me was determining value, and getting someone else to agree with that value.  There are things like the Kelley Blue Book, to use as a starting point, but the unique deviations in a car’s history make the price vary greatly.

In general, the CarMax experience was very pleasant.  Disclaimer: I am not a natural salesman, and I don’t enjoy haggling.  If you enjoy the thrill of talking someone down (or up), then CarMax is probably not for you.  What I actually love about CarMax is how systematic the entire experience is.  There are soo many human emotions present in a private party sale which are absent with CarMax.  This makes the transaction swift and painless.

You walk in and a receptionist greets you, puts your name in a salesman queue, and you go watch TV.  Five minutes later, you meet Steve who walks out to your car with you.  Steve doesn’t actually do the inspection and put a price on your car, he just makes sure that you have the keys.  You go back inside with Steve and he tells you how they value cars.  He enters an inspection work order in the computer with you, and someone who you haven’t met yet actually performs the inspection to value your car.  You go watch Dancing With The Stars on an LCD TV.  Twenty minutes later, Steve comes back and you walk with him back to his desk.

Now this is the most volatile (and well thought out) point of the transaction, because, chances are, you will not be pleased with the offer.  Here is how they reveal their price: you sit down with Steve at his computer and he brings up your car details.  Then he clicks a button to reveal the offer, and it seems like he is now seeing it for the first time with you.  If you don’t like the offer, you can’t really be angry with Steve, he has just received the same information you have.  In addition, he is not the person who made the estimate, so it doesn’t make sense to project your disappointment on him.  And the best part: if you don’t like the offer, then tough crap, there is no negotiation.

The point I am getting at is that CarMax has successfully systematized a once soft and wild varying process.  In the past when I was selling my own used car, it took 30 minutes to advertise it, plus four 40 minute meetings and plenty of awkward negotiations to actually sell it.  Then I had to deal with actually getting the money in a guaranteed form and depositing it.  Such a waste of time and brain power.

I think there are huge opportunities in developing systems which remove the guess work and systematize traditionally “soft” markets.  I love the thought of data acquisition and data mining of areas with currently little metering.   CarMax’s appraisal system is just one example.  I know plenty of developers who work at futures trading firms here in Chicago who develop automatic trading systems.  Is there a CarMax for homes?  Would any company be so bold to assume that many liabilities?  Can the algorithm be developed?  Does it make sense to remove the human element from all transactions?

Just thinking out loud, incoherently.  Time to sign off.

Andy, Arie (Andy’s wife), Stan (former co-worker from Bank Of America) and I had a chance to see Jason Fried of 37Signals this past Tuesday night.  Jason is a simple, down-to-earth, intelligent guy who GETS IT.  Jason is the president of 37Signals, and the owner of 6 web applications that have overtaken the software world with simplicity.

The most important lesson I learned from Jason was to: “Talk. Share. Contribute. Teach.”  I believe that people are providers, and givers by nature; hence, we provide to our families, friends and then our children throughout our lives.  So, how can you improve your business?  Start caring about people….which translates to talking, sharing contributing and teaching more.

Of the four points mentioned, I believe that I Talk and Teach well.  I Talk about what is happening in my life, and in the Cameesa world; moreover, I Teach how to improve ourselves, and our businesses. However, I feel that I am lacking in the Share and Contribute points.  I don’t feel that I Contribute to the community and I don’t feel that I Share on a consistent basis.  What does this mean?  I am not really sure.  After Jason’s talk, Andy asked me “Kamil, what can we teach within they community?”  I answered Andy that we can teach the community whatever we are good at: art, self-development, software, and probably some other things that I can’t think of right now.

So, I will make it a personal mission to start sharing and contributing more…but what does this really mean?  How and what can I share and contribute?????

Thanks to all of your feedback and requests, we have decided to implement the Multi-Part Support System.

How does this affect you?

Currently, when you support a design with $40 you receive one free t-shirt and earn six cents for every shirt sold.  With the new and improved, Multi-Part Support System, when you support a design with $40, you will receive two free t-shirts and earn six cents for every shirt sold.

How is this different?

You will be receiving a free t-shirt for every Part ($20 increment) that you support the design with. So, 1 Part will get you 1 shirt, and 2 Parts will get you 2 shirts, and so on.  Note that we will be putting a limit on how much you can support a design with, somewhere around $80-$120.

Since, with this new system, we will be giving out more free t-shirts, we will now be rewarding the Artist with $400 cash, and $100 in their balance, once their design is fully supported; instead of $500 cash.

If you would like to be a beta tester for this new functionality, please email me at kamil@cameesa.com.

Please let us know what you guys think of this.