Cameesa - The Blog

We embarked on this journey a long while back and learned a lot about crowdfunding and startups. Crowdfunding lessons learned from can be found here. This post is geared towards startup lessons learned. 

1. Always engage in customer development and obtain the validation up front and throughout your development cycle. 

I’ve made mention to Steve Blank’s “Four Steps to the Epiphany” in a previous blog post. The methodology encourages interaction with your customers and market so you can quickly find out what the focus of the product should be or whether the product is worth building at all.  Solving you’re own problems is always a good start as you will be addressing one of your own needs that you have intimate knowledge of. Even in this scenario I would highly recommend getting prototypes up in a quick fashion to solicit feedback prior to making a significant investment. In addition, obtaining feedback throughout the product life cycle and analyzing metrics will allow you to improve the product in a way that’s valuable to your customers. 

Some may argue that the customer development model doesn’t produce revolutionary products as customers don’t know what they want. People typically reference the following Henry Ford quote: “If I’d asked people what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse”. A modern day is example would be Steve Jobs and Apple. Their tightly controlled product design approach under Steve Jobs is void of any customer collaboration. However, many of us are not Steve Jobs or Henry Ford. These are extraordinary individuals. A number of factors and circumstances had to come together for their success to occur. In addition, they may have held tight reigns on their product ideas but they certainly did not isolate themselves from people and ideas that ultimately shaped their products. They understood the “why” of their products. In Ford’s case that people would like to get from A to B efficiently and in Jobs’ case the idea that technology products are cultural products where design plays a critical role. In short nothing is created in isolation and it takes extraordinary circumstances to develop successful products in the absence of customer development. Keep in mind that customer development does not replace vision. It can’t. You need a vision. Customer development will help you figure out whether you are on the right track. 

With Cameesa we identified a couple of key trends trends that were going on. Micro-finance sites such as Kiva and music funding sites such as Sellaband were collecting small increments of funds from the public to achieve a larger goal and had traction. In the case of Kiva the funding of third world entrepreneurs and with Sellaband the funding of musical acts to get their album professionally produced and promoted. The other was the rise of crowdsourced T-Shirt sites such as Threadless and Design By Humans. The basis of the Cameesa idea was taking Sellaband and Threadless and putting them together. Sellaband was attracting financial supporters which they called “believers” and Threadless was growing at a fast pace and provided a unique product in the T-shirt space. We thought that taking both models and putting them together would create a successful product based on the fact that both of the models above were successful. So we did any eager entrepreneurs/developers did. We started building and went online. We didn’t do customer development. Despite our lack of customer development our initial customers gave us amazing feedback and some great ideas. With that being said our fundamental assumption was wrong. That crowdfunding would be produce a better product. It doesn’t. Curation is extremely important. More on this can be found in my Cameesa lessons learned post. 

What we failed to consider was the following: 

We were web guys starting a retail business. One in which margins increase with scale. Inventory management and logistics are crucial to success. None of us had retail backgrounds to leverage.  In addition, T-Shirt sales are and always will be a low margin business. Volume is required to keep the business afloat. Our model involving artists, supporters and buyers required all three to have significant volume for the business to scale. 

Retail challenges aside we had another major hurdle. We never actually knew whether the crowdfunding model was actually sustainable and whether or not it would be able to sustain the business moving forward. Sure, Sellaband had a large handful “believers” donating money to artists but does Sellaband make enough to keep the platform running? Kickstarter, the poster child for crowdfunding has had tremendous success in terms of growth, user base and the number of successfully funded projects. Is the transaction fee they charge on successfully funded projects enough to keep operation moving forward without outside money? I am by no means trying to single these companies out. What I am hinting at is that the model is new, unproven and presents another risk in terms of sustainability. We are all still trying to figure it out. 

Crowdfunding although an excellent tool for getting projects financed is not ideal for products with a low price point. The most common piece of feedback we’d receive was as follows: “The project is still trying to reach the goal but I want the T-shirt now!” or “I don’t want to support the project to eventually get a shirt. I just want to buy it now.” Crowdfunding is great for fund-raising for creative endeavours however I don’t feel it has the same impact in the consumer products space. When people want to shop they don’t want to support a project. They want to buy now. Not tomorrow. 

In the end our experiment came down to a question of reliability versus validity. We obtained feedback and refined Cameesa to be a better Cameesa. The validity of Cameesa should have been questioned sooner. Should we have even created Cameesa in the first place? I think if we had done the initial customer development we probably would have come up with a more valid idea to run with. 

2. The right model.

If you are able to get paid from day one than you are on the right track. I made reference to this when I discussed standalone utility vs. network effect utility in a previous blog post. If you cannot generate revenue from day one it will be extremely hard for you to keep working on the product or working on finding the right answers. The funds generated buy you enough time to pivot and change course by creating a product that is valuable to your customers. We had never gotten the model right with Cameesa and it limited the amount of time we were able to put in. Revenue is also a good feedback mechanism. It’s a points system more than anything else. If you’re not making the money you thought you would, chances are you’re working on the wrong thing. This leads me to my next point:

3. You can’t do it part time.

We’ve had Kamil and Andy work on Cameesa full-time during certain periods. I would also set aside weeks at a time to help out. The problem was these moves were a gamble as we were not on the right track to begin with. As a result of not having the right model that could give us the funds to all work on the product at the same time we’d work on it when we could. By not being able to work together we lost out on some great opportunities to collaborate and make the best of each others skills. Making releases became tricky as well. One example is when Kamil wanted to improve the platform, he would undertake back-end development and ask me to put together a UI and the front-end templates. A lot of the times I wasn’t around to do this work and Kamil would have to take it on himself. Kamil didn’t like doing this as it was outside his skill set nor was it an effective use of his time. It also caused a lot of frustrations for the team that could have been avoided. If we had been able to work on it full time versus part time, we could have got our answers and initial prototypes vetted in a couple of months versus the eight to ten months working on weekends. 

4. Stay lean and keep iterating.

Keeping lean and evolving your product as mentioned above are critical for any startup. You are forced to be lean as you have limited resources and need to focus your efforts and funds on activities that deliver the highest value. The likelihood of success is also based on your ability to keep evolving the product (Or pivoting). You need to make the right moves early on that generate the funds necessary to keep the business moving forward. The getting paid on day one principle. Depending on what stage you’re at with your product you will need to test the validity and reliability of your assumptions. 

Testing validity happens before you start building. As mentioned above. The step we skipped :). You identify what type of product you’re going to build versus what you’re not going to build. It should have an associated model that can sustain the business. As you produce the product and iterate with customer feedback you are testing for reliability. Taking your valid assumption and fine tuning to make it more reliable. 

In our case we never tested the validity of our idea. We also didn’t have a model that could sustain the business in the long term. We thought the idea was good enough and iterated on the product to see if it would improve things. We kept focusing on improving the product. Outsourcing to different vendors and re-designing the site when what we really needed to do was change course. In the process we wasted a significant amount time. What we really needed to do was search for a more valid service offering.   

5. You don’t need five founders.

When we first started Cameesa we had more founders than we needed. I think all that is required are two founders. However, I wouldn’t say three’s bad either. One of the founders should have a strong technical background in engineering the other should be a products person (Fred Wilson described it well). You both need to be business savvy. I think anything more than this to start is overkill. If your initial assumptions are right and there are funds to start scaling the team than you can bring on additional team members. However, they do not need to be founders. 

6. Ensure that everyone on your team can make an impact today.

As related to the previous point. We had more than enough founders but a couple of them did not have the skill set to help with an early stage company. They had corporate backgrounds and were employed at very large organizations. Ones that need “professional management”.  Our little start up did not require professional management. What we needed were people who could get their hands dirty by either working on the product, crushing it by blogging and reaching out to the community, working with our third party outsourcing companies to develop a better product, etc. We didn’t need people to help get us funding, to manage us or do spreadsheet modelling. I think having someone work on pitching VC’s would have been better if we were on the right track to begin with.

7. Getting coverage in major publications does not mean you are on the right track.

As with any company in a new space such as crowdfunding there is a lot of hype and publicity. We managed to get into the print and online editions of The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and Time magazine. However, the amount of traffic we received from those publications was minimal and didn’t usually result in repeat visits. Every time, we made it into these publication we somehow felt a sense of validation and thought there was still hope if we could get enough people onto our platform and things would eventually work themselves out. This is not the case. It is far better to get favourable reviews and write ups in niche publications. The referrals from these sites tend to have a higher likelihood of conversion than those from a larger more general publication. I think it hindered more than it helped us. It made it harder for us to let go of our initial idea and experiment with new ones.  

8. Forget about funding. 

I think if you are a second or third time entrepreneur it probably makes sense to get funding if you’re trying to tackle a bigger problem. With that being said, you should have a viable product and the funds should be used to amplify your success. In other words they should be used to scale  up. This is typically a good option for second or third time entrepreneurs who have significant experience in successful start-ups. David Hansson of 37Signals tends to have a really strong view on not taking funding and I understand where he’s coming from. But, I do believe the silicon valley adage “If you want advice ask for money and if you money ask for advice”. I would personally give a large portion of my equity away in order to get the coaching, advice, mentoring and support network that comes with having investors. I think the learning experience would be great irrespective of the outcome. In the case of Cameesa, we were never in a good position to obtain funding. All of us were 1st time entrepreneurs, none of us had been funded and I don’t think Cameesa was the platform to invest in. I think we needed to focus our efforts on exploring a myriad of sustainable product ideas versus being concerned with funding. Get your product working first and produce strong results. Then go seek funding if it’s needed. For us it was a distraction more than anything else. There’s also a lot to be said about running a lifestyle business. 

9 . Passion

As with any endeavour you must be super pumped about working on it. You need to live and breath the product or service. Or live and breath the process of getting a start-up off the ground. Passion can take you a long way. If you are not passionate about what you’re doing you should stop immediately.  Time is extremely precious. I think you can always find a way to recover money. Time however is not recoverable. Once its gone, its gone. There is no way to get it back. This is why I will always feel worse about wasting time versus wasting money. I can always find a way to get the money back. 

I was very passionate about starting a new online product and experimenting. I was also very passionate about working along side like minded people like Andy and Kamil. The one thing I wasn’t that passionate about was running a retail business. One that involved t-shirts. I had always wanted run a pure play services site for crowdfunding such as Kickstarter. We were slow moving and they beat us to it. We held on to our initial assumptions when we should have changed course. I want to make one thing clear. When I say “I wasn’t passionate” it doesn’t mean that I was unwilling to learn or even had a dislike towards running retail operation involving T-Shirts. I liked it, I just wasn’t head over heals in love with it which could have limited my ability to crush it. It’s also the reason why we’ve decided to close up shop. 

To Conclude

In retrospect, do I feel like I’ve wasted my time? Not really. I’m glad to have worked on this project with Kamil and Andy as I’ve gained a wealth of experience that will better prepare me for future endeavours. I do think we could have used my time more effectively if we had done more customer development from the very start. 

There are opposing opinions when it comes to doing business with friends. A common argument is that business should never be done with friends as professionalism goes out the window. Depending on the friend this may very well be the case but not in all instances. Some of the best business relationships are formed through genuine friendships. It’s harder to go the extra mile with business partners in the absence of such friendships. Complimentary skill sets, passion for the endeavour and commitment are all required. If this is not the case don’t do business together unless you value the friendship.

Kamil and I became business partners not solely based on our friendship but based on the fact we had complimentary skill sets and work well together. The friendship alone is not enough to sustain a venture. Since we both bring something to the table the friendship enhances our productivity.

Zappos is an excellent company and Tony Hsieh differentiated the business solely on caring and customer satisfaction. The one thing he mentioned (via the TWiST podcast) which I found interesting is that he allocates company time to allow co-workers to hang out and build these relationships with each other. His thinking this is that in a tough situation friends are more willing to go out of their way to help each other out at work. In turn this positively contributes to the business in terms of employee retention, customer satisfaction and ultimately the bottom line.

Some lessons learned early on from the Cameesa side. Don’t bring friends into the business who are not compliments to your team. The skills required in a start-up differ from those in a corporate environment. Entrepreneurial types that can make an immediate impact are required. There’s no need for professional management or those who cannot make an impact immediately. Some people’s skill sets are better suited to larger environments. Ex. A financial analyst, accountant, executive, etc is not required if you are not getting funding. This also depends how far along you are in your development as a company. When you are starting off it will cause you more pain than anything else. You need people who are passionate and intimate with the problem you are trying to solve. In addition, you should have people earn their way into the company so they have some skin in the game. This benefits all parties involved. The individual and the company are in a far better position to evaluate each other and figure out whether it is worthwhile to keep the relationship moving forward.

To conclude. Good relationships and passion can you take you a long way. Choose wisely.

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!

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?????

There are many different types of people in your workplace; however, all of these people use their time in only 1 of 4 ways:

First, you have Daniella, who gets into work early and leaves late.  Daniella is the type of person that averages a 12-hour work day, and is usually seen walking around the office making jokes and sending random e-mails, and IM chats. Daniella’s work habits, and time management skills, may be described as not-efficient and not-effective.  Daniella is rarely promoted and receives low-to-medium reviews on a yearly basis.

Second, you have Ricky who also puts in long work days; however, Ricky sticks to himself and is usually busy all day.  He usually ends the day off by saying “I was so busy today I just couldn’t seem to catch my breath, but I still didn’t get much done.”  Do you ever feel like this?  Ricky’s work habits are the trademark of high-efficiency, and low-effectiveness: lots of action, but lack of results.  Ricky receives medium reviews and is promoted at a rate similar to the majority of his co-workers.

Next comes Rob, who is a part-time DJ that loves to mix Hip-Hop. He is the guy who takes a couple of extra breaks every day, and takes a nap after his 2-hour lunch….every day.  After his nap, he puts on his headphones and gets in the zone for about 3 hours.  So, in Rob’s typical 8-hour work day he does about 3 hours of actual work.  The amazing thing about Rob is that his work is always of high-quality.  Rob gets phenomenal reviews from management, and is promoted more often than others in the office.  Rob is the epitome of a highly-effective, but not efficient worker.  When all is said and done, Rob gets his shit done and still has time to throw the Frisbee around.

Finally, you have Wayne who is known around the office as “The Machine.”  Wayne comes into work for eight hours, puts on his headphones, and takes care of business.  All of his projects are on-time, on-budget and always of high-quality.  Wayne is constantly being promoted, and is an amazing asset to every team that he works on.  Wayne is a highly-efficient, and a highly-effective individual.

     Efficiency: the process of staying busy all the time, with no idle moments.

     Effectiveness: the process of producing the maximum results, in the minimum time, with the minimum effort.

Which person are you? If you are not Wayne then you definitely have room for improvement.  So, you’re probably wondering, “How do I get to Wayne’s level?”

You become effective by working smart instead of working hard.  To double your effectiveness apply the 20/80 rule, where prioritized tasks always come first.  In your life, 20% of your activities will produce 80% of the results that you are after.  Just 20% of your listed activities will take you faster and farther than others.  So, focusing on these 20% is what transforms energy-wasting efficiency into results-producing effectiveness.

Our minds tend to take the path of least resistance.  I will be the first to admit that, on a To-Do List, I will start off by tackling the easiest tasks first.  I think to myself…”well, i’ll get more of these quick-hitter tasks out of the way, and then get to the important ones.”  This mentality is not following the 20/80 rule, and is incorrect.  In what order do you attack your To-Do List?  Therefore, in order to transform efficiency into effectiveness, you must write a To-Do list, prioritize your tasks, and stick to their order.

In my first few weeks working for Cameesa, I used to program every day because I wanted to improve the website. However, once I learned about, and applied, the 20/80 rule, I realized that programming was not in the top 20% of tasks.  Although, we needed to improve the Cameesa site on a daily basis, I found out that we needed to bring Cameesa to the world and, at that point, the 20% of my most important activities became: reaching out.  Communicating to the world, and spreading the word of Cameesa, will bring me 80% of the results that I am looking for.  Since then, I spend a lot more time reaching out to t-shirt blogs and other potential Artists, Supporters, and Shoppers.

The 20/80 Rule will allow you to do twice as much in half of the time, so start using it today.

This 20/80 Rules comes from Charles Givens’, SuperSelf.

This post was initially titled “Productivity Tips for Entrepreneurs Who Work at Home”.  But after thinking it over, these tips could be applied to anyone who works at home, even Moms in Utah.  These “tips” are just things that have helped me be more productive and focused since launching Cameesa and going full time in July.  They all may not apply to you, but don’t knock it till you rock it!

#1: Put pants on.

I am all for a casual work environment.  I loved to dress casual back when I worked at Motorola, even though many around me were wearing ties.  I don’t think that putting on a tie makes me any more productive than putting on a tuxedo t-shirt.  I think suits and ties are good for enforcing a hierarchy among employees.  I generally prefer a flat organization, where hierarchies are constructed naturally based on respect and work performance, rather than fashion.

That being said, I think that there is such a thing as too casual.  I draw the line at wearing pants.  I work at home, and I could go around in my boxers all day long if I pleased.  However, I noticed that I am 17% more productive* when I take the time to dress myself in the morning.  Jeans and t-shirt do just fine.  Maybe a pair of Bonobos if I am feeling especially classy.

#2: Zone out.

This is something that Kamil taught me, and proves especially valuable when doing detail oriented work like programming or financial modeling.  The basic idea is to shut off your contact to the outside world to remove interruptions.  Being on the computer offers a myriad of interruptions just waiting to pop up in your face: Thunderbird pops up new emails upon arrival, Twhirl pops up new Twitter messages all day, Pidgin delivers instant messages from several networks (gChat, AIM, MSN, etc), Skype pings me for incoming call requests, and the list goes on…  Don’t forget the cell phone, which is always there to interrupt you.

It is not hard to zone out, just disconnect the internet and turn off your phone.  That’s easy, but you get the same feelings of anxiety that you do when holding your breath underwater.  You feel that you need to come up for air, but guess what?  You can actually stay under much longer than you think.  Just ask anyone in the Navy.  So the next time you need to use some real brainpower, I highly recommend completely disconnecting yourself.  Just don’t do it for multiple days in a row, people start to worry.

#3. Make Human Contact

Technology is wonderful for communicating over long distances, but nothing is more centering for me than a face to face conversation with another person.  Video chat comes close because you can look the other person in the camera and convey emotions, but still feels vacant to me.  The shared nervous energy and positive tension that comes with a real meeting has yet to be digitized.  I can’t place it exactly, but every time I get the chance for a face to face meeting I come away energized and focused.

When working at home, you often get too comfortable with the calculated responses of a chat conversation.  It’s good to keep yourself on your toes.  Sometimes you have to leave the spare room.

That’s all the time I have for now, and I plan to release tips 4, 5, and 6 sometime next week.  Stay productive, San Diego!