Monthly Archives: March 2010

How to get traction for your website.

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God knows I have no clue how to do it!  To learn how to do it, i’ve been watching http://tractionbook.com/ to learn about it.  So far i’ve watched Garry Tan’s and Justin Kan’s interview.  I thought Justin’s interview was very insightful in regards to how they recognized that justin.tv’s initial idea, following around justin, would be short lived and that they needed to be able to transform their gimmick into something a bit more long lasting.  this realization eventually transformed into the current business model of justin.tv, live broadcasting.  They gained traction by leveraging their initial idea (which was very innovative) and the publicity they received into a real business model (at least that’s what i took from it).

Garry on the other hand believed that their traction was primarily driven by its ease of use.  Since posterous was so easy to use, people created blogs via email (no password).  this allowed the site to grow virally, and very fast.  user’s would create accounts then pass their posterous site links to other users via facebook/twitter.  then the viewers of the blog would want their own blog, and would create their blog on posterous since it was so easy to create.

I thought Garry’s experience was a little more helpful to me than Justin’s.   It seems Justin was able to leverage a novel idea into something more powerful.  While that’s a great experience, i’m not sure how helpful it is to me since my idea isn’t a ‘novel’ idea.  Garry’s experience was a bit more practical – lower customer acquisition barriers as much as possible.  Get them signed on and using fast – (sorta like a drug dealer… the first one’s free).  Once the user is on the system, figure out a way to make the user a evangelist indirectly.  Make them promote your site through the user’s own goals.

Apps for Healthier Kids – Free Idea Friday

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Check out http://www.appsforhealthykids.com is a contest in part by the First Lady’s Let’s Move It campaign to end childhood obesity within a generation.  Since I probably won’t have time to work on it, I thought it might be fun to at least brainstorm ideas for mobile apps for kids (obese kids shouldn’t really be sitting at a computer to get healthy).  I think a good way to address the problem is to teach the kids/parents about how many calories things are.  Here are a handful of ideas:

virtual pet – teach kids about health through a game.  the more the kids feed the pet, the fatter it gets till it gets sick.  have the pet require the kid to move the phone in patterns to give the pet exercise to burn of calories from the food the pet eats.

guilt trip – let the parents enter in how much what’ their feeding their kids.  tell them the life span of their kid if they continued to feed the kid the same thing for X years.

location based gaming -  have the kids enter what they ate – they’re given a total # of calories they’ve consumed for the day.  based on the calories they’ve consumed, the kids need to perform location based tasks that force them to check in at several places in a very short amount of time… leading to some calorie loss.  the fewer calories they eat, the fewer places they need to check in to.

that was fun!  im not sure any of these are actually good ideas or not, but it was fun to brainstorm!  if anyone has comments on them, please leave them in the comments so we can discuss!

Getting started with blogging

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So i’ve started really to start to focus on my blog, and have been working on integrating advice from Mark Suster into my blog.  His advice to back-log some pre-written material is crucial to keeping readership up.  I’ve noticed in the past that if I cut back the number of posting’s that I write, my subscriptions on feedburners takes a huge dive.  So his advice to write at least 4 -5 backup ones is what I try to do every weekend.  It makes responding to comments during the week much more manageable.  You can also focus on doing what you really need to do, which is build your product/service.

I have to also echo his remarks on commenting on blogs and responding to comments.  So far after focusing on my blog the last two weeks,  two  entrepreneurs have commented on my blog postings, and it’s meant so much to me as an author and entrepreneur to know that there are other people out there!

Also, i’ve learned a couple of hacks along the way to gain some readership.  Mark Suster and other powerful tech-types probably don’t need to do this, but for fledgling bloggers like myself need to do whatever it takes to get readers.  One thing i’ve started doing is adding my blog to the blog directories out there.  In a couple of weeks I hope to have a consolidated list of the ones i’ve found most effective, which i’ll definitely share with everyone, so stay tuned!  But as a teaser, here’s the list that I started with.

Another tip I would recommend is to share as many links as possible with people via digg/stumbleupon/reddit, and then sneak in one of your own blog :) .  Of course make sure that the links are relevant to the group your posting it… don’t spam.

In the end it’s also really about finding a group of users to write for.  I’m still working on finding mine.  If there’s anyone out there reading this, please by all means do speak up!  I definitely want to speak to you!!!

Why? Why? Why?

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Simon Sinek covers a great comparison between the CEO of Sprint and the CEO of Nike in his blog post, Why Does Your Company Exist?

I decided to explore this question… Why does UDFI exist?  It started as a way just to be independent, but it’s morphed into something more through the years, eventually leading me to what I define as my ultimate goal for UDFI, to create products that makes the lives of its users better.  In turn, creating a company that can make the lives of its employees better, through making it’s users lives better.

It’s definitely a lofty goal, and rather ambiguous… how you ask?  In the past year i’ve re-focused my goals to make sure that all my products align to this goal.  I’ve re-focused my blog to help other entrepreneurs out there who are trying to figure out this startup game – to let them know that they’re not alone in the struggle for independence.  I’ve created Simplizt in hopes of helping other people who are unorganized to get organized, and to help those who are organized be even more efficient (giving themselves more free time to better their lives).

Keep tuning in to see if this actually happens! :)

Seth's blog: Creating the list

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Seth Godin cover’s an interesting topic about questioning what your list of things mean to you.  I thought it’d be fun to go through this exercise, since I am creating Simplizt, a task management system focused on lists.

Do you make the list you check off, follow and work on every day?

I personally make my list of things to do that I check off on a daily basis.  However, I find it extremely helpful when I bounce the priority of my task list off off my wife.  Typically when I’m in the weeds I tend to get tunnel vision and don’t see the bigger picture.  She helps me by refocusing my efforts on my true main goal.   With her help I change the focus from short term gains to the big picture.  (It doesn’t help that I get really distracted easily… ooh look, squirrel…)

When does it get made?

I try to make my list every night before I go to sleep and I review it every morning.  If I need to prioritize something, delegate something (usually to my wife), I like to do that early on so I can get it off my list.  It gives her time to give me feedback on the item during the day.  The other time I add things to my list is when new stuff comes in.  It’s hugely important for me always have the list running during the day as I go through my Inboxes and reviewing things.

Who approves it?

I approve my own list, but it always makes sense to get another set of eyes to get feedback on your list, especially if you can get it fro someone experienced in doing what you’re doing.

Do you identify tasks or perform them?

I definitely identify my own tasks.  I think it’s always better to be the person identifying the tasks than the performers.  To identify tasks, you need to understand how everything works and what’s what.  Performing tasks always tend to be less creative and primarily just “doing”.  You always want to be the one identifying tasks at some level.

If you had a better list, would you do better work?

This I feel is a no-brainer.  Of course if you had a better list, you would definitely do better work.  If you had a better list, it would be more efficient, removing unnecessary tasks that may be pointless to your end goal.  For example, currently I have no idea on how to market my product, so I’m literally trying everything to see if it works.  (My list will soon be available on Simplizt).  If I knew the finer points to marketing, it would be more efficient.  Take this analogy, boxers more or less all have the same physical build (for each weight class), however they’re not equal fighters.  The best fighters hone their skills and make their movements more efficient at leveraging their weight and strength better than their opponent.

If you made the list instead of just obeying it, would you be a more valuable member of the team?

Don’t be just a tool, be the craftsman.  You need to make a list yourself to get yourself thinking about how the pieces of anything fit together rather than just being the tool.