BrainFuel

Dogs for me.

It’s FRIDAY! And this is our 40th caption contest. Who would’ve guessed it could last this long and be this much of a success. I’m gonna start the countdown to 50. We’re talking about doing some fun stuff for #50 so stay tuned. You know the routine: Come up with a funny caption and post it in the comments and be sure to keep it clean. Also, we’re always looking for suggestions for pictures to use. Email me if you have anything you think might work.

I’ve been pondering a new term I heard the other day. The term is “code debt.” I heard it while listening to Jason Fried in this podcast and I can’t stop thinking about it.

Code debt to me is very real. It’s the debt you have to keep paying back when you have software that needs to be maintained, upgraded, and generally supported over years. The more debt you have the more your life will be consumed by it. You could call it an obligation to support a product or solution.

It’s a fantastic concept and something I keep seeing. I’ve even experienced this myself. Where you take on a project and build a software solution and then you end up having to support and maintain it over the years.

Jason at 37signals uses this to explain why you should release a smaller, simpler product. Less code equals less future maintenance.

It really makes you think twice about getting into a new project. More and more these days I’m asking myself. What’s going to happen in 6 months when the client realizes that this is not enough. That they’re going to want to upgrade to the latest version, or have us write custom modules to do new things. Or when something breaks.

Curious if you’ve experienced this or thought about it?

Who along with me thinks that Rollyo has the slickest logo you’ve seen all month? Think they deserve a Logo of the Month award for September? I do.

Archive: Flying Lightbulb Software (August)

“I’m bummed.”

That’s how I started a meeting with a prospective customer we had been pursuing. After several meetings the prospect balked at our price and made a counter offer that wasn’t reasonable (we would have lost money). So the next week after hearing nothing I made a surprise visit to their office and told them I was excited about the project and bummed it wasn’t going to happen.

To my utter surprise they eventually made a deal with us and we went on to get the client. A business deal that looked like it would never happen, actually did.

About two years ago I hired a sales coach to help me sell better and get more business (and the right kind of business). It was an amazing experience and I learned so much useful information and completely changed my outlook on sales.

After working with my sales coach for a few months I was able to even amaze myself. I was making cold calls and bringing in new prospects which was quite an exciting thing. It gives you a feeling of having some control over your business (when in all reality I probably had none).

Oh, the reason for this post is because X-Plane founder Dave Gray has a blog and recently published a short post called How to win a deal after it’s already been lost. Do check it out.

Have you ever been meeting with a new prospect when suddenly the prospect wants you to go into business with them? Yeah, it’s been happening way too much lately.

Here’s my most recent example:

I’m sitting at our conference table. There’s some jazz playing in the office and across from me is a new prospect. I smile and ask him all of the usually questions.

He wanted to build a web site and a business around it. A site that generates leads. In this case, I calculate that he needed over 10,000 visits a week to make the million dollars a year he suggested.

This all takes time and time is money.

Then the meeting changed direction and instead of looking for a company to build his site and pay cash, he was looking for a business partner.

“I’ll split the profits 50/50 with you?” he asked.

Let me tell you how difficult these situations can be! Not only have you just sold the guy on your services, now the prospect wants you to go in business as a partner. This opens up a can of worms because having the capabilities to build web sites it is very easy to open and create side businesses.

In the end I turned him down.

Why? Because I have my own products I want to produce and I’ve been putting those projects off far too long. In addition, I really don’t think it’s a smart idea to go into business with people you’ve just met and the best reason is that I wasn’t interested in his industry. Flat and simple. If you don’t have passion for the business idea it’s going to be a bad idea. Even if the money sounds good.

The most interesting thing is the number of people that want to go into business just to get their web site built for free or little cost and have a partner they can count on (someone invested in the idea). The benefits for them are numerous: They get a dedicated web partner, little to no cost to build the web site, and all they have to do is share future profits. No thanks.

I just stumbled on the Panic site which I’ve visited dozens of times and even purchased software from them. I somehow found myself on a page called The True Story of Audion.

A couple of observations:

1. If you are going to write a story, this is exactly how it should be written. It is captivating, fast paced, and well written.
2. It inspires you to go out and do something.

My favorite part from the story is right after they had met with Steve Jobs and he had offered to hire the two founders:

“This is our only chance to do Panic. We don’t have kids, we’re not married, we don’t have huge obligations. We didn’t invest our life savings into it, just a few hundred dollars. We don’t even have life savings. We probably won’t get this opportunity again in our lifetime — the full chance to take a complete risk, to experiment, quit our day jobs, start a business that certainly may fail, put our hearts into the soul of it, and try to make it fly — making the best possible Macintosh software we can without the threat of mortgages or the cost of braces or kids wondering why we’re never home. And while there may be a time in our life where we crave some stability, or there may be a time in our life when things don’t work out with Panic and we return to be a player in a larger, awesome team like Apple, that time is certainly not now. Panic’s time is.”

My good friends gave me a plant for the office (hooray) and I’m at a loss for names. Any recommendations? And no, I am not going to name it Jeff Bezos. That wouldn’t be right. It’s from the Amazon, not Amazon.com.

So this weekend I went to a bachelor party for a friend who is getting married next week. It was more of a BBQ than anything, and it was way out on the west side in Laveen, AZ. If you’ve ever been to Phoenix, or even if you live here, you’d probably ask where on the planet Laveen resides. So I’ll tell you. It’s approximately 51st Ave and Baseline. Yeah, I had to ask the first time, too.

I’m no card shark by any means and coming in third in the poker championship was a surprise. I have played once before and that was last winter. I began by asking about the rules for a refresher and by the end of the game they all thought I was a poker expert! I kept lining up rivers as they say and doing it in a very smooth and precise manner. It was great! For the record, there were twelve people in the game (two tables initially).

Ok, a quick joke before we close… The mayor of New Orleans was asked about his position on Roe vs Wade… He said he didn’t really care how people got out of the city. (Thanks Carmen for that one)