The Value of Time

Time, sometimes it seems endless, other times it passes bye in a blink of an eye. Recently, I’ve started to notice my changing attitude towards time. In a nutshell, if I come back from work early and I have a lot of free time – time seems useless, I simply waste it and almost nothing gets done. When I come back from work late and the hours before I go into dream land seem limited, I manage to get so much more accomplished. Clearly, the procrastinator in me has something to do with this. But moreover, when time is limited, it becomes valuable, like any commodity. We take air for granted but if you had a limited amount of air, you’d certainly appreciate it more.

Several programs exist to help you save time, like RescueTime, a toolbar that monitors your websurfing and allows for “easy time management”. There’s even a Google lab widget that kicks you out for a few minutes, when you spend too much time on GMail.

But is that the solution, stopping yourself from wasting time on the web, won’t you just waste time some other way. For me clearly one thing that worked is using up a lot of my time doing work things, it makes whatever is left over feel so much more valuable. But this is not a great solution either.

Any ideas? How can we motivate ourselves to see the time we have for what it is – a moment that we will never get to use again, once it passes.

And we’re back…SkyDeck thoughts

Apologies for such a long hiatus…with the vacation and role change at work…I was a smidge busy. Expect a pile of witty posts to come.

I’ve recently joined the beta of SkyDeck. A service that reads your phone bills and attempts to form a true social graph based on the people you call most often and on the people that call you. The idea is very good, I think most people will agree that our phone is our most important communication device. And SkyDeck attempts to mine this device for our true connections. It even shows you the strength of a relationship based on the number of calls. I had some technical trouble with it, with Verizon not letting it grab all of my old call logs but overall it was a pleasant experience. It even surprised me with some of the strengths associated with the different connections.

Of the top of my head I can think of two things they could  incorporate and they are probably working on these already.

1. Instead of solely using cellphone bills why not use the call logs on your actual phone. Installing a little app that continuosly feeds this data live into the system.

2. Do the same thing to my email then combine the two…phone + email as I’ve said before is where you can really find your connections.

It’ll be interesting to see where SkyDeck will go, definitely a company to watch.

But on a completely different note. What I can’t wait for is “Minority Report” style computing and data access. It’ll come in my lifetime…but when?

Wi-Fi above the clouds

Here I am flying 30000 feet above what I imaginne is arizona. With internet access becoming so ubiquitous I’m surprised I don’t get it here. Ahh wait I just read in the always entertaining airplane magazine that they are piloting a program to bring wireless access to their intercontinental flights, phewi thanks AA but no thanks. I am enjoying not being connected I just finished a book that I started to read while on my last flight back to NY thanks to the lack of the internet. I don’t miss the constant information overload though I admit I usually bring it upon myself. I do miss a real keyboard…I’m writing this on my phone and my thumbs are simply not made for this. But back to the story at hand. I would not be surprised that in a few years I’ll have wireless access wherever I am, always connected. Now add to the mix ubiquitous gps and everyone knows where I am. I’m sure there’ll be all sorts of privacy settings. But shouldn’t you mot mind your friends knowing where you are they are your friends after all! (the plane has started to descent now and my ears are not happy, I’m doing all sorts of all weird exercises which I’m sure make me look crazy, I like it.) The ubiquitous connection and location based applications will clearly change social dynamics. I hope they allow for more real life interaction, the web is great but nothing can beat a real smile and a real hug. This topic requires more discussion but I have landed…what do you think all of this will mean for our lives.

I wish someone/something would pick my clothes out.

Each morning – I get up, run to the bathroom, check the time and pick out my clothes for the day. I don’t consider myself a style guru nor do I l completely lack a fashion sense. I’d like to take some time to make sure everything matches. Unfortunately, after I check the time I realize that I am running late – I just fought 15 minutes with my alarm clock (I win the daily battles, the alarm clock wins the war), so to compensate I just throw something on and run to the office.

Can’t the web with its infinite power fix this? Imagine you “upload” your clothes into the cloud, tell the cloud the general style you are looking for (business-casual) and it spits out some matching and stylish outfits for the week. You ask it to send you daily reminders the night before of what you are wearing the next day and you diligently take the clothes out. Problem solved. Now you can look great and sleep-in at the same time. This is not impossible…tell an algorithm your size, complexion, type of suit and color, type of shirt, its color and patterns, belts, socks…and the algorithm can create matching outfits based on some simple heuristics.

Sounds like a dream come true. Does this make me too lazy? I think not, I’d love to have a professional opinion on what to wear, especially when dealing with my work clothes. The reminders it sends would keep me organized. It could even remind me that I am running out of shirts and should bring them to the dry cleaners. And if there’s more people like me out there, there’s revenue to be had. The business model here is not simply online advertising revenue but more importantly affiliate revenue. If I had a service that picked out my outfits every week and if it suggested new shirts to go with the rest of my clothes, I’d think I’d actually buy.

The goal of this system is to bring an image consultant – style consultant to the masses. In theory it could even be a learning algorithm, becoming slightly personalized for each user. With partnerships with other companies, this company could make some good commission money. Why am I not building this? Well first of style is not my forte, at least not to a point that I could create a sophisticated algorithm and secondly, who says I am not about to launch this concept. Some things better remain a mystery…

What’s the ultimate goal in life?

A friend of mine asked me a few weeks ago, What do you want out of life? What do you strive for? What is ultimately your goal in life? And no its not money though as my mom puts it “happiness is not in money, its in the quantity of money you have”. To me it’s not even success or fame, call me old fashioned but to me its family. However, by that one encompassing word, family, I mean quite a few things, both from the past and the present…

My parents have done a lot in their lives to give me a chance to succeed, the best example: as they put it, they moved to the United States for me. So it is no surprise -  I want my parents to be proud. Inevitably that ties to my monetary well-being and success, simply put – my parents would love for me to be a millionaire. If anything money is just a very easy way to “measure” success, or at least compare it. “Oh your son is a doctor, thats great, my son is a millionaire…” for better or for worse my parents do think this way.

What about the future element? I want to continue the family name, keep the genepool alive so to speak, I want to raise kids who reflect the values of myself and my wife, and I want them to be happy. Almost selfishly though, because I hear – when your kids are happy, so are you. But how can I provide a good life for them – ah yes those darn greenbacks come back again. Money makes life easier – you can buy things, afford the best vacation, afford to show the world to your kids, show them opera and ballet, show them what humans from all over the world have built for us, and what they have to build upon. But family is not just kids its also your better half. What about the wife? Well you want her to be smart, beautiful and someone that has similar values to you. In my case that would mean she would always strive to be more than the average, to strive for the best and not to stress out too much, always enjoy the life we have. Sounds like I want someone very coveted, what does she want? I am too lazy to look for the research right now, but I am pretty sure women are biologically programmed to want someone who can take care of them. That means being strong both emotionally and physically, but again being able to provide for them and in this world that means provide financially ( in the good old times it meant being a good hunter) – ahh money again. So is the ultimate goal in life Money? Absolutely not. It does help move things along and while building a business/startup is exciting in itself for me – I would be lying to you if money had nothing to do with it. Whats the morale of this story? My goal in life (and I suppose yours should be as well) is not to stay in the familiar and move on, take risks, make the money, make the world better but always remember the people that helped you get there and the little people you are trying to influence while on your path to world domination. Enjoy your memorial day.

Free(ish) labor for your startup – here’s how.

So you have a brilliant idea and you’ve started working on it. Internally you’ve committed to it but you don’t have the money to hire hundreds of developers and business folk to help you. Here’s how you can do it for free – I know because I spent some time “happily” working for free.

The job market is getting even more competitive and many smart college students are finding it hard to find a summer internship – not to even mention a job. Furthermore, the real brilliant kids don’t want to spend countless hours working in a bank making powerpoints. This is where you come in. If you can offer these capable kids some real responsibility and something interesting for their resume that might just be enough, to make them work for you for next to nothing. The goal is to recruit smart people with skills you need. It might be a little harder to hire real developers, no matter their age. So if you can’t find someone with the exact skills you need, I’d recommend hiring people that have know the basics and show the capacity to learn on the job.

First create an honest description of your company but do it without compromising your “trade secrets”. Recruit straight from the top universities, sure there are brilliant people all over the world and being a student at Harvard doesn’t mean you are a genius. It is however a nice baseline to start from. Post your job ads on the school’s online job boards. Don’t limit this to seniors or juniors but allow both younger and older people to apply – many internships are looking for Juniors so that they can convert them to full employees when they graduate. This makes it harder for Sophomores and Masters students to find internships. Additionally, many Juniors are expecting a well paying internship while many Sophomores are simply looking for good experience. The most difficult part is weeding out the riff-raff and getting the real gems onboard. This requires a whole post in itself but to start…Conduct several interviews with the aim of judging the basics (intelligence, work ethic, and team skills) and also their entrepreneurial spirit and maturity level.

Try to keep your interns happy. Actually, don’t call them interns give them some sort of glamorous titles (Business Development Associates). Also provide them with job coaching/advice and possibility to come onboard once your company becomes the next big thing. To cut down on expenses – allow the self starters to work from home. The rest you can let work from your home. Finally most people don’t want to work entirely for free – least you can do is reimburse them for their transportation expenses and try to bring in lunch once in a while to keep the morale up.

If you execute this strategy carefully and successfully – you can have a team of 2-10 interns. They can be working for you from all over the country if not the world. But have no managing these folks is a hard job and the more people you bring on, the less time you will have to do things yourself. But if done right the overall company productivity will multiply 10x fold. (I am just throwing out a random number here but you get the point.) All for just a few hundred dollars.

I was a facebook early adopter, now what?

There have been a few blog posts already telling us that facebook’s early adopters are leaving. And a lot of discussion on how useful facebook really is… Being somewhat of an early adopter myself I wanted to chime in. When facebook burst into the scene I was still in college. We were added pretty quickly to the then elite facebook network. It was revolutionary, it was everywhere, in the library (not that I frequented that establishment often), in class, in bed, in labs. Everyone was on it; everyone was using it, countless hours a day. Let’s face it; it was the ultimate stalking tool. You could see all the people in your school- what they looked like, their interests and friends. It was a sketchy dating tool – still is for some. But as I got older and graduated – I found myself spending less and less time on it. Not surprisingly – so were my friends – thus the facebook descent begun. The amount of information that I actually cared about became scarce on facebook. I began to visit less and less.
I still visit now – there are two features I find useful. The photo sharing on there and the birthday reminders (immensely helpful to the absent minded {me}). Facebook messaging has completely lost its appeal. Once I get five messages about zombie eating vampires all I can think is how great it would be to send some human eating vampires after the people responsible for these messages.
So am I on some other social network – nope. My friend network is on facebook and that’s hard to relocate to somewhere else.
They haven’t lost me yet and facebook does have time to get it right. They have captured the younger generation but they have to learn how to keep them as they grow older. Because it is when they grow older and get some money to their name, they really become valuable to advertisers. (Advertising is still their business model right? Yea that’s great, 15 Billion seems fair.)
What does facebook need to do? Well here’s my idea of a social networking service/website I’d use actively (at least in theory). Basically take one of the emerging mobile social networking startups and overlay on top of my facebook social network.

• Go mobile. Let me see which of my contacts are close to me physically in real time.
• Give me the ability to easily message them akin to SMS.
• Let me meet new people based on interests, common friends and proximity.
• Get rid of sheep throwing applications. (I only have time to throw real sheep around not virtual ones.)
• Build some useful applications on top of facebook. (i.e. Yelp {leveraging my friends – people I trust}, couchsurfing {again leveraging my current social network, etc..})

Thinking Hard

Since I was little, I always thought that nothing is impossible. You just have to try very hard, very very very very very hard. I am a Capricorn and they say Capricorns are stubborn that way. As I entered High School and College, I’ve used this theory in two areas of my life. Relationships (it worked but I don’t recommend this method, it leaves a bad aftertaste) and solving problems. I think, there are no unsolvable problems at least in life, maybe in some obscure theoretical math field, but in life I don’t think they exist. You just have to think hard and if that doesn’t work think even harder. The problem with this full proof problem solving method is that we as humans can think only so hard, eventually we get fatigued and give up, or better yet our mind wanders to some other topics, the good ones like religion, politics, love.

In the most recent startup camp, DHH mentioned an idea with which I wholeheartedly agree, its better to work for 2 solid hours then to spend 8 hours waddling around. The same goes for thinking hard about your problems. Think in spurts; once you stop making progress, think for another 15 minutes, write down some notes and go away. Play some foosball or do the “work” you get paid to do. In the next few days, reread your notes, and think some more, make those neurons work, think harder, think differently, think creatively and talk to other people. If you find that you just don’t have enough information to think about this thoroughly, go online and read /skim about the topic. I promise you, eventually, you’ll figure something out. I can’t promise it will be the most elegant solution, I can’t even promise it will be the right solution or even a solution at all. But it will be a start – write it down, sleep on it, think about something entirely different, come back to it later that week and think about it some more.

About a month ago, I was thinking of how I can build a business on the Internet. I said to myself, what do all these profitable internet businesses have in common. One thing that I noticed after thinking hard and long is they are all taking something that exists in real life – and porting it to the net. (Facebook –I still remember the good old fashioned paper face book, Email – snail mail, blogs – newspapers, etc…) Based on this theory, I’ve kicked a lot of ideas around, one I came up with is being able to stream video from jazz clubs and off-Broadway plays. The premise is take the customer there even though they can’t go there. And as a bonus allow people/friends to watch things together and interact. Imagine youtube with live feeds of content and a chat box where you can talk to your friends as you are watching something. It’s a decent idea in my mind, not a ground breaking one, but it’s a start. btw its one that I won’t be able to work on for now and freely offer to someone else, if it ever does lift off, I expect a nice dinner.

But my advice to you is think hard about what you want to solve and never give up on it completely, think then waddle around and then think some more. And for those of you trying to make it big on the internet – I am looking at you news.ycombinator.com crowd, think about what you do in real life that you can port over to the Internet. The Internet makes everything better anyway, so you are basically sitting on a gold mine once you come up with the idea (not really) but it is a start. And sometimes a start is all that’s needed. And now back to my usual waddling.