Side Projects of the Past ...

Doing side projects are fun because they keep you active and thinking when the routine of normal work starts to get boring and repetitive. Sometimes we start side projects knowingly by planning what we want to do and setting out goals to achieve before we start. However sometimes side project start and it doesn't occur to us that one has started until we are at the deep end . This post is about one such time a *side project* crept up on me totally unexpectedly.

During my stint working in south-east Asia as a systems engineer for a telco startup I had a chance meeting with someone at a bar when having a night out with some work mates. I have no idea what grab his attention our way except possibly for that fact that some of us spoke english very well (very aussie non indonesian accent) even though we looked indonesian. He joined our group and asked me where i was from and what i and the rest of the team was doing in indonesia. I described to him that we were all expats working for a telco startup setting up systems for messaging, billing and parts of the SPN mobile network.

One discussion led to another and at the end of the night he got my contact details and told me that he knew someone who was interested in setting up networks for parts of indonesia that were currently still *back on technology*.

A few weeks later i had a chat with his friend and soon found myself at the head office of urban development Jakarta office. At the head office I was introduced to the deputy minister of urban development and told him about what i did. He then started to make conversation about extending the reach of telephony and internet to communities that were still very behind on technology and I explained to him that this was achievable through VSAT communications. I knew a little about VSAT because of the discussions i had with the RF team from the telco startup i was working for. The RF team dealt alot with BTS's , antennas and satellite comms.

After discussions he asked me if i would mind doing a presentation to a small group of people about how it could be done, describing it all at a high level. What the technologies were and how much the whole exercise was going to cost. I wrote a small paper on the technologies required, the benefits , the expected cost in capital and operations and did a little presentation on the topic.

At the end of the presentation they asked if i could do a demo site and at the completion of the setup they would pay for the setup and any additional costs i would charge. I put a little price plan together and upon agreement i began to look for a team. It was at this point that i thought to myself "what in gods name am i *FREAKIN* doing ?!?" Previously it was all soft stuff, talks, presentations but now i actually have to set something up ?!?. I thought, yes i will give some ideas, help out with some technical aspects and someone else would be contracted to execute the idea, NOT ME, I was just there to do a job at my company I was working for, not to setup a company and do something i had never tried before !

Anyway, I had promised to have something working, a demo that was a self contained unit that we could deploy easily anywhere and i hadnt the first idea about setting up a satellite comms system using VSAT, i had the pricing of equipment (roughly) but that was about it! I knew all about the IP side, the VOIP side but the main back-haul was a total mystery to me.

I rounded up some of my friends from the RF side and they told me a little about what was needed for the VSAT backhaul. After a quick run through over a few days i understood enough to know what i was looking for (brought some memories back from UNI days). I was even put in contact with the sales director of one of the local VSAT providers who one of my colleagues in the RF side had worked with. I met up with the sales director and told him what i needed. He provided me details of a VSAT supplier that could provide the dish, LnB, antenna and all the housing.

After totaling the cost of the VSAT system, the networking equipment, the computers , the wiring required and the man labour required to setup the VSAT system the total was about 9000AUD. Even though i knew i was going to get that back (should i get all this setup) it was to much for me to invest alone so i asked a friend of mine to help fork the bill. He trusted me so together we invested 4500 AUD each. I hired 3 VSAT engineers to help with the VSAT modem configurationg,bought the computers and the networking equipment second-hand and closed of the required deals with the VSAT comms provider. After negotiations with the sales director we were able to get 6 months free connectivity for the pilot site.

The team spent 5 nights in total setting up the VSAT system facing multiple different problems, misalignment, tripod that didnt fit the VSAT dish as expected,malfunctioning oscilloscope , leaving the laptop cable at home so after the battery ran out no more work could be done and so on. After working through each of the problems we eventually got the system functioning and were able to do the demo on time. Calls could be made and we could surf the internet. To the people of the area this was a great leap to what they currently had.

At the end i couldn't believe we had got it done. What was initially just an idea and a talk, turned into a fully fledged implementation that was totally unexpected, something we were totally not ready for but something which i learnt alot from! We didnt make alot of money but it was a good little profit and we did it 2 more times (each time easier then the first). After the 2 sites *money* had ran out to build more sites and next years budget would be needed to futher progress the project but my stint in indonesia had finished so i didnt continue.

When i think back on this i think im very lucky in many different ways. Lucky that i got the experience to learn about VSAT and the technology in detail, lucky that we actually got it working and lucky that this opportunity even fell into my lap in the first place. After this experience i approach things with a more positive attitude and i tell myself we did it before, we can do it again.

So this side project sorta crept up on me, but at the end it was an experience i would never forget. Below are some of the pictures and documents i wrote from the setup. Enjoy:

• Paper on the benefits and the VSAT/VOIP technology
• Quick overview and of the equipment required
• More images and pictures of the setup team

Saving money with "The Virtual Office"

As a small bootstrapped startup it is important to keep costs as low as possible. This is imperative because spending even alittle more then you *REALLY* need will not only kill your startup it will also bite into life outside your startup. For us bootstrapped guys the same pot of cash that we use to initially fund the startup at its really early stages is the same pot of cash we use to put a roof over our heads and food on the table. Remember that it is important to spend money wisely and negotiate everything (have no shame!) because if your startup fails your life isnt over and you need money to live of.

Together our team has learnt that are many ways of keeping things on the cheap. Money can be saved on items such as servers (specially with good negotation skills) a large saving can be had by moving back home or together with family, possibly moving into a cheaper location and on the food front buying healthy but bulk buy groceries also adds to savings. If you do your own research you can also save money on some company paperwork by doing things on your own though just be sure your not setting yourself up for pain later. Do what you can now and what you cant leave till later. (either after you have done more research, raised some money or bumped into that great friend of yours that did law during uni ;))

Also remember that when you start a startup there is a commitment to be made so the amount of activities that you used to indulge in prior to your startup such as scuba diving, sky diving or overseas trips need to change ($100 MATTERS! Its half a month cost for servers). Suggestions are bushwalks, the beach, getting the guys around for soccer or football, pool and even some poker nights where its just a couple beers, couple guys and alot of screaming. These activites are cheap fun and keep you sane and relaxed after a hard session of coding. There is no reason to get unhealthy and lock yourself away for months on end without seeing daylight, the only thing to remember is when you do go out your activities need to change from what they previously may have been.

One of the things that you can also save on is your working area. Whether its the garage, your room, the lounge room or the local library with wireless access its important that you still have the office feeling where your focused, serious and where work gets done. Its also import that you can easily colaborate with the team such that you feel they are next to you even if they are on the otherside of town. Thanks to alot of other startups there are many tools online that have been developed that help with making any location with a wirless access feel like a fully fledged collaborative capable office.

Some of the tools that that help you build your virtual office that i'd like to talk about and that i have found exceptionally useful are dropbox, google apps, gmail/gtalk and etherpad.

Dropbox: Dropbox is a great tool for sharing files without any overhead. Once dropbox has been installed dropbox basically creates a folder on your local harddrive that is sync'd to the main dropbox servers. Dropbox can be used as a simple backup system but it also allows any files within those directories to be shared to others who have a dropbox. Any file that has been placed within the shared folder will be present for any user to see who has the right privlidges no matter where they are. Extremely useful and in a virtual office dropbox acts as your fileshare or network drive that most corporates have which is usually used to store documents etc.

Google Docs: Google docs is basically the online replacement for MS office/Staroffice/Open office. There is the spreadsheet tool, the presentation creator (similar to powerpoint in Ms office) and the document editor (similar to ms word). Basically all the tools required to open, edit and modify documents.

Gmail/Gtalk: Allows the team to communicate in realtime. Gmail used as the email system for your virtual office and gtalk for discussing issues and problems in realtime either through text chat or webcam.

Etherpad: Etherpad is a great tool for discussing and correcting code in realtime. When there is some problem with the code or anything related to the code that we want to discuss etherpad makes it easy to paste the porition of code in question by either marking, moving, highlighting and writing in suggestions on what can be done to rectify the issue. If Mark can fix a problem that i cant, i simply paste the portion of the code in question, he edits it with his suggestion that i can see in realtime, then once we are both happy i will copy and paste the code back into the code base.

So there you have it, some cool tools that can help save you and your team money whilst still allowing you to have that office feeling and the ability to collaborate seemlessly from any location powered by a wireless.

Startup Founders and Superhero's

Some of us like to think that one day, if successful we can contribute to the world and help in some way, I peronally have a few ideas of my own that i would love to execute should that day come where i have enough money to be comfortable plus have alittle extra. Personally, my standards are pretty low and i dont have many views of grandeur such as rolling up to a party in a ferrari, buying the biggest house in the most expensive suburb or owning a private jet, yeh sometimes we say these things but its really just for fun. When your used to having just the basics and you know exactly what you want to achieve and do if you had alittle more money then those big boys toys dont really make it high in the priority list...

Anyway... thats not what i wanted to talk about here, this post is more light-hearted and less serious then "how can we help the world if we had a chance to ". What i wanted to talk about is to compare startup founders to superheros (not in the real life sense) but those found in comic books and sci-fi movies (why not, we love sci-fi and possibly read comic books in the past so lets have abit of fun).

(A bit of background) In my little work area at home where i code when im not doing my day job i have posters all over my wall just to give it abit of character. I have posters of spiderman, ironman, transformers (optimus prime), serenity's river, arnie from terminator and Neo from the matrix.

When im waiting for my code to build or for the application to startup i sometimes pickup my guitar and play alittle tune or i may spin around on my chair waiting. A couple of days ago as i was spinning it occured to me that there is alittle bit of superhero in every startup founder (well the ones on my wall anyway) and maybe thats why my subconcious decided to have these specific posters plastered on my wall covering that boring orange brick. So i guess lets have some fun and look at the similarities:

• Ironman/Tony Stark: Tony stark isnt an entreprenur himself but even though he inherited stark enterprises from his dad, in his own right, with his intelligence and brilliance he would be able to create and build his own technologically advanced companies. In most of us entreprenurs/founders there is alittle bit of Tony Stark/Ironman. We work well with technology, we have ideas for new and wonderful things, we love tinkering and building, we think robots and high tech equipment is cool and that is why we all dream of flying around in a metal suite that has its own mobile phone and communications system ... ;)

• Spiderman/Peter parker: Like peter parker most of us startup founders have too much on our plates. We run around doing many things trying to make it all fit in the short time we have everyday (start a company, go to conferences, do our hobbies, try to get the girl etc). Most of us are quite intelligent(or think of ourselves as alittle above average) and usually we do well when it comes to academia similar to peter parker. Yet because of our lack of time sometimes we find it hard to finish (hence all the little half finished projects and code snippets in our directories from old and past projects or maybe that girl we just cant fully commit to because we know she'd leave again because we just cant give her the time she deserves). Only when we focus that energy, that intelligence and that will do we actually achieve something ...

• Optimus Prime: Optimus prime is the leader of the autobots, just and fair. As startup founders and leaders of our own companies many of us adopt leadership qualities that we believe are just and fair such as that displayed by optimus prime. Sometimes we make sacrifices on our social life, on our relationships and sometimes on our health to see the companies that we lead through the tough and difficult times. Just like optimus prime, to ensure the survival of the autobots and the humans, he risks his own life and own well being to ultimately lead the autobots to saftey and victory ...

• Terminators: This similarity is not quite as easy to see as the others but i think founders of startups definitely share qualities similar to terminators. Terminators are relentlessly resourceful, they have a mission to complete which has been programmed into their chips and they do whatever it takes to achieve that mission. Whether it is to pose as foster parents, imitate the checkered tiles on the floor, artifically enlarge the bustline to get away from the police or to sustain massive bodily damage terminators do what it takes. Similarly we founders take whatever measures we need to take (hopefully within the legal scope) be as creative as we possibly can, work crazy hours, eat and drink whatever is within an arms distance and also many times need to "hack the established system" just so we can finish our mission ... to sucessfully launch our startup.

• Neo: He's a hacker and so are we. We like to see ourselves as able to fly and navigate our way through code just as Neo can fly through the matrix. We like to see ourselves as able to decipher and see things in computers and in code that *normal people* can not see. He is the chosen one within the matrix and is a hero within the matrix. Our matrix is cyberspace, where we unleash our applications to the world in the hopes that it makes life easier for our users by helping them solve problems and thus giving us a sense of satisfaction.

• River from Serenity: Also not quite as obvious and (and in this case) may not apply to all founders. For readers that dont know who river is or what serenity/firefly is, its actually sci-fi show. River is the quiet, weird, outcast characeter who doesnt get involved with much of what the crew does. In many cases though she always comes to the rescue when things get hairy. She poseses a high-level of intelligence and is able to think out of the box but she rarely ever shows it. She has quick reflexes and an innate ability to understand others and her enemies. I think like many geeks during highschool who are now founders its easy to relate. Like river most nerds in highschool were also quiet, they studied for exams but not in those large noisy groups, they knew what was going to be taught in the next classes because they studied just alittle ahead of class to make sure not to be left behind, usually the geeks were not in the popular group who went to the best parties and in general the geeky group is usually viewed as the outcast such as river was. Now this geeky group are the ones starting companies, who might actually help contribute to the economy, just as river would come to the rescue of her more outlandish, loud, gun-ho, gun-blasting crew mates at just the right time ...

Well there you have it, a little bit of fun comparing superheros to startup founders. Maybe one day for the founders that are successful we can be real superheros and help with some of the worlds problems. Whether we contribute directly to solving these problems through our companies or indirectly through wealth that we earn through our companies its good to know that even in these pre-successful days of our companies launching when its still kind of lonely, where we still burn the midnight oil and where we havn't really achieved anything significant, we still have similarities to superheros !!! - (how cool is that).

OK .. now stop reading this, put your cape on and start coding .....

BTW ... Just as a preview here are some of the posters i was talking about ...

Garage DC (The old blog)

I used to have a blog a while ago called garagedc [at] blogspot. I closed the blog after a while because the content didnt turn out the way i wanted. I think blogging is quite difficult and when your new to blogging it takes some experience and practice, expecially if you want to write something that can help others. I felt that because it didnt turn out as i had planned its better that i try to understand more about writing, read alittle more and understand how to convey the message across in a better way. I guess this is my second attempt so i hope its better.

When I closed my first blog i wasnt aware that i actually had a few readers that were actively following and when i shut the blog down i recieved a few emails, messages from youtube and also from facebook asking where my blog had disappeared to. This is a quick message just to say, sorry about that guys, next time i'll let you guys know :)

As a final way to close the old blog down (even though its been down for a while) i'll just give a rundown of what it was about.

During the course of building our product, my team built a large testing platform which consisted of 8 really old servers and 2 racks costing a total of just under 1000 AUD or there abouts. The reason we built this hardware was to allow us to do development, testing and also a test bed for learning different technologies which we felt we may need to use should we need to scale. Some of the things we were able to achieve with the hardware were the following:

• balancing load over multiple application server machines and test the results
  
• failover and ensuring that a failed server still allowed the application to function normally.
  
• the applications behaviour spanned over multiple machines (making sure sessions were not bound to single nodes etc)
  
• learn how to build and configure a proper mySQL clusters over multiple machines (as we may need to do that in future)
  
• learn how to use and configure LVS
  
• experiment and play with how to expand the application in different directions
  
• using CPU affinity and test whether we could push a few of the non important backend batch jobs to one CPU and minimize impact on the main application. We purchased our servers from serverbeach (peer1) here, so we wanted to make sure that with the one server we had could run everything even though the batch jobs may have run slower. Even though the servers were old they where multi core cpu's so it helped with the testing
  
• learn how to build a beowulf cluster and see how it load balances processes, not related to the project but just for fun

We could have bought a single powerful server and used VM's as some people had suggested but the reason why we went for this option is it was just cheaper.and easier for us to configure. Our servers were about $20-$50 AUD each and most of the cost was on the racks , petrol and getting some extra power into the garage to accomodate the rare times we would power it all up for a complete end to end test.

Also for us it was easy to configure the servers into whatever setting our tests needed. My day job is to work with infrastructure so i could do what i needed faster then with VM's.

It has been about 1 and a bit years since we started but when you have responsibilities and more then yourself to support its not easy to just quit your job so the best way for me and also my team to work around it is to trade time for money. Take abit longer but still finish and try to maintain income up to the final point. Its not easy doing both, it slows things down alittle but its reality, the only way to not be a victim of circumstance is to work harder, alittle smarter and to take some unorthodox channels to get things done.

I heard finishing the product was the easy part, then the hard stuff later. Well im new to the startup world and so is my co-founder but but we like what we do, the excitment is still there (same as it was from day 1), we are still full of energy and no matter what comes our way we'll try to face it ....

With that being said, goodbye to garagedc and welcome to the stressedfounder :) Here is a video from the setup that we put together so we could learn more about different configurations of databases, load balancing and application configuration, now we use it to do our testing -( yes, watching this take me up memory lane :D)

Nitty Gritty Tech Talk 1

We finally got our server today. We ultimatly decided on peer1 - serverbeach servers because of the good feedback we have heard along with the *excellent* deal we were able to get. Serverbeach provided me with the following configuration

• Dual Core Dual Processor 2.0 ghz Xeon 4mb l2 cache Cpu's
• 2 Gig of Ram
• 1 TB of disk split into 2 x 500 GB's
• 5TB of data transfer
• 10 GB ftp server backup

All for a great price of $190.40 USD per month, this is also because we paid upfront for the year. So for the next year i'll be nicley housed and sitting sweet @ the beach !:)

I would like to point out that the initial representative that talked me through the sale was extermely helpful (thanks mr John spears from serverbeach) . He provided me with a great deal and assisted with applying my discount as i completed the purchase

As usual (like almost everything) there was some slight mishaps but they are now sorted. This is what happened.

• Credit Card got billed incorrectly the first time so it looked like 2 deductions were made (which kind of stressed me out) resulting in lots of money not being accessible whilst awaiting for the rollback to occur
• Initial login didnt work, so i couldnt get into the server and begin setup

UPDATE: All issues have now been addressed ...

After i had acceess to the server i configured the DNS hosting that i purchased to point my main domain and subdomains to the new provisioned server. I was worried it was going to take a while however the redirection was very quick (it was under 5 minutes. last time redirection took 4 hours!). I also configured putty on my development machines and laptops so i can tunnel to the server and access the applications without opening ports to the outside world. I will write a small article on how i did this later as it is a very useful way to secure access when you dont have a firewall or VPN configured)

Pending tasks for the server configuration include

• IP tables and blocking of non required ports
• Lock down of users accounts
• Configuring the mail server to send outbound emails
• Disablinng linux processes that dont need to be running
• Formatting the secondary drive
• Creating the softlinks that are required
• Installing and tuning the latest version of the mysql database
• Installing and configuring lighttpd
• Installing the application and testing performance
• LAUNCH !!!

So ... there are a few tasks but we are getting there. Currently we are still in stealth mode, however just about to start doing the user testing to ensure that all the functionality is understood by users who are not so tech savvy (and make ammendments if need be). Also we are starting this testing to identify potential additional features to consider or revoke.

Mark also completed new versions of the templates and they are looking extremely *hot*, cant wait to get them in and test it all out.

Thats it for now, we are abit behind and there is a deadline we need to meet, we feel there are events right now that would really allow our company to piggyback which would in turn maximize the launch impact ... soooo ... back to coding & configuring :)

Taking road bumps in your stride and embrace the enterprenurial spirit ...

As one of the co-founder of a boostrapped startup lots of different thoughts enter our minds as we try to navigate through the different issues and problems that we face ever so frequantly. One of the most important traits that will allow for a greater chance of success for the new and inexperienced enterprenur is the ability to look between the lines and keep an eye on opportunities that initially may not be so apparent. Ideas are everywhere. No matter where we are, ideas are always whisking by and its up to us as Founders and enterprenurs to digest what we observe everyday (that most people may see as the norm) and see how we see can translate them to opening new doors and bring in better opporuntities for us and also the people around.

These opportunities that may not be initially apparent or clear, if cleverly interprated could lead to greatly improved marketing methods, developing better more useful features, product improvement using more effective and efficent ways or even the next project to embark on once the current project is complete (i guess this kind of thinking is what makes the serial enterprenurs).

One of the things i have noticed is when we see these opportunities and the little light bulb beams above our heads, *sometimes* the gut feeling towards EVEN our own ideas could be "that seems ambitious", "thats quite far out", "hmm that would be quite difficult to pull-off" or "...very outlandish". As entrerprenurs we can take salvation in the fact that once we start to get that uncomfortable gut feeling it means we are on the right track. Its usually when things get difficult do the majority of people pull back leaving that opportunity open for us willing to rough it out and take that slightly riskier path to succeed.

There are however some questions you need to ask to ensure you give yourself the best chance for success. So, what is important to ask before embarking on such a journey ? I found myself asking the following questions (to myself)

• (From a technical perspective) If i were to start would i be able to finish
• If the answer is yes how long would it take and is the timeframe reasonable. (we all know the longer the timeframe the more chance you have of going on a tangent and not completing)
• (From a monetary perspective) If i bootstrap with X amount of dollars how long would i be able to last and will this be enough time to breakeven (at the least) or have a user base compelling enough to warrant external funding
• (From a resource perspective) Do i have access to the resources and the skills that i need to achieve what i am setting out do. If yes does this impact on my bootstrapped startup capital (defined as X above) or will i be able to "pay later" through equity sharing or partnerships ?
• Is the idea viable from a marketing perspective, does the idea by nature mean that there is a large enough community base to make it easily adoptable and possibly grow into something large ?
• What stage is my life in now and do i have the energy, ability and time to cut large chunks out of my life to start (and more importantly FINISH) this project

If i find that the answer is a resounding yes to some of them, though a more reserved yes to the more difficult questions i find that overall .... YES is the answer. I guess the main difference between enterprenurs and non-enterprenurs is the way we answer more difficult and challenging questions. Where others would say NO thats too difficult, too time consuming, too expensive and resource intensive the enterprenur will quickly go through the difficulties in their head (before saying NO), assign some quick ideas and solutions to some of the difficulties, break the parts into smaller more manageable chunks and return back with ... YES its possible, its not going to be a walk in the park, but its possible.

In my case, i found that when it came time to thinking about the difficulties and issues that may come around when embarking on this project I had the following concerns.

• There were some questions around the technology aspect as i hadnt been involved in web technology for about 2-3 years and in computing timeframe of progress that is a massive amount of time.
• I didnt have any marketing experience other then presales experience when working for various tech companies selling their products (i had no idea about press releases or anything of that type, just how to push technology based on a cost benefit to operations)
• I didnt have anyone i had in mind (at the time) who i thought would want to help build this product and the company. (i had people who had the skills, just not the desire as it didnt match were they were in their current point in life)
• I had a day job so obviously time was an issue
• I had no place to emerse myself in the work and totally isolate myself away from the noise and the disturbances

In most cases with these (somewhat) decent road bumps the non-enterprenurial type may have said, no (not skilled enough, its been a while), no (sales is in your blood, you have it or you dont you cant learn it), no (cant start a business on your own, everyones so busy these days), no (no time to sleep or have a life), no (to noisey to concentrate need an office or something) and the usual (NO ... its all to risky)

People say you create your own luck and yes, in some instances i may have been lucky (up to this point, *un-jinxing myself*), though i believe if you dont try you will never know. In my case this is what happened.

• Around the technology problem: This was probably the easiest. I love technology by nature so learning new technologies to use for this project was actually quite fun and exciting
• Around the marketing problem: Yes this is a bit of an issue and still is as we havnt gotten to the full extent of the marketing process but now i am much more well versed due to the amount of reading i have done through various, blogs, forums and books (specially thanks to many blogs by great technologiest that have achieved what i am currently trying to do). I have also done various social experiments to test my confidence and my ability to sell and promote and its definitely alot stronger than it was before ...
• Around the co-founder issue:At the time of idea conception i didnt have anyone in mind, but eventually these people found their way to me. Funny circumstances occured and i met old friends both from many years back who were more then happy to be co-founders (now i dont know what i would do without them)
• Around the day job and lack of time issue: I negotiated firstly a 3 day work week in the office then a 4 day work week in my new job (after getting retrenched from the initial 3 day a week contracting position due to global finacnial strife. 3 days for the new job was to much for them :P), leaving me more time to do the startup
• Around the space issue: I rented a garage from my next door neighbour for $10 AUD a week giving me a very nice place to work with all the peace i need. Its quite large and fits all the equipment i need to do the testing

As is apparent from the above, i did get lucky by meeting my co-founders from many years back in very unexpected circumstances, i did get lucky by being able to rent a garage from my next door neighbour enabling me to require no travel to get *to my office* and i was quite lucky to get 3 day/4 day a week work weeks from my big4 concultancy organisation who usually work you to the bone (possibly due to my reading of books, reading blogs and advice when learning how to become a better salesmen :P)

Embrace the entreprenurial spirit (if you have that drive and ambition, dont be scared of it) as in more cases than not it will help pave the way to what you ultimatley want to achieve. I am still walking this path so this is the advice that i give to myself ...

Programmers Perspective ... Why startups are so attractive ...

As programmers/developers/software engineers why are tech startups so attractive to us ? Other than the obvious fact that its our field of interest, we like writing code and working through computing problems why does starting a startup look so attractive to many technologists? Lets look at some of the reasons why I think this is the case.

• We get to do what we like and have the potential to make a difference to someone somewhere who finds our product useful.
• In the process of doing something we like there is also the opportunity to make some money.
• Starting is cheap, we can start with small capital. Assuming that we also have some time and relativley good skills we can make up with what we lack in initial capital with what skill and time we have.
• The playing field is even. No longer does the big bad corporation dominate the playing field. If we plan accordingly, get the right advice and execute correctly we can come out ahead. Granted that its not easy to do all three but its surely not out of the question
• We all love a challenge and the challenge of building a product that people can benefit from, the challenge of scaling the system to accomodate a growing user base and the challenge in beating the odds seems to appeal in a weird kind of way
• The thought of creating something gives us goosebumps of excitement

Above are some of the reasons why im pretty happy i choose computer science & engineering when I was deciding on a career some 9 years back in my final year of highschool... Now i find myself trying to build a company with my 2 other co-founders, my single laptop, my whiteboard and my ideas ... the joys of computing, what other field allows you to do so much with such little resources ! ...

Negating Negativity ...

One of the most difficult things to overcome during the early stages of a startup is to fight off overwhelming negativity. Negativity can be detrimental to the moral of a startup and must be kept away as best as possible. This is not to say we should ignore reality, there is that fine line between keeping reality in check and blatent, useless negativity. As entreprenurs we must be able to identify the difference so we can filter out what we dont need and take only what is important. Negativity can come from all sorts of directions, some originating from within (your own doubts and fears) and others from external factors.

Personally i found that negativity from an external factor is alot easier to ignore. Many forms of negativity from external factors take the form of quotes from individuals who may be envious that your willing to take a risk, they may say things such as (hey, 1 in every 2 business fail did you know that ...) or (wow thats alot of (money/time) to invest for something so risky , why not buy a house or buy stocks/oil/currency instead, its much less risky you know). Some maybe so blunt as to say "your wasting time and money, get back to reality why dont you" !? When faced with this kind of negativity its actually quite easy to understand why many people will tell you this. Most people in this world are not entreprenurial and dont understand this state of mind hence looking at someone *wasting* weekends and weeknights hacking away and building a product doesnt make sense. Currently the system teaches us that a stable career within a large organisation is the best way to succeed, to climb the corporate ladder and to become a highly paid executive. Visualing success achieved in otherways is not the norm and hence isnt easily understood by the majority. The best way negate this kind of negativity is to take comfort in the fact that one day the same people who dish out these comments will also be the ones who will find your product useful.

The other form of negativity that you must combat is that which comes from within. Sometimes this kind of negativity comes in the form of fear and doubt, either towards your own abilities, the merit of the product you are building, whether you have enough capital (expecially the case for a bootstrapped startup) or of the big bad unknown of where this will all end up. There arent any silver bullets for this and the only way to combat these feelings is to constantly reassure yourself, your team and all the people involved that success is there for the taking. At times it seems like you must start with a white lie which is told for the greater good then eventually work your way up to the point that it is nolonger a white lie but within your grasp. You need to keep the positive energy up and you can do that by reading success stories of past entrepreuners, you can do this by visualising where you want to go, how your product will help the world and how, with your success you can help the world. I guess the ability to fight negativity is built into almost all enterupreners, it simply comes with the territory, this and the ability to keep going when things get tough ...

So as a final note, keep focusing on the goals you have and keep the positive spirit strong ... positive thinking is more powerful then you know ...

How to relax ...

Most of what i have written so far has been about the difficulties problems and stresses that we as a bootstrapped startup face everyday. Yes we get stressed and at times get anxiety attacks but we are all still here and we continue to press on because we can keep those levels of stress in check. I have noticed that stress at certain levels is a great motivator to get things done ...

So to keep stress at those healthy levels and not excalate we have to use techniques. So to relieve stress what are some of the things that i do. Well i cant give any specific advice here other then to say, do what you like doing and spend some time outside. Our hobbies differ so do those things that relax your mind and your body cause working on a startup attacks both the mind and the body. Personally, I do various things like watch a movie (comedy if any are showing), play my guitar, sing in the garage on my karoke machine, call some mates over for poker or read a book or news.ycombinator.com :P. I do these things because there are times where problems your having with the code, with administration or with something external just cant be solved and rather then taking the stress levels to unhealthy limits its best to wipe them away doing things that you enjoy and can laugh about.

One of the things that i do to take some of the pressure of is to take myself to a place where i can sit down without being distrubed. A place where i can think about various different things that are going on, order them, put them in perspective and thinking of execution plans if need be. For me I found this place to be a very relaxing peer of darling harbour in the beautiful city of sydney overlooking the cockle bay with a view of the opera house and harbour bridge. Locate a place like this for yourself in your city and when things get to much take yourself there and forget about the problems. After spending some time there and thinking things through in a comfortable setting you will feel relaxed and be ready for more action again.

Relaxing is just as important as working hard, because if you dont find a channel to blow of steam eventually you will burn yourself out ... find your place of relaxation, read your book, play the guitar, watch the movie and take time off when you need to ... it always helps ...

The rollercoaster ride ... (part 1) ...

Its the rollercoaster that is a startup. Usually the beginnings are always very humble, slow like the start of a rollercoaster in its idle position, neither on the climb or on the decent, its just flat. Its either over a beer, maybe in the shower or sitting on the train that the idea pops up that says "wouldnt it be nice if there was a <insert world changing idea here>".

It is from this point that either the idea is progressed or discarded. For the few of us that can bring an idea to life and have that entrepernurial spirit we dont discard it but simply put it on the backburner of ideas and let it fester until sometime in future we have a need for it again. This second round usually acts as the catalyst or validation that the idea is good and has some merit to begin proper analysis. If the idea was cooked up over a beer with some friends also like minded then a call is made to have another chat, if it was concieved individually then during the shower in the morning or the train ride to work different considerations about the idea are thought out. To keep the analogy of the rollercoaster this is similar to sitting down on the seat once your past the gates and about to pull down the saftey guards over your chest (they are not yet pulled down but you're close to doing so - you can still get off if you want).

Understanding of the requirements are now completed as a result of various thought sessions during showers and train rides. Its now time to write some test code to see if we like the technologies we hear other tech enterupreners advocate. We spend some time after work, or spend some weekend mornings hacking away at examples and getting a feel for the technologies that are out there. So now to bring us back to the analogy its time to pull down the saftey harness and locking it in over our shoulders. As more code is written now with weekends and weeknights sacrificed the upward momentum is there, the excitement of things to come begin to bubble up and we put ourselves in a higher position able to see everything below and what we have to gain, its the exciting slow upward motion of the rollercoaster. The feelings associated are excitment, anticipation and a tiny amount of fear.

After a few months of coding, testing, reworking, tweaking and back again we are almost at the peak of the rollercoaster ride. Between the climb and the peak there are different sorts of feelings that we get such as (will i survive this ride, am i wasting time, why am i doing this when i can be safley on the ground nice and comfortable and not strapped up about to be thrown around at 100 miles an hour in all sorts of directions). At this point though you realise that your strapped and the only way keep going is to tell yourself, its all for the better, to get more excitment out of life, to do things most people dont try for fear of failure and to get that knowledge and experience that will better you as an individual.

As a boostrapped startup, you withdraw your first wad of serious cash from the bank to buy your necessary equipment (servers, legals, company registrations, etc ..) You look at various different deals and offers and make a decision on who your partners will be technically and legally that you hope can help your startup grow.

Once money begins to exchange theres no turning bac, its official ... the rollercoaster clamp has let go of the train and your on your way to whereever the ride takes you ..... emotions of the initial excitment, the stress from work, code, personal issues are all a thing of the past and now your holding on to your harness as your hair is flowing backward through the sudden rush of air and your thrown around at a hundred miles an hour in all directions ...

Well maybe im getting ahead of myself here, we havnt launched yet and the analogy of the "hair thrown back being thrown around at 100 miles an hour" is describing a few months after launch when traffic or (stress from no traffic) starts to kick in. We arent there yet, currently its more like the silence before the clamp has let go where things are quiet and your waiting for the inevitable....

So far this is all i have as our journey is far from over ... there are many times when you question what your doing, specially when you see (Most) people are doing things in totally the opposite direction. Your starting a company, they looking to buy a house, your not focused on getting married, they are all starting to get engaged ... ?!? You wonder whether your crazy and why your embarking on this journey. You tell yourself its for the better and most times you believe it and it keeps you going, but when its a Tuesday morning and the code doesnt run as expected after going hard at it since monday night (after work) AND you have no idea why, no one there to ask AND tomorrow there is a presentation back at the office AND its already 2am in the morning you just wonder why, why, why ... why the hell ...

A peice of advice to all the other bootstrapped, day job Entereprenurs ... this feeling is normal, anything going against the norm will make you feel this way and the best way to get over this is to believe its for the better (your young, you have time and its worth the risk), how do you deal with the thought of failing ? You keep that thought at a distant place and focus on the task at hand (whats next to complete within the code, who do i discuss legals with, how do we approach launch and publicity). I think one of the things people fail to mention is doing a bootstrapped startup has alot to do with mind games and convincing yourself that your on the right path ... Most importantly take a break when you need to .. maybe a weekend of just doing the things you like or totally relieving yourself from computer and just refocusing on why you started and what your goals are ...

i'll continue when we reach the next section of the rollercoaster that is .. a bootstrapped startup

Choosing your team ...

Everyone says it, "In a startup the most important aspect is your team". Yes i totally agree. Its difficult to see how we could have gotten this far with the software if i hadnt had Mark as the co-founder. Sometimes its very difficult to find that diverse set of skills within a group of guys that are looking to build a startup. I think the main reason is the fact that human nature dictates we flock together beause of things they have in common and our shared interests. In many cases it could be hobby interest, sports interest and simply just background and ethnicity. We all know that many startups begin by a couple of friends with similar interests talking about an idea and making that extra step to bring the idea to life. If the team has similar skills and interests there will need to be some flexibility in reshuffling and learning of new skills to strengthen the diversity.

Diversity and flexibility is the key. If everyone is a hacker its possible the team can create a great backend, great api's and fantastically optimized code but assuming that the product isnt just a single button and a text field, who will design the usability and the interface that is friendly to the user. Hackers on the team may do it and may come up with a decent interface for user interaction, however only when this task is given to seasoned designer can we see the short-comings of the initial design.

The way a hacker looks at code enthusiastically, trying to squeeze out the last amount of efficiency or laboriously trying to ensure that the architecture and design is such that scalability wont be an issue for growth, graphic designers will look at colors combinations, the number of clicks that a user needs to do to achieve a function, the size of the differente widgets with the same amount of detail. As hackers and architects look at scalibility, equally designers look at the CSS and html, trying to ensure that any design changes in future will not result in a complete overhaul of the presentation layer code.

If you're lucky you may also come across potential team members that are distinctly very different in terms of their core strengths but have various skills that overlap. This kind of team will be able to understand at a high-level the complexities of each others work and in turn ensure that any interfaces whether its a new screeen, the tuning of the database or the network architecure design is built to provide the best quality both individually and as a component of the overall system.

Last but not least even though skills may match it is important that with a bootstrapped startup all the team members are on the same page when it comes to their current outlook on life. Building a startup is hard and requires alot of work, most important to note there isnt any money to be made during the difficult early stages of the startup. Even though you have a potential team member who has the perfect complementing skill sets if they are either busy with family, just got into a relationship, want to have fun and go bushwalking or bike riding every weekend or looking for that promotion within their 9-5 job chances are things wont work out. The focus needs to be to finish the job at hand and be excited about the potential of the final outcome of the startup. There is a reason why some people work and some people start companies and that reason is the ability to take gratification later instead of now(as be the case with getting a monthly salary from a large corporation VS working hard on a startup for a year without any substancial income)

Finding people with the drive is hard, finding people with the drive and the skills to work with you as part of your team is harder and finding people with the drive, the skills and the ability to keep going even though things may crash and burn is even harder but at the end of it, the gains if successful are well worth the effort.

Dr Jekyl & Mr Hyde - Balancing the 2 lives ...

Having a day job as well as working on a side project is difficult for many different reasons. The obvious one is there is less time to spend outside and enjoy the sun, the beach, the night life and basically do the things you like outside the technology world. There are also alot of disturbances that can occur during the day job that can affect your ability to concentrate once your at home and working on your own code base. It could be that there is pending work to catchup on back in the office which means you need to get in earlier, or you just had a disagreement with the lead architect because a silly decision was made putting you in a foul state of mind, there could even be self inflicting problems were you made a mistake at the office because of sleep deprivation from the coding session the night before. This leads to the fact that you have to spend time in the office tomorrow fixing the mistake before it evolves into a major issue.

Along side the above issues, one of the biggest things that you notice when working a day job in a big4 consulting company and starting up a technology company at the same time is that the way of thinking ingrained in a technology entreprenur and the culture that runs big4 consulting companies are completely different. Other then the fact they both deal with technology there are no similarties worth mentioning.

• Large companies throw around big money whilst the technology entreprenur tries to save money and be as resourceful as possible, employing different methods to achieve the desired outcome, for almost no additional cost
• Large companies involve masses of people managed by highly paid project managers to do a task that a single competant person could accomplish.
• Large companies are resistant to change and hate when a *different* suggestion slightly outside the box is made. Startups would crash and burn if thinking outside the box was outlawed
• Many employees of large companies have a single view on success and that is moving up the corporate ladder. Seeing other methods of *making it* seem outlandish. Tech- entreprenur are excited about technology and building great systems. Brown nosing, kissing ass or smooching just to get an extra 5K next year or get a promotion that means less technical work and more BS'ing around just isnt as interesting
• And the list goes on ....

Basically what it takes to be able to work on a startup and also have a day job is to train the mind to be tolerant. Most of the time i find stress and frustration occuring when im at my day job trying to solve a problem but only given the *corporate* tools. This means ruling out open source tools because it is unacceptable even though it is proven technology and does the exact desired task (PGP vs GPG or IE vs Firefox/chrome) . There are many competing ideaologies and to ensure that there is harmoney they need to be kept well apart.

Other then the competing ideaologies, i also find it difficult when a solution to a problem i have (for my startup) pops up in my head during office hours. If im busy doing day job work .. logging into my home network and making the fix would eat up my time and/or cause conflict of interest and future legal issues should i get caught typing into the wrong putty console....

There are many different thing that make working a day job and also starting a startup difficult, i know that soon i may also need to quit the day job should the startup require that attention . Im looking forward to it but until such time that i can see a stable source of income keeping the day job is a must, not for me but mainly for the people who depend on me (parents, sister etc). Its a challenge and there are many mind games you need to play to ensure that the motivation is kept alive and so far they have worked for the last 8-11 months.

There are ways to keep the motivation there for months on end through the early stages of the startup, its different for everyone... the main thing is you understand these points and focus on those to keep you moving in the right direction ... even if the day job makes it that little bit harder ...

Choosing a hosting partner ...

When it comes to finding the perfect hosting company for your startup there are many things to consider. This is even more the case when you are a bootstrapped startup as cost plays an important part of who you ultimatly choose and not just quality alone. The hardest thing with making a decision is weighing out quality vs price and assuming you arnt the offspring of a (mi/bi)llionaire businessmen this becomes a major cause for stress...

Currently we are developing on a single 4xCPU 900mhz xeon box with 4 gigs of ram connected to a 20mb downstream and 1mb upstream internet link. Remote access to the team not on the servers LAN is provided through a VPN. For development this is fine but recently we started looking what what we would use for our production boxes.

Yesterday Marko and i reviewed the different vendors we had spoken to over the week and we shortlisted a few vendors to look at. There was Hostingshop, rackspace, peer1 and theplanet. Hosting shop and theplanet looked pretty good but ultimatley after much discussion it came to either (peer1 - serverbeach) or rackspace.

I called rackpsace first because they have the best reputation for service, reliability and scalibility. After my initial discussions with them and also through numerous exchange of emails I agree. Their service seems to be top notch, however I noticed a few things. I was assigned a solutions designer who later gave me a call and after talking with him i found that this particular solutions designer was extremely pushy. Also comparing pure paper specs of server to server I noticed that rackspace prices are very expensive in comparision. I know that quality comes with a price but as a bootstrapped startup i think its difficult to overlook.

For example the rackspace Essential Server is $399 USD and included in the package is a Quad-core amd 1354, 2gb ddr ram, 1x250gb sata and 1TB bandwidth, ok the server is good and the service is fanatical but when you compare it to what you can get for $399 else where - server to server comparison its over priced.

The solutions designer at rackspace was also very pushy and used various different sales tactics to try to secure the sale. First he tried to downplay other vendors by stating that when they said dedicated they didnt really mean dedicated (i tried to ask him what he meant but all i got was 'it isnt really dedicated your not getting what you think') I really wanted to know what he meant because if a vendor says the server is a dedicated server then i assume all resources on that server are mine and if this wasnt the case i was interested to hear what he had to say.

Also everytime i mentioned whether they could provided a better deal because company XYZ can provide bigger disk, more bandwidth or more memory for a cheaper price he would always ask 'why do you need that', and provide a pitch on how we are just starting and that amount of memory/disk/cpu/bandwidth is not required. He would say if we ever needed this resource they could help us scale easily. Fine no problem with that but the question i keep finding myself asking was why is he saying this, i can get a bigger/faster machine now for a cheaper price why would i get a slower machine at a higher cost and scale to what i can get now for cheaper ? Just didnt make sense ... Then he told me that purchasing server services from XYZ company would mean i would get a server no more powerful then his macbook ?!? I mean fine maybe he has a great mac book but i just felt that comment somewhat distasteful.

To top it all off this call was at 2am in the morning Australian time. I was between yawns and i kept getting pushed and told of the excellent service that i would get if i was to signup now for the essential server. I think it was just this particular solution designer, all in all i just found the conversation somewhat uncomfortable. I had spoken to a solution designer prior to this when i made my first enquiries with rackspace and the experience was alot more comfortable.

After all the discussions and looking at the price as quite an important factor i decided to go with Peer1. They have a good reputation from what i have read and supporting some very big clients. This is not to say that i wont go to rackspace in future i just cant afford to go with rackspace right now so its going to be peer1 until revenue dictates otherwise. Is this the right decision ... time will tell ...

Anyway the server I will be purchasing this coming week from peer1 will be as follows:

• CPU: Dual processor Dual Core 2ghz
• Memory: 2GB
• Disk: 1TB Split into 2 sata 500GB disks
• Link: 100MB
• Bandwidth: 5000GB
• Backup: 10GB ftp backup on Peer1 servers

This all for $190 USD which totals about 3000 AUD a year paid upfront. Big different to the $399USD a month for the essential server thus making me pretty happy !

Introduction - Hi & Hello

Hi All, you can call me Sid and i would like to introduce myself as a stressed co-founder of a 3 man startup. Why am i stressed ? The main reason is because my team consists of 3 guys who are using our day jobs to bootstrap our startup. When you bootstrap i think stress comes with the territory because both time and money is vested.

I am starting this blog because we are an actual startup in the process of launching. My aim is to try to give an inside view of the challenges, triumphs, ups and downs that we go through on a day to day basis. Some of these emotions may be a result of things that happen in our lives outside of the startup and some may be a direct result of the startup itself. At the end of the day this is where i want to highlight to everyone and specially to all the teams of startups out there in their garages who are renting for $10 a week and also bootstrapping that we are all in the same boat, we are all stressed (to some degree) and things are always crumbling around us (to sum degree), thought we also share the same joys of accomplishing our milestones as we head towards our startup holy grail (whatever that may be). So lets comment and share our war stories from the trenches. Im sure regardless of were we end up, looking back will always put a smile on our face in some way.

What I will do to make this blog unique is i will try to be as detailed as possible (so hopefully empathising is easier). Also the fact there is no happy ending yet means i must add a disclaimer, please only try our advice at your own risk. The fact that we are on the journey and havnt as yet succeeded means any advice or tip that i give is under experimentation in which we are also the guinee pigs.

Hopefully one day we can write a blog similar to the likes of 37signals, possibly write essays half as enlightening as Paul Graham or provide advice great advice like so many great entreprenurs in the techworld. However at this point we havnt succeeded by flipping our startup for a figure north of 7 digits or landed massive rounds of VC funding or have oodles of subsribers generating revenue, we havnt even included the adsense adverts to make money to pay for the electricity we use into the wee hours of the morning, so for now we will try to pass on what we learn as the days progress in the best way we can ... with a pinch of salt.

So this is it, the raw deal, there could be something funny happening or there may be really boring days were nothing is happening at all, regardless i will try to tell it as I see and provide advice as best i can. Also, more than anyone else in the world i sure hope that this particular story has a ending is happy ...