Category: Business

I Actually Love Targeted Ads

johnjpeeblesLeave a comment

About ten to twelve years ago, I found some free Tower Defense game on the App Store. It was challenging enough to keep me interested, but not so difficult I’d bang my head against the wall, and it became my goto game when waiting in the airport or when I wanted some mindless downtime.

It was free, but supported by advertising. This was the heyday of games like FarmVille. Fun Fact: In 2011, the developer of FarmVille, Zynga, made up 19% of Facebook’s entire revenue! So ad supported games were not only common then, they were considered the best way for mobile games to monetize.

After every Tower Defense level I completed, an ad would show as the next level loaded. Except these weren’t your normal ads. They were awesome. They marketed stuff that I actually wanted to buy. With each ad displayed, I could mark it as relevant or not, and as I fed back to the ad network (whose name I can’t remember anymore), the ads became even more tailored. I ended up buying more stuff from that game than I’ve ever bought from any advertising medium, ever. All of the stuff I bought was relevant, high quality, and I was pleased with every purchase. And here’s the thing – I actually enjoyed seeing the ads! Kind of like how I enjoy the ads in hyper-targeted magazines I subscribe to like Model Railroader – they’re all super relevant and help build awareness about products I might like.

At some point, the ad network folded, and the developer of the game went bust, and while I’ve moved on to other tower defense games, I often think about that ad network. I was using an ad blocker on my web browser even back then, and today, the the only real exposure to web ads I get is via YouTube, Instagram, and a couple newspapers I subscribe to like the New York Times. Everything else is blocked.

I have two YouTube accounts, and two Instagram accounts, and both have very focused personas and interests, but the thing is – the ads I’m served there just completely suck. They’re not relevant (marking them as such does nothing to change this), and at least half of them are retargeting from websites I’ve already bought something from (the ad shows up AFTER I’ve converted, for the first time). Perhaps worst of all, they are shown at a frequency that is just insane – like back to back or multiple times in a 2-3 minute scrolling session.

1.5 Billion in market cap and 163,000 employees between them, and Google and Facebook can’t even get my profile right. Perhaps most bizarrely, they don’t even ask me what I’m interested in apart from maybe inferring my interests based on the accounts/topics I follow or the videos/posts I like..

Why?

This reminds me of the age-old comment proffered by Folks Who Don’t Like Ads on the Internet. Why can’t we just pay a fee to get rid of ads on Facebook or Instagram or <insert social network here>? I used to ask this question, and it’s a good one. The answer is that in 2015, a Facebook user was worth $3.73 per quarter (roughly $15 bucks a year). Well, I’d happily pay fifteen bucks a year to get rid of ads and disincentivize all of the rampant fake news and destructive political advertising that channels through social media! Except there’s a problem – by the end of 2017, the value was up to $6.18 per user per quarter, an increase of 165% in to years.

In 2021 a Facebook user is projected to be worth $56 per quarter ($226 per year) and an Instagram user is worth $31.5 ($126 per year).  Note the vaguely disappointed tone of that article when discussing the fact that Instagram just hasn’t managed to generate as much value per user as Facebook yet. Tsk tsk!

That’s a growth rate of 15x in four years, and oh by the way, has significantly outpaced my desire (or ability, and, I’m guessing, yours too) to pay to remove those ads. Paying to remove ads will actually lose Facebook money, because their overall audience would get smaller, and they’re forfeiting the future growth they could generate off your account. In other words, you are just one single customer representing one sale of your account, but they can almost-infinitely sell you to almost-infinite ad buyers out there, so your account’s value will, over time, asymptotically approach infinity. Or so the well-vetted financial model somewhere says. Not understanding this dynamic, by the way, is probably why my beloved (yet forgotten) ad network went bust.

Back to the original point – the reason none of the major ad networks allow us to actually feed in our preferences is driven by the same desire – if I told Facebook/Instagram that I only wanted to see ads about Lego or model trains, I would have removed myself from the pool of folks who might potentially be interested in jeans or a TV show or whatever. In other words, I limit down the potential buyers for myself, and that’s the last thing they ever want to happen.

What’s the point of all this? Well, I think this is an increasingly dangerous game to play – intentionally introducing a bit of old fashioned friction and obfuscation between users and advertisers, for the sole purpose of maximizing future revenue growth. Ad blockers are now more common and available on more platforms (including mobile) and the reason is that all the ads suck! Advertisers don’t push the envelope here and demand well qualified eyeballs because that would skew their metrics too, and the reality is that online advertising is about the only real solid metric most marketers have. It’s a combination of “it’s in budget” and “it’s better than the alternative” thinking.

As we head into the worst global recession since we, uh, understood that we lived on a globe, I can’t help but wonder what’s going to happen when ad budgets get cut everywhere. Will some upstart come out of the woodwork that can actually show us some ads we want to watch, that take curation cues from us directly, and make everyone’s life on the internet better (except of course for Google, Facebook, Twitter, and the like)?

Probably not, but I wish they would. In the meantime, the great cat and mouse game continues between ad blockers and social media networks, and the internet just continues to get a little worse each day.

I guess in that way, it’s kind of like a game of Tower Defense.

Hello Turing Fest!

johnjpeeblesLeave a comment

I still remember the first time I went to a Turing Festival event – Steve Wozniak was speaking at the Edinburgh Playhouse Theater. What a treat! I paid for my ticket, walked the few minutes from my flat (we didn’t have an office at that time at Administrate), and spent the next hour hearing from one of the pioneers of computing.

Since that afternoon in 2012, the festival has been an annual highlight on my calendar. I’ve also been able to get involved as a host, moderator, interviewer, and speaker, and have even managed to suggest speakers to the curation team from time to time. I’m really proud that based on some of my recommendations Edinburgh was able to welcome Michael Pryor (Trello and Frog Creek Software), Fred Destin (Stride.vc) and Eric Yuan (Zoom). I’m still holding out hope for the Dalai Lama and Eddie Vedder too.

Over the years, the Turing Festival has evolved substantially. Originally founded by the Coleman brothers, (the same duo that founded the CodeBase, one of Europe’s largest tech incubators), the event rebooted in 2016 with a new CEO, and a slightly adjusted moniker – Turing Fest. Now benefitting from full time, dedicated attention year round, the event began to grow into what it is today. This evolution mirrors the advancement of Edinburgh as a tech ecosystem more broadly, and underscores just how important Turing Fest is to the community here. For tech, this event is where Edinburgh specifically, and Scotland more generally, meets the world.

As a part of our growing community, Administrate has consistently sponsored the event every year, which is something we feel is important in and of itself, but it also means we can send a good portion of our team to participate and learn. This kind of learning opportunity is rare enough, but even more-so for it to be on our doorstep. I’ve recommended Turing Fest to countless local startups and if you’re in Europe and in the tech industry, I consider it irresponsible not to attend.

I have a love-hate relationship with the stage of the Turing Fest. Mainly because that’s where I’ve debuted some of my most challenging talks, discussing topics such as mental health, and the often unspoken challenges required to build a tech company. During last year’s talk on mental health, one which I was apprehensive to give, I knew the CEO of Administrate’s at-the-time fiercest competitor would be in the audience, which didn’t help the jitters! Afterwards he emailed me a heartfelt and touching note of encouragement, something I won’t forget.

One of my favorite memories was moderating a panel that included Gareth Williams of Skyscanner, Ed Molyneux of FreeAgent, Damian Kimmelman of DueDil, and Or Offer of SimilarWeb – I asked the question of how many WFIO (We’re Fucked, It’s Over) moments each of them had experienced. All of them talked candidly and vulnerably about the their experiences with multiple WFIOs, and a couple mentioned they’d had one within the last couple of months! Those responses were important for the audience to hear, but they were also important for me to hear, and I’ve reminded myself many times that failure is a normal part of the journey for every startup.

The atmosphere around the Turing Fest also includes many fond memories. I remember escorting Morten Primdahl, the CTO and a cofounder of Zendesk, through the streets of Edinburgh heading towards the speaker’s dinner, pummeling him with questions about their tech stack, their growth, and whether he liked this new product from Amazon called “Aurora” (he did, we do too, and we still use it!). I’m sure he was relieved to finally arrive and be rid of me! The impromptu drinks, dinners, and amazing stories that have been shared around Turing Fest have been opportunities to meet new friends, deepen relationships, learn, reflect, challenge myself, and grow.

I mention these anecdotes because all of them draw on key threads that make Turing Fest both unique and meaningful. Access to inspiring people, opportunities to share and broaden one’s horizon, and the power of serendipity when you bring a diverse group of people together are core to what Turing Fest is about. All of this set against the stunning backdrop of the city of Edinburgh is something that cannot be rivaled by any other event.

I was therefore thrilled when my good friend Brian Corcoran asked me to join the board of Turing Fest. We’ve already shared hundreds of hours of discussion about the event, and in some ways this seems like the formalisation of something that’s been happening for years. Brian has built an incredible team and a truly outstanding event, and I’m excited to help as we continue to build for the future. As usual, I’ve included my annual resign-every-year demand.

We’re on the eve of TuringFest 2019, and I can’t wait for another year of learning, connecting, and growing. I hope to see you there!

Moving On

johnjpeeblesLeave a comment

Over three years ago, a good friend of mine asked if I’d consider joining the board of a local startup. They were very early stage, in the healthcare space, they’d raised a bit of funding, and were looking to grow.

Great. I meet with a lot of startups, mainly trying to help and provide a sounding board. Many of the founders are inspiring, many have reasonable ideas, some of them will go on to be successful, but it’s really rare that I personally get excited about any particular company. Certainly not enough to join and invest time, money, and energy!

But I owed my buddy a favour, so we met at the closest pub to my flat, and I prepared my gracious-decline speech. Except something strange happened. As Chris talked about what they were building, I became increasingly interested.

Current Health (at the time named Snap40) had designed a clinical grade (requiring FDA approval) wearable intending to replace most of the normal monitoring equipment found within a hospital ICU. This device could then be linked to a phone or tablet, and could help identify patient deterioration, perhaps even before a human would notice. There were other applications too – for example, my mid-sixties father crashed his bike recently, blacked out, went to the hospital and got an MRI, then was held for a further 24 hours for “observation.” In this scenario, perhaps he could have been sent home earlier as long as he was monitored for deterioration. Plenty of conditions could benefit from proactive monitoring at the home linked to a healthcare provider, and even more mundane challenges like medication monitoring (ie, did they take their blood pressure medication? Lets see!) could be significantly improved.

A major challenge for sales within the healthcare industry is dealing with a sophisticated and opinionated Decision Making Unit. Doctors, nurses, pharmacists, administrators, and technical people all factor in, and in a new category educating this market can be really time consuming and expensive. Would healthcare professionals get this? I called a few physicians I knew and asked. They immediately got it, several of them referenced having this idea themselves, and one of them spent more than an hour telling me all the different ways it would save their hospital and health network money. So that seemed promising.

One of the key things that attracted me to this implementation is the wearable is a “dumb” device. Raw signal is sent to the cloud where it’s analysed and processed using a combination of machine learning (yes really) and other algorithms. This means a couple of things – the algorithms can be tuned using all data ever collected from every device out there, and new algorithms can be shipped without replacing the devices. In other words, the more data collected, the higher the accuracy.

This is a crucial distinction: Current Health isn’t a medical device company, it’s not a software company, it’s a platform company.

I joined the board in March of 2016, with one condition – I would resign every year in March. Chris could accept or reject my resignation. While I’ve been a member of the board at Administrate since I joined in 2011, I’d never held a board position on another company before. Maybe I’d suck at it. Maybe the company would outgrow my expertise. In any event, they wouldn’t have to wait too long to get rid of me if that became necessary.

“Is it going to work?”

For the first two years, this was the major question. Pilots at local hospitals were really promising, and we obtained a European CE mark which meant we could sell it within Europe, but we needed to get certified by the FDA to tackle the USA. This was tricky, because the FDA had never certified a hybrid device like this before.

The next three years (and three resignations) passed quickly, and I’m super proud of what we achieved. A CE mark, multiple pilots, FDA certification for use in both the hospital and home environments, recruitment of a fantastic team, an office move, a rebrand, and multiple funding rounds, including one of the largest seed rounds ever raised in Scotland.

But perhaps the achievement I’m most proud of happened recently during an extended pilot project in the United States – we identified a patient’s vitals slipping, and alerted staff to the issue. The traditional monitoring machines didn’t notice, and we saved a life. The first of many I’m sure.

The traditional monitoring machines didn’t notice, and we saved a life. The first of many I’m sure.

Current Health is going to fundamentally transform how we receive and provide healthcare. I’m super excited for the future, but I also realise that the time has come to step down from the board and make way for the next stage of growth. To the disappointment of most, there’s no drama here, it’s simply time to move on.

I remain deeply thankful to Chris (and my pal who introduced us!) and the team at Current Health for giving me this opportunity. I learned a ton, got to work alongside some incredible people, and I believe this experience made me a better CEO – sitting on the other side of the table can be really enlightening! I am extremely excited to watch how Current Health will grow and I couldn’t be more optimistic about their future.

Resignation

johnjpeebles1 Comment

A few weeks ago I resigned. I drafted the email, proofread it, and sent it in. It was pretty standard – I thanked the company for the opportunity, mentioned I was proud of what we’d achieved together, and wished them well.

No, I didn’t resign from Administrate – I resigned from my post as a Non-Executive Director (sometimes abbreviated NED, sometimes NXD) on the board of Snap40, one of Scotland’s most promising startups.

I love helping out startups, mainly because I’ve received so much help myself over the years from others. I know first hand how hard it is growing a company, and some of the advice, time, and mentorship I’ve received has come at critical points along the journey.

Just over a year ago I was asked to join the board at Snap40, and while initially surprised that I was asked and skeptical of the company, I was ultimately impressed with the market, product, vision, and team. I thought I could learn a lot as well! But before I agreed to join, I made it clear that I would resign every year, and the company could either accept or reject my resignation.

Why?

In a fast growing startup, particularly when things are at an early stage, the type of advice and support a company and CEO requires changes quickly, just like everything else. I’ve seen other founders struggle with the awkwardness of how to ask board members and advisors to step aside when they no longer had anything to add, and it was important to me to demonstrate that I viewed my appointment to the board as a fixed term, renewable every year. If the resignation is accepted, no problem! If not, I’m here for at least another year (unless I need to be replaced before then).

I’d encourage other startup CEOs and board members to consider this model for board and advisor appointments. In my view, it’s important that the board members resign proactively as it demonstrates a willingness to step back and acknowledge that their time has potentially come to an end. Nobody likes to think that they’ve been outgrown, but it’s a fact of life, so lets not ignore it.

As for me? My resignation from Snap40 this year was rejected. I’m really excited about the company, the team, and the progress we’re making. I’ve learned a lot already and can’t wait to see what this coming year holds.

Now it’s back to work!

How to Ask for Advice / Feedback About Your Startup

johnjpeeblesLeave a comment

One of the things I’m passionate about is helping other startups and the community of entrepreneurs we have here in Edinburgh (and in Scotland).  Since becoming more intentional about “taking the pledge“, I’ve been meeting with lots of folks locally, and been surprised by the amount of requests!

So much so that other team members here at Administrate are helping me shoulder the load, according to areas of expertise (thanks Mike and Patrick!) and time constraints, and I know of many others in the community who are donating their time and expertise.  Helpfulness and support has always been a hallmark of the Scottish startup scene, so this isn’t anything new, but there’s so much more activity now, so many more companies, and so many more entrepreneurs now!  It’s great to see!

I’ve found that sometimes people don’t know what to expect, so I thought I’d lay out a brief framework to help everyone get the most out of the time.

  1. Remember that most advice is delivered within a context vacuum.  Don’t take my advice (or anyone else’s) without fully thinking things through and satisfying yourself.  Bad advice can come from really great people.
  2. In order to be at all helpful, I need context.  Things I usually ask about are: the problem you’re trying to solve (as a company), your business model (SaaS, etc), your market, some metrics around revenue, customers (people paying you money), team size, how long you’ve been going, growth, and churn.  It’s ok if you don’t have all of this information, but the quicker we can rattle through these items, the faster we can get up to speed.
  3. It’s totally cool if you just want to chat, but I’ll usually ask you what you’re biggest challenges are – we have these at Administrate and sometimes they feel cyclical (first we’re worried about sales, then tech, then support, then sales again, etc.).  Even if everything is going well, the question will often be “ok, how do we double down and make it even better?”
  4. I probably can’t help you too much with hiring (particularly “line” staff) – my network is mainly in the USA (so not local), and we’re in high growth mode here at Administrate, so if I know of any devs or whatever we’re probably going to hire them!
  5. Expect me to be very, very blunt.  If you’re British it may come across as almost hostile sometimes.  Sorry.  When I get into problem solving mode or analysis mode, I tend to interrupt, ask lots of questions, and don’t filter much.
  6. Expect me to play devil’s advocate.  Expect me to really push you on a few things.  Expect to be challenged.  The best advice I’ve ever received was from someone telling me they thought I could be a lot more ambitious, which annoyed me at the time, but really made a difference.
  7. One thing you won’t get from me is griping about raising money in the UK, finding a team, or complaining about Scottish Enterprise or Scottish Development International.  If you’re annoyed about these things, fine, but expect an argument from me!
  8. I’m not going to be very helpful to you with introductions to angels, VCs or syndicates.  These people all make their own decisions and won’t look at you in any different light if I make an intro for you.
  9. I won’t share anything about our conversation unless you specifically tell me you don’t mind.  I also expect the same in return.  This means I don’t mind if you want to ask me about challenges I’m facing now, etc.  We like to be transparent, and often it can be comforting to hear that someone else is going through something you’re struggling with.
  10. The majority of my experience and expertise is in high growth Business-to-Business Software-as-a-Service.  So be aware I’ll bias towards that style of company.  I don’t like most B2C ideas because they are riskier, require more funding earlier, require a lot of traction to be successful and are often harder to build and/or monetise.
  11. A couple of times things have gotten emotional (really!).  That’s OK! Building a business can be really hard.  Relationships are involved. It can feel overwhelming.  That’s normal.  Don’t be embarrassed.  It’s not the first time.
  12. Unfortunately, you may have your appointment changed around a few times.  Sorry, but Administrate comes first!  Also, it may be awhile before we can meet, and depending on what you’re looking to talk about, we may provide someone else from our team to give you a better perspective.

Hopefully that helps you get an idea of what to expect and makes everything run just a bit smoother!  I’ve enjoyed all of the conversations I’ve had and am always encouraged by the amazing people we have in Edinburgh working away on building things and solving problems.

Startups, Take the Pledge for Your Community

johnjpeebles1 Comment

We’re about to kick off another year, resolutions have been made, lots of parties have been attended, a bunch of milestones have been reached, and it hopefully feels good to get some closure on a year and plan for another.

I’d like to challenge you to add one more resolution to the list, and instead of thinking of it as a resolution, treat it as a habit, a lifestyle, a core part of your duty as being a member of your startup community.

As a bit of background, my startup Administrate is founded in Scotland, backed by Scottish investors, and a member of the fledgling Edinburgh startup community.  Using the term fledgling to describe a group of companies that has produced two unicorns (Scotland has the highest rate of unicorn production per capita in the world) seems a bit weird, but it’s true.  Like most non-Silicon Valley, non-Boston, (dare I say non-American?) locations, the community here is fairly young.  Most of the founders and senior management teams are first timers here.  All of us are trying to tackle the inherent challenges of building a sustainable business while learning as fast as we can, hoping to not commit that fatal mistake (last piece of learning?) along the way.

It Doesn’t Get Easier, You Just Go Faster

In cycling they say that it never gets easier, you just go faster, and I really believe the same is true with startups.  This stuff is really hard.  Even when things are really rewarding, you know you’re on the cusp of making it, you’re getting that positive press coverage, you’ve just raised money, you just signed that huge deal, whatever the milestone is, it’s still really, really hard.

And here’s the thing – if you’re a senior team leader or founder, there’s not many options for support.  Your spouse won’t fully understand what you’re going through.  Your board isn’t the right venue for a freakout.  Your direct reports have problems of their own that they need support to help address.

Feeling alone is one of the worst feelings, but it’s also one of the most common in a startup.

A Solution?

I’ve found that the single best avenue for support as a founder, CEO, or senior team member is to talk with a peer, usually someone who is ahead of you on the journey.  I don’t even mean support as in therapy, I mean support as in “I’m having this problem, how did you solve it?”, roll-up-the-sleeves style problem solving.

In the last 2 years, there’s been several key moments where I’ve received advice/suggestions/thoughts from members of our community that have caused me to rethink, come up with a plan, and have ultimately seriously transformed our company and helped make it one of the fastest growing tech startups in Scotland.  Things would have been very different if I hadn’t had that time from others who were ahead of me on the journey.

Take the Pledge

Spend 30 minutes every week helping other startups within your community.

You can spend an hour every other week, two hours with one person, etc., I’m not bothered about the mechanics, but just make sure you’re investing.  You can still run a highly structured calendar, you can ask people to come with a specific question or problem, you can implement this however you want, but the key is to be available, be supportive, and spread as much knowledge as possible.  Even if you don’t know how to help your fellow startup, refer them to someone who might, or tell them to read a book or go to a conference.

The funny thing about this is that the people that helped transform Administrate by spending time with me usually didn’t remember the conversation when I went back and thanked them.  I’ve had several instances of the same thing happening to me when someone mentions what a great help I was and it turns out it was a 10 minute conversation at a party.  These things add up, but they can only do that with consistent attention, over time.

The other interesting thing about this is that it’ll help you run a better business too! Taking your head out of your problems to focus on something else can provide clarity, and I’ve never found a situation where I couldn’t learn something from another company.

Lets Talk

If you think I could be of help, let me know! Hit me up on Twitter, email (if you don’t have my direct email, send it through the main Administrate email), phone, etc.  Sometimes it’ll take a week or two to get something arranged, sometimes it’ll be via the phone, but hopefully it’ll be helpful.

I’ve Never Wished I Was Less Technical

johnjpeebles5 Comments

I got an early-ish start with computers when I was about 6 or 7 years old.  My dad created an MS-DOS boot disk that got me to a DOS prompt on the one of the hard diskless IBM clones in his office.  Once I had booted to the command line, I’d put another floppy disk (these were 5.25 inch floppies, the ones that really flopped) in the B drive, type in the commands which I quickly memorised, and my six year old self would be ready for some hardcore word processing.  Using Multimate at first, but then moving on to PC Write, I penned a few short stories and would love to visit the office and use the computers.  My Dad’s staff even gave me access to the holy of holies – the one real IBM PC (not a clone) which had a 5 megabyte hard disk, and was protected by a password.  I was solemnly lectured to never disclose the password, not to anyone, and I never have, even to this day.

And so it was against this backdrop that I became interested in computers.  When I was nine my family bought our first computer from a back alley vendor in the Philippines.  It was an IBM compatible XT Turbo, which was technically an 8088, with a twenty megabyte hard disk and a monochrome CGA monitor.  It was outdated when we bought it, as the 386 had just been released, but I loved it.  I spent hours learning different software packages like Norton Commander, PC-Tools, and playing games like the Commander Keen trilogy.  We kept it until I was twelve, and then gave it to a Chinese friend when we replaced it with a 486 DX-33 we picked up in Hong Kong.  Built like a tank, it is probably still in operation somewhere.

Despite this early introduction to computers, I didn’t get started programming until I was sixteen.  It was harder then – we had just got the internet but the tutorials and blogs and wealth of easy information we have now didn’t exist.  It was also difficult to get the necessary software you needed – thanks to living in China I could buy a pirated copy of Borland C++ or Microsoft Visual C++ for about a dollar, but they were a bit overwhelming to setup.  I finally found someone who knew how to program and begged him into giving me a few sessions.  He had a book, helped me setup my compiler, and agreed to meet with me once a week to teach me.  I even managed to get these sessions accepted as school credit during my junior and senior year.  I still keep in touch with Erik now, and he was one of the groomsmen in my wedding.  Together we even managed to cobble together two “junk systems” from spare parts and after a few weeks of constant trial and error, we got Slackware running in 1998, still one of my proudest technical achievements.

Every American college bound student knows that their junior year of high school is crucial for getting accepted into their university of choice, and I began targeting computer science as my major.  I was heavily advised that I should focus on a business degree instead.  At the forefront of that group were several of my math teachers, who knew that I didn’t do well in that subject, but there were also many others who thought that I shouldn’t “waste” my people skills in a technical role.

But I was really enjoying programming!  My first real project was a string indexing program which could accept a block of text (much like this blog) and then create an alphabetical index of all the strings (words) and the number of times they appeared.  Written in C, I had to learn about memory management, debugging, data structures, file handling, functions, and a whole lot more.  It was way more mentally taxing than anything I’d ever done in school, and it required a ton of concentration.  I wasn’t bored like I often was in classes.  It was hard.  Erik would constantly challenge, berate, laugh at me, and most importantly, accurately assess me using an instructional style that I’d never been exposed to before – he only cared about the results, not the trying.

Although I was dead set on computer science, I really liked making money too.  My parents noticed this and for one semester during that crucial junior year they offered me financial rewards for grades achieved.  After I’d hosed my dad for over a hundred bucks due to my abnormally high grades that semester, he announced that “grades should be my own reward” and immediately discontinued the program.  There were plenty of people telling me that a degree in business would better suit these talents of mine, and if I was honest, at the time I knew they were probably right.  I was great in my non-science subjects, I could mail it in on papers and still get an A, and I knew that diligence, attention to detail, and math were weaknesses.  Getting a business degree would be stupidly easy.  Getting a computer science degree would be pretty hard, at least for me.

I was close to changing my mind when Erik mentioned, “You know, I’ve never wished I was less technical.”

This is advice that I really took to heart.  It rung true when I was seventeen.  It’s even more true today.

For me, the advantage that I incurred by getting a computer science degree meant that I could start my own consulting company and be one of the technical contributors while also being responsible for the business stuff.  It helped me obtain positions of leadership because I didn’t need technical middle men to explain things to me.  If things were going poorly, I could help manage the crisis effectively, and when things were going well I could explain why and point out the technical decisions that had carried us to success.

Guess what?  I got to do all the business stuff too!  Having a technical background has never limited my business acumen or hampered me in any way.  I haven’t coded for money since 2007, but I use my knowledge and experience every day, and I stay up to date with technology as much as possible.  I love it when our technical lead shows me the code behind the latest feature.  If anything, having an appreciation for complexity, code, and systems design has only helped me design and implement better budgets, business models, and pricing schemes.  I’ve never met any “business person” who is better than me at Excel, the language of business, and much of that stems from just knowing how to program.  This has made me the goto guy in almost every planning or budget meeting I’ve ever been in.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t work the other way.  People who aren’t technical will always struggle in any technically related environment.  I’ve met so many people who have struggled and struggled to make their great idea a reality chiefly because they weren’t technical, couldn’t contribute, couldn’t cut through the bullshit, and therefore couldn’t effectively manage their way to success.  Sometimes, they’ll try to fake it and just lose the respect of the programmers.  As many times as I’ve thought to myself how glad I am that I have a technical background, I’ve had others voice to me the frustration that they just wish they knew more about technology.

If you’re reading this, and you’re trying to figure out which way to go in life, make sure you get technical first.  If you didn’t choose that path, there’s still plenty of time – get out there and learn to code.  There are so many resources.

This is what the “everyone should learn to code” movement is really saying – not that everyone should be a coder, but that everyone could benefit from understanding the environment, pressures, and disciplines that drive a huge part of our economy.  It’s not just business either – artists can benefit from more creative displays and better performing websites, not-for-profits could benefit from volunteers who know how to help out in technical areas, and it’s just nice sometimes to be the guy who can get the projector working in a foreign country!

So get technical.  You’ll never regret it.  And if you’re a programmer and you ever see a kid who wants to learn, help them out, you may just find a friend for life.

Focus on Systems, Not Goals

johnjpeeblesLeave a comment

DilbertI had the pleasure of reading a recent article by Scot Adams (creator of Dilbert) on the secret to success.  One of the points he made really resonated with me as it’s something we’ve been stressing (with increasing success) for the last few months at Administrate:  Don’t focus on goals, focus on systems.

In short, rather than focus everyone on your Key Performance Indicators (although these are important to know and track), focus instead on systems and processes that breed success.  For example, like most organisations with a customer services team, we have a lot of data about tickets, resolution times, how long issues sit in different status states, and a whole lot more.  It’s really easy to get caught up on “how many tickets we have open!” when zero bugs or zero open issues isn’t really the point.  Instead, we’ve been focused on perfecting the systems and processes we use to tackle these metrics.  Instead of feeling successful when we reach an arbitrary (and impossible) goal of zero outstanding issues or problems, we’re focusing on improving the systems we have in place to tackle these issues.  Now we feel successful when we can know that issues will be triaged, attacked, and solved in a correct and repeatable manner.  See the difference?

Get the system right, and your KPIs and other indicators will fall in line.  Get the system wrong, and you’ll be chasing an increasingly dismal looking set of metrics that never seem to improve.

As we continue to grow and scale, focus on systems and our values becomes more and more important.  I’m really proud of how far we’ve come as a team, and am very excited at what’s still to come!

Thoughts on Samsung, Apple, and Patents

johnjpeebles1 Comment

I’ve been struggling about what to make of the recent patent spat between Samsung and Apple.  I do think that the level of discorse provided by most techies on this issue is somewhat lacking.  Hacker News seems to have come down firmly on the “patents are evil, ergo Apple is too” side of things.  I’m not sure it’s quite so simple.

Here’s what I know:

  • I’m against business process or “method” patents.  This generally covers most software or patenting things like algorithms.
  • I think there is an incredible amount of copying that goes on in the tech world.  Every company does it, and every company cries foul when it’s done against them.  I’ve written about this before.
  • I do believe that copying a tangible product should not be legal or tolerated.  Fake clothing brands, for example, or counterfeit items are not only crass, they can be dangerous (remember the baby formula issue in China?).
  • It was obvious from day one that Google and Android blatantly, crudely, and poorly ripped off iOS.  They didn’t spend any effort on being original or attempting to innovate.  I think the mental gymnastics that are performed by many geeks trying to absolve Google in this respect are intellectually dishonest and silly.
  • In my experience, the best defense is a good offense and the only real way to beat someone who’s ripping you off is to out innovate them.  Consumers will generally figure out who’s for real and who is playing second fiddle.
  • There have been several incidents over the past few years on Hacker News where a startup felt they were being copied by others, and the entire community expressed a lot of outrage over this.

I’m an Apple stock holder and an Apple customer.  Have been for years.  I think the conclusion that I’m coming to on this particular issue is that I feel a guilty party got what they deserved (for product trade dress copying) but the means to the victory was really awful (using the patent system).  I’m not a lawyer, but it seems to me if Levis can sue someone for ripping off their logo or making fake goods without owning a patent to the blue jean, why can’t we have that method in the tech industry?  I’m curious if using the patent system in this respect was a “nuclear option” that sends a signal to everyone else who might cross them in this area.  Apple certainly learned a lot during their lawsuit against Microsoft in the nineties and probably had their playbook well thought through prior to even launching the iPhone.  I also feel like Google got away with something here, as they were culpable in ripping Apple off as well.

The most bizarre thing about this whole mess is that somehow Microsoft came out looking like a world class innovator with their new Metro mobile OS which looks nothing like iOS.  Ten years ago, who could have imagined a scenario where Apple wins against someone ripping them off, Microsoft is the innovator, and Google is the evil corporation blatantly and poorly copying someone else?

Simplify Everything

johnjpeebles1 Comment

There’s a lot of abstract advice about employing simplicity when building great products or writing great code.  However, life and products (particularly in the Enterprise software market, where I’ve spent most of my career) are complicated.  It’s often hard to gleen concrete examples of what these maxims are trying to communicate.

The other day I was in a pub waiting for a lunch meeting to start and I got to witness the week’s beer delivery.  This is a fairly hard problem to solve efficiently if you’re in a city where parking is difficult (or nonexistent), buildings were constructed hundreds of years before accessibility laws (meaning stairs and tight doorways), kegs are very heavy (over 200 pounds when full), and where a lot of beer is consumed requiring frequent deliveries.

If you or I were designing a solution to this problem, we might come up with this solution:

  • 1 truck
  • 2 employees (1 driver, 1 loader/unloader)
  • 1 automatic lift at the rear or on the side of the truck
  • 1 appliance dolly that can move up or down stairs

We’d be pretty happy with that.  Not the worst solution in the world.  It’s possible we could reduce to one employee but the automatic lift will take enough time setting up and lifting that we’ll probably exceed our very short “stop with flashers on” window.  We’d therefore need to park and have someone stay with the truck, or make several “fly byes” to stay within the unloading time limit.  This will really limit how many delivers we could make in a day, possibly requiring a lot of delivery crews.

Here’s how they actually do it:

  • 1 truck
  • 1 driver / unloader
  • 1 airbag

The driver pulls up, parks the truck right outside the entrance of the pub with the flashers on, whips out his airbag from the passenger seat, rolls up the side of the truck, pulls off the keg and lets it fall right on the airbag.  He then rolls it into the pub (for those with cellar keg storage, they have their own airbag) and after about 20 kegs and less than 5 minutes, he’s out of there.

A lot less cost, a lot faster, and no expensive equipment.  

Simple.

Img_0871