No Snivelling

Yes, I know -- my blogging has suffered in the last few weeks.

To our TeachStreet investors, trust me when I say that that's a good thing. What it means is that we're pushing extremely hard to meet our self-set goals. And, we've made incredible progress, and are still on pace for our launch aspirations (with regard to quality, coverage and timing).

To friends and family, I'm doing my best! If you haven't heard from me, it's not because I haven't thought of you. Nor is it because I'd prefer to not be with you. Rather, it's because this creation is a lot of work. I probably told you that I expected it to be hard, but I've always been one to learn by doing, as you know.

Which leads me to a post from Seth Godin that I thought was apt -- he talks about how with new/important creations (in his post, he's referring to the iPhone... in our case, we're talking about our much more humble undertaking, TeachStreet) there are always many times where it would be much easier to just say "forget it", and everyone would breathe huge sighs of relief, and move on.

However, we don't do that -- we can't do that. We know the risks, and the odds of failure. But we also know how great it would be to make our dreams a reality. And how much hard work, stress, and yes... fun... it is, to give it a herculean effort.

So, that's why my posting's been more sporadic. See you in a few years ;-)

Labels: forget it, seth godin, teachstreet

Seth Godin hit on a topic that I've thought about a lot over the last few months during my back and forth trips to Santa Monica -- it's complaceny, lack of initiative or downright zombiness.

He talks about the state of affairs at the Javits Center around conferences -- that there's never enough seats, and the garbage cans are always overflowing. Now, if this happens once or twice around an unforseen event, everyone is quite forgiving. The trouble is that Javits holds massive conferences EVERY DAY! So, that tells us not that they were caught off-guard, but rather that no one gives a rat's ass about fixing the problem!

Some other examples of this:

• When airline security ramped up, and we were all required to take our shoes off, I was irked, but OK, with the fact that most airline TSA locations didn't have a plethora of chairs for people to use to put their shoes back on -- however, it's now several YEARS after the fact, and it's still very common (in Seattle, LAX, and many others) to have 3 chairs for the 1,000's of customers streaming through
• My webhost (Globat... avoid them...) had some problems about 8 weeks ago with keeping their stats updated -- for some reason, the daily online metrics stopped refreshing. I submitted a trouble ticket the first time and received a polite email and prompt resolution. That was fantastic. What hasn't been so great is now I need to submit a trouble ticket EVERY TIME I'd like my metrics updated, and I get a similar reply.

What this tells me is that these people don't use their own products, which is fair I guess, given the cost of them. But I don't think you need to be a heavy product user to be aware of your customer's pain and suffering, or likely issues.

You just need to care.

Labels: airport, javits center, seth godin, shoes, tsa

I admit that I wasn't really liking ooGooRoo -- it was pretty much a placeholder from the start, that I thought I could keep there for the forseeable future. Try again, Mr. Smartypants.

I've quickly learned that for me, it was imperative to pick 'the name' early on, because you:
a) want to create logo, color palate, and landing page (to solicit interest, recruit from, etc.)
b) need to file for trademark protection for the name, logo, taglines, and such
c) can excite people about your business by evaluating the verbal description and business plan against the 'Surname'
d) find whatever name you use becoming more permanent every day, despite your best efforts!

So, on Wednesday night, we pulled together the 'company staffers' and a few other creative folks who haven't been in daily discussions -- I wanted to gauge some excitement for our overall idea, and also try to go in different directions and avoid concepts that had begun to set in stone.

To prepare for the meeting, I sent out some pre-reading of favorite Naming Resources -- I've presented them below to save my competitors some time ;-)

If you're interested in learning more about Company Naming, check these out:

The first three come from the Name Inspector blog, run by a Seattle-based blogger with a PhD in Linguistics):

1. 10 Tips for Naming Your Company, Product or Service
2. 10 Company Name Types
3. Visual Thesaurus
4. Seth Godin's naming rules
5. Guy Kawasaki's naming rules

The name must pass some simple 'viral/passalong' litmus tests:
a) "Is this a name you'd want to tell your friend when you're out having drinks and you tell them about your experience with this website?"
b) Would one of your customers feel silly referring other customers to a company with this name?"


p.s. Thanks to Bruce and Vicki (for not only their help with the naming exercise, but also for the most excellent accomodations!), Michelle the GooRoo, Karen, and Katie!

Labels: guy kawasaki, name inspector, nameinspector, naming, seth godin, viral, visual thesaurus