I released OpenPoker under a dual GPL/commercial license today. The project is not bringing in much money and poker engines are a commodity item. I still think that Erlang is the best language for a truly scalable poker server and will be maintaining OpenPoker going forward.
I not sure that it’s his intention, but Joel is doing more to advance the case for Erlang as a language for scalable net-enabled applications than anybody I know. Keep it up, Joel!
A good friend of mine in the valley used to say that when you were at the point that you needed to hire an HR person, it was the beginning of the end. And when you actually created written job descriptions, the fun was gone.
Technorati tags: startup, hr, fun, motivation
I came across an eight-year-old article the other day entitled Discovering New Points of Differentiation, by Ian MacMillan and Rita McGrath (not online, you can buy it from HBS). It provides a rigorous approach to identifying ways to differentiate your company from competitors on more than just product or service. Here’s a synopsis…
Technorati tags: business, marketing, strategy, innovation, startup
Bruce Andor (via Dane Carlson):
The dark secret is that a majority of soloists have no interest in building a major entrepreneurial enterprise. Many of them don’t even like business. These soloists thrive on the work they do, and would be very cranky if you asked them to give it up. For many, their work is a fundamental expression of their creativity.
What they want is a lifestyle. They want the holy grail of freedom and quality of life! They want to do work that feeds them, work that matters. They want to see their kids grow up. They do not want to be Donald Trump!
Technorati tags: lifestylepreneur, entrepreneurship
Niel Davidson (via Mary Sullivan):
Stories about your customers are everywhere in your organization, in the chitchat in the lunchroom, in emails, at the coffee machine. Such stories are easy to tap into, and collectively they can increase the levels of customer understanding, insight and creativity in the organization, without expensive research.
Without revealing exactly which areas we’re scouring (we’re open to all of them), I can share one important lesson on assessing consumer investments, one that we have learned the hard way–from either bad investments or regret from passing on good deals. The lesson is that venture capitalists don’t have a clue how consumers will behave.
Technorati tags: vc, funding, prediction
It’s more difficult in one country than another to do business. That’s the idea behind a study published last week by the World Bank, ranking 155 countries on a set of criteria including Starting a business, Hiring and firing, Getting credit, Protecting investors, Paying taxes and Trading across borders.
Technorati tags: economics, entrepreneurship, international
Peter Caputa of WhizSpark, a web application that helps event planners set up web sites to promote and manage registration for their events, is generating quite a lot of buzz in the blogosphere with a new promotion that offers users a chance to use the service free-of-charge.
What’s interesting here is how Peter is getting the word out. He’s relying on his blogger buddies to tell the world. And so far it seems to be working.
Allen Searls, Bob Bernier, Greg Gershman, and Gregory Narain have all blogged about the promotion, with promises from Peter that there are still more to come.
How did he get so many people to write about the new program? By 1. reaching out and fostering a network of relationships and 2. simply asking them to write about it.
The approach is evident in an email exchange I had recently with Peter where he wrote about blogging:
Lately, I’ve been a lot less concerned with readers and more concerned about collaborators. I’ve started cutting back on who I read. I am only reading people that read me and who link to me and who engage in conversation through the blogs and other means. I am making my blog more about getting to know people in a more meaningful way and supporting their initiatives and less about my writing.
Cool stuff.
There’s a lesson in there for all entrepreneurs, I’m sure.
Technorati tags: marketing, wom, word of mouth, event, promotion, blogging, networking
Michael Cage (via Dane Carlson):
When you really get to know your clients, you will find a small percentage account for most of your profits. In fact, it is common for less than 20% of your clients to account for nearly all of your profits. The big problem? Most businesses have no idea who those “perfect clients” are!
Hearing someone you know extol the virtues of another person or the benefits of a product influences us on both a conscious and sub conscious level.
An endorsement from a friend or relative brings the product home in a very real way. Here are some reasons why this works…
Technorati tags: promotion, advertising, womm, marketing
Ken Dyck 