I was thinking about the how frustrating some product marketing folks can make me at times.  I have worked with the best and worst in product management and there is so much that goes into it. I was going to write a big long post, but I was looking on SlideShare this morning and I found a really great presentation on the topic. I highly recommend you flip through these if you are at all involved in Program or Product Management. 

Jeremiah Andrick

So a few months ago while I was on my break I was asked if I would want to be in a video checking out a new product.  I looked at my existing contracts and found there was no conflicts at the time so I said sure.  So Here I am making my commercial debut.

Please ignore the comment about your personal brand.

I really did love the Nokia booklet 3G and I can’t wait to get my hands on one. I didn’t have to act, this product really delighted me.

Jeremiah Andrick

This is Lynn’s Paradise Cafe in Louisville, KY; a true innovator in food and experience.

I was fortunate. I grew up the son of two generations of entrepreneurs and because of that I learned a lot about what it took to make a business successful, long before I was legally able to hold a job.  That said I took away a few particular learning’s from my parents restaurant that I have not forgotten.

• Many restaurants fail because the lack startup capital and must rely on debt
• The ones that survive the debt are usually killed by their burn rate
  • Owners think they need to completely remodel before opening
  • Owners think they need brand new equipment
  • Owners think think they need new (insert item here)
• Before they ever deal with managing food stocks and payroll, they spend the safety net on atmosphere
• They don’t attract the right crowd, because…
  • The place isn’t unique
  • The service isn’t special, memorable, innovative in any way
  • They moved into the neighborhood where all the old favorites are
• They don’t understand seasonality
• They couldn’t manage their own finances, but expect to manage P&L
• They only take advice from people who encourage them without sharing the harsher realities.

I was thinking about these things today, because I have been reading about a few failed startups and for a couple I am familiar with I would share these words I learned from to failed starts:

• You should have built smaller
• You should have spent slower
• You should have had an emergency fund
• Just because you have an idea doesn’t mean it is sound as a business
• Even if you had done everything else you probably still would have failed
  • If what you built doesn’t serve a unique enough need…
  • If what you built isn’t sufficiently different from the crowd…

Look, I believe in taking projects and rolling with them. Take a risk! Run your startup! Still, odds are you will fail. We all do. The best entrepreneurs, no matter how you define them, learn to fail faster and do it with humility and grace.

Business is business, doesn’t matter if it is food or tech.  It comes down to how much money you bring in versus how much you spend.  Best of luck in the future guys.

Jeremiah

One thing that has been real important to me for a couple of years now is the growing coworking movement and it’s ability to provide more than just a place to sit and work. I am lucky to work out of Office Nomads in Seattle and I am friends with Peter Chee of ThinkSpace in Redmond which are two spaces that are doing a lot for coworking in the seattle area. (Although in very different ways.) So when I travel one of the first things I do is ping the Google coworking group to see if there are any spaces where I can work.  

During a recent trip to Louisville, KY I found out about a new space that will be opening soon. So I made a solid effort both to check out the space, and hangout with it’s chief instigator.  I wanted to share what I learned and where they are in the process of creating a coworking space.

A little history

I lived in Louisville from 2002 to 2005 and worked for a little start up in a very old bourbon distillery. It was a space for the most part had a lot of charm. And it became one thing I loved about Louisville; the unique river town history and the coffee culture (big surprise). What hated was how closed the city is.  There is lots of technical innovation occurring both in both old businesses (UPS) and new, but while I was there they didn’t have the kind of loosely organized community like I have experienced in Seattle and the Bay area.

Where there is a community is around the local coffee shops and unlike in Seattle and other major metros there isn’t a lot of debate about whether this coffee shop workforce is good for business.  Local shops like Quills, Highland Coffee, and Heine bros. thrive off of the return visits of squatters. In lieu of a traditional coworking, space I made use of Quills and Heine bros. and Peak10 to continue working. I imagine that the for these spaces there might be some resistance to the idea of a dedicated space for the web worker.

Butchertown Pointe

The good news for folks in Louisville is that there is a space on the way and will be found in the form of Butchertown Pointe.  The space is a renovated carpet factor that is a historic landmark in Louisville.  The facility is in the Butchertown Neighborhood that is undergoing a revitalization and will be a mixed use facility. 

The main instigator of the new space is freelance writer and all around gentleman, Zach Everson.  I got the chance to sit and talk coworking with Zach and I was really impressed, because while there are a lot of challenges to creating a space Zach seems to have the right attitude and thoughts get this thing going.  Inspired by the Station-C manifesto, Zach and a handful of others are looking to fill a fairly small space. But unlikely previous efforts to get a space going in Louisville I think this provides a big advantage, for a handful of reasons:

• People need to be introduced to a working example of coworking
• Starting small reduces the risk, but can help you scale
• A busy space even if it is only a few people makes the space more desirable

Given that previous attempts at starting a  space in Louisville had not been successful, I asked Zach what he would do if the space failed and he gave the best answer for those of that appreciate the entrepreneurial spirit; “try again”.  I actually think that of many the cities I have lived in Louisville would be a great place for multiple spaces.  There is a strong creative and technical class.  They really just need someone to lead the way and set an example. The current coffee shop class of worker seems to be growing and there isn’t the quite that is sometimes necessary for doing business.

What can be Learned?

I was really excited in talking to Zack, because we could all learn a few lessons from his process.

• If you want to build a community you have to take responsibility
• In any project, start small and dream big
• Line up the things that need to be done and knock them down one by one.
• Be aware of the limitations, but don’t let them stop you.

Next time I am in Louisville, I am looking forward to working out of the completed space.

Jeremiah

I am not a mid-life crisis kind of guy. In fact, I am not really the kind of  guy that gets worked up about birthdays, but I have hit a milestone this week. On the 20th I turned 30 which is weird because maybe now people will stop calling “young man.” I still feel like a young man, but more and more I am moving away from those days.

I was born in 1979, an important year in technology one that marked the end of the analog age and the beginning of the digital age. In a recent series by Gizmodo called “Gizmodo ‘79,” blogger Brian Lam wrote in the last post in the series:

“Pretty much every gadget then-from typewriters to phones to music playback devices-was an electro-mechanic artifact of the industrial age. But beginning in the 80s all those tools began their ascent to the digital. Basically, we’d wind up doing everything differently.

Within a couple of years, the music cassettes we listened to turned would become CDs.

The typewriters would become word processors.

The cassette-based telephone answering machines would become digital playback devices.

Our television choices-four or five channels VHF and maybe four or five more UHF-would be bolstered by hundreds of cable channels. We’d get VCR’s. And tape our own videos. All of that in early 1980’s. Then would come the ubiquity of personal computers. And then the Internet. And cell phones. Are you getting the idea?

It was not just a change in our gadgetry, but also a change in our thinking.”

As I get older there are lots of things I think about, but I am more excited to think about how far we have come and wondering what cool things will come next. Most relevant to this post I am excited about the impact and opportunity of this next year. In honor of that, and mostly because I want to copy the Geek Giant I have decided to give away a present rather than get gifts. I was going to give away a book that I love but apparently it is out of print. Instead the first 15 people who comment on this post will get a Threadless T-shirt from me. I will order them next week and send them out as soon as they arrive. 

Please be sure to post your name and a valid email address as well as the size of T-shirt you want I will contact you to find out where to ship it (don’t post your address in the comments!). Oh and be sure to mention whether you want a girlie tee or a guys tee. 

To my loyal audience, thanks for another year.

Jeremiah Andrick