Welcome to Chez Cliff!

My main competitor releases a product and it instantly gets four 5-star reviews.  “Best software ever!”  No big surprise that the same day, my free software got four 1-star reviews.

I’d be lying if I said that the temptation wasn’t there to write a very scathing review of their product.  It is easy to rip something, anything apart.  But I couldn’t do it.  Part of my ethical landscape declared this was not good karma, mojo, whatever you wish to call it.

As time went by, more reviews started showing up on their screen.  Another five star review.  “Best software ever!”  Without providing a real explanation as to why, I just ignored their reviews and focused on my product.

This last week, my “Director of Operations” (sounds official huh?) finished a competitor analysis.  Glancing it over, I noticed my chief competitor had an overall ranking of just 3 stars.  How could this be possible?  After all those five star reviews?

It seems there is this ranking of five star reviews, then a whole bunch of 3-star and less reviews.  Apparently the market does not agree that this is “the best software ever!”

This probably explains why their price has been dropping.  In addition to having nothing new, their 3-star ranking has convinced people not to buy their product.

Granted my software has had both positive and negative reviews.  What I’m grateful for is that I didn’t have a bunch of people write deliberate positive reviews.  Creating an open forum for people to speak their mind allowed people to say “This software is the worst and here are the reasons why blah blah blah”.

Then I take those reasons, bake them into an upgrade, and push it out the door.  Afterall, actions speak louder than words, right?

My organizational model is coming along.  Two aspects I am trying to take advantage: technology and virtual.

How to manage in this environment has been a question which has repeatedly popped into my head.  All this email, calls via skype, could results in a lot of head-nodding by employees but nothing coming out the other end.  If they did produce something, how could you guarantee the quality?  Or what could you do to see what your employees are working on at that moment?

I think I figured out a way.

I stumbled across BaseCamp one day.  This seems to be project management in the virtual world made easy.  You can watch the videos to see what it can do but let me highlight the features I’m really digging.

(1)  Twitter updates:  Just like people “tweet” every single thing they do throughout the day, employees can stick in a quick note of what they are doing.  “Working on competitive analysis”, “Putting paper into printer” or “Taking kid to dentist.  Be back at 4.”

(2)  To Do’s:  Everyone has their to-do list, which is generated as one big to-do list for the entire company.  Who is assigned to what, who has accomplished which task.

(3)  Uploading files and tracking changes.  Score.  At the end of the day, employees upload whatever they worked on that day so that at any given time, you can see what they did (or didn’t do).

Yeah, this is becoming more feasible by the day.

The water heater went out.  Again.  My luck with these things just doesn’t seem to be there.

I had a real debate: repair it myself or not.  YouTube said it was easy.  But I always have those doubts.  Like I’ll pull the unit out, suddenly hot water and gas will spray everywhere and I’ll blow myself to kingdom come.

At Lowes, I explained to the eager employee my situation.  Of course, he asked the question “Is it a left-hand or right-hand thermocouple?”

Um . . . water heaters have hands?

Before I had a chance to humiliate myself with an answer, he asked how old the heater was.  I told him it was only a year old.  He then gave me the phone number to Whirlpool and told me to call them.  Which I did.

Come to find out, my heater is covered for 6 years.  Parts and labor.  Imagine that!

So it took a few days to get the part and for the plumber to install it.  But it was definitely cheaper than paying the plumber out of my own pocket.

Dodged that bullet I did.

The economy is still a wreck.

Unemployment is breaching 10%.

Approval rating below 40%

The average CongressPerson makes $174,000/year.  Their payraise this year will cost tax payers $2.5 million.  Did you know this pay raise is automatic?

9,287 earmarks just this last year alone.  Yes, this may only account for 2% of the omnibus spending bill BUT if made permenant would result in a $2,000 tax increase per household.

Make your voice heard.

Before our board meeting, I was waiting in the front lobby of the office of my partner.  He was busy on a conference call so the secretary offered me some gourmet coffee.

“Would you like to see the rest of our offices? We’ve finished with the expansion.” she offered.

A few years ago, my partner’s business consisted of 10 people.  Today, it has 40 full-timers with dozens of international partners around the world.  I marvel at this achievement and it makes my confidence level high that my company can achieve the same level.

Introduction after introduction as she presented me to the various employees of the company.  Each were extremely excited and somewhat hesitant with me, unsure of whether I was an investor, member of the board or their new boss I suppose.

One man in particular I will never forget.  He shook my hand with an excited agitation which made one wonder if he was on cocaine.  “Nice to meet you.  Why are you here?”

Nothing like cutting through to the chase.

I’ll spare you the details of our conversation that followed but needless to say the same intensity sprang out of every question which followed.  His eyes were drill bits, staring right into my own.  Every statement I made somehow got twisted in his head which forced him to spew out how they could use my technology for their company.

The entire scene made me laugh.

For a start-up company, you definitely need to have people with this high level of insanity working under you.  Those dedicated types for whom time has no meaning.  If they got an idea, they work it: no matter if at 1 p.m. or 1 a.m.

So what if the guy’s social graces won’t win him a spot in politics.  Not every member of the start-up has to deal with customers.  Someone has to do the back-door jobs, which often-times are the backbone of the business.