Famous last words... -- Jun. 11, 2010
Weekend/Monday's homework:
- Code that stuff for Dad.
- Push the red button on the Fundraising Blitz!
- Revise the Privacy Policy & TOS.
- If I eat lunch alone, read Billboard
- Randomly select an entry in the Music Purchasing Survey to win a prize.
- Preliminary review of the Music Purchasing Survey results.
- Invite the two people I promised super-ultra-early sneak peeks because they're awesome -- then get feedback.
- Draft marketing plan for the YouPhonics beta launch -- my mind will be scattered for NXNE, but the launch can't be!
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Pfffft. I think I was overly optimistic with the whole "I'll get a bunch of that done by Wednesday!" plan... yeah...
See, the piece I promised to code for my Dad was a complete and utter time-suck. I learned some valuable things from it, but what I estimated to be 4 hours of remaining work ended up being 12-15.
The Fundraising Blitz was pretty darn successful, with over 50% of the conversations developing nicely, and some new partnership opportunities that may have popped up regardless of money! Woot.
I kinda went a little overboard with the Music Purchasing Survey prize, and gave away three of 'em. Three people will be very happy this week!
Early sneak peeks have gone out, which is nice. And I've demo'ed for some other folks. It's pretty sweet.
But... the Privacy Policy and TOS weren't revised. Billboard wasn't read. The Survey wasn't reviewed. And the marketing plan wasn't written. Shiiiiiiiiiit.
Other random stuff that wasn't listed that were dealt with:
- My business account for YouPhonics was finally opened. So I can finally start tracking the books outside of a sub-chequing account.
- Major progress was made on finishing tweaks for YouPhonics.
- Managed to help an old friend brainstorm over lunch. Which was super-cool.
- Entered Hugh MacLeod's contest for a free cube grenade. I hope YouPhonics' business-cause wins!
- Prepared a bit more for the YouPhonics Launch Party Celebration Festival Deluxe! We now have over 100 RSVPs, which I needed to cap because if the rest of the VIP tickets sell out... well, we'll be a full house.
- Started preparing for a big young-entrepreneurs event I'll soon be organizing in Montreal.
- Read a lot in my away-from-the-laptop time. This whole iPod Touch + Instapaper thing is GENIUS.
Finally, some quick notes on a meeting I had last night:
Last night, I ended up hanging out with M, who I was introduced to by C at an event a couple of weeks ago. M's a cool guy who built a piece of software (or, rather, algorithm?) that's immensely complementary to YouPhonics' vision and business model. Which is why C introduced us in the first place.
Well, we finally got to sitting down and got to know each other. Heard each other's stories, both personal and business-wise. I totally talked his ear off at some points, because I'm far too ADD in casual conversations to hold an individual story to its main storyline and invariably end up on a tangent at some point. But I digress...
After about an hour of talk, I started feeling that he'd make an amazing Co-Founder for YouPhonics. So, after a few minutes of internal debate ("should I be so forward? Should I keep it to myself?"), I eventually decided to tell him straight-up. "Look, M. The reason I asked you about this whole Co-Founder/Partner thing is because, frankly, I think there's a chance here.
He immediately took a step back. "Look, Aidan. Comparing this to relationships, I don't think what I've been up to is really ready for a commitment."
Understanding what he meant -- because Lord knows that I don't want to rush into it either -- I (hope I) salvaged my position: "M, I understand. If this were a relationship, officially becoming Business Partners would be a marriage. I'm not proposing right now. I'm just saying that, there might be a shot, and I want to make sure that you understand what I might be thinking about next time we hang out. Because I think this is a topic we should visit again."
The impression that I got here was that we both sort of nodded, understood, and moved on. The rest of the conversation went fine.
The point of this story? Simple: I didn't rush into a Co-Founder situation before. I know some super-bright people who would have made awesome tech counterparts. Friends of mine. Music fans. People who I knew I could get along with, at least in the short term.
But a startup never struck me to work like that. I was once brought on as an "executive", then made a "Partner", in a Montreal culture-based e-zine, before e-zines were cool and CMS systems really existed. Hell, I remember seeing Joomla and Wordpress for my first time, then emailing my former partners to bitch about how easy things would have been had this software existed when we started.
Anyway, that team started imploding, then just fizzled. We were friends, but the "company" started as a project, and obviously priorities were elsewhere. And that strained some of our friendships. It sucked.
Because of that experience, I resolved to suffer on my own and find the right partner. Maybe not the perfect partner (you'll never know which one they are... too much hesitation, in my opinion), but a great one who fits.
And, as much as this is me putting my cards on the table... I may have found this person. I hope our friendship, visions, and opportunities develop together some more this next couple of weeks/months!
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Lessons learned:
- Web design/development isn't my forte, and my gauge isn't amazingly developed.
- The iPod Touch is magical, and I should have bought one years ago.
- Being open and honest is a part of me. I should probably reflect some more to make sure I can mediate any negative effects as well as I should be able to!
Weekend homework:
- Revise the Privacy Policy & TOC.
- Pick out the Billboards to bring with me to Toronto, which likely means flipping through most of 'em.
- If I can, take some preliminary looks at the Survey Data.
This needs to be done by Monday morning. The bus ride needs to be all about updating Finances, Marketing, Fundraising follow-ups, and party logistics. Yeeeeeesh.
