Pajama Entrepreneur

One of the fun things about blogging is being famous for … what people think you’re famous for (uncritical fan of any muni Wi-Fi project, Tropos fan girl, whatever). In my case, I built a blog called Muniwireless.com and turned it into a niche tech publishing company (with research products and conferences) with the help of Microcast Communications.

I am, and continue to be, a big fan of cheaper, faster broadband not just for geeks like me, but for everybody. I believe that to achieve fast, cheap ubiquitous broadband (not the 512 Kbps upstream junk that some people love to call broadband) but real broadband that allows high definition happiness via Joost or some other video on demand service, you will need: (a) a regime that has a real broadband policy that encourages competition on the service level and (b) structural separation (or in the interim, local loop unbundling with mix of infrastructure owned not by the same people trying to sell you Internet access). That means some government regulation is needed to ensure competition.

How do you know your home market has crappy broadband (and little competition)? Check out this article: US Broadband Speeds Can’t Support Joost. Replace “US” with the name your country — how fun is that? How does it feel to be a tech backwater falling further behind?

As a small entrepreneur, I am very sensitive to big firms with overwhelming market power squeezing out little gals like me. I am especially furious when big firms use their power to lobby corrupt and/or stupid politicians to devise rules that continue to let them have so much market power that they deprive me and my fellow entrepreneurs of choice — choice of broadband service level and price. That is why I am a big fan of the Amsterdam CityNet FTTH project and many of the fiber projects - private, public and private-public. No one model fits all but you need to think about which model to use to achieve the results you want. You cannot be doctrinaire about it and say “all government intervention is bad”. And I am still not happy with what I consider to be the very slow deployment of FTTH in the Netherlands. Like many governments, there are many in ours who think that it’s enough to have Telco versus Cable. Wrong!

So I am pissed off when a “think tank” residing at Reason.org who is nothing more than a front piece for the lobby-happy telecom industry starts saying that I will start sounding like them. I will slit my own throat before I become a telco sock puppet like them. I posted this comment on their blog:

Actually there is one reason I will never sound like you. I am not a telco sock puppet, like you. Where I live - Amsterdam - we are not waiting for the Invisible Hand to do its job with broadband. Europe is ahead and we are going to have Joost while the rest of America waits to get video on demand. I’m not saying government should do everything (I am an entrepreneur with several other businesses, Muniwireless is just one). I believe in looking at each situation and finding out what works best — sometimes you need more government help, sometimes you don’t. I am not a doctrinaire like you. And I don’t kiss TELCO ass.

I love Wordpress, the software behind this blog and Rosecantine. It’s easy to use, fun and versatile. And there’s a huge community of developers writing widgets and plugins, and creating beautiful templates for it. Mashable posted a list of more than 300 Wordpress tools so if you have not yet bookmarked that page, do so now.

Mashable has just created a Web 2.o marketplace for entrepreneurs who want to find software developers, sell or buy companies, provide development services, etc. Mashable was inspired by the recent trend of companies listing themselves for sale on eBay but apparently, they claim they got more leads from Mashable. Among the categories are websites for sale (and wanted), jobs available (and wanted) Facebook development services, software providers, etc.

Anyone who lists within 48 hours (starting August 14, 2007 — 03:15 AM PDT) gets a free listing. Mashable is thinking of charging $120 per month for listings but they’re open to other suggestions. 

Go to the Mashable Web 2.0 marketplace: http://market.mashable.com/ 

I have joined many social networking sites over the years and I have found all of them to be a waste of time, but in varying degrees, with MySpace being the most useless, followed by Tribe, Friendster and Orkut. I recently joined Facebook because my San Francisco tech buddies are all piling into it. But after a month, I am barely using it. If you have nothing else to do with your time, Facebook and its cousins are perfect.

Linked In is not a social networking site per se because it’s not meant for socializing. Members don’t post racy photos, or indeed any photos at all. It does not ask you to list your hobbies, favorite films and music, or the name of your dog. It’s a business networking service. But it did not work for me so this week, I asked them to delete me from the Linked In database.

What I did not like about Linked In

(1) Endorsement feature needs to be fixed.

I endorsed three people out of my own initiative because I know them well and value their work. However, people I barely know have asked me to endorse them and I am not comfortable with that. Because I am the “face” of Muniwireless and have a high profile in these circles, my endorsement is valuable to many people in the business. I don’t like being pestered for endorsements. I have never asked for one either because I find it too “in your face” and aggressive.

(2) A giant list of connections, yielding nothing.

So I ended up with hundreds of connections. So? What did I do with them? Nothing. Every now and then, I would get an email from Linked In informing me that one or more of my connections updated their profile. I couldn’t care less. If someone I know well and care about updates his or her contact details, I get it by email from the person directly. No need for Linked In to tell me that. Total waste of time.

(3) I have no incentive to share my network.

If the whole point of Linked In is business networking and I have a valuable network especially since I have a high profile in the municipal broadband space, what incentive is there for me to share my network with people on Linked In? I couldn’t find any so I left.

Time to declutter

I am presently decluttering my life - removing useless blogs from my RSS newsreader, deleting old files and emails, unsubscribing from mailing lists. Linked In fell into that category called Clutter. To their credit, they responded immediately to my request:

Thank you for contacting LinkedIn Customer Service. We have removed your account and all associated information. Since your account is now closed, you will no longer receive emails through LinkedIn or be able to log into the LinkedIn system. You can reactivate your LinkedIn account by contacting Customer Service.

Technorati Tags: linked in, social networks

The New York Times has an article called Can Blogs Become a Big Source of Jobs which talks about bloggers who get paid to write articles on global blog networks such as b5media (based in Toronto) and those who use blogs to get more business. Consultants and entrepreneurs can attract new business using blogs. Indeed, startups today have blogs to communicate with their users.

The NYT article has not hit on anything new. Many people are already familiar with WeblogsInc (which Jason Calacanis sold to AOL for $25 million) and the fact that they pay bloggers to write about particular subjects. Weblogsinc is an aggregation of blogs on topics ranging from automobiles to gadgets. I am a long-time reader of Engadget and the guy who writes it, Pete Rojas, is well-known in tech circles.

B5media is similar to WeblogsInc because they cover a wide range of topics and run ads across them. The bloggers get a bonus based upon the number of people who read their articles.

While being paid by someone to write a blog is a way to make money from blogging, I did things differently with Muniwireless.com. I set up my own blog and in the beginning, got advertisers for the site myself. Two years ago, I partnered with Microcast Communications to take Muniwireless.com to the next level: conferences, seminars, webinars and a magazine. I went beyond just blogging and with partners, created a small media company.

In all the articles I have read about the business of blogging or bloggers making a living, they never talk about this option. It’s a viable one.

Read my series on how to turn your blog into a media company.

The path I have chosen is not for everyone. It takes a lot of time to set up a blog and maintain it, especially if you host it yourself. Most bloggers go with Blogger.com, Wordpress.com or Typepad. Getting advertising is also not for everyone. It’s time consuming and most people don’t even know where to start. Signing up with a blog network such as B5Media or Weblogsinc may be the best way to make a living through blogging.

We all know the feeling of being confronted with too many options: useless features in software programs, buttons on remote controls and VCRs, to name a few. But what happens with too many bells and whistles make you actually hate the core product?

BMW

For several years now my BMW (a 320i from 1999 with less than 54,000 km) has had a recurring problem which no one can seem to fix. It does not happen all the time, in fact it happens only sporadically. I am driving at low speeds (below 50 mph) and the car loses power and just comes to a stop. I turn the ignition, the car starts again. Why does it stop? Who knows? The local BMW repair shop can’t figure it out either. They replaced something once, another time they said they could not find what was wrong. Here’s the problem with this car and most cars today: they have become so complicated that mechanics have to hook them up to computer to figure out what to do. The electrical system, the software, the transmission and whatever they could dream of “improving” in that car have led to this level of complexity where something breaks and no one can figure out what it is, let alone fix it.

All I want is a vehicle that takes me safely from point A to point B. This car is unreliable. That’s inexcusable for something that costs a lot of money. But car manufacturers just keep adding “features” to justify the price increases every year. The customer’s real needs are irrelevant.

Yo! Sushi

Yo Sushi is a sushi restaurant in London with lots of branches, one at Gatwick Airport. It’s known for the bar with a conveyor belt that goes around carrying little dishes bearing various sushi concoctions. You sit at the bar and when you see a dish go by, you pick it up if you like it. A very entertaining and quick sushi meal.

Back in 2001, all you could get was what they had on the conveyor belt, plus minor side orders such as green tea and miso soup. Today they have a thick menu that you can order from in addition to the dishes on the belt. The problem is that when people order from the menu, they expect their orders to appear promptly. But the restaurant is staffed not for this. So the last time I had lunch at Yo Sushi in Selfridges department store (London), the man sitting next to me complained to the manager that his soup and his wife’s salad failed to materialize. I had trouble getting anyone’s attention just to order green tea.

At the Gatwick Airport Yo Sushi branch, the plates were filthy and indeed, the customer sitting next to me asked to see the manager and complained loudly about reporting them to the health department.

If Yo Sushi had limited itself to providing only the dishes on the conveyor belt - no extra menu - they would have been able to handle the number of customers during busy times. And people would have been satisfied because they know that the only dishes available are those on the conveyor belt and they’d stick to eating those. As it is, Yo Sushi promises too much, and disappoints.

Bloated Software

The biggest offenders are software companies that just keep adding more and more features to their software - not features demanded by users, just stuff they decided to throw in because well, they’re putting out version 10 so it should have additional stuff. The “features for the sake of features” mentality is so deeply engrained in the tech industry that it’s refreshing to see someone go against the tide: 37 Signals. They are a web design firm that has gone into web application development. Their online applications - Basecamp, High Rise, Campfire and Backpack - are used by thousands of people (including myself), not just web developers.

Less is more

Their book Getting Real is a must-read for all entrepreneurs. You can get it here (buy the PDF, buy the book or read it online for free). Here’s an excerpt from the introduction:

Want to build a successful web app? Then it’s time to Get Real. Getting Real is a smaller, faster, better way to build software.

• Getting Real is about skipping all the stuff that represents real (charts, graphs, boxes, arrows, schematics, wireframes, etc.) and actually building the real thing.
• Getting real is less. Less mass, less software, less features, less paperwork, less of everything that’s not essential (and most of what you think is essential actually isn’t).

Now, if only BMW and Yo Sushi had read this . . .

Here are the first eight chapters on turning your blog into a media company. They are based on my experience as the founder of Muniwireless.com.

Part 1: birth of Muniwireless

Part 2: first year of Muniwireless

Part 3: finding a business model

Part 4: the Ninth Circle of Hell

Part 5: becoming a niche online publisher

Part 6: miracles happen in laundromats

Part 7: getting readers, rising high on search engines

Part 8: Microcast tells how to grow a blog into a media company

I will be posting more in the next few weeks. If you have questions, please post in the comments section below.