8700, my old friend
Managed to get back up and connected with my old BlackBerry 8700 that seems to have been passed through the office. While the 8700 is chunkier it immediately feels easier to use than the smaller and newer BB 8310 Curve. The click wheel is much more natural to use than the trackball and the keys are better spaced.
When submitting my Curve for repair our tech guru Keith quipped … you may have exceeded the lifetime number of messages a blackberry can send.
I got a cheap phone in Queenstown to get by for a couple of days and it was awful having to do txt on a kybrd. Smartphones are so much easier to communicate with.
Quite liked the accounting analysis of the rail purchase from Craig Foss.
Dr Electoral Expense $235m
Dr NZ Rail Network $430m
Cr NZ Taxpayer $665m
Just into a multiday trip and my BlackBerry died. No email, no phone, blank screen.
I haven’t not been continuously connected for 5 years. This is very weird.
To avoid throwing up I’ll try to treat it as an experience. No mobile for 2 days. Don’t like it.
Responding to a comment on my last post. All companies should have a concise company summary. When you are making contact, especially over email, it’s essential you present clearly who you are.
So you get the idea, here is a sample one that we use for Xero.
Whenever I send an email to a person I haven’t met before I normally attach this so they can see who we are. We do a slightly different one for the UK.
I did a session last night at an AngelHQ event on the subject of DD. I’ve been through a few of those. Phil from Movac spoke and gave a great perspective of DD from an Angels perspective. I’m usually the DD’ee not the DD’or.
Andrew Simmonds from SimmondsStewart had some great practical advice during the sessions. Andrew and Victoria have done lots of Angel investment work and really understand all the issues around startups so I recommend you talk with them when you get set up. They can work you through Shareholders agreements and all the other legal things you need to get sorted.
DD is a fact of life for small companies so my advice is to understand it from day one and always be ready for DD. Having all of your information to hand is a good discipline for business owners to get into.
I’ve used John Horner from Quigg Partners as well on a number of DD projects. John was happy for me to post this DD checklist so you can see the sort of things you need to think about.
Quigg Partners sample DD checklist
For me the main things an early stage tech company should keep on file are:
- All material contracts
- Shareholders agreement and constitution
- Employment contracts
- A register of all 3rd party components you use and their licenses
- Any NDA’s (you are dumb enough to sign)
- Board minutes
- Financials for each month (easy in Xero)
You can now export any of your reports in Xero to Google Docs.
As we’re getting there with the core accounting functionality we’re now able to get some of the really cool things we’ve been wanting to for a while into the product.
Another cool thing we’re done recently is integration with other SaaS providers. It was good to work with the iPayroll team who helped us test our API functionality. Here is the combined help for Xero + iPayroll.
It’s magical to see complex business data moving automatically and securely between systems and really shows how we can use technology to make things easier for small businesses.
You can have a look at the API at http://network.xero.com. We provide a partner test rig so that it’s easy for other companies to develop and debug their interface with us.
Congrats to Wellington game guru’s Sidhe shipping Speedracer.
Sidhe shifts a gear with Speed Racer
Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment Presents Speed Racer - the Videogame
As a developer of business software I’m in awe of how much work must go into a video game.
Astoria is my least favourite Wellington Cafe. They have deliberate designed their customer experience to be annoying.
- No Trim milk. I’ve been asking for 8 years. Every second person asks. “No we don’t do that”. Grrrr.
- Please wait for your coffee. WTF ?!?!. I have an important meeting with my guest waiting at the table while I’m wasting 5-7 mins waiting for a surly barista to make the coffee. I’m seething. If there was an Astoria doll I’d be putting pins in it.
Astoria has had this feedback for years, yet value their processes above their customers.
Voting with feet. Never going back.
NZ Internet identity Peter Mott of 2day fame (sold to ICONZ a few years ago) is back in the market with a new hosted service based on virtualization.
Swizzle Business Model
Simple and practical
Like an ocean going yacht, we have two or more of everything that’s important, and things that are not so important don’t exist.
This means you don’t pay for unnessary frills, and what you do pay for stays running.
Core ingredients
- HP Proliant DL series servers
- VMware ESXi Hardware virtualisation
- The Swizzle web site
HP enterprise-class servers, especially with the amount of processor, memory, disk and redundant options we run in them, are often well beyond the budget of a small business.
Fortunately, with the aid of hardware virtualisation we can slice them into a number of smaller servers (virtual machines) and rent them to you at prices that fit your IT budget.
Apple’s iPhone to be offered in NZ
Well that happened faster that expected.
If you think the iPhone is a break through device, like I do, then this is a very significant announcement for the local mobile industry.
Previously the Vodafone Global CEO has ruled out the Apple dance. So it appeared that Telecom NZ had a great chance to scoop an exclusive iPhone deal.
The first wave of the carrier deals done by Apple favoured the challenger carrier that did not have an investment in content. Locally Vodafone is doing a roaring trade here on music downloads so getting the iPhone would mean some complex business issues.
In contrast Telecom had everything to gain.
As the mobile challenger launching a new, non differentiated, network the iPhone would have given Telecom a big leg up, made it instantly cool, and provided instant content. Having iPhone pricing in the product line up would have been useful alongside expensive world mode phones. Telecom would have had an easier job rebuilding their brand around an exclusive iPhone deal.
While a positive step for Vodafone the marginal benefit to them is much less than the marginal loss to Telecom.
So Vodafone needs to work out what iPhone/iTunes means to it’s current services. Telecom missed an awesome opportunity. It would be interesting to know how far into it they got. Would be tough being a single carrier from NZ competing against a multi-country Vodafone group.
For content developers I hope we see a Vodafone partnering program that provides an opportunity to develop here and use the Vodafone global network as a channel to market.
This is a significant event for the industry.
I’m fascinated by corporate communications. Steve’s note to Jerry is fantastic.
Microsoft Withdraws Proposal to Acquire Yahoo!
Allow me to paraphase it:
Dear Jerry,
Here is a letter that I’m sending to the world so I’ll start off really nice.
Your shareholders would have made lots of money from our offer.
We upped our offer which demonstrates we were willing to do a deal.
You put yourself ahead of your shareholders and therefore they will sue you.
Here is all the ammunition they need for suing you.
- Your strategy is bad for Yahoo
- Your key staff will leave
- No one else could buy you, so your shareholders really lost out
- You are handing the market to Google
- Just repeating, no one else could buy you, so your shareholders really lost out
Your stock will tank on Monday. Did I mention that your shareholders should sue you?
Look forward to watching you deal with that.
Steven
A few people have asked what was behind our name change announcement to the NZX yesterday.
MARKET RELEASE
1 May 2008
Xero is pleased to announce that its legal name has changed from Xero Live Limited to Xero Limited.
Background
When Xero was founded one of its early tasks was to find a .com internet address that was suitable for building a global brand. It had to be short, meaningful, memorable and be able to stand alongside existing brands in the business software space like SAP and MYOB.
Since its inception, Xero’s core brand has been based on the name Xero. This is reflected in its web address and its award-winning accounting software is also called Xero.
The directors were delighted to secure xero.com, but as Xero Limited was not available at the New Zealand Companies Office, they chose Xero Live Limited as the company’s legal name.
Recently the name Xero Limited became available, and has been secured. This tidies up an inconsistency and ticks off another small objective.
I was surprised the media picked it up but there is a back story that highlights a common startup issue.
When we started Xero (before it was called Xero) we needed a name. This was back in our rented week-to-week apartment in Willis Street. We actually registered Accounting 2.0 as a bit of a placeholder. Everyone (but me) hated it but time was ticking by and we still didn’t have a name.
As anyone who has started a web business knows, the biggest constraint in picking a name is picking a .com address. You have to have a good .com. For us with global aspirations we needed a great .com. We wanted it to be short, meaningful, memorable. SAP was taken and the likelihood of getting a good 3 letter .com was low. Ideally we wanted a 4 or 5 letter .com. We imagined where would be a few years ahead and wanted a domain that we wouldn’t be embarrassed of.
A friend of mine, Dot from KeyLogix, is a great .com finder and procurer. After looking at hundreds of .coms Dottie thought of zero.com and quickly found it was US100k to even start the conversation. Then she found xero.com and we loved it. Xero is a name that met our criteria, had a bit of x-factor (obviously) and we could build a brand around it.
Xero.com was not used by an active business but by a designer in New York. Dot built the relationship and a deal was struck over about a month. We appreciated the vendor listening to our story and making it work at a reasonable price. The actual purchase was handled over escrow.com and was very smooth.
After all that work we were gutted that Xero Limited was already taken at the New Zealand companies office. It must have been at the time when Windows Live was being talked about so the name Xero Live was chosen, but it was always a pain that our official name was Xero Live Limited.
Our eagle eyed Chairman spotted earlier this week that the company name Xero Limited had come free and within a day we’d changed our name to what we wanted at the beginning. So now we’ll ripple it through the NZX etc and see if we can get our newspaper stock page entry changed.
Since being Xero we found a MNVO in the US was called Xero Mobile and there is a comic book character called Xero as well.
Anyone got any other naming stories?
Just upgraded my data card.
My Telecom 3G MiniMax finally gave up the ghost. The MiniMax has been great for the last year or so but as is often the case for early adopters it became an unsupported orphan. The mobile stores didn’t really know about them, the reseller doesn’t support them anymore and drivers are hard to find.
But anyway, I’ve upgraded to the new Sierra Wireless Rev A card. Installation was a snap from the Sierra Wireless site - they had Telecom specific drivers. And the Rev A speeds are noticeably faster.
The flip out USB bit works on a MacBookAir.
Very happy so far.
I hate
- buying printer cartridges.
- their razor and razor blades model which means that the cartridge you get with the printer lasts the shorter of 10 pages or 10 days.
- that Dick Smith never has the cartridge numbers you need even though you just brought the printer from them a month ago.
- you have to remember those stupid numbers
- the numbers they give you don’t match the numbers on the cartridges at the shop
- the shelf order in the shop makes no sense
- that each manufacturer has their own cartridge format
I had my Freeview boxed installed today, in time to watch Boston Legal in HD.
It was impressive. First up 3 News was clear and solid. The pictures flipped from wide to 4:3 frequently but the aspect looked good all the time.
Boston Legal looked great. It was a bit strange being able to see the make up on Denny. Shirley definitely looked a bit older in HD.
The little ‘uns are excited about Kids Zone.
It’s all about trade off’s. Watch Boston Legal in HD and watch ads. Or time shift normal TV and no ads on MySky.
I’m pretty sure that Sky won’t let you record their HD shows either so the dilemma will continue. Time Shifting is far more useful that HD.
The Freeview box isn’t as ugly as expected but the remote is cheap and nasty. The UI is pretty raw and EPG seemed to be an hour out on some modes. Another remote and set of instructions joins the coffee table and the grandmother babysitter has zero chance of turning the system on by herself.
If you have a flatscreen with HDMI, FreeView is a no brainer, even if just for Kids Zone. I suspect many will extend their stacks and have both FreeView and MySky HD.
Broadcast TV is so broken and so in conflict with consumers. As HD roles out the broadcasters gain a short respite but as the glass arrives near the doorstep the Internet has to win.
There has been a lot of talk about raising productivity in New Zealand.
Forgive my amateur economics here but …
In the software industry productivity is something you can measure easily and I think should be something that software company managers should be very aware of.
The goal of productivity is raising real incomes, for both the business - and as important - for staff.
Many employees would think that improved productivity means that they work harder. To me that is not the point. As managers our challenge is to raise productivity using the resources that are available to us.
A formula for productivity at the dawn of the industrial age might look like this.
Productivity = Labour * Plant Multiplier
If you don’t have any Plant or Equipment then your Plant Multiplier = 1
Productivity = Labour * 1
This is what we have is we just sell time. This is the services industry.
To raise productivity this century the Plant Multiplier is Capital.
Productivity = Labour * Capital
Capital allows us to take the time to build things so that rather than labour hours directly leading to productivity, those labour hours can be used to build earning machines that earn money (and pay tax) themselves.
Earning Machine = Labour * Capital
So
Productivity = Earning Machine * Management Quality
Putting all of this together
Productivity = (Labour * Capital) * Management Quality
In this equation, the two biggest scalars are Capital and Management Quality. So productivity is best influenced by good management. It is a manager’s responsibility to increase productivity and lift labour rates for macroeconomic benefits.
So in the transition from Services to Products a key performance indicator is Revenue Per Employee (or Profit per employee to normalize costs but you know what I mean).
It is a huge milestone for a software company when Revenue Per Employee derived from a Product sales is higher than what the employers chargeable revenue would be. At that point you have crossed the chasm.
The time required to fund the employee to get to that point is the capital required to fund a software company.
So there it is. Mathematical proof that you should be thinking about Productivity.
New Zealand IT personality Brent Baldwin was one of the flyers who died yesterday at the Whenuapai air base doing what he loved doing.
I’ve known Brent since 1999 and had the pleasure of spending a bit of time with him over the last 6 months. So full of life, so enthusiastic, so professional - one of those true gentlemen you enjoy spending time with.
Brent has been on the forefront of Business to Business commerce and procurement for many years and is well known as the commercial guru in this space.
My thoughts are with his family. Brent was one of the good guys and a real loss to the industry.
If you’re anything like me you wake up at 3 in the morning and remember something you haven’t done and often have to get up and do it so you don’t forget again.
I’ve been looking for a Getting Things Done (G-T-D) type application that was fun and easy to use.
I think I found it. Things: http://culturedcode.com/things/
Still in beta but looking good. The Tag based metaphor seems to work.
I’ve assigned Option-T as a hot key to pop up the Quick Entry pane. This makes it real easy to throw in tasks and sort them out later.
I’m enjoying using it and already feel more in control. It has some team functionality that I’ll play with next week and an iPhone version coming so expect it to have a service/sync component.
Metabase is XML so good scope to have fun with that as well.
The phone wars are about to heat up again with the 3G iPhone just around the corner.
The 3G Blackberry has been delayed slightly but their issue will be their browser. No developers I know develop specifically for the BlackBerry browser, but with the iPhone having a mainstream browser you do think about how your app might render on an iPhone.
It also seems that one of the major iPhone developer limitations, the ability for apps to stay resident in the background, has been fixed in the recent sdk builds.
Active Sync makes the iPhone accessible in the Enterprise (some would argue killing Windows Mobile in the process) and we’re starting to see some neat little ‘meshed’ productivity apps coming out that live both on your Mac, Phone and Web like EverNote.
I use a number of BlackBerry apps but they are not as easy to use, and screen constrained.
I still prefer the hard keyboard of the Blackberry but I have both a BB and an iPod Touch with me most of the time. So as apps get delivered on the iPhone I might trade off the keyboard.
I’m sure Apple has learned a lot about their soft keyboard over the last year so seeing how that performs in the new version of iPhone software will be interesting.
I had the dubious honor of judging at the half baked challenge last night.
In a ‘least worst’ decision the Silicon Welly All Star Team took it out. This is a group of people that you wouldn’t want to get trapped in a lift with. Their idea made little sense but they did manage to take at the prize primarily due to their gratuitous use of powerpoint (keynote).
While more fairer on the eye the much fancied Code Blacks made almost no sense at all. There pitch was so nebulous it was hard to find something solid to criticize, but at least the 4 attempts to try to save the the pitch provided some satisfyingly cringeworthy moments.
The highlight of the presentations was the ‘post hockey stick’ revenue curve presented by the Silicon Welly team.
That was cool. (Thanks GregD).
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