MyPunchblog

This post was written by Matt Douglas, Founder & CEO. Follow Matt Douglas on Twitter

There are so many things to do in a given work day. One of the most important things you can need to do is figure out some things to ignore. Here’s a suggestion: ignore the competition.

Yes, you could study the competitors product, analyze their marketing, and deconstruct their strengths and weaknesses. Or you could simply focus on what you can control, build a product that you love to use, and do your best to delight your customers. There is no one in the world who knows the problems and opportunities of your product better than you. You don’t need your competition to help you build a better product. Who cares what the competition is doing if you are building a product that your customers want?

Here are 5 reasons you should ignore the competition:

1. You have limited resources. Put your energy into building a better product and satisfying more customers.
2. You can’t control the competition. Put your energy into things you can control.
3. Your customers don’t care about the competition. All they care about is solving their problem. Are you solving it for them?
4. It’s too easy to be influenced by what the competition is doing. Stay on your course.
5. You won’t innovate if you are influenced by your competitors. Build something new and different — that’s innovation.

So, do we follow this advice at MyPunchbowl? I’ll say this: I used to spend a lot more time in the past looking at the competition. These days it’s only a quick glance once in a while. We have far more opportunities when we simply focus on what we can control and build a product that people love to use.

What do you think? Should we pay more attention to the competition? Why or why not?

This post was written by Matt Douglas, Founder & CEO

If you don’t want to read this post, then just head right over to Twitter and follow Matt Douglas on Twitter. Otherwise, read on for a few reasons why you might want to follow me on Twitter…

After months of watching Twitter from the sidelines, I’ve decided to start using Twitter on a daily basis. I’ll write more in a future blog post about why I decided now was the right time to integrate Twitter into my daily life. I’m going to try this for at least a month and see how it enhances my connections to customers, partners, and others in the industry.  To motivate you, here are a few reasons to follow me on Twitter.

5 Reasons to follow @mattdouglas on Twitter

1. Learn what it takes to run a consumer internet startup in convenient 140 character snippets
2. Read my brutally honest opinion about new developments in the web industry. I promise to be harsh whenever possible for your amusement.
3. Receive links to interesting websites and useful blog posts
4. Hear inside details about new features and functionality on MyPunchbowl
5. Get some daily amusement with my random musings about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness

Whether you are a customer, partner, friend (or foe), I hope that you will take a moment to follow me on Twitter: Matt Douglas on Twitter.

This post written by Stephanie Fader, Marketing & PR Manager

I’ve been at MyPunchbowl for almost five months and I’m happy to say that I finally ordered my business cards–yesterday. You might be wondering what took so long…

It goes back to my first or second day when I asked Matt about my phone. Until only recently the company had just one phone with one line. Unfathomable, right? But with only a handful of employees, most of whom had no need for a phone, there wasn’t really much need for more than one line. And as an internet company, shouldn’t we do most of our business online anyway? Matt thought about my question, looked at me and said, “Now you know what it’s like to work at a start-up.”

While I’ve been able to manage without my own line, it was clear that we needed to resolve the issue of the phones. But who would do it? We don’t have a dedicated office manager to take care of these things. Should the CEO spend his time on this issue? Or the engineers whose time is precious. Somehow I ended up with the undesirable task of figuring out the company’s phone system.

After considering landlines, cell phones, and other services, we ended up choosing VoIP with Packet8. So far so good. We’re still working out the kinks regarding the number of lines we actually need, conference call needs, etc.  But it is nice to finally have a phone at my desk!

And I’m still learning what it means to work at a start-up but having this experience early on prepared me for what to expect.

As you can imagine, we get a lot of salespeople trying to sell us one thing or another. Pretty much every day of the week our phone rings off of the hook with salespeople trying to sell us everything from hardware servers to recruiting services — and even some folks trying to sell us buildings. It gets tiring after a while to listen to these sales pitches. Each salesperson thinks they are unique in their approach, and some salespeople just don’t know how to take “no” for an answer.

In the past I sold software, so I have some experience in cold-call sales. At the time, I was told that I was a natural at selling, and the numbers seemed to prove that. I financed most of the bill from my last year of college on commissions I had made over the previous summer. That doesn’t make me an expert, but I do have a basic understanding of how to conduct sales in an effective way.

So in that spirit, I offer a list of advice for all of the salespeople who are calling on Punchbowl Software these days:

1. Don’t call on the day when company news hits the wires (for example, when we announce funding). This is the worst possible time to call. We’re already busy enough with press and other folks calling us. Rule of thumb: call one week *after* we announce big news. You’re much more likely to have success by waiting.
2. Do some basic research on our company’s website. Don’t call the office and ask to speak with the person in charge of hiring .Net or Java developers (we are a Ruby on Rails shop). If you can’t take 3 minutes to do some basic research, don’t waste our time (or yours) with a sales call.
3. Take 2 minutes to sign up for a free MyPunchbowl account before you pick up the phone to call. You will be able to start the phone call by saying “I just signed up for a MyPunchbowl account, and I’d like to talk to you about how we can help you.” You’re much more likely to get my attention with this approach (one note: please spare me the over-the-top praise about the site. I’m glad you like it, but it’s not going to impact whether or not we engage with you).
4. Don’t call and ask to speak with one of the engineers. Our developers are too busy to take your sales call, and it’s unlikely they will purchase your service anyway. Asking for one of our engineers is a dead giveaway that you’re trying to sell us something that we don’t need.
5. Don’t call and ask for the IT Department, Marketing Department, or HR Department. Do some basic research and you’ll quickly learn that we are very small startup and we don’t have departments. The most likely person to answer the phone is me — the CEO.
6. Don’t call and ask for one of our remote employees. I understand that you have no idea who works at the office but we’re a very small company, so ask to speak with the CEO.
7. Tell me upfront that this is a sales call, and you’re more likely to get my attention. Be ready with the 30 second pitch, and try not to use jargon and buzzwords.
8. It’s ok to ask if you can follow up with me in the future, but be willing to take “no” for an answer. I don’t want to waste your time with a lead that is not going to end up in a sale. I hope you will respect my time as well.
9. If you engage with one of us, be ready with a trial offer. We’re a startup, so we’re looking for vendors who are willing to stretch to meet our short-term budgetary constraints. If you get our business at this early-stage, we’re likely to grow with you as we have more money to spend.
10. Do the proper follow-up by email. Ask me for the best email address for follow-up and I’ll gladly give it to you.
11. Don’t bother sending anything by U.S. mail unless it is really unique and interesting. It won’t help convince me to use your services.
12. Do not — under any circumstance — come by the office unannounced. It’s inconsiderate and inappropriate, and will ensure that we never use your service. Call (or email) us to see if we would be interested in having a salesperson stop by before you decide to stop by the office.

I’ll keep adding to this list as I think of others. I understand that sales can be a tough and often frustrating job. We’ll do our best to listen to your pitch, but please respect our time. I hope this advice will help anyone who is calling on Punchbowl Software.

Last week, we announced a brand new version of MyPunchbowl which includes a fantastic feature called MyPunchbowl Design Studio. We’re really happy with the new version, and our customers love it.

Since our new version is complete, we’ve been spending a lot of time planning the next version(s) of MyPunchbowl. I’m fond of saying that “we have a feature list that extends from Boston to Los Angeles” Over the last week, I’ve been on the receiving end of a slew of feature requests from our customers, our friends & family, our employees, our partners, and our investors. It’s fascinating to hear from all of the various people. Each person explains why they believe that the feature they suggested should be the most important priority for MyPunchbowl. Everyone has “must-have” features or functionality, and everyone has a items on their list that are priority #1.

Here’s the problem: everything can’t be priority #1, In my years of managing software development teams, I’ve learned that you can’t just add more people to build software faster. The hard part of software development is thinking through the design issues, carefully considering how the feature will scale over time, and providing yourself enough time to adjust the implementation when you see the first iteration of the feature working. Great products are built carefully, with careful thought before implementation and ample time to test and iterate before unveiling it to customers.

I can always tell apart the people who have developed software in their past from the people who haven’t developed software. Those who haven’t ask questions like “Is it possible to do XYZ” (in software, it’s almost always possible to do anything with infinite time and talent). Those who haven’t ask for endless features and say things like “That feature shouldn’t be that hard.” Contrast that with those who have software development experience: They ask thoughtful questions about feature implementation — for example “How will this feature work for existing users?” and “How does this feature impact other features around it?”

Everything can’t be priority #1. Whether you have a small team or a large team, you have to make a priority list — an actual priority list, numbered 1-xxx. Force yourself to answer the question: what’s the most important thing on the list? What is 2nd most important?

Even the best development team can only work on one thing at a time. Each developer needs their own priority list — also numbered 1-xxx. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that you can have more than one priority at a time. This is how we successfully developed the MyPunchbowl Design Studio: by creating a priority list of functionality for that feature. I’ve witnessed the difference between development teams that know how to make priority lists and those that don’t. Those that don’t take on too much too fast and end up shipping a product that isn’t ready for primetime.

If you’re on the receiving end of a feature request list that extends from Boston to LA (like I am these days), prioritize everything and make sure your team does the same. Remember: everything can’t be priority #1. Repeat that to yourself and keep repeating it to all of the people around you.

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Use MyPunchbowl for your Halloween party planning and Halloween party invitations

Most people that have worked with me know that I used to be an expert on the Mac. My first real job in high school was for a company named Specular International, a developer of 3D graphics and animation software for the Mac. From 1992-1998, I learned how to manage the inner-workings of a Mac. I mastered the operating system and learned how to add video boards and memory inside the machine. While an intern at Specular, I was the sole person in charge of a series of seminars around the country at Apple Market Centers. During college, I used a Mac exclusively. After I joined Specular full-time, and later when the company was sold to MetaTools, I used a Mac. I was a fan of the Mac and I knew it inside and out.

When I joined Adobe in early 1998, I was given a IBM Thinkpad and I had a Mac desktop. The product I managed, Adobe Premiere, was a big success on the Mac. It was built on top of Apple Quicktime, so I got to know the team at Apple pretty well. During this time, I learned the basics of the Windows OS, but I was no expert. Even so, I was happy with my Thinkpad. After about 2 years at Adobe, I upgraded to the latest and greatest Thinkpad.

I left Adobe and went to business school at the University of North Carolina — and continued to use a Thinkpad. By this point, I had suffered lots of problems with configuration settings, internet connectivity and other Windows idiosyncrasies but I dealt with them. For Windows, it was par for the course. After business school, I joined Bose Corporation. Another Thinkpad.

Fast forward to when I bought my first computer for Punchbowl. By this point, I had been using Windows (and related applications) for more than 9 years. I had lots of data from various programs, and I didn’t even consider switching to a Mac. Even though I continued to have typical Windows problems that I couldn’t fix, I didn’t even give it much thought. So I bought a Lenovo Thinkpad T61.

Over the last several months, things have changed. Here’s a partial list of some of the problems I’ve had with my Lenovo Thinkpad:

1. Problems with docking station. Often when I undock and redock, I’ll get a blue screen of death (known issue)
2. Constant problems connecting to wireless networks (many times a day I have to repair my connection for no apparent reason)
3. Internet Explorer 7 crashes. A lot.
4. Display driver problems when connecting to an external monitor (everyday, I have to run the display wizard to get the resolutions correct)
5. External peripherals stop working (like my USB drive)
6. Battery problems: Replaced the battery after only 6 months. New battery runs hot.
7. Overall slowness and unusability (CPU idling very high even though nothing is running)
8. Increase in spyware and malicious viruses (virus software often interrupting my work)

Yesterday morning (Saturday) I sat down to do some work. As soon as I touched my computer, I got a blue screen. I have no idea why. So I restarted my machine, and attempted to undock it from its docking station. Another blue screen. After another restart, I got it working again. And then it struck me: I don’t want to put up with this anymore. With the whole day in front of me, I set out to do the unthinkable. I decided to switch back to the Mac.

Switching back to the Mac is not something I take lightly. In fact, over the past several weeks, I had been jotting down notes about what it would take for me to switch. I have thousands of contacts, many data files from various programs, and numerous peripherals. This was going to be a big task.

Armed with my list of information, I went to the Apple store in Natick, MA. I spent about an hour and a half with a well-trained salesperson as I went through all of my issues. He had excellent answers for some of my thorny issues. So I plunked down my credit card and walked out of the store with a brand new MacBook Pro. I was on my way.

What transpired over the next ~ 10 hours was a massive switch to the Mac. Here is a rundown of how it went down (and roughly how long it took to get everything working).

1. Initial Mac setup: Went very smoothly. Found my network quickly (20 min)
2. Internet browsers and bookmarks: Installed Firefox 3 and Yahoo Toolbar (15 min)
3. Installed Microsoft Office: Installation got hung on font installs, had to reinstall. (25 min)
4. Installed Glance for screen sharing (10 min)
5. Installed Adobe Web Collection (includes Acrobat Professional). Very slow install. (40 min)
6. Spent some more time configuring the Mac: personal settings etc (30 min)
7. Attach/reattach external monitor, configure settings. This worked really well, and I’m so happy that it will be easy to connect and reconnect quickly (20 min).
8. Installed Palm Desktop (for use with my Treo 650). Went smoothly, but software is very different so took some time getting use to it (45 min)
9. Office printer configuration: awesome (5 min)
10. Scansnap 510 (2.5 hours). This was much more difficult. The black version of this device was made ONLY for Windows. Through some internet searching, I found a site that explained how to get the Scansnap to work on the Mac. Sounds crazy, but the solution is to use a Japanese driver and then go through a crazy process to localize that driver into English. A few notes for anyone who is trying to make this work, and running into problems:

    - Make sure you use the correct version of the English driver as explained in the directions. DO NOT use the most recent version! The correct Scanscap Mac driver is English version 21.
    - If you still have Japanese menus and dialogs after you add in the English folder, you will need to find the English folder in EACH and EVERY component and replace EACH of these. There are 3 applications (Folder, Email, Print) and 6 bundles. Do not try and use the same English folder in all of the resources. It won’t work (and I found out the hard way).
    - Read this thread very carefully. It has more information that will get you through this.
11. Flickr Uploadr: easy (5 min)
12. Skype: easy (5 min)
13. Moving all documents from PC to Mac using USB drive (60 min)
14. Buffalo NAS Network Drive. Fairly easy, once I figured out how the Mac sees networks (30 min)
15. Home printer, Dymo Label maker, Photo printer. Easy. (20 min)
16. More personal configuration (1.5 hours)

So there you have it. I’m back on the Mac. I’m very happy with how things are working so far and I especially like how easily the computer wakes up from standby.

I have a few more items still to solve to make my Mac transition complete:

1. Mobile Broadband Card from Sprint (I hope they give me a new one that fits in my Mac)
2. Quicken for home
3. Quickbooks for work
4. Transitioning my iTunes library (it’s already on the network drive, so should be easy)
5. Waiting for Google Picasa to come out for the Mac (should be soon)
6. Carbonite Backup (I sent a note to the CEO of Carbonite asking to be added to the Mac beta program, we’ll see what comes of that)
7. I need an extra Mac power cord so I don’t have to move the powercord from work to home everyday.

I don’t know if “I’m a Mac” now, but I do know this: after all of the advertisements are over, a computer should just work. My laptop is the center of my work life, and it’s critical that I can rely on it. My new MacBook Pro gives me that confidence.

They say that the “quiet comes before the storm.” And indeed, in many cases that is true. Why is it that things are quiet before something big happens? Here are a few possible reasons:

• It’s nature’s way of preparing for what’s about to happen (for example, in the case of a hurricane)
• The human body auto-regulates to make sure it has enough energy to get through the excitement (part of the fight or flight response, but prior to the adrenaline kicking in).
• You specifically schedule a quiet period to give yourself time to prepare
• You shift your priorities temporarily (because you know that your full attention will soon be required)
• Life gets too damn busy to have much time for anything else

Over the last few weeks, it’s been a combination of all of the above for me. I haven’t had much time for blogging (thank you to the people who wrote to me asking me to post more). I’ve taken some time to rest, and luckily the world around me has cooperated. And in the lead up to this something big, I’ve been busy preparing. I shifted my priorities, scheduled quiet times in my life, and have also had periods of time where I was overwhelmed with all of the work and responsibilities that this job often brings. In particular, the last week has been pretty much all-consuming, but I can now see the light at the end of the tunnel. Our “something big” is soooo close.

So what is the “something big” that is about to happen for Punchbowl Software? You’ll have to wait to find out.

A few weeks ago, I was at an epic Red Sox game. If you follow baseball, perhaps you heard about it. In the bottom of first inning, the Red Sox scored 10 runs. Yes, 10 runs. David Ortiz (aka “Big Papi”) was up twice in the inning, and he hit two 3 run home runs — in the same inning! Absolutely incredible.

I’ve seen a lot of baseball games in my lifetime. So when I turned to my sister-in-law in the bottom of the third (with the score now 12-2) and proclaimed that the Red Sox would likely hold on and win the game, I don’t think it was unreasonable for me to jump to that conclusion. Boy was I wrong.

Apparently the Texas Rangers didn’t get that memo. In the top of the 5th inning, the Rangers put on a hitting display and scored 8 runs. The very next inning, they scored 5 more — to make the score 15-14 and take the lead. Stunning.

So how did it all end? The Red Sox battled back with 4 runs in the bottom of the 8th to reclaim the lead, and hung on (barely) to win the game 19-17. That’s 36 runs on 37 hits. It tied an American League record for most runs scored in one game. Take a look at the final box score to get a sense of the unbelieveable comeback by the Rangers — 13 runs in 2 innings!

Most reasonable people would have drawn the same conclusion as I did in the 3rd inning. The Red Sox had already pulled off an amazing feat — 10 runs in one inning — no one could possibly match them, right?

The same can be said about many web businesses. The pundits of the web have declared over and over again that certain websites have such a large lead on their competition that they will never be beat. I remember distinctly meeting some of the original employees of Google back in 1999 (I was living in Palo Alto at the time where Google was founded). My reaction was typical. “Why do we need another search engine?” I asked the guy with the Google t-shirt. With Yahoo, AltaVista, Lycos, AOL ahead of them, there is simply no way that Google could catch up… right?

In Google’s case, not only did they catch up, but they took the lead. However, the real moral of my story is this: although the Red Sox won the game, Texas scored a hell of a lot of runs. They played a great game, and were successful in their own right. Startups (and business in general) are the same. You don’t have to win the overall game to win. If you can follow the leader (and keep pace), you’ll build a very successful business and score a lot of “runs.” I’m sure that the Rangers wanted to win the game, but I’d bet that they were very pleased with the game that they played.  

If you have a startup, don’t listen to all of the %@#^* pundits who proclaim that the competition has such a huge lead that it’s not worth playing the game. Remember, the game is 9 innings long. Focus on what you need to do to be successful, and stop looking at the scoreboard. Who knows? You may find yourself successful in your own right — and maybe you’ll even take the lead.

What other examples on the web come to mind? Facebook and MySpace? Flickr and Kodak Easyshare? Who else? Add your thoughts to the comments.

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Love MyPunchbowl? Tell your friends.

It’s hard to believe, but we’ve been in our new offices for more than six months now. When we first moved in, we had no furniture. In fact, on the first day of our new office, the team spent the morning at IKEA buying furniture. That afternoon we set it all up. It’s interesting to look around the office and see some of the things that we bought that day that we still don’t use (desk organizers) and see some of the things we use alot (our coffee table in the lounge). I know IKEA is known for cheap home furniture, but every startup should head to IKEA when they are starting out. We outfitted our entire office for less than $1500. That’s about $250 per employee. Not too bad.

With all of that money we saved from our IKEA furniture, we wanted to spice up the office. We were inspired by some of the pictures we saw on a blog post from our friends over at Xobni. So a few months ago, we added our most important piece of office equipment. You see, we do a lot of design reviews and often have the need to gather around a large monitor. Our developers have nice large monitors, but it’s not really convenient to have a large group sit around their desks. We knew that we had to do something. And there was only one reasonable solution: head to Costco to pick up a useful piece of electronics to hang on the wall. Others may colloquially call it a “TV” but we’ve been instructed by our accountant to call it a “large display monitor” (that way it can be filed under “furniture and fixtures”). And of course, we never ever watch any TV on it…. really….

Here it is, in all of it’s glory (note the computer hookup that proves we really do use it for work purposes!):

Truth be told, we use it quite a bit for design review meetings and when we’re reviewing open development issues. It’s nice to be able to gather around the screen and comfortably sit back and have a discussion. After a few days of using our new 46 inch flat screen TV we officially declared that it was a worthwhile (and not just fun) purchase. 

The hardest part about all of this for me is that our office TV is nicer than the one I have at home. Perhaps it’s time to upgrade my large display monitor at home? I bought my current TV in 2003, right after I finished school. In “TV years” that makes my TV about 45 years old by my calculation…. perhaps it really is time. After all, football season is coming…

If you ever get a chance to visit Punchbowl HQ, make sure to bring some popcorn and other movie snacks. We’ll sit you down in our comfortable IKEA chair, turn the lights down and let you enjoy our large display monitor. Trust me, everything looks better on the large screen.

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Thanks for reading. Love MyPunchbowl? Then use our handy-dandy page to tell your friends about MyPunchbowl.

There a lot of resources on the web for finding jobs, but only a few that are focused specifically on Boston startup jobs.

One such website is one called Genotrope, a creation of Tom Summit. I’ve met Tom at a few Boston events and he’s always been gracious and pleasant. He asked me a while back if I would be interested in being a part of Genotrope and I quickly agreed. It’s a nice site with lots of great resources for those looking to understand the startup scene in Boston.

A great section of the site is the Boston VC Directory. I’ve used this area of the site a few times, and I noticed that the Genotrope VC Directory was covered on the 93 South blog several months ago.

If you’re looking for resources and information on the Boston startup scene, check out Genotrope.