Blogging for Success
August 22, 2005Hugh Macloed writes …
I love this marketing model. Talk to bloggers. Make it easy for them to try the wine. If they like it, the idea-virus is unleashed. And if they hate it, that’s good too.
Why? Because nobody kills a bad idea faster than a blogger. So if Stormhoek dies, it’ll die quickly. And the Stormhoek folk can move on to other things, as opposed to spending the next five years blindly trying to market a dumb product that nobody really wants.
What Hugh describes in this post is the essence of how entrepreneurs plan for success! Individuals who seek entrepreneurial opportunities generate lots of ideas and quickly discard those that have low potential. They screen opportunities quickly and weed out unpromising ventures so that they can be free to concentrate on those ideas with merit (refinement). This is why blogging / the internet is such a powerful vehicle for innovation — it provides a broad forum for screening and refinement of ideas.
Got Hosting?
August 22, 2005I’m often asked if I know of anywhere that provides hosting at reasonable prices. Well, I just discovered that a couple of pals of mine — sick of paying exorbitant prices for hosting — have started up their own hosting venture. The prices are VERY reasonable and you get bang for your buck with a heap of options and software thrown in. I just registered my domain
Not enough time
August 21, 2005It really has been a busy couple of weeks for me and I haven’t been able to find the time to blog. Hopefully, I’m over the hump and can commit to posting regularly again.
Here’s a summary/update of what’s been happening:
I finished up at work with the following words …
Daryl Cook wrote on 05/08/2005:
> “Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has
> genius, power, and magic in it.”
> — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
I have no regrets about leaving, and the last couple of weeks has proved to me that my decision was the right one. Whilst starting a new job is always difficult and it usually takes a while to hit the ground running, I’ve found my feet and I am exited about the challenges in front of me. One thing that immediately strikes me is the difference in energy levels and enthusiasm. In short, the culture is different — very different!
It’s been a time for catching up with old acquaintances, which has been a bit surreal. Not only am I working with former colleagues Nick and Marty, but also caught up with Ash and Rob for lunch last week (and bumped into Helen at the same time). I also spoke with Daniel and Paul.
The family and I also spent last weekend down at Venus Bay with Tim and his family. Incidentally, the weather was great — the kids even went into the ocean. You gotta love Melbourne weather!
It’s been great to catch up with everyone.
I’ve also been wrapping up some consulting work, which I’d been doing outside of work. I’ve learnt some real lessons out of that … you’ve really got to be careful not to bite off more than you can chew — or the client is paying for. Whilst it was OK to over-service client to provide them with the best outcome possible, it ended up consuming a lot of my ’spare’ time over the last week or two than I should have allowed, particularly with all the other stuff going on at the same time. I really enjoyed doing it though and it helped to pay for the PowerBook!
Importance of Hiring Good Programmers
August 4, 2005Joel Spolsky (
The real trouble with using a lot of mediocre programmers instead of a couple of good ones is that no matter how long they work, they never produce something as good as what the great programmers can produce.
At the end of the day, it all gets back to the concept of quality. The more the software business is driven by commoditisation, the more the cream will rise to the top (i.e. poor quality software will cease to exist).
