Andrew Hyde

I’m in it for The Spirit of the Game

It is funny to me how simple group activities can be really fun, or can horrid based on the intent and rules of the group.  What is the big difference, say, in pickup sports games (such as basketball or baseball)?  The spirit of the game.

In short, rules aside, what is fair for the situation.  How can the situation end up in a win win, or at least a ‘no advantage given.’  Let me share a story:

A player in Ultimate Frisbee catches an amazing grab in the endzone at full speed, just dragging their feet just on the line.  The person guarding them saw it a bit differently, seeing it just out.  “Want to just redo the throw?” one player asks.  “Sure.” the other responds.

A win win situation, nobody lost their cool, everyone looks good at the end of the play.  If the goal of playing disk is to have fun and make some friends, that this works perfectly.  I sometimes hear stories about entrepreneur deals gone wrong, I wonder why business doesn’t embrace the spirit of the game just as several sports.

The reason, is often times nobody is watching.

If a founder gets pushed out by a board, it is in nobody’s interest to write about the experience.  And for whatever reason the board decided to push them out (with good reason or not).  What stories come out are very negative toward the other party.  In other words, in a split both parties are going to bitch to their friends about how horrible the other person is.  Kinda like a bitter divorce, so I have noticed.  The trend in divorce over the last years has been Collaborative Divorce.  Two of the 7 ‘rules’ are as follows:

• #2 Neither party will take advantage of mistakes by the other side;
• #3 The parties will freely disclose all pertinent information and will not hide any material facts;

Basically: We are in a situation and both have our goals, what if we both compromise a bit and do it with as much love and understanding as we can.  Sounds like the spirit of the game to me.

I was introduced to this term through Ultimate.  The 2nd paragraph in the rules shares the title, and has this nugget of wisdom:

Highly competitive play is encouraged, but never at the expense of mutual respect among competitors, adherence to the agreed upon rules, or the basic joy of play.

…

Such actions as taunting opposing players, dangerous aggression, belligerent intimidation, intentional infractions, or other ‘win-at-all-costs’ behavior are contrary to the Spirit of the Game and must be avoided by all players.

So as the games we play evolve, so does business, or so I hope.  Groups are watching, and as the tech frontpage becomes filled with more and more quality people and blogs (yadda yadda social media), so does their voice.  (The defense of Blaine Cook comes to mind.)

Hopefully I will have time to expand a bit on this further.  Am I on or way off the mark?

Popularity: 2% [?]

Tags: Ultimate

Startups Fail

With so much attention to the glory of the acquisition, a lot of startup junkies (myself included) don’t realize how many startups fail. Flat on face, 2 days to get out of your office space, fail. Startups are really hard. Startups fail, a lot.  It sucks for investors, it sucks for founders, it sucks for users, it sucks for employees.  Fail. Fail. Suck. Suck. Blah.

In the last week 3 local startups I love bellied up. Good people, strong business models, and brilliant marketing, and still, no tomorrow for them.  Nau, Organica and Falling Fruit.  A clothing line, coffee shop and audio production company.  Seems like startups are bellying up at a rapid pace this week.  If you look at the front page for Read Write Web now, there are 2 startups in the deadpool: News Alloy and Omnidrive, a year ago hot startups, are now no more.

I just got back from a firesale at my favorite clothing shop in the world, Nau.  They had it all for me, sustainable clothing that fit well and a friendly shopping experience.  I told everyone I knew about them, I really loved them.  Yesterday, their 5 stores were told they were going out of business (about 24 hours prior to this post), and tomorrow is their last day open for business.  That shows you how fast things can move.

What is weird to me about Nau, is that (this information is from the employees) they were meeting their sales goals.  They were being written up in almost every major national publication.  Their design was amazing, their marketing was fantastic and their stores engaged and inspired.  But somehow, something happened.  They closed up shop.  An employee Niel Robertson wrote his thoughts on the matter.

I would love to know the behind the scenes take on what happened to it.  There was an investor only call this morning, I would have loved to listen in.  I can only imagine what was said. Perhaps it was the economy scare, perhaps it was some competition or perhaps it was something that isn’t public yet

A classic startup move is to make mistakes. A startup mantra I hate is “you learn more from your failures than from your successes.” I think you make the same mistakes from your successes, you just made the right adjustment.  And there is that ‘luck’ thing people tell you about.  These startups pulled out at the right time, perhaps, but they are viewed as failures to the investors, founder, customers or employees.

What is tragic about this is that there is a sense of shame in regard to this, and founders tend to keep quiet about. If you look at the Organica blog or website, it is like nothing has happened.  Falling Fruit just has a witty post at the bottom of the page (linking to a full post).  Nau has a sincere letter and a big sale.

But where did these startups go wrong?  What can be learned from their experiences?  Why is it so horrible to fail?  Paul Berberian wrote a brilliant post on his latest startup, which if you have not read, it is a must read.  I would love to read more ‘classic’ posts.

This will be something I continue to be fascinated by, the public reason for closing and the actual reason for closing.  I will look into Nau as much as I can as an outsider, and would love to know what went wrong with such a great startup.

Popularity: 24% [?]

The Dynamic of Successful Small Group Organizing

I’ve said many times that what has defined me over the last year was community.  To clarify, I should add in organizing small communities.

I’ve been scratching my own itch in the past developing a tool to help people organize small groups.  I’ve started leaking out invite codes, and won’t announce the project myself for quite time (based on the last project I launched).  We don’t need that attention, yet.

Back to the dynamic of small groups.  I define a small group as under 100.  Any larger than that and you start talking about Godwin’s Law and that just isn’t a fun group to be a member of.  I can list over 60 small groups that I am formally or informally associated with.  All of these groups have a nice niche successes and failures when it comes to organizing their members.  Here is what works for my communities:

Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 17% [?]

SpearTalks with Josh Spear

Last Friday I did an interview with Josh Spear and Carmel Hagen.  Today I realized that I didn’t link to it.  It was fun and engaging, and someone I went to High School read it and found me.  Always fun.

Josh used to live in Boulder (how we originally met) and is now splitting time between NYC and London.  His blog is amazing, has been daily reading of mine for 2 years now.  Read it. As entrepreneurs, I think it is very important to keep up on pop culture, as well as developer culture. Josh’s site helps you read between the lines of what trends are out there

Here is my interview with Josh Spear: Andrew Hyde on SpearTalks

Popularity: 17% [?]

Tags: josh spear

Photrade Founder Copies Startup Weekend, Lifts Photo?

Mark this under the ‘extremely weird’ category, the founder of Photrade.com, Andrew Paradies, is involved in the project with Elizabeth Edwards creatively named “In One Weekend“.

From their site (with the same design as Mr. Paradies, a default drupal theme, I think)

What is InOneWeekend?

* One hundred people gather to create a start-up venture from scratch in one weekend.

So they carbon copied Startup Weekend, without adding anything new or learning from any of our mistakes. Bothers me, yes, bad taste for sure, but the weird part is they lifted a picture from a flickr user on their home page.

In One Weekend, with a founder of a photo selling site, hotlinked a flickr photo from a photographer they did not get permission from for promoting an event.

I tracked down the photographer, Greg Westfall, and asked him if he was a friend or gave permission. The answer was no.

Great way to kick off your event. Cincinnati, is this representative of your startup culture?

Now that is just weird. They are seeing $40,000 in sponsorship to run a weekend, but say it is a nonprofit. Doesn’t it take a year to become a nonprofit? Is there any foul claiming you are a nonprofit on day 1? I am not sure.

InOneWeekend community values, from their site (I’ve crossed off the ones they have already broken by this stunt):
• Openness
• Honesty
• Ingenuity
• Transparency
• Humor
• Mutual Respect
• Creativity
• Collaboration
• Sustainability

So a kind reminder to those looking to create something very similar to Startup Weekend:

• Learn from the mistakes of Startup Weekend. We have live blogged, photographed, twittered and videoed the hell out of the 16 past weekends.
• Our name and logo are not open to use.
• Please bring something new and exciting to the table. Show what your community has to offer.
• Attribute when needed (this includes photographers).
• Don’t be lame.
• Your event will somehow make it to our inbox, these tubes have lots of eyes.

Anything that I missed?

UPDATE They have now attributed the photo (but spelled the photographers name wrong).  The image is still hotlinked, which, without a link is against the flickr TOU.  I spoke with Andrew over the phone yesterday.  He tried to explain to me how this was a misunderstanding, and InOneWeekend is not a copy of the event.  *sigh*

Popularity: 26% [?]

Almost Burning Down The House

Yesterday was quite a scare.

A 2 acre forest fire was within 100 yards of my house.  Thank goodness that the wind was strong in the other direction, and our house is well protected with very little to burn around it, so we were safe.  But being able to see flames from my kitchen table was a bit of a nerve-racking experience, to say the least.

At one point it looked like we were going to be evacuated.  5 minutes to grab what you needed for the next few days and more importantly, grab everything that wasn’t replaceable.  It is a shock to have to do this.  Of all your stuff, what do you take with you?

I am a very minimalistic guy, so I grabbed 2 photo albums, my computer and my 2 cameras.  Of all my stuff, that is what I cared about.  I was mentally alright with losing all the electronics, books, furniture, clothes and gear I have. This really calmed me, and in a way made me proud.

But then again, I was thinking I would have to run from this bad boy:

See all my pictures from the settles park fire here.

Popularity: 19% [?]

Tags: Boulder, boulder colorado, fire, red rocks fire, settlers park fire

I am a TechStar

Well, kinda.

Last year, with the announcement of TechStars, I had the feeling I would be involved with it. I love what they are doing and I wanted to be a part of it. I applied last year, and without cofounders did not get in. But I still wanted to be a part of TechStars, which, once I really think about it, is the perfect match for my passions (community, startups, early stage companies and desire to succeed).

I asked David Cohen if I could help out in any way. This great program was happening down the street from my house, I had to be involved. My shiny camera came into good use, as it got me in (as the video guy for TechStars). I hung out, shot a whole lot of footage and experienced what TechStars was all about.

It was amazing and I wanted more. I planned on applying this year with a new ’small group organizing tool’ that I have built out. Life was going really well with Startup Weekend, VCwear and freelancing for a bit with Wieden and Kennedy and Crispin Porter + Bogusky. But something lacked - 4 years of working by myself on projects was becoming a bit mundane.

Last month David asked me to come in for a meeting, and brought up the idea of working with TechStars, not as a team, but as the 2nd person at TechStars.

*woah* I didn’t expect that.

The more I thought about it, the better fit it was.

So now I sit, with my life a little bit on the random button helping set up the new offices (hanging doors, gutting old office furniture, moving the beer fridge, etc.) thinking about the possibilities of TechStars. You know, now that I am one, right?

Popularity: 25% [?]

Tags: TechStars

A New Type of 365 Project

So two days ago I decided to document the *fun* bike commute I was on by taking out the video camera.  This also gave me the perfect opportunity to test out flickr’s new video.

Would that be an interesting 365?  Video from my commute?  For some reason, video seems easier that just a picture.

Popularity: 26% [?]

Tags: video

Welcome to the Walled Jungle

Last week I attended the Microsoft Technology Summit at their main campus in Washington.

First, let me say they were gracious hosts, and we met up with some very passionate, friendly employees that were not in any means apologetic about their company.  There was passion, there was drive, there was the largest software company in the world.

The Tech Summit invited the brightest minds in the Open Source (sounds great so far, right?) and pitched them Microsoft Products for 2 days (I have already identified that I don’t use .NET, finding out how to ‘develop with style’ does me absolutely no good). The presentations were the recycled ‘I Have Given This Same Deck 30 Times’ with 90% slides that would make a presentation coach have a heart attack.  It was like 2 languages were being spoken.

In hindsight, I don’t know why I was really there (especially with the format of we pitch, you listen).  I am a community guy, and a community that doesn’t use Microsoft products.  Now that I think of it, I have never spent a dime on a Microsoft product.  Not Windows, not Word, not a conference, not even a button.  My experience with Microsoft products includes a hand me down computer that I took to college and kept randomly rebooting (pissed, I switched to a Mac and never looked back).

Since the 40 or so invitees were brought in as non fanboys, every time a presenter asked if there was a question the especially vocal critics cracked a shot at the company for something they had done (an perhaps rightfully so).  For me this was a huge bit of conflict, how can you take feedback when you feel you are being attacked?  How can you give feedback when the person next to you wants to go on the attack?   This created a very uncomfortable atmosphere for everyone there.

I looked around the conference at the end of day 1 and saw that most of the other attendees were at “Inbox 0.”

I had a hard look at why I didn’t use a single Microsoft product either.  I came to the conclusion that Microsoft products work really well in their own walled garden (Live brings in Silverlight, for example) but it would be hard for me to start using a product.  It is not just a walled garden they have built, it is more like a walled jungle.  Without a single product getting me into the Microsoft game, I can’t even find where their garden is.

Nearing the end of the conference I felt bad (as up to this point I provided absolutely nothing of value) and with some encouragement of Chris Messina and Tara Hunt, hijacked a couple whiteboards into a room and invited other attendees to answer questions I wrote on them.  The questions ranged from “What does Microsoft do Really Well?” to “How Can Microsoft Suck Less?”  It was the first time where feedback was collected from the conference goers.  Here are some photos I snapped:

My feelings for the Microsoft Tech Summit can be summed up by this feedback I provided: “Microsoft knows they need to listen, they just do not know how.”  Next year I believe they are working the conference like a BarCamp, which would be the language of the brilliant Open Source and community folks they brought together.  If they want to continue making strides in the Open Source community, this is a must.

Popularity: 44% [?]

Tags: Microsoft Technology Summit, Review

Microsoft Technology Summit

I am packing to head on up to Seattle for the “Microsoft Technology Summit” that takes place this week in Seattle.  I only now know two people going into the event, the great Anand Iyer and Tara Hunt.

I am really not sure what to expect for the week, but my hope is that the group is made up of passionate, brilliant and accessible folk.  It looks like Microsoft is getting together a group of ‘thought leaders‘ who are not really fanboys and just talking, interacting and listening.  Seems to be a really smart move.

I will theretically be blogging about the event, and if I am not that means it is really, really bad or really, really good.

ps. what the hell is business casual?   

Popularity: 44% [?]

Tags: microsoft, Seattle, travel