Zak Homuth

"The increase in internal energy of a closed system is equal to the difference of the heat supplied..."

Mon, 06 May 2013 03:50:00 -0400

“The increase in internal energy of a closed system is equal to the difference of the heat supplied to the system and the work done by it: ΔU = Q - W”

- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_law_of_thermodynamics

The first law of thermodynamics observes that the internal energy of an isolated system obeys the principle of conservation of energy, which states that energy can be transformed (changed from one form to another), but cannot be created or destroyed.

See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Man_3

The Thing You Love image by Adrian Sommeling What is the thing...

Mon, 18 Feb 2013 00:25:09 -0500

The Thing You Love

image by Adrian Sommeling

What is the thing that you love doing?

The thing that you are amazingly good at and no one else seems to get? The thing you know you could do better if you just got more time to spend on it? The thing you want to be or do when you grow up? The thing you will do for others, for free, at a moments notice? The thing that relaxes you? The thing you sleep perfectly, calmly and beautifully after spending all day on? The place you feel at peace?

And, why aren’t you doing it every day?

Why is it not your startup? Or your day job? Why aren’t you trying to make your thing everyone’s thing? Or at least make it easier for everyone else? Why haven’t you hired people to do everything else so you can focus on your thing?

There was a time when most of your startup, and most of what you did were the things that you loved. What happened? What changed?

Founders get distracted

It happens. Most of the time were pretty good. We are relentless. Focused. Gritty. But every once and a while we slip. We get tired, lose sight of the end game, hit a road bump, and forget why we care about the problem were solving. We help other founders with their startups. Give advice that we don’t listen to ourselves. Go to too many dinners, too many networking events, too much air war and not enough ground war.

It happens

And its ok. But why aren’t you doing the thing you love? The thing that you’re good at? The thing that comes effortlessly? If you got to do more of what you loved would you be more focused? More gritty? Would the schleps get easier?

Disruption: Hacking Startup Travel Image by Takk B I am...

Sun, 17 Feb 2013 23:38:00 -0500

Disruption: Hacking Startup Travel

Image by Takk B

I am currently in the midst of my once a quarter travelling-startup-CEO mega trip. This trip is by far the longest in a while and its got me thinking about the ways we’ve architected Upverter to reduce our aggregate disruption at the expense of massive disruption to my life.

Back Story

A really long time ago we decided the best place in the whole world for us to build Upverter was in Toronto. We relocated the company for the 3rd time, found a space, set roots, and hired a team. It was probably the single best decision we ever made.

But

Toronto isn’t the at the center of the startup universe.
Toronto isn’t at the center of our customer’s universe.
And Toronto isn’t at the center of our personal networks.

So why pick Toronto then? Because we aren’t a flashy consumer web social coupon startup, we aren’t yet well positioned to fight a talent war, and we are building a giant and extremely technical product that needs a ton of R&D spend. Toronto has a surplus of amazing talent, magical employee retention, and the government helps pay about 60% of our R&D spend.

Long story short Toronto is amazing at satisfying the needs that our startup has, with the painful limitation that our financing, market, and support network are all somewhere else.

So I travel.

Lean

We have worked very hard to stay lean over the past two years at Upverter - and this leanness extends whole-scale to my approach towards business travel. I try almost religiously to avoid hotels, couch surf, share meals, eat at Safeway, beg, borrow and steal. There are a lot of side-perks of these hacks, but primarily they simply cut down on spending.

And in an almost circular way it all goes back to disruption - the lower the cost of my trips, the less disruptive they are to the rest of the company.

I’m not sure if I’d feel any differently about the disruption if I travelled in “style”, but it doesn’t really matter. It would be the wrong optimization at our company’s stage unless it mitigated the effects almost entirely.

Math

I firmly believe in the following formulae:

Travel = Disruption

▲Disruption ≈ ▼Productivity

Grit > Disruption (for sufficiently small disruptions)

Disruption ≈ Fatigue (for sufficiently large or frequent disruptions)

Hacks

So what does it all mean? These are my hacks - and the things we’ve done at Upverter to try and build the absolute least disrupted company we can - despite the limitations of our geography.

First, avoid travel if at all possible. Skype works great. It’s impossible to reduce travel to zero - but any travel you can avoid translates almost directly into increased productivity.

Second, when travel/disruption is unavoidable disrupt the grittiest person. Someone should be the traveller. They should be the least susceptible to the disruption travel causes. It would also be great if they were the CEO or face of the company.

Third, disrupt a single person. There is a big difference between everyone travelling a little bit and suffering a little bit of disruption, and one person being thrown fully under the bus, so that everyone else can operate at peak productivity.

Fourth, when the disruption is going to be large scale, or the travel extended, expect massive fatigue. Build a schedule that gets gentler as the trip goes on. Book the nicest couch late in the trip, when you’re going to need it, not on the first night.

Lastly, friends and family seem to help reduce the effects of the fatigue. If you don’t have any friends in the city you’re travelling to - make some. Go out for dinner with real people. Use GrubTonight or any other service to find a dinner with real people. Don’t hide in your airbnb room alone. If you do it right it won’t even cost any more money.

Edit: See here for some great hacks and details I glossed over.

Good Luck

If you have end up living the life of the travelling CEO, running a startup that puts you on a plane, or regularly disrupted in a similar way, you have my respects. And if you’ve got any hacks I’ve missed please add them in the comments.

Lean Startup Day @ Mars

Wed, 05 Dec 2012 12:37:00 -0500

I spent a bit of time on Monday sitting on a lean startup panel at mars with my good friend David Crow. Sacha Chua was doing sketches of the talks and I found it kind of neat to see what someone else got out of what I had to say - a sort of peak inside my own brain. Kinda neat.

Anyways, this is what she came up with!

25 Hardware Startups That Will Exist

Wed, 08 Aug 2012 12:00:00 -0400

We design through lenses.

For a while the best lens we had was mechanical. Divinci invented some pretty incredible devices through this lens - things like helicopters that we only much later realized were helicopters.

We also have a tendancy to use the newest or most familiar lens.

We have advanced to the point that we now have many, many lenses availible. But despite their availibility lately I’ve noticed that most of the engineers I interact with see the world and its problems through only the lens of software. And so they try to solve everything through software, including many things that have much easier solutions if looked at through a mechanical, social, political, or electrical lens. As an engineer try to remember that you have a toolbox full of lenses, not just one or two.

The following is a list, in no specific order, of problems I think will get solved. Some are very close to being solved already, and others are much further away. But in comon, I think all of them are best solved through the lens of hardware engineering.

Hot Topics / The Next Big Thing

These are all devices that fall into hot or up and coming markets. They are the biggest and furthest out there.

1. Bio Tools / Home diagnosis equipment (MRI, X-ray, etc)

PG Talked a bit about this here. Find a way to diagnose me 10 times a day, everyday when I walk into my bathroom. Have my doctor call me for a checkup, instead of everyone just waiting until I’m really sick. See BioMEMs. Why don’t cellphones have carbon monoxide sensors in them?

2. The Next Apple

ie. The next great consumer electronics company. Apple will probably fail (#5), none of the existing players will fill the void and a startup will probably become the next great consumer electronics company. Start by building a consumer product for visionary users, and continue to scale it into the majority (like Apple did). Pre-sell on kickstarter. Maket socially.

3. Battery technology

We need a 10-100x in batteries. That company will be worth 100BN easy. Think Tesla Motors, Electric Cars, Electric Planes, the increase in portable consumer electronics and the growing gap between expensive peak power and cheap (almost free) non-peak power. Don’t tackle it head on… Think nuclear batteries. Think grid power usage stabilization. Think usage patterns instead of chemical engineering.

4. Non-lethal weapons

Build a way to win a war without killing anyone. Think about non-lethal police forces, non-lethal big game hunting, mid-western americans with non-lethal purse guns. Note: I’m not advocating the morallity in any of this - just that someone, somewhere will build a huge business on this tech.

Things That Need Replacing

These are all old tech solutions to daily problems that need an update. Think cheaper, better, faster, and more connected.

5. Replace Fixed Phones, IP Phones And “Home Phone” Style Routers

How many phones do people need? Or businesses? Why aren’t we able to run our cellphones off the highly distributed, underused copper network, instead of the massively oversubscribed cell network? Especially when everyone in the office already has a phone or two in their pockets.

6. Replace Paper Notebooks

I fucking love my Blueline notebook, but it is painfully offline. There is isn’t an online version of working with pen and paper that has the same user experience (ie you don’t even need to be better!). iPad got 20% of the way there, but its just not distributed or availible enough yet.

7. Replace Whiteboards

Kinda like #6. Find a way to take brainstorming and get it online without changing user behaviour (ie. its still going to happen with markers in front of a whiteboard). Think intellegent displays & interactive spaces. Think smart phones, markers and walls working in harmony. “Share this image on the west wall”, or “Save this wall as a png”.

8. Replace Art / Displays Everywhere

Art exists for 2 reasons - bad ass wall coverings, and the vanity of ownership. Im talking about solving the first problem. Why can’t I get a big color e-ink wall canvas that updates before I get bored of the picture? See this. Maybe this is an extension on #7? TV’s very quickly fall into this problem / solution.

9. Replace Power Cords & Audio Cables

Plugging stuff in was soooo the 20th century. This could mean wireless power, more nuclear power, or maybe its just #3. And don’t stop at power cords - I want all cables to die. See this, and this.

10. Replace HID

Think mind control. Think keyboards that don’t suck. Think useful iPads. This gets incredibly important if 3D continues to take off. See this.

Hardware That Enables An API For Something Previously Untouchable

This is probably my favourite category. There is a huge opportunity in taking the “offline” and getting it online and accessible. Im not talking about the programatic APIs themselves but instead adding the capabilities to the devices such that an API could exist. Sandvine did it to aggregate internet traffic (analytics & billing). Meraki did it to wireless (replacing IT). Square did it to credit card stripes (replacing credit cards). And Lockitron is doing it with door locks (replacing keys).

11. An API For The Lights In My House / Office

Think smarter buildings and greener spaces. It would enable managing light based on occupancy, based on power prices, based on time of day, etc.

12. An API For Garage Doors

Lockitron for my garage. Why do we still have RF transceivers to open and close it? Why can’t I loan my garage to my neighbour without giving her a clicker or a key?

13. An API For Appliances

This is admittedly very internet of thingsy (adding a better UI/ UX/ Input/ Output to dumb appliances). But like the TV API I think you open up a tremendous, and mostly unknown set of apps when you put the worlds appliances online and build an API to control them. Dont do this. Do do this.

14. An API For My Environment

Think Nest and EcoBee which are both trying to do this by building better thermostats and the apps to control them. This ties into #1, #11 and #12.

15. An API For My Car

Cars have all kinds of cool sensors and micro-controllers in them… Why the hell aren’t they more accessible?

16. An API For My Pets

I can drive a robot dog from my cellphone, but when my real one runs away I have to wonder the streets yelling its name?!?! Where is the $50 collar and a $7 a month maintenance plan? How many pets are there worldwide - like a billion? Start by building super cheap M2M tech.

17. An API For My Friends

Not so much for control… Im thinking some sensors, GPS, 4G, etc. Maybe its a square like device for my phone? Think wearables, Google glass, and Pebble.

18. An API For My Cabinets / Bathroom / Fridge

Sensors rock. Why aren’t they everywhere? Why do I run out of drugs, food, toilet paper, etc, etc. This is the sense side of #11 and #12.

19. An API For My Health / Blood / Weight / Fitness / Heart

Think real-time health diagnostics. This is probably version 1 of idea #1. Think about a Square-like sensor for blood for non-diabetics. Think about embedable sensors. Think about a tricorder. This is a mashup of #1 and #17 / wearables.

20. An API For Human Memory

This one is probably a little further out there. But, we are already doing cool things with mind controlled devices. I want to see it get pushed from write-only (active control based on brain waves) to read-write (query the brain, active & passive control). You need to look at this.

Misc

These are ideas that didn’t really fit anywhere else…

21. iRobot For _______

Why is the coolest and most advanced robot I can buy a really, really dumb vacuum cleaner? I want more robots! I want them to solve more of my problems! Maybe the first step is just building things & spaces that are more accessible to our mechanical overlords?

22. Totally Low Tech Heated / Cooled Jackets / Clothes

Its cold here! But the worst part is that in the same day it can be 5C (cold) and 25C (warm). How do you dress for that? Why do I have to carry extra clothes? Can’t we solve this problem with tech? This is a 5W resistor and a LiPolly battery.

23. Smarter Cars, Trains, & Planes

Why can I still drive into the back of the guy in front of me? Do we still really trust people to make the best decisions when driving 140Km/Hr? Similar to #15 but much more active. Planes can fly themselves. Cars can almost fly themselves. But there is much more that can be done here by just augmenting the people.

24. Elon’s 5th Mode Of Transportation

You need to see this. It sounds pretty awesome. Someone should build it.

25. Disposable Electronics

I mean both a solution for the fact that we all through out our phones every 18 months anyways, and that our landfills are seemingly uncontrollably filling up with an impossible amount of electronic waste (most of it containing trace amounts of both really bad stuff, and the worlds most valuable minerals). And the solution might not be to stop the throwing out…

Notes

When assembling this list I took a page our of PG’s book and tried to think of the things we’ll look silly for in the future. What will future races of humans think was ridiculous about our culture, practices, devices and lifestyles? This is my list:

Batteries
Charging
Keys
Anything signed
Carrying a phone / Having multiple phones
Filming / Taking pictures
Syncing
Not having a plug near by / Not having power
Wall warts
DC -> AC -> DC
High voltage transmission lines
Not having a signal
Ink / Toner / Printers
Car Horns
Reverse cameras / backing up / driving
Symptom based diagnosis
Thermostats
Doorbells
Burglar alarms
Waiting for anything (think drip coffee makers)
Anything that doesn’t have an API / Interface
Non learning appliances
Light switches
Running out of supply of food / drugs / milk
Music in bars / elevators
Mechanical steering / steering wheels
Mechanical toilets
Mechanical suspension
Public transportation drivers
Mechanical keyboards
Going to the bathroom?
Searching for info
Going to the gym / staying healthy / loosing weight
Video game controllers
Alarm clocks
Debit card machines at the table
Parking (illuminated Curbs & roadways?)
Garbage
Electronic waste

Toronto Is Broken

Mon, 06 Aug 2012 14:00:00 -0400

Image by John Cavacas link

I’ve got bad news. And I don’t really know a better way to say it, so I’m just going to tear the bandaid off, one motion, no fucking around. Here goes…

Toronto is broken.

Ugly right? We’re the 4th most active startup ecosystem in the world. We’re the largest ecosystem in Canada. And were the best non-US city for funding.

But there are some very serious problems under the covers.

Toronto is a young startup ecosystem, largely because it wasn’t always possible to run a startup here. This has 2 effects as far as I can tell. The first is that most of the entrepreneurs here in Toronto are very young, the average age is definitely lower than the Startup Genome Project average of 33. And the second is that almost all of us aren’t tied to Toronto. We have all been somewhere else, worked somewhere else, and got money somewhere else.

Weak Founder Network

Being young & unconstrained means we don’t brag about or lean on our native networks in Toronto. We brag about our investors and mentors in the valley (like we all haven’t been), we try to impress our Toronto network instead of learning from them, and we don’t trust our peers here to help us succeed. Its ok. And its pretty normal from what I’ve seen in other fledgling startup communities.

BUT until we can trust and work with our peers here in Toronto the community will continue to flounder. We will continue to leave (not necessarily a bad thing). We will continue to NEED other networks. And getting together will continue to be about bragging instead of helping and learning.

Small Ideas

I’m not sure if this is because the ecosystem is so young. Or because our service providers think they run startups. Or because we’re a largely Canadian club. But our ideas on average aren’t world changing. We dream of things that already exist. We dream of parts of other company’s visions. We dream of features. We dream of being an Instagram for Instagram rather than Facebook, Go instead of Google, CRM instead of Salesforce.

This is a theme across the startup galaxy right now. But we aren’t helping. Why not be the place big ideas come from? Why not be known for dreaming bigger? Lets be frighteningly ambitious. Lets change something. Fuck the $25MM Google acquisition. Can we please do a little bit more than building another feature for Salesforce?

Crossing The Scale Gap

We have almost zero entrepreneurs and early employees experienced at scaling. It might even be the real reason for the pre-scale acquisitions lately. We can’t cross the gap. Who are you going to hire to scale your marketing? What about sales & bd? Or support? Or product management? Have they ever done it at a startup before? Better still, will they - without a question - give you an unfair advantage because of how awesome and repeatable they are at it? I doubt the list is any longer than a few names for each - and I bet most of them are running their own startups or have retired.

There is a huge void here that doesn’t exist in SF or even NYC. We have very, very few startups that have achieved scale, cycled, and produced experienced founders or employees that want to go back out and do it again. This is why so many of our startups open offices in San Francisco or Palo Alto. Will you? Does it bother you that you have to split up your team, or move? You need to move if thats how you win - but could we ever help each other to do it here at scale?

Mentorship

Its pretty weak in Toronto. Its a side effect of the same lack of experience. The same lack of cycling. And there just isn’t the same kind of culture of free giving that exists in the valley. We have this sort of East Coast I work to get paid mentality that doesn’t jive so well with mentorship. All that being said I can’t fix this. This is a huge problem that has cultural roots, a lack of raw material, and well all be dead (or at least our startups will be) by the time it gets fixed.

My advice: Get a mentor in the valley, and figure out how to use skype.

Capital

Don’t waste your time raising in Toronto. If you can and do raise elsewhere Toronto will pay attention. If you can’t, they still wont. And the best part is you don’t need permission to be in Toronto anymore if this is the right place to run your business.

My advice: Raise the money where you can, run your business where you need to, and get the fuck back to work.

But…

There still are some pretty great things about Toronto. Hell, I haven’t left yet. The talent here is A+, the money goes further, the government helps, its one of the biggest economies in North America (ie. fuck loads of customers), and you can build a first class startup culture of first class talent that has worked at startups in the valley and abroad.

So lets fix the broken parts. I think its still worth it.

Too much words? In picture form!

Problems I’m trying to fix:

Build a stronger founder network
Encourage and enable bigger ideas
Fill-in or otherwise enable companies to cross the scale talent gap

Things I’m NOT trying to fix:

More and better mentorship
More and better capital

About Me

Upverter is my 3rd startup. I dropped out of highschool, and then university, both times to run startups. I’ve worked in Ottawa, Waterloo, Stuttgart, Bangalore, and Mountain View. I have never lived in Toronto before, so it’s a first for me, but we’re here because it’s where our team wanted to be. And I’m not ok sitting back and letting this opportunity - to make Toronto kick more ass - pass me by.

Wanna join the cause?

Shoot me an email (zak@zakhomuth.com)

My Coach & My Scorecard Image by Richard Findlay link I...

Sun, 05 Aug 2012 14:00:00 -0400

My Coach & My Scorecard

Image by Richard Findlay link

I aspire to be a great CEO. I want to be on list with Elon and Branson and Bezos and Jobs. And if I play my cards right this may kill two birds with one stone and get me into the running for “The Most Interesting Man In The World”.

Assuming I’m not there yet means I need to get better - so long story short, I went out for dinner the other night with one of my advisors to figure out how far away I was. I asked for feedback, something I am now convinced we should all be doing more of (this article was my inspiration) and Paul was nice enough to invite me over, cook me dinner and sit and talk with me about where I was, where I could be, and what I need to be doing better.

Essentially he gave me a no-bullshit scorecard based on what he could see. And it looked a little bit like this….

Relentlessness: 90
Vision: 90
Financing: 90
Recruiting: 90
Marketing: 0
BizDev: (no score)
Evangelism: 50

Not terrible… But there is some areas that definitely need improvement. For starters fuck marketing. I didn’t say fuck acquisition. And I don’t undervalue the need for growth, acquisition, or any of the activities that create inbound interest in your product. Its just not me. I’ve spent time with some of the best and worst web marketers ever to exist, and I can see what makes the great ones great. I just don’t love the analytics, the tweaking and the blind persistence that make it work. If I were an artist I’d probably paint with a power washer. So I/we need help…

[Plug] Upverter is actively hiring an incredible startup marketer / growth hacker. [/Plug]

Now, with that out of the way, I need to talk about Evangelism. A completely subjective 50 out of some undefined denominator (probably 90). Fuck. And he is probably right too. This is something I need to fix. If I do anything to elevate Upverter over the next 3 months, its going to be making damn sure engineers understand why we have been killing ourselves for the last 2 years. Its going to be talking about what hurts, why it hurts, and what we’ve learned about how to make it hurt less.

Talking with Paul about evangelism also made me realize that what I was doing in and around the Toronto startup ecosystem was a half-assed attempt at evangelizing Toronto startup founders. This is something I will need to write more about too, but there is much work that needs to be done here too.

Not really sure how to end this… get ready to give a shit.

Read some useful shit here: The Art of Evangelism (Guy Kawasaki)

Prost! I work with the most talented individuals I have ever had...

Wed, 11 Jul 2012 10:00:00 -0400

Prost!

I work with the most talented individuals I have ever had the honor of working with in my life. They are each remarkable, complimentary and individually the best at what they each do. I’d even go as far as to say they are one of the greatest teams ever assembled - certaintly the greatest ever assembled to do what we are doing.

Let me try to explain…

Do you ever wonder how the paypal team happened? I don’t mean how they met, or why they worked together. I’m not sure how to say what I mean, but they were a dreamteam. They have gone on to be some of the most influential startup personalities - ever. Hell they’re only partially jokingly considered a mafia.

Well, could you imagine organizing them today to do a startup? Imagine building a dreamteam from what they have become? Imagine if they all worked together on a project today - it would be incredible, it would be one of the greatest teams ever assembled… but once upon a time it actually happened. They were younger, greener, and more driven. But they actually used to work together. The dreamteam actually existed, and not for hours or days - but for years. Maybe I’m just late to the party but thats stunning to me.

The point is, someday someone is going to look at Upverter and have one of those moments that I just had. It will be unbelievable that there was ever any doubt. It will sound unfair. It will all make sense.

Right now its still too early… but, I can see the flickers of what is to come. Heres to my team. I couldn’t imagine it not being us. I couldn’t imagine better DNA. And I still can’t imagine youre not going to win it for all of us.

Heres to you.

Chateau Upverter

Mon, 09 Jul 2012 10:00:00 -0400

Posted from: ON M5T 2A4, Canada

Let me tell you a little bit about where I live… the townhouse we lovingly refer to as the Upverter Hacker House. But first, let me tell you why.

I have 5 biological sibilings that my parents have told me about ;) They are all younger than me, and they are all boys. Thats right, I have 5 younger brothers. My cofounder Mike likes to tease that its like looking at the evolution of me - you know that t-shirt showing the stages of a hunched over ape evolving into a walking human - its kindof like that.

Anyways I love my brothers dearly, and not to diminish their place in my life, but 2 years ago in my world they gained 2 older brothers - my co-founders Steve and Mike. We even all lived together for a little while when Upverter was still in my parents basement - all 8 of us. It was a little scary. But its really a pretty important part of my life and the start of this company.

Anyways, where I’m going with this, is we are kind of a big family. And for me were also an extension of my already pretty big family. And inline with being a family we have always lived together. Whether it was in my parents basement, or my Mike’s mom’s basement, or our student townhouse in Waterloo, or our living room in Mountain View, or our hacker house in Toronto. We definately blur the lines between family, work and fun. And so far it may be one of our biggest assets.

Needless to say when we moved back to Toronto from Mountain View we didn’t get 3 appartments and an office, or even just an office and a single apartment. Nope. We got a townhouse. One great big, open, and funky townhouse with enough bedrooms for sleeping and enough “office” (livingroom) space for working. And then we gave everyone we knew keys to come and work in our new house.

I’m sure at first glance it was be a little out there - but its been absolutely incredible. We all live, work and play together. All 8 of us. We have family style lunches and dinners. We go for beers on Friday afternoon. We all eat from the same fridge, share the same dishes, and have keys to the same house. We are kind of one big crazy family - and its magical.

Now, don’t get me wrong - this isn’t some kind of Peter Pan thing. We are all painfully aware that someday we will have to (growup?) get a real office and fill it with our particular charm. But at this stage I could not imagine a better environment for incubating the DNA of a transformational company.

These days were opening the house up a bit more too. We do a 6-month running invite-only startup cash poker game on the first Wednesday of the month (last time we had about 20 players and 2 tables going). And we just recently started a founders-only series of tech talks into the deep dark underworld of the hottest Toronto startups.

(If youre interested in coming to poker just shoot me an email)

Long story short - if youre starting/running a startup and youre on the fence about where to live (or if you just want to be successful) you should very seriously consider the hacker house model. I know a dozen or so Upverter current and alumni employees that would highly reccomend it.

We will always look and feel like Upverter because of the early days spent living and working together. Upverter will always be one big family. And I will always have a few more brothers than I started with.

Build Your Own HardwareHardware store, Maca by Vincent...

Mon, 23 Apr 2012 18:35:00 -0400

Build Your Own Hardware

Hardware store, Maca by Vincent Luo

I’m looking at the list of the largest software companies in the world, and there is something eerily similar about all of them, and it reminded me of an Alan Kay quote Steve Jobs brought up during the launch of the iPhone.

People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware.

The similarity is they all build hardware. Lots of it. Hell, Valve is even getting into the hardware game these days.

User experiance is holistic. Its more than the design. More than the software. And more than the hardware. How much longer can you get away with only building a fraction of the user’s experiance? How much longer can you depend on Apple to build experiances worthy of you building on top of them?

The next consumer hardware giant isn’t going to be a transformed software company, nor will the next software giant get there without building hardware.

I JUST GOT CANDY FROM JAPAN!

Sat, 24 Mar 2012 00:56:23 -0400

Posted from: ON M5T 2Z3, Canada

This is soooo cool! My new favorite startup is Candy Japan run by my new best friend Bemmu.

Bemmu read my post on my startup depression, and like so many others sent me some very, very kind words (thank you all sooo, soo much). But Bemmu took it to the next level and also sent me two packages of Japaese candy too! AND IT WAS DELICIOUS!

For what its worth, I’m been feeling much better. But I cant thank my new friends enough, Bemmu included, for their kind words and gestures. As always Im here to help too if I can!

Sad, Tired, and Alone: My Ongoing Battle With Startup...

Thu, 01 Mar 2012 14:00:00 -0500

Sad, Tired, and Alone: My Ongoing Battle With Startup Depression

image by Frederico Spengler

I am currently in the midst of the deepest, darkest, and longest depression I have had in the last 2 years of my life. Possibly ever.

Some Background

82 weeks ago I started my third startup. Since starting Upverter I’ve felt this depression about a half a dozen times, I guess once a quarter. Its normally just a really, really bad day. Sometimes longer. But the point is, this isn’t the first time I’ve felt like this. And even in my life before Upverter, I’ve been through a couple of pretty depressed periods. Notably during engineering school, and again when I was working full-time at Sandvine.

It goes without saying that it’s pretty terrible, that I’m no expert in depression by any-stretch, and that I have an incredible amount of compassionate respect for those among us that live with depression day-in, day-out.

Pause The World

For me, the sadness normally means I hide. I sleep. I stare at my screen knowing what I need to do, but not doing it. I eat too much or not at all. And I drink. Im at a coffee shop right now writing this - and its the first time I’ve left my room in three days. During school and Sandvine I got fat - like 265lbs fat. It was pretty bad. I was able to lose the weight (80lbs), but it wasn’t easy - it was a lot of support, a lot of friends and family, and a lot of quiet-time introspection.

Drugs

I was on mood stabilizers once. I can’t remember about a year of my life. It was terrible. I slept all the time. I felt like the volume on everything was turned down. The doctor who prescribed them to me later lost his medical licence for over prescribing. And I don’t really know what that means - should have been on them? I’ll probably never know.

But, for me, in my wickedly biased and completely uninformed opinion, drugs are not the solution to my quarterly startup depression. For me I think its part of the roller-coaster. It’s the lows that justify the highs of that big deal/ sale/ launch/ feature. A cost of doing business. Mellow the lows and you lose the highs too - I just wish that didn’t sound so bi-polar.

It Really Is A Roller-Coaster

The highs are higher, and the lows are lower. If you’re a founder you’ve felt like this before. If you’re about to startup you will feel like this someday. And it’s ok. It’s baked in. You quite simply can’t change the world in a couple of years without doing more than most people do in a lifetime.

Have a cofounder you can talk to. Build a support network of other founders. Send me an email - I’ll buy you a coffee and we can talk it through. You’re gonna feel pretty damn alone, I sure do, but remember you’re not. And there are lots of us willing to help you through it.

Anyways

This isn’t supposed to be such a ramble. It’s supposed to be me, throwing my lot in with everyone else. Go ahead and add me to the list of startup founders who were brave enough to talk about their startup depression [Jason], [Lance], [Noah]. It was part of their lives as founders, it’s part of my cofounder’s lives, it’s obviously part of mine and I have yet to share my story with a founder who has not gone through some period of sadness.

I’m not going to tell you the same stuff everyone else already has. Their lists are perfect. Read what they had to say, do it, and that should keep you above it longer. Less sad always. But it will probably still happen. I still get depressed like I am now. And in an effort to drag myself up this time, I wanted to talk about the trend for me, what I think is wrong right now, and how I’m going to try and fix it.

Why Does It Happen?

For me I think it’s like a checkpoint. I need to step back. Look at the big picture. Confirm my motivation, find my power, look at the business risk, and make sure my personal happiness is factored in somehow.

My Energy, My Motivation

I worry a lot about the vision and our message. Upverter is a pretty big idea, and not everyone gets it yet. My motivation is tied very tightly to my belief that someday everyone will get it. Maybe not do it, but at least get why it matters; why there is a better world on the other side.

For me the sadness leads to brainstorming, which leads to messaging, which every other time has lead to a better, stronger and clearer message than the time before.

My advice is don’t discount the value in the sadness. It will suck. But if it doesn’t make you quit, it will make you be honest with yourself. Honest about the problems. And honest about what you should be really spending your time on. There is power somewhere in that.

My Voice, My Power

Upverter is made up of an incredibly gifted team. We represent the best of the best at most of what we do. We are solving the hardest problem around. We have the most kick-ass technical guys you can find. We have a genius designer. And a crack marketer (recently hired). We have a belief in the tech and a hierarchy that puts our builders at the top.

But that also makes it pretty hard to be me. Im a passion guy: fast, loose, and scrappy. I have a background in building hard tech, with hard deadlines, made by people who don’t get what they’re asking for. And I’ve become the guy asking for the impossible from people I could not respect more, while knowing it’s impossible. I’m selling tech I understand. Marketing while knowing the voids. And spending my nights building the bits I worry won’t get built. Its unsustainable, and I know it.

For me finding my power, means finding my voice. It means finding the way to drive and guide a team I look up to. It means finding my value-add and accepting I can’t do it all. It means doubling down and accepting the consequences.

My advice: talk about it with your team. You all have value (or you shouldn’t be there).

An Experiment In Risk-Reduction

I hold the somewhat common belief that a startup is an experiment. A big part of the experiment is given time (ie. money) can you reduce risk (ie. become viable). We normally reduce risk by gaining users, and/or revenue. A profitable business is pretty low risk. While an idea is pretty high risk. Early stage investments return big or not at all (ie. high risk). While late stage almost always return, and its an expected amount (ie. low risk).

Part of my sadness means answering the risk question. We have spent more time. And we have spent more money. But are we less risky? And if so, are we enough less risky that the experiment still makes sense? Early on this meant product progress, for a while it meant messaging, and more recently it means users and revenue.

My advice is try not to be surprised by it. Its really easy to watch time fly by, and keep building all the while ignoring the very metrics you are measured on - namely your risk.

What Is Your Happy Time/ Place/ Thing?

Turns out we are all people too. We need time, space, and things that make us happy. These are often the first things to go in a startup, and thats pretty normal. Im not saying you need to spend 6 hours a day chilling out. But you should spend at least one or two. Go for a walk to get coffee. Go to the grocery store to get food. Cook your own food. Watch a movie. Get enough sleep. Or try to take a day a week off.

For me, I bike. I love it. And it’s cold right now, so I can’t - and that sucks. So my mission is to find something else for winter happiness. I’m very sure part of my sadness right now is just how long its been since i got some real honest exercise. Dont underestimate the value of endorphins.

My advice, is the advice one of our investors give me. He said, “Zak, you guys can’t keep going so hard. You need to slow down to 40 hour weeks or you will burn out and die. But, if you slow down now and you don’t figure it out, you’re dead anyways.” He was saying sometime soon, the riskiest part of the business is the amount we work, but only when the risky part is no longer the vision/ users/ revenue. When the sprint becomes a marathon.

It may sound empty, but as quickly as possible try to get to the point where you can spend enough time on you.

Thanks

I’m feeling a little bit better. Its good to say it all out loud. And my offer was real, this isn’t a zero sum game, and I want to help if I can (zak@zakhomuth.com). Many thanks to Rohan Lyall, and Clint Homuth for proof reading.

About Me

Upverter is my 3rd startup. I dropped out of high-school, and then university, both times to run startups. My big vision is that atoms and electrons will someday be as easy to manipulate as bits are today. And I believe sharing, collaboration and accessibility (of both tools and manufacturing) will be the drivers of this vision.

Update

I can’t thank you all enough for your kind words, comments, and emails. It means a lot to me. And the absolute best of luck to all of you who are also out there fighting the startup fight. Much respect. There are more comments in the hackernews thread.

Toronto: Dear Waterloo, It's Not A Zero Sum Game

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 14:00:00 -0500

When did the gauntlet get dropped between Canadian “cities” for some made up startup championship belt? Does Toronto really have to lose for Waterloo to win? What about Vancouver or Montreal? Can they succeed too, or must we all fail so all those profs and ex-rim employees can win?

If you don’t know what I’m talking about the rest of this will probably sound a lot like a rant. But, because I’ll feel better if I tell you, I’m talking about the on-going feud between the cities, municipalities, and startup ecosystems in Toronto and Waterloo.

Canada is not the ideal place to run a startup, and believe it or not that includes all of her fair cities.

Don’t get me wrong, Upverter is largely based in Toronto, and we love it here [why, hire]. But were here because the best talent we know is, and wants to be, here. Not because its easier to be a startup here. And as much as the world seems to be fighting over which city is going to be the next startup mecca [sf, nyc, mtl, syd], they all seem to not realize the prize isn’t going to be a new focal point. Its going to be an equalization. What I mean is it will become more ok to be where you need to be for your business to succeed. There isn’t going to be a right answer for everyone anymore. And thats going to be a great thing for all of us.

At the end of our YC class an unprecedented number of startups left the valley. Some back to Europe. Others to NYC & LA. We were the only made-in-canada team, and likewise the only to return here. But thats a hugely relevant stat (albeit a much harder problem for YC to manage). And if you draw the dotted line, you should see that this means whenever or if ever a new mecca happens, there wont be a migration. There will just be a even greater place to be for the type of startups that are succeeding there.

And really, in what world does Waterloo or any of these cities win such that the rest of us fail? It just doesn’t make sense. We are all on Team Canada, we are all on Team Not Silicon Vally, and we are all bought into the idea that this is the best place for us to run our businesses. Because if we weren’t, or if it isn’t, what the hell are you doing here?

Winning isn’t about beating someone else, and especially not about having the best seats in the upper bowl. Its about enabling entrepreneurs, wherever they are, and wherever they’re from, to be successful because when they are the world becomes a better place, not for one city or one sect, but for everyone.

So… Can we be friends again? Thanks for those kick-ass engineers. How can we help?

About Me

Upverter is my 3rd startup. I dropped out of high-school, and then university, both times to run startups. I had hired and managed a dozen co-ops before starting Upverter. We are currently 7/7 kick-ass, and 6/7 UWaterloo engineers who would just rather be here at home in Canada, than down in the valley. Oh, and if you get shit done, we’re hiring.

Why The F@*K Didn’t We Just Make An App?!?! I dont really...

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 13:00:00 -0500

Why The F@*K Didn’t We Just Make An App?!?!

I dont really know. Maybe because

NOT ALL INNOVATION WILL HAPPEN BECAUSE OF A FUCKING TOUCH SCREEN.

Sorry. Got a little excited on that one. But seriously not every problem can be solved with a mobile app. Yes the market for apps is huge. But there are also an aweful lot of developers, and a pretty riduculos number of apps. Its kinda like the biggest lottery ever created. Get out your napkin…

My numbers and assumptions

1bn devices
3mm apps
100 apps per device
90% of the apps are free
0.1% of apps are winners
15bn in total mobile revenue next year
15 apps are actually used weekly
100K mobile developers
5 yrs of development between smartphones and 1bn devices
6.3bn in VC money for app development
Ignoring language
Ignore appstore 30% cut
mostly estimates - some sources: [1], [2], [3], [4]

Some maths

1bn devices x 100 apps / 90% x $0.99 = $9.9bn total spent on installs
$15bn total revenue / 1bn devices = $15 per device (ie user)
$15bn total revenue - $9.9bn spent on installs = $5.1bn remaining for in app purchases
$15 per user / 15 used apps = $1 spent per used app per user
$5.1bn spent in app / 1bn devices x 15 used apps = $0.34 spent per used app per user in app

$9.9bn total install revenue / 3mm apps = $3,300 per app on install
$9.9bn total install revenue / 3mm apps x 0.1% winners = $3,300,000 per winner app on install
$5.1bn total in app revenue / 3mm apps = $1,700 per app in app
$5.1bn total in app revenue / 3mm apps x 0.1% winners = $1,700,000 per winner app in app

3mm app / 100,000 developers = 30 apps per developer
30 apps per developer / 5 years x 52 weeks = 7 weeks spent per app
1,000 apps x 0.1% chance of app winning x 7 weeks per app = 134 man years of development

$3.3mm + $1.7mm per winning app / 134 years of development = $37,313 yearly salary
$37,313 app developer salary / $20,480 minimum wage in California = 82% better
$37,313 app developer salary / $98,000 average software developer in California = 38%

vs. hardware

$500 per user spent on hw vs. $15 per user spent on apps (33x more)
$500 spent per device vs. $1 spent per app (500x more)
~500 weeks per device vs. 7 weeks per app (71x more)

Software is commodity

I think at this point I can safely argue that the apps, the software, has become a commodity. A single install is worth next to nothing, there are thousands of people building thousands of apps that are exactly the same. And its pretty hard to find any one app in amongst the millions.

Hardware on the other hand is rare, it takes longer to build, its where a lot of the real innovation and enabling happens. But it suffers from one very notable weakness.

It takes longer to build hardware

An app makes 33x less money but takes 71x less effort to build. What happens when it only takes 50x less effort? or 25x? or parity, what happens when it takes only linearly more time to build hardware? or when you make more than linear the amount of money on a sale? What percentage of apps fail? I assumed 99.9% but by comparison what percentage of gadgets fail? I’d wager a lot less than that.

Android is a free and open source operating system that has been shown to run on all kinds of hardware. There are enough designers of hardware that the chip manufacturers will sell anything to anyone these days. The design tools for hardware are becoming commodity. And there are dozens of startups attempting to lower the bar to designing and building hardware [upverter] - it looks a lot like what happened to software in the 90s and early 00’s.

We are on the cusp of something transformative

You can see the start of it with companies like Square, Jawbone, and Nike. Smaller, connected, sensor based hardware. Designed in months by small teams working closely with software developers. Its consumer targeted and just as marketable as a mobile app (and often tightly coupled to one).

We arent that far away from the one-man-team hardware app developers.

Or manufacturing thats ubiqutous enough that you can just click “print”.

Open source “libraries” that save many orders of magnitude in development times.

And design tools that encourage reuse and collabortation above isolation.

Imagine a world where Android runs on everything you own, it was designed by some startup or basement developer, it was manufactured just-in-time and it was shipped to you by Amazon.

Why we didn’t just make an app

Because we belive in parity. We think there will be a day when its just as easy to build something with atoms and electrons as it is to build something with bits. We saw an ecosystem developing around the idea of open sourcing not just software but hardware too. And we wanted to help push this into happening. We wanted to build a product that multiplies innovation, more so than is an innovation itself.

People can already print in plastic [makerbot], and bash bits in a weekend [project72]. How far away can electrons really be?

About me

Upverter is my 3rd startup. I dropped out of highschool, and then university, both times to run startups. I studied Computer and Electrical Engineering and UWaterloo, and then cut my teeth designing the worlds most powerful network inspection hardware. I left Sandvine to make designing hardware a little less hard, and I think that means collaboration and accessibility.

Toronto: How We Hire The Best. So, you’ve got it all...

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 17:00:00 -0500

Toronto: How We Hire The Best.

So, you’ve got it all figured out. You’ve noticed all the bad ass talent in Toronto [why we’re here], you’ve got yourself a swanky new office at Queen and Spadina [map]. And you’re just about ready to put a shingle [pic] out on the corner and start fending off the swarms of smart, passionate and almost free canuck hackers that Toronto has to offer.

But wait, whats that? Its not working?!?! Do I event need to tell you you’re doing it wrong? Really?

Common son, just because they are from our cold (and beloved) neither-world, doesn’t mean they don’t have options. You are talking about the best talent in the world remember. Cheap is cheap like relative to other places. And if they ever didn’t have options they would just (begrudgingly) head down to the valley and run the place.

You need to get better at this whole recruiting kick-ass people thing. We all do. So in an effort to draw a line in the sand, and raise the bar a little bit, this is our strategy.

Pipeline + Referrals

It starts off simple enough, eh? You need a pipeline, and you need to get referrals. The pipeline is interns, past co-workers, partners, and generally the talent seeds that you’re planting around your business. Some are really deterministic, like co-ops - they take 4 months to sprout, 4 to grow, and BAM you’re done. Other take longer, maybe years - but I’d wager you and your co-founders will still be doing something that looks a lot like this when the time comes.

The referrals come from the greater eco-system you exist in. The belief that you are a premium article. The awareness of your brand, problem and market. And the time you spend making sure that the people who matter (ie. potential hires and their friends) know who you are. Most startups I know are sucking and both of these. The pipeline is obviously pretty hard to hack, that takes a bit of focus and a bit of time. And the referrals often seem blitzed, last minute scrambles where people settle instead of hiring the absolute best of the best.

Get Real

For starters lets just get something out of the way. Your prospects include the best of the best, lets treat them with the respect they deserve. If you’re looking for a co-founder (aka no salary) then be upfront about it, and you better be damn willing to give them half the company. If you’re looking for employee #1 don’t pretend like you’ve got it all figured out - smart people like solving hard problems. And if you’re 5 years old, 30 guys, and your office reminds people of the Matrix, don’t pretend to be a startup. Smart people respect honesty, and are more likely to think you’re smart if you’re candid about your business. Besides, they’re gonna figure it out pretty quick, and they aren’t gonna stick around just because you’ve given them a job offer.

Brand Matters

Figure out who you are, and work it. Maybe you’re the crazy guys working on the crazy hard problems - awesome, own it [plug]. Maybe you’re doing mobile, be the best at that [five]. Social, likewise [mycitylives]. Hell maybe you’re a photo sharing app, but be the best damn photo-sharers in the city [500px]. You are aiming to get mentioned and remembered every time someone kick-ass is poking around for their next thing. You don’t have to have the sexiest thing by any stretch, but you do need to own something. Oh, and if you can’t, you probably have way bigger problems than hiring referrals.

At Upverter we are solving some hard graph /data problems and doing things in the browser that no one has ever even tried before. And the people that get jazzed about these kind of problems know who we are. We have a pretty solid referral stream because of it, and when we’re actively recruiting we get a lot of outside help.

Put In The Time

Guess what, the world probably has no idea who you are. Thats ok, but its only going to hurt you when you’re trying to hire. Im not talking about some epic party either. But you are gonna have to buy some beers. And you’re gonna have to spend some time. You’re gonna have to take a lot of meetings. And you’re going to have to help people who will never help you back. People don’t pick their next career over night, and normal people are incredibly risk adverse. Use this to your advantage (ie build a network that connects and makes you a safer pick).

The same is true of recruiting co-ops, and for the sake of the pipeline you NEED to be hiring them. Throw an event [london], or better yet join one of ours [chainsaw]. Spend time with some students. Build some ambassadors for your company. Make their lives better. Give them swag. I’ve spent the last 8 years being, working with, and hiring UWaterloo co-ops and I can say from experience that the whole process has an incredible inertia to it. Advice: Start the mass moving before you need it to be, and spend the energy to keep it going.

Oh, And One More Thing

I understand why average companies use recruiters. But its my opinion that in a knowledge based business your success is directly tied to the caliber of your team. And if you can’t hire kick-ass talent you need to figure out how, or find someone who can and integrate them into the core of your team ASAP. If you could do it without them, then go do it. But otherwise you better own the talent problem and be hiring the damn best there is.

About Me

Toronto: Why Are We Here? It’s winter right now, and that...

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 20:34:00 -0500

Toronto: Why Are We Here?

It’s winter right now, and that means for those of us in the North-East it’s cold. We try to pretend that it’s a good thing; that it keeps us focused. But the reality is we don’t live and work here because of the snow. We live and work here because smart people love, more than anything else in the world [pg], to work with other smart people. And, make as many snow jokes as you want, but…

Pay attention to Toronto

Canada is the best country in the world to do business in [forbes], Toronto is the most multi-cultural city in the world [wikipedia] (suck-it NYC ;)), we get tax incentives for R&D [gov], and it’s the only city within an hour of one of the worlds foremost engineering schools [uwaterloo, coop program].

So, I say again, you should be paying attention. And if you’ve got your shit together you should be trying to figure out how to get a footprint here. Because believe it or not, we don’t all want/have to be in the valley [fred].

All that being said, I still get this question a lot

There is a (very reasonable) expectation that YC companies make every effort to relocate to silicon valley as part of the program. And the fact that we have most of our operations in Toronto raises some eyebrows. My answer is really simple: The talent is here and it wants to be here. Sometimes I even go as far as talking about how much further our investment takes us when we spend it here instead of in the US, but at it’s root, it’s a talent thing.

Toronto isn’t the only place in the world

Its true. I still spend a tremendous amount of time in the valley. And we have customers all over the world. Simply put there is no perfect place for everything. But if youre building a product business, or looking for talent, you could do much, much worse! Toronto is great for talent, and its a great place to live. Oh… and I’m sure it’s not supposed to matter but like my good friend dave [blog] would say, “just look at the scenery”.

But, it’s also a terrible place to raise money. Like I said, nowhere is perfect.

About Me

Upverter is my 3rd startup. I dropped out of highschool, and then university, both times to run startups. I’ve worked in Ottawa, Waterloo, Stuttgart, Bangalore, and Mountain View. I have never lived in Toronto before, so it’s a first for me, but we’re here because it’s where our team wanted to be. We are currently 7/7 kick-ass, and 6/7 UWaterloo engineers who would just rather be here at home in Canada, than down in the valley. Oh, and if you’re smart, we’re hiring.

This room got HUGE!Posted from: CA, USAHoly wow. YC is a big...

Thu, 03 Nov 2011 19:39:53 -0400

This room got HUGE!

Posted from: CA, USAHoly wow. YC is a big place these days.

Back to the Valley… I’m heading back!!! Down for a...

Mon, 31 Oct 2011 13:00:00 -0400

Back to the Valley…

I’m heading back!!! Down for a few weeks of meetings, catching up, and hustling. Im not sure if its just uncontrolled excitement - but I just cant wait to get back on the CalTrain and ride it endlessly - you know?

Kicked-ass last week: Import export, Open format, Lots of squeeks silenced

Next-week: Get back in the zone, lots o’ meetings, lots o’ email

Guess who got featured in Notable today!Woot, woot! Its actually...

Fri, 28 Oct 2011 17:40:00 -0400

Guess who got featured in Notable today!

Woot, woot! Its actually a pretty awesome interview. Link.

OKTOBERFEST!!! Man that was wicked fun. Phew. We spent almost...

Mon, 24 Oct 2011 13:53:41 -0400

OKTOBERFEST!!!

Man that was wicked fun. Phew. We spent almost all of Saturday moaning and playing video games. It was rough. But we rallied and went out and had a few beers with the boys from Comprehend who were in town and then my buddy Rohan kept me up until 6am talking sales strategies. Haha, ugh. So I felt like a winner Sunday morning. The rest of the week was pretty low key.

To be continued: Student reachout, top of the funnel, fundraising prep.