The past few weeks I’ve been burning a lot of time searching for talented people. This search is sometimes a frustrating process. People who are good at what they do usually aren’t looking for a job. If they are, it’s for a very short period of time. Recruiting great people takes a lot of effort (usually networking) and a solid pitch about why they should join our company.
I’m also learning that these people care a lot about culture. They have to ‘like’ the company and how it operates. It also has a lot to do with gut instinct. Even the most talented people seem to trust their gut when making a big career decision.
So in my experience running this fledging company, I’m again reminded that our products and services, although very important, aren’t what power the company. It’s people. Good people are both a cause and effect of a great culture. Building a great culture is an ongoing process that needs nurturing every day. We’re at the very beginning of building a great culture, but so far it seems to get better every day. I’m blessed to work with some amazing, talented people who are actually really fun to work with. Not only do we get a lot done, but we have a blast working on it together. Growing a company is extremely difficult, and I’d venture to say that it’s pretty much impossible if you don’t have great talent and culture.
I’m often asked why I’m so focused on the seemingly boring idea of software integration. The reason is simple: “because my life is already too complicated!”. I entered the business world with a very utopian view of technology - software should do all the mundane work so humans can their minds to do interesting, innovative work.
When I entered the business world, I was shocked and saddened to find that most corporate workers were a slave to their software. They spent a lot of their day pulling reports from one system, manipulating (often manually), and then inserting into some other system. On the business development side, highly effective salespeople still kept piles of business cards on their desk, had no way to manage their tasks, and did sales initiatives with a pen and a pad of paper. Their reason? Their CRM didn’t talk to anything and didn’t produce any useful information.
I saw a core reason why technology either wasn’t used or people were slaves to it: bad delivery and no consolidation. Software was crash prone and couldn’t be trusted. Servers went down, data got lost, and paper and pencil just seemed more reliable. Also, seemly useful software programs that had similar information just didn’t seem to work together. It was all fragmented, it was difficult to upgrade, and data was pigeonholed in the application it was created in. Therein lies the opportunity.
Software shouldn’t be so hard. You shouldn’t have to hire a full time IT guy to (sort of) figure this stuff out for you. It should be available inexpensively, and it should be integrated out of the box. This is the problem we’re solving at DataSync. We’re really doing 2 things:
Making software inexpensive and easy to access. We do this by delivering everything to our customers’ web browser as an inexpensive service. No more expensive updates that break your computer, no more “the server is down today”. The industry buzzwords for this are SaaS or cloud computing.
Consolidating - We’re building a great software tool that eliminates manually entering the same information into multiple software packages. This means if you put a contact in one system, it’ll synchronize to all your systems. The same goes for other types of business information. There’s a bunch of different industry buzzwords for this, but they all boil down to consolidation.
I’m excited about the day when I show up to work at DataSync and I won’t have to enter anything twice. We’ve already made major progress. The applications I use every day don’t go down anymore, and I can access my data from anywhere. But when the day comes that my information is truly consolidated, I will finally feel that software has accomplished its mission: to help us do the things we care about, not serve software.
I’ve noticed that very few people focus on doing what’s important; ideas that actually matter in the big scheme of things. Most people do whatever is next on some list, or just fill time with whatever task is easiest. I’m often guilty of this myself at times. We focus on working hard and getting lots of tasks done, but focus very little time and thought on the actual impact of what we’re working on.
Focusing on what matters changes how we think. Instead of showing up each day to get tasks done, we must show up to make an impact. DataSync is my primary form of reference for this. We constantly battle ‘getting stuck in the mud’. It’s a term we use to describe getting distracted by details and ideas that don’t really impact the bottom line. They are good ideas, but they don’t have maximum impact on our future.
An important principle that must be applied to focusing on what matters is ‘opportunity cost’. Now matter how many hours you work, it’s important to focus on projects that will create the greatest impact on moving your goals forward. Should you work on a project that will generate $1 or another that will generate $10? The answer is obvious. However often we find ourselves doing tasks that are easier or we’re comfortable with, rather than asking the question “what can I do today that will impact progress most?”. Doing this every day will change how you think about time management. Right now I’m reading Drucker on effective management (”The Effective Executive“), and this management genius makes an important point about time management. Drucker points out that what makes executives successful often isn’t their ability to focus on doing things (accomplishing tasks), but instead their ability to make decisions to focus on the right things. Anyone who’s motivated can get tasks done and be pretty darn busy working on these tasks, but an effective person focuses on doing things that actually matter.
Remember, sometimes the busiest people are also the most ineffective. I know so many people who claim to be ’super busy’, yet when you look at what they are actually impacting, it’s really little or nothing. They are just keeping up with the hamster wheel they have created for themselves. People who impact the world refuse to be too busy to focus on things that matter. Instead they constantly reassess their priorities and align their day with long-term goals that they have considered thoroughly.
Next time you feel too busy to think, understand the decision you are making. You’re making a decision to focus on things that may not make any difference at all. You may end up working endlessly on something that just doesn’t matter. You may need to ditch ideas and projects if they aren’t contributing to making an impact. We all have the desire to matter, make sure you don’t lose sight of the importance of doing what matters.
This year’s Open Source Business Conference was the best I’ve seen. Shocking, considering it’s my first one. I was definitely at the bottom of the totem pole in the room - most attendees of this conference are industry leaders. OSBC was run on the highest level I’ve seen at a business conference. Kudos to Matt Asay for putting together some of the smartest minds out there.
OSBC has a CEO track - so I was in my element, soaking it all up. I met some amazing people and gained valuable insight into running DataSync more effectively. Here’s my summary of the event:
The leaders - Red Hat, Novell, and Sun all had their CEO’s present, and all did a solid job articulating the open source vision and direction. I was most impressed with Red Hat’s new CEO, James Whitehurst, who actually came from Delta Airlines. He has an uncanny understanding of how to monetize open source effectively, while still maintaining a vibrant community.
Microsoft - I’ve seen this tech giant show up at just about every tech conference I attend, and they always seem grossly misaligned with the idea of open source. This audience was especially hostile. The guy Microsoft had come in (Robert Youngjohns) did a great attempt at embracing the community, but the whole message didn’t make sense. I agree with Matt Asay’s conclusion on the convoluted Microsoft message.
The sessions - I was very impressed with the sessions I attended. Save for one session, I stayed on the CEO/CMO track. The best sessions I attended were the two CEO panels. I was especially impressed with Mike Olson of Cloudera. Mike was formerly an executive at Oracle and seems to understand how to build software better than just about anyone. He also isn’t afraid to say things how they are. I respect that.
The message - Everyone talked about the cloud. Everyone. I got sick of hearing it. The main message this year is that the cloud will enable open source to be deployed quickly and inexpensively. I’m sure DataSync will move in that direction as well. The ROI (Return On Investment)/value message also came across strong. With the economy in the dumps, open source is a really attractive option.
Going to OSBC wasn’t free (or cheap!), but it was worth every penny. I gained a ton of knowledge about how the industry works, and how DataSync can compete and win in an industry that commoditizes everything. There’s a massive opportunity for us to make an impact; I’m excited to push forward and continue to create vale in open source software.
In my travels to far away places for DataSync, I’m often asked why I live in the great plains instead of in Silicon Valley. I live here for many reasons, but I wanted to illustrate a very visual reason for staying in the midwest.
The image at left is the view I see each evening from my back door, facing west. South Dakota has the most expansive sunsets, and our weather this time of year is usually clear, making these beautiful sunsets common.
God’s paintbrush is absolutely stunning and put on display so often here, something I try not to take for granted. I’m so thankful I’ve been placed here for this portion of my journey. I talk to people from around the world, and the more I hear the more I’m reminded of the beauty I’m blessed with right outside my back door.
The weather was warm, the people were outstanding. The 3rd annual SugarCon conference was a great experience, and a lot of fun to be a part of. SugarCon is SugarCRM’s annual developer and partner conference that’s held in the valley. I always enjoy a break from South Dakota cold this time of year. SugarCon is a place where I’m surrounded by people who hold a lot of the same ideals on how better software will make a major impact on business.
I was privileged to speak on a panel for the partner track at SugarCon, and got some excellent feedback about what we’re doing at DataSync, and how it fits into Sugar’s channel program.
The conference had an very polished feel this year - Sugar obviously understands its market space extremely well, and has assembled a solid team and group of partners (which we’re excited to be a part of!). This year’s conference was obviously slanted towards selling in a bad economy. However most partners, like DataSync, haven’t seen a downturn in business. Open source is a tremendous value play in today’s marketplace.
Conference Highlights
John Roberts (SugarCRM’s CEO) opened the conference with a brief discussion of SugarCRM and how it fits into the global move to open systems and cloud computing. His perspective on the distribution model of software, and how flat the world actually is with open source is a good reminder for everyone.
Jonathan Schwartz (Sun’s CEO) announced Sun’s upcoming cloud computing initiative. Details were scarce, but the overall push of the message was engaging open systems and the cloud. I was surprised that Schwartz chose to use a conference like SugarCon to announce such a large initiative - a major endorsement of open source and SugarCRM. It’s worth noting, however, that Sun doesn’t actually use SugarCRM, they use SalesForce.com (reference here). Still trying to figure out why Schwartz has been doing keynotes at SugarCon the last couple of years…
Jim Fowler (CEO - Jigsaw) delivered what was, in my opinion, the best keynote of the conference. He understands open information like no one I’ve heard. Watch for his company to go places.
Mark Leslie (former CEO of Veritas and board member at SugarCRM) - This guy understands the sales model at startups. Ramping sales is something every startup (including DataSync) is confronted with every day. He had some great strategies for doing it effectively.
The sessions - SugarCon had some great sessions about its platform. My favorite session was done by Amie Dolittle, VP of inside sales at Sugar. She did an outstanding job articulating how Sugar uses it’s own platform to automate and streamline sales processes.
Overall the conference was a great experience. As with all conferences, the contacts I gained were the greatest benefit. I’ll be cruising back to San Francisco next month for OSBC (Open Source Business Conference), another great open source conference. Drop me a line if you’ll be at OSBC and I’ll make an effort to connect.
I love big, audacious ideas. Ideas that could quite possibly change the world in their own way. As a result, I surround myself with people who have similar big, audacious ideas. We spend a lot of time discussing how to make our Big Ideas happen. The problem with our Big Ideas (and probably yours) is that it takes a lot of time and energy to accomplish our Big Ideas, and there’s a lot of things we need to do to make our Big Idea a reality. A good example is the company I run, DataSync. It’s going to take us 5 years and countless hours to make our Big Idea a reality.
The main issue at stake is how to break your Big Idea into manageable, daily tasks. The problem about us humans is that we can only think about things in small pieces. Trying to solve a giant problem all at once simply can’t be done. Our brains choke on that. Instead we must break down big challenges into manageable task that each help (in their own small way) to accomplish our Big Idea.
So the solution is to break your Big Idea down into a detailed plan. The plan is a roadmap to getting from where you are today to where you want to get. In theory the whole process is simple. Doing it is complex. Here’s how I break down my Big Idea into tasks I do each day:
Define your Big Idea – My most prominent Big Idea is DataSync Suite, the software package we’re building. Make sure your big idea is big and challenging to achieve. Otherwise it isn’t a Big Idea.
Define ‘current state’ and ‘desired state’ – Practically define where you’re at, and where you want to be at the end of your Big Idea. We call this “current state” and “desired state”. Be specific.
Define projects – This high level view will get you to your desired state, so organize them according to the impact they will will make on your Big Idea.
Build out milestones - Break each project down into “milestones”, or required achievements to accomplish the project successfully.
Build out tasks - Break down each milestone into manageable tasks that can be accomplished in less than a few days.
Note that #5 is broken down far enough to actually accomplish in a given workday or a few workdays. That means you’ll be able to wrap your head around them.
The five steps I outlined above seem simple enough, but how do you actually keep track of them, and measure progress? I’ll take each section and offer some tools that will help.
Define your Big Dream – Mind mapping software such as FreeMind will help here. Make sure to have a date in mind to accomplish your Big Idea, otherwise you’ll have nothing to shoot for.
Define ‘current state’ and ‘desired state’ – Generally a good, concise document will accomplish this. Maybe a powerpoint. Probably both. You should be able to communicate your current and desired state concisely and with enough detail to define areas that need work.
Define projects – I’m a big fan of using a “strategy map’ to do this. A strategy map asks tough questions including the impact, effort, project goals are. Based on this info, you then make a judgement call on what the priority of the project should be. See an example we use here.
Build out milestones – This is where you bring in project management software. Base Camp, SugarCRM, activeCollab and others will help you out. Use something that fits what you’re working on. At DataSync, our engineering department utilizes ‘agile development’, so they use a special homebrew application. Use what works for the project you’re working on.
Build out tasks – This is where your solution varies widely. If you’re using project management software, use the task management built in. If you don’t use project management software or that software doesn’t do what you want, pick your own solution. Many people I know use OmniFocus. I am a BlackBerry junkie so I use ToDoMatrix, and I couldn’t live without it. The key is to find something that works for you. Make sure whatever tool you pick allows you to set the following: area, priority, and date due. Those 3 indicators should reflect what you defined in your milestones and strategy map.
I want to point out that no one software application is right for everyone, and no one software application will do it all for you. Managing your time effectively requires constant reassessing of values and making sure your day to day tasks are aligned with your Big Idea. Every minute you spend working on tasks that have less than maximum impact on your Big Idea, the slower it will take to get there. Many folks get so distracted that they never achieve their Big Idea. Don’t let it happen to you. Look at your Big Idea, strategy map, and milestones often and make sure you stay on track. I do it every day.
As I mentioned at the top, I haven’t figured this whole problem out yet, but I’ve made a lot of progress. I would welcome feedback and ideas on how to do this more effectively.
Thank you all for your words of encouragement regarding my recent posts about DataSync. In the mist of the thrill of what’s going on, I feel I need to recognize a couple key truths:
This happened because of God’s blessing and hard work by a large group of people. It didn’t happen just because of me, but I’m honored to be a part of it all.
This is just the beginning, we have a long, difficult road ahead of us.
I firmly believe that this project is working because God’s hand of blessing is on it. At most times it wasn’t deserved. Success is built on so many ‘chance’ encounters that I choose to believe stuff like this isn’t chance. God chooses to give and take away, and in this season he’s blessed our work.
In addition, we got funded because of a team at DataSync that was relentless. The people behind this project believe in it as strongly as I do. They kept hammering on it through the dark times along with me, and I’m grateful for all of their help. Second, our advisory team was instrumental in getting this project moving. Mari Beth Baumberger (Enterprise Institute), Al Kurtenbach (Daktronics), John Hemmingstad (Small Business Development Center), and my entire seed advisory board contributed greatly.
It’s easy to bask in the glow of winning, but that would be very short sighted. A close adviser told me this today: “You’ve graduated, Congratulations! Enjoy the moment… You now have significantly more at stake… it’s time to get serious and lead your team to the next level. Ready?”. I am ready. The rough road has just begun. It’s going to get more challenging for the company in the coming months and years. After all, we’re growing into a shrinking economy. It’s not going to be easy.
However this company is built on the principles of faithful, diligent, and outright hard work. We’re going to be up against great challenges and difficult decisions. We will prevail.
For those of you who are watching the company I run, DataSync, you’re probably aware that we raised our Series A venture funding back in December, 2008. It was quite the journey.
According to a recent article by the Angel Capital Assocation, early stage investing went down in 2008, and will probably drop more in 2009. Because of the recession, angel groups are focused on ensuring existing portfolio companies survive, so they are spending less on new startups. Raising capital wasn’t easy to begin with - fewer than 1 in 100 companies actually acquire venture funding (src: Launch Utah). That number is probably worsening every day.
So how did we do it? The answer, in my opinion, is found in more than one factor:
Low capital requirement - It takes a lot less capital and time to get a software company launched, compared to ‘invention’ or research type companies. This put DataSync in a great position to ask for capital now - we didn’t need a lot of dough, have fast growth potential, and an ‘annuity’ type income stream.
Product already in marketplace - We already have a significant and growing customer base, so investors have the assurance that our product would actually generate revenue.
Product sells well in a bad economy - DataSync offers software that requires very little upfront and recurring cost and has an immediate payoff to our clients. Often our clients save money the first month.
Great advice - The Small Business Development Center built out our financials and advised heavily on positioning the deal, the Enterprise Institute worked with our value prop for investors, and RAIN Source Capital helped wrap out the deal with their capital network. Solid, experienced advisers are key to successfully raising angel capital.
Unshakable belief in our vision - I believe wholeheartedly in what we’re doing at DataSync: providing businesses with the best software, consolidated it, and delivering it for a competitive price. That’s what we’re all about at DataSync. We live it, we breathe it, we’re going to make it happen. You have to have that level of belief in your vision to fight through obstacles. We have that desire.
‘Hardiness’ and tenacity - Hardiness is a word we use a lot around DataSync - one definition is “capable of surviving unfavorable conditions”. It took us a year and more presentations than I care to remember to raise capital. We knew we could execute on the goals we set, so we kept knocking on doors until we found investors who saw promise in the same mission.
If you’re running a company that’s poised to succeed, but need capital to get there, take heart. A bad economy weeds out bad ideas and people who aren’t as committed as you, giving you a long term competitive advantage. However it’s not going to be easy to get there. Make sure you have a solid idea you can believe in, build a network around you to best position your company, and network around the clock to find investors who believe in your idea. You’re going to have to beat the odds. After all, you’re trying to be the less than 1 in 100 companies who actually gets funding. It’s not supposed to be easy.
I’ve been asked this question a lot recently. Middleware is a notoriously obscure word that gets thrown around in tech circles. However most mere mortals really have no desire to learn what the jargon actually means.
DataSync builds middleware, so it’s important to me that the masses see the light. According to Wikipedia, middleware is “computer software that connects software components or applications”. That’s almost circular logic (software that connects software to software??). This definition confuses me.
Let me make my own attempt: middleware connects the dots between software applications. In other words, middleware is the glue that connects software to other software. Also, the ‘middle’ in middleware means that in some cases it sits between the underlying computer system and user-facing applications.
I’m going to get crucified by many for my definition, but it’s my best attempt at 11pm
Any suggestions on how I could better explain it? Middleware is hugely important to my industry, and I hope to someday explain it easily to just about anyone.
