My blog has a new home

After launching Brytter, I moved my writing over to the new platform which you can get to at http://project idealism.brytter.com.

I initially pointed the Project Idealism domain to the new Brytter blog but that ended up breaking all my previous post links from Google.  So until I get that straightened out I pointed the domain back here.

In the meantime, check out my latest posts at http://projectidealism.brytter.com.

Product Launch: Brytter

I launched a new product yesterday called Brytter, and it's a super easy, super fast blogging platform.  You can read more about it via the announcement on the Byrtter Blog.

Over the next couple weeks I'll likely be transitioning to do all my writing full time on Brytter, as opposed to this blog which is currently hosted on Blogger.

Whether you subscribe to the RSS feed, visit the website, or receive email updates you won't have to take any action to continue receiving my posts, but the site will look different if you're used to visiting in your browser.

I know my writing has been a little sporadic lately and I should start being a bit more consistent again soon.  Not as an excuse, but just to explain, we've been pretty busy over here and unfortunately my writing has suffered.

My wife Maile opened an awesome new yoga studio in October, which led to me building a product called Tula Software, a yoga studio management software, and I've also hired two new full time employees for Ideal Project Group.

It seems as though sometimes I get a backlog of things I'd like to write about in my brain, and then I get stuck because I don't want to write something else until I get the backlog of ideas cleared.  This, of course, leads to gridlock.

And pretty much all the things I've been wanting to write about are Maile's studio, the new software, and my new employees.  Hopefully this post will get me a little unstuck on that front.

I've learned more than I ever imagined I would know about collecting money online, point of sale systems, merchant accounts and a host of other things I'll be sharing soon that you'll hopefully find useful.

Happy Super Bowl Sunday!

Why we need to stop SOPA and PIPA

You may be aware that a number of websites took their services offline yesterday to protest two laws being considered by the United States congress.

These laws would legalize internet censorship in our country, and put us on par with countries such as China and Iran when it comes to internet freedom. Illinois Senator Dick Durbin is a Co-Sponsor of the PIPA legislation. You can call his office at (202) 224-2152 if you would like to voice your opposition. 

Please take a few minutes to understand how these laws would impact the internet, and you, by watching this great tutorial on the laws by the Khan Academy.

 

The technology is the easy part

Of course, this doesn't mean the technology is easy.  It's just that when it comes to building a product, giving it a great design, marketing it, getting people's attention, and inspiring them to part with their money for what you've made...... the technology is the easy part.

I think about this whenever people ask me whether I think a product they want me to build could be successful.  Indeed, one person asked me how long I thought it would be until he could receive the return on his investment should I build out his product.

The problem with that question is that it's relative, and the answer depends on so many factors beyond the technology that it's impossible to answer.  The only way to respond is with a series of other questions:

How many people read your blog?  How many other products do you have that people use and love?  How many people do you have on a mailing list?  How many press relationships do you have?  How many investors do you know?  And on and on and on.

The mistake people often make (I've made this mistake too) is that they assume the technology is the hard part, and that if they could only get their product built, if they could only find the right engineer, that everything else would take care of itself.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

It's true that sometimes you do need to build something in order to sell it.  Just know that of all the things you'll need to do to be successful - the technology is the easy part.

Opportunities are progressive

Sometimes, we fall into the trap of thinking opportunity is a huge, one time event that rolls by, and if we miss it, we're doomed never to see another one like that again.

I think though, that most opportunities are built upon the foundation of previous, smaller ones gone well.  So while each is bigger than the earlier; progressively they're only slightly larger.

Maybe, what looks like a really big opportunity out of nowhere is more like a wave on an ocean in which we've been able to put ourselves.  It can be hard, but I like trying to make myself look at things this way, because what happens is I see that there are little opportunities all around us - no matter where we are.

Very likely, someone with what looks like a big opportunity had a lot of good execution behind the smaller ones we didn't see.