Mark Geller

There seems to have been an increase recently in the discussion among entrepreneurs and others related to startups of whether and to what extent a startup should remain in “stealth” mode. For those who not familiar with the term, stealth mode refers to a startup explicitly not discussing in public its products or strategies.

The degree to which a company can cloak its intentions can range from simply not publicly demonstrating its product on one hand to using a false company name during development on the other, only to reveal the true name just before launching. A notable example of the latter was WebTV, whose name alone would have revealed their intentions, and who went by the title Artemis Research, complete with an image of the Greek goddess Artemis on the door, for a year before they launched.

Many investors note first-time entrepreneurs are often too closed-lipped about their ideas, asking VCs to sign NDAs (in the process revealing their own naivete) and generally being too uptight about sharing their company story with potential partners who could help the business. My take on this is every situation is different and the founders should employ whatever level of stealth suits the particular company and timing. For example, in the case of WebTV, the fact Microsoft did not know the company was developing this technology enabled “Artemis” to build a sizable technology lead, which essentially required Microsoft to buy the company as a defensive move before their model was tested by the market. This netted the founders and investors $425 million… for a product that ultimately failed. So, the strategy worked fairly well in this case.

However, today a startup called Zyxio announced their new technology, a platform to enable users to control a computer’s (or any product’s) operating system by blowing on an input device–you could think of it as the iPhone app Ocarina for controlling your stuff, for example, when your hands are full (e.g., driving) or for those with physical limitations. Rather than stay in stealth mode and try to decide which of the hundreds of possible applications they should build first using the technology, the founders of Zyxio decided to announce the technology before they had a killer app and instead use crowd-sourcing to suggest and vote on different product ideas. They have created a site called BeAMindBlower.com, where users can do exactly that, with the winners “joining the advisory board” of Zyxio.

This is a case where the company can clearly benefit more by publicizing the technology now even before the application is finalized than they could by waiting. The technology itself is a great idea and the idea and the execution to publicize it are fantastic. Kudos to Zyxio for going anti-stealth and best of luck with your pre-launch launch.

The good news: team KlickFu is close to working through all the major technology issues needed to deliver a fairly solid version of our initial product. Now comes the next challenge, especially for the product manager (i.e., me)–deciding which features are must-haves for version 1.

Part of the challenge is deciding what exactly V1.0 is and what is it going to be used for. In the past, this was pretty clear, especially for a desktop software application. V1.0 was the first version of your software, the one that had to make a big splash with the media, users, potentially software resellers and distributors, and basically everyone else. It was also the version you and your users were going to have to live with for at least 4 months, if not 6 to 8 months (not counting small bug fixes)… so it better be close to perfect, and certainly the best you could possibly make it.

These days, the role of V1.0 is harder to define. It is certainly not the first version of your product you will put in the hands of non-team-members. This we have done already with a super-early version and will do again at least one more round before launching V1.0. For us, then, V1.0 is really the first version we will send to the media for initial reviews and then also make available as part of a private beta distribution with a limited number of invites, maybe 500 total.

Then, as quickly as possible, hopefully within 4-6 weeks after launch, based on the feedback from the private beta, we will address any major usability issues, fix some bugs and add at least one major new feature to go to V1.1 and so on. So really the “V” in V1.0 should probably be a small “v”, because quickly it is going to be replaced by its successor. Without detailing the actual features, which need to stay confidential a bit longer, here are my high-level requirements for v1.0:

• Must be super easy to install and start using
• Must convey the core user experience in a way that is simple and fun, preferably with a single “cool” feature
• Must give the user a sense of what else is possible with future versions
• Must be self-updating–for the next version!
• Must not cause users any undue headaches
• Must be the absolute minimum feature set to accomplish the above

I believe the #1 job of the product manager or team leader is to define the true objective for a launch, select the smallest number of features that will lead to achieving that success, and then have the discipline to exclude everything else. There are several features we would very much like to include in the first version, but since V1.0 is really v1.0 (small “v”), they can wait, for at least a few weeks, and may even result in follow-on media coverage.

I read a quote recently, although I don’t remember who said it, that has become the mantra of our team for this launch: “If you are not at least a bit embarrassed by your first version, you probably waited too long to launch it.”  So we are shooting for something that is cool and simple for users and lays the groundwork for future updates, although also maybe a bit embarrassing when we look back on it from the near-term future.

Earlier this week I mentioned I store most of my files and data in the cloud now, and that, when my computer crashed recently, all I had to do was restore my OS and reinstall most of my desktop apps and all was good to go.

As I was writing that post it occurred to me it might be somewhat helpful to list what desktop apps those were and why they were worth reinstalling. So here is a list of most of the desktop apps I use and why:

• Google Chrome (browser) – I started using Chrome while I was still at Google, mainly to see how it worked and make sure my product was compatible with it. After a few days, I quickly became addicted. For me, Chrome is the browser of choice because it is noticeably faster, almost never crashes and if so does it gracefully. Also, Chrome’s innovative design uses less screen real estate at the top, so it shows more of the web page; being able to drag the tabs at the top of the browser is great, as is being able to drag a tab to create  new window or back to the main window. The ‘Find’ feature is superb and overall the usability is awesome. Very infrequently I encounter a web site that is somewhat incompatible with Chrome (maybe once a month), however for me this is a price that is easily worth paying.
• Skype - My phone service with AT&T/iPhone at home is fairly spotty, so I use Skype for most of my phone calls, which costs $2.95 per month for unlimited calls anywhere in the U.S. Also great for IMing with friends and colleagues.
• Jing (from TechSmith) – This is a great free app for making screen grabs (cutting out pieces of the screen and saving them as images) as well as screencast videos up to 5 minutes long.
• KlickFu Alpha Version – This is the app we are developing now to play instant games and apps on the desktop–more details coming soon!
• Adobe Photoshop Elements – Great program for creating lightweight illustrations and mockups, can also be useful for photo-editing, although I do not do much of that.
• Microsoft Office – As I mentioned last time, I use MS Office mainly to open and work with files sent to me by others (usually attorneys). Otherwise, I use Google Docs to create new documents, spreadsheets, and presentations.
• iTunes – Gotta have for sync’ing my iPhone and playing around with developing some new apps for fun. I have not gotten to the point where I buy or download movies or music with iTunes.
• Norton Internet Security – I am still not necessarily convinced the benefit of using standard anti-virus software justifies the cost and computing overhead, although in any case, I needed install NIS to test with KlickFu so it was a no-brainer.

Other:

• DropBox – This is tray app for the DropBox service I described earlier
• Core FTP Lite – Great free FTP client
• Firefox – For the few web sites that have issues with Chrome–also I want to start to learn to use Firebug, which is a great web development tool that runs best on Firefox
• 7-zip – Utility for zipping/unzipping .exe files that cannot be sent using the standard Zip program
• MSN Messenger – I have a few die-hard friends who refuse to use anything else
• Python, wxPython, TortoiseHg, HTML-Kit – Development tools for building Python apps and web sites

A few days ago, while I was writing some simple Python scripts, my computer crashed and my (Win Vista) OS became corrupted to the point where my machine would no longer boot. Not knowing the best way to restore my system–and wanting to avoid reinstalling the OS from scratch, if possible–I took my machine to a few repair shops in town to get estimates.

When I got to Best Buy, the friendly Geek Squad representative said, “I hope you are one of the rare and lucky users who regularly backs up your data?” To which I replied, “Nah, actually I am one of the maybe not-so-rare users who does not store any data on my machine in the first place.”

I am not exactly sure when it happened, but somewhere in the past few years I got to the point where I essentially store no data or media files of any kind on my machine. There are a few small exceptions, such as keeping files from previous projects and a few photos friends have emailed me. However, for the most part, all my files and data are in the cloud.

• For documents and spreadsheets, I use Google Docs
• Any MS Word or Excel docs I receive are accessible in Gmail
• Photos I upload to Facebook or sometimes Picasa Web Albums… or leave on my iPhone
• I have never been an MP3 or iTunes guy–I mainly listen to the radio or free online music (playlist.com)
• Code for KlickFu and other projects is stored in online repositories and sync’d accordingly
• Any miscellaneous files I will now store on DropBox, which provides up to 2 GB of free storage, more than I would ever need, with slick auto-updating and sharing features

Aside from being simpler and easier to manage, storing my data in the cloud had two main benefits this week during the computer crash. First, it made the entire experience a lot less stressful, since I knew the worst case scenario was I would install a new hard drive (under warranty) and then reinstall Vista and my other applications, with no data loss. Second, it enabled me to get up and running on an old spare machine in only a few minutes without missing a beat.

Based on this I suppose I now officially live in the cloud, which is fine with me. I enjoy the sense of freedom and flexibility this brings and, right or wrong, I believe my content is safe (within reason) being stored remotely with these third parties. As for my computer, it turns out the ThinkPad comes pre-installed with Rescue & Recovery software, which had made an earlier backup of my OS and applications on a separate partition on my hard drive (fantastic!). Since restoring my hard drive and updating the apps, I have updated the disk image and now I should be good to go.

Yesterday’s post was a bit esoteric talking about some of the finer points of modern art, so today I thought I would bring things back to earth a bit with a post on my daily life. As most of you know who are in contact with me regularly, last week I had surgery to repair two hernias, one umbilical (in my belly button) and one inguinal.

For those you who have not had the pleasure of undergoing hernia surgery, this is an out-patient procedure where they put you under general anaesthetic, make a few incisions, do the repairs, and send you home a few hours later.

Needless to say, hernia repair  is not the most fun a person could have while lying down. However, I try to be a silver-lining type of guy, so I am going to focus on the positives. With that in mind, here are 5 good things about having double hernia surgery:

1. Couch potatos wanted. Those incisions in your gut are going to need some time to heal–so absolutely no cardio exercise or heavy lifting is allowed for 4 weeks–doctor’s orders. In fact, even sitting upright in a chair for extended periods of time causes soreness, so this is a good time to get off your feet and indulge your wildest couch potato fantasies.
2. Pyjama party. Due to the location of the incisions, you really can’t wear heavy pants with a belt or even shorts with elastic… pretty much your only option for the first week is to stay in your PJs 24-7.
3. New belly button. If you have an umbilical hernia, this is your once-in-a-lifetime chance to give a new look to your midriff–and it’s even covered by health insurance! After being an “outtie” for 4 decades, I am now the proud owner of a shiny new “innie.”
4. Percocet. No doubt you are going to need some narcotics to numb the pain for the first few days after surgery. (Bonus: The more hernias you get fixed at one time, the stronger the drugs they give you!) In my case, they wrote a prescription for 100 pills… that’s enough to keep Rush Limbaugh going for like, 25 minutes. As a mere mortal, I used eight, then flushed the rest.
5. Cool war stories. As Keanu Reeves said in The Replacements, “Chicks dig scars, glory lasts forever.” Granted, there may not be a lot of glory in double hernia surgery, however with a few minor embellishments, your story gets significantly more heroic… “Nah, I can’t take credit for it, it was just instinct to jump in front of that charging rhino to save the orphans, anyone else would have done the same.”

When you consider all the positives of this experience, it’s almost a shame to be well on the path to recovery now. No worries, I’ve got another one that will need to be fixed in a few years.

Once or twice a year when I have a few hours free in San Francisco, I make a pilgrimage to visit SFMOMA. I have always been a fan of modern art and seeing the wide variety of creative expression at the museum never fails to recharge my batteries and get me excited to make new stuff.

One work in particular has always been among my favorites: ”The Woman With A Hat,” by Henri Matisse. This painting, which was first exhibited in 1905, was among the first to use color in a non-representational way–in other words, Matisse chose the colors, such as the vivid green in the woman’s face, not to represent the actual colors he saw there, but rather for the emotional response he felt himself when he viewed the woman and also that he hoped to create in the viewer.

Many viewers at the exhibit felt “Woman” was repulsive–why would an artist paint a beautiful lady’s face green! The leading art critics of the day dissed the painting and others in the exhibit, saying, “A pot of paint has been thrown in the face of the public.” Based on the passionate use of color, Matisse and his co-exhibitors were referred to as “fauves,” or wild beasts, and the movement became known as Fauvism.

However, the silver lining of the exhibit for Matisse was that despite the negative criticism, “Woman” was purchased by a member of Gertrude Stein’s family, which provided a significant endorsement for Matisse and his abstract style. Today, “The Woman With A Hat” is one of the pre-eminent pieces in SFMOMA’s permanent collection and is regarded as one of the most important works in the development of modern art.

I am a big fan of this painting and this story for several reasons:

• First, the painting itself is striking and strikingly beautiful. For whatever reason, the greens and oranges and other colors never struck me as strange, they simply appear beautiful and moving.
• I am always a bit awestruck by anyone who can look at the same scene or raw materials as everyone else, for example, a portrait of a young lady, and view it in a way that is totally fresh and original to create something that has never been done before, whether it is a new work of art, a scientific theory, or a new technology, game, web site, or what-not.
• Matisse probably knew many of the viewers and critics would dismiss his abstract works, yet he continued to create and exhibit them because this was his passion–enduring significant risk for his career and his family’s financial well-being in the process.
• This story, among many others, shows that although the public often at first reviles against something that is new or different, and especially something that threatens what they currently know and love, once they get past their initial rejection, they often embrace the new creation and prefer it over the old. This happens constantly with new technology… (Twitter comes to mind).
• It is a great story of the underdog coming out on top.
• Last but not least, when Matisse produced and exhibited “Woman,” he was 35–about ten years older than most of the other artists in the show, and still working away in relative obscurity. As an entrepreneur myself, and several years older than Matisse was at this stage in his career, this is a great example of the fact that even folks who are no longer in their 20′s can create things that are truly new and exciting, and hopefully be successful in the process.

Anna Jane Grossman, a colleague of my buddy and uber grassroots PR manager, Jamie Diamond, recently published a book called Obsolete, which is a collection of things we used to view as common that are now in the process of disappearing, such as blind dates, mix tapes, porn magazines, body hair, privacy, cash, and… books.

Seeing the book release led me to thinking about other things that are becoming obsolete now due to innovation and new technology. One I thought was worth mentioning is the fear that aggregation by media giants will crush the voice of individual citizens.

When I was in college as well as in the two decades (ouch) since, the brilliant linguist and activist Noam Chomsky has been leading a passionate fight to raise awareness of the dangers of big media companies growing ever bigger through non-stop acquisitions, resulting in a few huge mega-corporations controlling the means of broadcast and communication. With these companies driven mainly to maximize profits for their executives and shareholders, the ability for smaller niche publications and individual iconoclasts to voice their views would be minimized or eliminated.

In the past twenty years, the trend toward conglomeration of media companies has continued. However, during this time, the rise of the Internet and especially Google, Blogger, YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, has turned upside down the fear that the voice of individual citizens would be drowned out.

• Google, as well as RSS, feed readers, etc., with its ability to find literally anything and everything published on the Web, has fragmented the way users find new information, decreasing the power of traditional media companies to control the means of distribution.
• Blogger and YouTube have made it super simple for anyone to publish their thoughts and ideas, resulting in the largest expansion of publishing and authorship since the invention of the printing press itself.
• Facebook, Twitter and other social networks, with their built-in social graphs and passive news feeds, have made sharing news and opinions faster and more viral than ever before, often cutting traditional media out of the loop entirely.

Of course, government censorship of traditional media as well as user content remains a significant issue in China and many other countries. Also, the decreasing readership and financial decline facing great newspapers like the New York Times, Washington Post, and others raises genuine concern of whether professional investigative reporting will become a casualty of the new patterns of media consumption. However, the explosion in self-publishing as well as end users’ abilities to find, share, and contribute to media has all but made obsolete the idea that media conglomeration will result in the elimination of individual citizens’ ability to freely express beliefs in an open and public forum. For example, glancing through Prof. Chomsky’s web site, I am sure his ability to broadcast his ideas to interested readers is far greater now than when he started giving talks years ago.

Blogging may have its issues and Twitter goes down for a few hours every now and then, however, the rise of self-publishing and distribution is much better than a few media oligarchs controlling what we read and see.

As a product guy slash nerd, I often notice when I encounter a user experience that is particularly good–and also when one is not so good. Today I want to highlight one of the former. The experience in question was great to me because aside from being a good experience, it is an iconic example of great design that can be applied to many other products and services.

This particular experience appears at the Google San Francisco office, although not where you might expect. Believe it or not, this one occurs in the men’s restroom (insert potty humor here), or more accurately, just outside it. The entrance to this particular restroom includes an ante-room with two doors. As you enter the restroom, it is clear which of the two doors leads to the facilities. However, due to the layout of the ante-room, as you leave the restroom, the door you see first, which you naturally believe is the exit, actually leads to a closet, whereas the door to the office is off to the side.

Here is where the design comes in. As you leave the restroom, just as you are about to push the wrong door, you see a sign someone has posted (probably a random Googler) that says simply, “Nope.” Then, before your brain even fully realizes what is happening, you glance to the side and see the sign on the right door: “Yep!”

This is great for several reasons:

• It perfectly anticipates the issue the user is going to have
• It elegantly solves the issue with the absolute minimum effort
• It injects a bit of humor into an otherwise slightly embarrassing situation (user going into the closet)
• It ties in nicely with the overall Google brand, which is providing useful solutions with minimum effort, maximum speed, and a sense of playfulness
• It makes even a totally mundane task, exiting a restroom, into a small game
• It shows that no issue is too small to create a fun, useful solution

Maybe the best aspect of this experience is that it was most likely created by a random Googler who happened to work in the office. (I cannot confirm this, although having worked at Google, it would surprise me if it were otherwise.) This connects with the core values of Google’s culture to always be vigilant for issues that affect users and when you encounter one, come up with an elegant solution and implement it… yourself, if possible.

Sure, there are many examples of user experience design that solve more pressing, complicated user problems by implementing much more elaborate technology. However, in terms of creating a simple, elegant solution for a problem most users will experience, this one is tough to beat.

We hit two new milestones this week for KlickFu–one for developers and for end users–and we are fairly excited about both.

For developers, we now have a full Python library to access the KlickFu SDK. This means developers can now write apps completely in Python to access all the functionality of the KlickFu platform. (Yet another reason to learn Python!) If you are a developer and you–or any of your friends–would be interested to learn more about how you can write apps in Python for KlickFu, contact us and we will get you set up with the SDK and the library.

For end users, we have a version of KlickFu users can run on their own machines! We are looking now for a few folks to help test KF on real world systems. To participate, you will need to be running Windows Vista, XP, or 7. If you have a lot of custom system utilities on your machine like anti-virus software, anti-phishing software, custom mouse and desktop applications–even better! The KF file itself will take a few seconds to download and you can check out the different sample apps in about 1-2 minutes. Then we will want to get some feedback about what worked and what didn’t as well as any comments or suggestions you have.

Holler back if you would like to be one of the first to see the new KlickFu system!

A number of my friends and colleagues who do not work in high-tech or startups have mentioned recently they have read some of my blog entries and have a growing interest in consumer Internet and entrepreneurship. Several of them have asked for references to other blogs on the subject, so I thought it might be helpful to give a brief summary of the blogs and news sources I follow along with why I find them valuable. Below are some of the main ones, arranged in order by usefulness and the order I consume them. I read most of these in Google Reader, which is free and I recommend highly for quickly reviewing lots of blog entries and sharing with friends.

• Stories that have been shared with me by friends and colleagues. I have 3 or 4 friends who share articles with me through Google Reader–I wish I had more… so feel free to share with me and I will do the same! Several of these are colleagues from Google and the articles they send are always interesting, ranging from high-tech to politics to general interest and travel.
• Fred Wilson’s blog, A VC. Fred is a well-known and respected early-stage venture capitalist based in New York. He has excellent intuition on which sites and services are going to make a major impact and which aren’t. (Some of his recent seed stage investments include Twitter and Foursquare.) If you only read one page per day to keep up with the latest in consumer Internet, it should be this one.
• Chris Dixon is a successful Internet entrepreneur and angel investor based in New York City, who started blogging only a few weeks ago and has already become one of the must-reads for startup founders. He is extremely knowledgeable about tech startups, raising capital, and dealing with investors, and often has useful tips for young technologists learning the business side of the Internet.
• Joel On Software is the blog of Joel Spolsky. He has written over 1,000 articles on subjects relating to the right way–and the wrong way–to create software as well as manage a successful high-tech company. Joel also founded and runs Fog Creek Software as well as Stackoverflow.com, the gold standard in software development community sites. If you want to speak the same language as your developers, check this out.
• Next up on my Google Reader list is items that have been starred by “JH”. JH is Jeff Huber, the VP of engineering for the group in which I worked (as a PM) at Google. I started following his feed at Google and have kept up afterward. Every day he stars about 20-30 fascinating stories relating to Google products, Google as a company, trends in technology, and general interest. If you follow me, maybe I will share some with you.  ;-)
• TechCrunch, this is the no-brainer single best site on the Web to keep up with everything interesting and new with consumer Internet, software, hardware, and peripherals.
• Next up, in no particular order, are a variety of blogs on entrepreneurship and gaming: Venture Beat GamesBeat, Venture Beat Entrepreneur Corner,  Inside Social Games, Watercooler Games, and Gamasutra Features
• I also follow several blogs of local entrepreneurs and VCs from Los Angeles, including:
  • Both Sides of The Table, from Mark Suster, a successful founder turned VC, with great advice for new founders
  • Jason Nazar, CEO of Docstoc and a force on the L.A. tech scene
  • Mixergy, Andrew Warner’s great site for insightful interviews with successful entrepreneurs
  • QuickSprout from Neil Patel, founder of CrazyEgg and KISSMetrics, who recently moved from SoCal to Seattle.
• The blog of Tim Ferriss, author of The 4 Hour Work Week, for interesting stories on entrepreneurship, lifestyle design, and travel.
• The last source I consume several times a week is the New York Times, which I do almost exclusively using their great free iPhone app, which allows you to quickly see the most popular (most emailed) and latest articles from NYTimes.com

Besides this I peruse maybe a dozen other blogs from VCs and technologists (Matt Cutts’ blog at Google is a great one if you are interested in SEO), although this should be enough to get you started. All of the above are excellent blogs, I recommend them all highly. Of course I am always on the lookout for great new sources as well, so feel free to contact to let me know your favorites.