My mobile apps company, Cexi Me recently came out with something called POP apps - Point of Presence Apps - or branded applications which highlight a specific brand or company or individual.  They’ve been incredibly well received and I’m grateful for that.  (For more info: PoP Apps) 

So what’s the problem?  We’ve got ten POP apps committed and we can’t deliver any of them.

Our POP application is like a Website on a mobile device.  We build for both Android and IOS.  The application requires customer information (RSS Feeds, FAQs/Q&As, Photos, Profile Info) and many customers aren’t quite ready to deliver that information.

Our first customer committed (and paid) three months ago. They readily paid in advance, we gave them a list of information we needed and we’re still waiting.  Why? They’re building their entire marketing program. They’re just not ready yet.  Ok.

Unfortunately, several of the next few companies (with more business maturity) are completely sold on the concept and the app and they too aren’t quite ready.

Needless to say, when you’ve got a backlog of sales and can’t deliver any of them, you don’t know whether or not to be happy or afraid or both.  I think we’re both.

Several business questions come to mind:

1. What happens if they all give me their data at the same time? 
2. Can I avoid this in the future?
3. Do I keep selling this app?  There is the real question.  Do I keep going after business while everyone flows their data to me?
4. Do I have any other problems I haven’t though of?

I’m not really worried about #1 but I thought about if we could handle it and I think we can.

Can I avoid this in the future?  If we were to better estimate the sale cycle a bit better, I think we could avoid this.  I didn’t even think that we’d have so many sold in three months.  A positive problem.

The last question is the most important to me. Do I keep building a backlog and worry about scaling to it later?  

The answer here is no.  I can’t and won’t.  Why?  I don’t know what it will take to support the ten customers I have - after I’ve shipped.  I will not sacrifice customer satisfaction due to quality or support.  (Sounds nice, has a great ring to it - and it’s true.)

I can do other things, right? Validate code, add a feature here and there, perhaps work on other apps (I always do that anyway).  

What am I missing here?  I have this vague feeling that I’m in trouble on this stuff….

(BTW, if you’re a customer and reading this, great! Lemme know what you think! I’m open to suggestions!)

A friend of mine at cDevWorkflow just released their community-based and inspired .Net-based Workflow engine a while back and I recently got a chance to take a look.  The company has been in the BPM market for years - developing highly complex solutions for a highly complex industry: Bio-Pharma.

cDevWorkflow is a developers workflow engine with strong support for step configuration, administration, and customization.  The community aspect to the product adds value to the product and provides lots of ROI when it comes to new ideas, being able to copy existing workflows submitted by other users, and coding examples.

cDevWorkflow can be installed in any traditional Microsoft server environment. Installation is easy and creating simple or complex workflows is a breeze. The real value in the product lies in the ability to create graphical workflows, add custom fields (for computed routing) and the ability to embed and define custom outputs.  It features all of the traditional workflow features (multi-step, branches, etc) but it comes with the important additional feature - the community - which helps further the application’s features as well as provides a place for birds of a feature to find out new implementation methods and support.

The product is not open source but it can be freely implemented by any MS developer. 

Check it out here:  cDevWorkflow

Maybe I’m wrong but if you search for a specific application name, the application should appear in search results.

We released Brand Your Photo two months go.

If you type in Brand Your Photo in the search box, it does not appear.  Other apps appear but none of their descriptions have Brand Your Photo in them.

What exactly is going on?

The Android Market Team provided me with the following useless link:

http://developer.android.com/guide/appendix/market-filters.html

Guys, I was searching from a Mac, why would it be filtered on a Mac?

Having touched base with all of the startups I’ve been working with in the last couple of weeks, the following mistakes emerged:

1. Not listening - Contrary to your strong personal will to succeed, you do have to listen and should. If you hear the same thing more than once, it is critical that you take a good look at what folks are saying. You can’t lead if it’s all you all the time.
2. Lack of Pitch Deck Prep - Your pitch deck should be as current as your code and just as polished. Betas and demos are important but you’re projecting a future state of your company. That’s what investors are thinking about. Has your story changed?
3. Not knowing your revenue model - I know of only one or two startups that have been funded before they had a clue about how the company would make money. Rule: One hand on the code and one hand on the spreadsheet.
4. Not knowing what you’re good and bad at - Know your best hats and delegate the rest. We know you’re superman but don’t let your ego get in the way.  Delegate your worst hats to the person who wears it best.
5. Being completely distracted by personal pressure - No one will tell you this: If you’re bootstrapping, while the financial pressure might drive your schedule, it also is a huge distraction. It’s ok to take a week or two off and get a short term consulting contract. The distraction might yield a better project and a calmer you.

A long time ago I posted something about how difficult it was to get funding. These numbers line up.

2,000 companies present > 200 get a green light for mentorship (10%)

200 companies mentored > 20 get funding (1% of the original)

18 got follow on funding (.09 of the original get to fight another day).

You’re one in 100.  Be original and be excellent or be like the rest.

My mobile apps company, Cexi Me just shipped Brand Your Photo for Android.  

Download your organization’s logo and place it directly on photos you’ve taken or new ones. Brand Your Photo by Cexi Me LLC is perfect for product photos, product placements, customers and events such as sporting, dinners, anniversaries, nights out, parties and other special events.

Developing it was an interesting journey. Some of the code was from another application - Hitchery and then we made successive additions until we shipped.  A number of folks were in the code.  Graphics were done by Peter Borlace at PB Design Solutions.  The web design was completed by Greggory Hogan at Coffee Shop Creations.

Today, Techcrunch stated that Flip Video could not have survived  - given iPhone’s video features.

I think this product could have survived but not in it’s present form.  I believe that at $590M, Cisco paid too much; especially considering that the company was not generating enough revenue to justify that purchase price. I was given one by my friends at Native Instinct.  They designed Flip’s original website and some of the interfaces within the product itself.

Here’s what I liked:

• The easy to use software was onboard - both for Mac and for WIndows.
• It featured a handy USB connector that “flipped” out.
• Stills were easy to take (they were a frame of a video.)
• It was compact.

Here’s what I disliked:

• In the early models, there was no tripod mount.
• The controls were difficult to use (and I haven’t found one that is.)
• The form factor didn’t quite match up to the way I would hold it naturally. 

Flip was early to market and I liked the idea of having a tiny HD recorder.  What I couldn’t get over and I believe what most people are having a difficult time with is the size of the files.  When you shoot HD Video, you’re going to create at lest 0.7 G’s of video per minute.  People seem to have gotten over this since almost every handheld digital camera features HD video and then many phones feature the same capabilities.

So what improvements or changes would have let it thrive?

• Live video - straight to a streaming server hosted by Cisco.  Can you imagine people shooting live video of their events?
• Wireless file transfer - either Bluetooth or Wireless N or G.  People still hate connecting things.
• A different physical form factor.  Something that matches how people might actually hold a gun.  Cameras have this same problem…

No one will be able to get past HD video size.  With that being said, there is a significant amount of redundant data (in fact, about about six or seven frames out of eight frames you shoot) so there is lots of room for onboard video compression while still retaining the HD format.

It’s not often that I complete an enterprise consulting engagement at the same time I complete a startup engagement but it happened this month. As a result, it gave me a great opportunity to think about the differences between startups and enterprises.  Here they are:

Enterprises should be as agile as a startups. Startups should make mature, well-considered decisions.

Companies both small and large, new and old sometimes think process gets in the way of progress; yet startups sometimes can’t progress without it and large companies let process get in the way of progress.

The best mature company leaders surround themselves with people who can “coflow” with the leader’s vision. Startups should form teams around this very concept. (See Bill Warner’s How to build a Startup from the Heart” presentation: http://www.flickr.com/photos/greenhornconnect/4958314492/)  My addition is that the flow should all the way to person who mops the floor*.

Small highly incentivized teams operate best.  In a startup, the incentives are funding, building cool shit, survival and the glory of it all. Why would it be any different in a large company? Why do corporate cultures get watered down in direct proportion to the number of employees they have?

All successful companies consistently seek differentiation. Startups are built on it and mature companies sometimes forget that this is part of their mission.

Data simply matters.  The interesting thing is that large companies collect the data and many don’t quite know why or when to use it or their systems are too brittle for it to be retrieved and used successfully.  Many small companies don’t know what data to collect or how to collect it.

* Startups are pretty clear about what they’re doing. Large companies fight this notion ever day. Line employees that have no idea where the part they’re working on fits into the big picture or clerks not knowing why i’s and t’s are crossed. It all matters….

HTH

A great bill, adjusted to address different concerns.  Most notably:

“To accommodate this new type of visa, adjustments would be made to the existing EB-5 visa – which grants visas to foreign nationals who invest $1 million towards the creation of 10 jobs. Under a new EB-6 category, a visa would be granted to the innovative entrepreneur with intellectual capital, instead of a wealthy foreign investor who is in a position to buy a visa.”

Contact your representative now - here: http://www.startupvisa.com/