Amazon to Sell E-books on the iPhone Too

Amazon Kindle 2 I love it when smart deals are made. Yesterday, Amazon (AMZN) announced plans to offer e-books for sale on the Apple (AAPL) iPhone and iPod Touch. The e-books will be accessible via a free Amazon iPhone application which hasn’t been released yet.

You might see this move as making the iPhone a direct competitor of the Kindle, but they wisely don’t see that as the case:

[Amazon Kindle VP Ian Freed] said he is “not at all concerned” that making e-books available on other devices will cannibalize sales of the $359 Kindle. Instead, it will increase sales of digital books and the Kindle, he says.

That’s smart. As a customer, I want the convenience of reading my e-book anywhere I want. Maybe it’s on my Kindle, which I can take on the plane or train comfortably. Maybe it’s on my laptop, while I wait for a program to compile. Or maybe it’s on my iPhone, while I’m on line buying groceries.

Amazon has plans to release e-book reader apps for other devices too. My guess is: BlackBerry (RIMM) and Google Android (GOOG).

In my opinion, Amazon’s success in the e-book market doesn’t hinge on Kindle sales. It ultimately hinges e-book sales. Arguably, this is similar to to the iPod + iTunes + MP3 strategy. In Amazon’s case, it’s Kindle + Kindle Store + e-books. The Kindle alone is a fine device, but coupled with everything else and it’s a business viable strategy.

Smart move, Amazon!

The Employee, Self-Employed, Business Owner and Investor

Cashflow Quadrant: Rich Dad's Guide to Financial Freedom Who do you want to be? An employee, self-employed, a business owner or an investor?

Each is a significantly different way of viewing oneself. It is possible to be in more than one role too. Robert Kiyosaki describes these roles in Cashflow Quadrant: Rich Dad’s Guide to Financial Freedom as:

Employee

A person who earns money by holding a job and working for someone else or a company.

The majority of a population has an employee mindset. They wake up, work hard, get a paycheck, and go to sleep. There’s nothing wrong with that; it’s a very honorable lifestyle. Unfortunately, it often leaves them financially insecure or, if they’re smart about saving up and investing appropriately, financially secure. While this role used to carry little risk, nowadays, layoffs have removed the guarantees this role used to afford.

Self-Employed

A person who earns money working for him/herself.

Some people decide to strike out on their own, to start their own business. They become self-employed entrepreneurs. Maybe they work alone as a freelance designer, business consultant, or financial accountant. Maybe they hire some employees and operate a cafe, a furniture store, or an ecommerce business. Whatever the case, they are now their own boss. Their lifestyle is characterized by lots of hard work and specialization in their chosen field. For their effort, the financial benefits can be greater than that of an employee; financial comfort is a more realistic goal. The risks are higher too. Self-employed entrepreneurs often leverage most or all of their personal savings to launch their business. If it fails, they risk bankruptcy.

Business Owner

A person who owns a business that generates money.

Few others decide to become business owners. This is more than just being a self-employed entrepreneur. The business owner entrepreneur has less control than the self-employed entrepreneur, because it involves sharing & delegating responsibilities & ownership with others. In some cases, business owners don’t even work on a day-to-day basis and have a manager run the operation. Although they don’t have to work very hard anymore, business owners need to be intelligent about how they structure their business. Fortunately, this extra free time allows them to strengthen their business acumen, which is where they apply their knowledge, as opposed to specializing in their chosen field. The financial rewards are high – financial comfort and financial wealth are in their grasp. The risks can be high too, though intelligent business owners learn how to shelter themselves appropriately. It is not easy to become a business owner. You have to work smart, not hard, to get here.

Investor

A person who earns money from their various investments – in other words, money that generates more money.

Even fewer others become full-time investors, such as angel investors and venture capitalists. The investor role, however, isn’t just about doing it full-time. Anyone can be an investor. It is not just about buying stocks. If you have money in a mutual fund or 401k plan, you are already an investor. This role is characterized by being able to assess a company’s or industry’s projected perceived performance. The financial rewards vary greatly; very few can make a living just being an investor. Those who do oftentimes got here because they were self-employed, owned a business, or were an employee of a young company that offered significant equity and later became wildly successful (which is extremely rare).

Personally, I’m shooting for the business owner role. I’m currently in the self-employed role in order to get my business off the ground. But that’s a temporary place to be, not a mindset I have.

Kiyosaki argues that being a business owner and investor is the way to financial security, comfort, and wealth. I totally agree.

It is not about working hard, it is about working smart. If you can structure your business intelligently such that it can operate without needing you everyday (by hiring and delegating appropriately), you will have extra time to think strategically and carry your business further. Or even have extra time for your family.

And that’s who I want to be. What about you?

WebMocha.com Launched!

WebMocha We’ve launched! Our website, at least. We’ve been in operation since July 2008. It’s been one of those cases where we’ve been so busy we haven’t had time for our website until now.

What we do

WebMocha is a California-based web development and technology services company that builds optimized, high-performance, enterprise-level web applications.

We are a team of web development professionals with years of experience from large and small companies such as Yahoo! (YHOO), eBay (EBAY), Scient, Ernst & Young, Simply Hired, Food Network (SNI), HGTV (SNI), and CBS (CBS). This experience has taught us how to develop for massive audiences on a painfully large variety of web browsers and mobile microbrowsers. It wasn’t easy, but we loved doing it. And that’s how we can help you.

We offer development services in XHTML/HTML, CSS, JavaScript/AJAX, SEO, LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP), Ruby on Rails, Flash, Flex, ActionScript, XSLT/XML, WML/WAP, Objective-C & iPhone application development, and Java & Android application development.

Okay, enough of the pitch. Now for the nitty gritty.

How we funded it

Along with fellow ex-Yahoos George Diaz and Barney Mok (both of whom are incredibly talented), we started this company with only a few hundred bucks to incorporate it. We funded the design, logo, and other supporting materials as we made more money. Bootstrapping at its best!

How we came up with the name

One of the questions most friends ask first is: “Where did you come up with the name?” We tossed around countless names before choosing WebMocha, from Web 2.0 sounding names to made-up words to names with missing vowels. Barney and I were chilling in Satura Cakes in Palo Alto, CA, when “WebMocha” struck me. I was looking around the store and pre-pending “Web” to everything. Then I saw a mocha cake of some sort. I happen to love mochas (white chocolate mochas, to be exact), we all work late hours & drink lots of coffee, and we’re all about the web. It was perfect. Thus, our name was born.

Why we started a service company

Another question some friends ask is: “Why a service company?” Shoot, why not? Service companies have their pros and cons. One of the major cons is the work involved. Providing a service – and providing it with excellence – can require a lot of time. Especially for fledgling service companies. The major pro is the money made. Profits can generally be made immediately. That’s why we chose a service business model first. In this economy, profits rule.

That’s not to say we aren’t thinking about making products later, however. Let me just say it’s nice to make an actual income and build enough capital to self-fund product development projects. Wink wink.

How we are doing

Another question I often get: “How are you guys doing?” To be honest, pretty darn good, despite the tough economic times. In fact, we’re hiring! All of our clients so far have come to us from word-of-mouth. Our developers come from Yahoo!, Google, eBay, and personal referrals. Not all of them are local; they’re all over the country. And that’s the beauty of our model. We find the clients. We find the developers, wherever they are. Then we match our clients with some of the best, most talented developers around the world. Everybody wins!

How we differ from offshore developers

A common follow-up concern to this is: “How can you different than offshore developers then?” Our core model is similar to an offshore firm in that you work with a project & account manager like me, who coordinates with a team of developers to get the work done. We differ in that we’re in the same time zone and speak the same language. Also, we’ll think critically about the work & your goals, we’ll ask insightful questions & challenge you, we’ll communicate & over-communicate, we’ll apply our proven technical experience to build you a high-quality system, we’ll go that extra mile, and most importantly, we’ll help you to do the right thing for your business & customers.

Let us know what we can do for you!

The New Amazon Kindle 2

Amazon Kindle 2 I’m salivating right now. Could be because someone’s eating a plate of French fries next to me. Or could be because Amazon (AMZN) just released the new Kindle 2. Either way, both are equally scrumptious.

A ton has been written about the Kindle already, so I’m not going to copy-and-paste everything. What I’ll say instead is that I’m particularly excited about:

Author Spencer Ante also made an interesting comment about the Kindle today:

I am in talks with my publisher Harvard Business School Press to create a Kindle version of my book. The main challenge is over the rights issue. Depending on what rights you have negotiated, authors and publishers may need to renegotiate permissions to receive rights to publish certain photos and text for the digital world.

So here’s the deal. Thanks to Amazon and the Kindle, e-books have gone from the “can afford to ignore” category to the “I am looking into it” category, and now are entering “I have to have it” bucket.

I think this should be good for readers and the publishing industry as a whole because it represents another outlet and market. But the transition may be a little bumpy as business models could be disrupted, and publishers become concerned that they are getting dis-intermediated out of their core business by technology companies.

I think it’s a positive sign that some authors and publishers are buying into the idea of e-books. Not all authors are sold though. Stephen King cautions that, “yes, MP3s and iTunes destroyed the CD industry. Nobody’s going to buy the whole if you can just buy a slice. But that doesn’t apply to books.”

His thoughts echo what many others have said, making for an interesting debate.

Ultimately, it will have to be the readers who decide if e-book devices are worth having. So far, I think there’s a definite niche market here. I’m craving one and lots of people already love it. That doesn’t mean there’s a mass market for e-books though; it just means there’s a niche for them.

Personally, I still think this device will be a success – provided that Bezos and team can properly market this. And I’m rootin’ for them!

Patient for Growth, Impatient for Profits

I love great quotes, yes I do. Another great quote that really applies to a business owner in today’s economy is:

…the best money during the nascent years of a business is patient for growth but impatient for profit.

It’s from Clayton Christensen’s book The Innovator’s Solution: Creating and Sustaining Successful Growth. What he is basically saying is your business model better be making money, fast!

In the dot-com heyday, growth was everything. Number of users, number of sign-ups, number of registrations. “If we build it, they will come” was the mantra. It was all anyone talked about. Lacking from the conversation – or mentioned as an afterthought – was profitability.

In short, the companies were impatient for growth, but patient for profits.

This isn’t going to work anymore. In this economy, it’s profitability of puff – gone in a cloud of smoke. Ryan Janssen from GigaOM agrees:

Many startups focus on acquiring as many new users as possible, only figuring out later how to convert those users into revenue. There is no time for such a strategy in this market. You will run out of money before you get there.

And Stephan Schmidt from Code Monkeyism has a great article about why his VC-funded startup failed. It’s a great case study with a salient reminder to focus on sales – and profitability. Read it when you have a chance and learn from his mistakes.

Good, Fast and Cheap: Pick Two

Life is about trade-offs. One more bite of that delicious ice cream means more calories. Buying that expensive suit means a regular dry cleaning bill. Spending more time at work means less time with family & friends.

The same is true of building products. Which is why we have the project triangle.

It basically says that if you are building a product, you can build it good and fast, or good and cheap, or fast and cheap – but not good, fast, and cheap. In other words – Good, Fast, and Cheap: pick two.

Why can’t you have all three? Typically because of resource, time, and cost constraints. If you had an unlimited supply of each, then, well, send me and email and let’s be friends! hehe.

Another way to describe this project management concept is to think of it this way:

  • If you build it good and cheap, meaning of high quality and within a tight budget, then it will take a long time (it will not be fast).
  • If you build it good and fast, meaning of high quality and very quickly, then it will be fairly expensive (it will not be cheap).
  • If you build it fast and cheap, meaning very quickly and within a tight budget, then it will not be of high quality (it will not be good).

This is a typical problem for any entrepreneur. You want all three, but know you can’t. So which trade-off is the right one to make?

I believe it depends on the stage of your business. Let’s take a web start-up, for example.

  1. In the ideation stage, where you are still forming your idea and doing research into its viability, it may be important to build a proof of concept to test it with potential users. At this stage, quality isn’t very important; you’ll have time to build it right later. For now, you just to make sure a market actually exists for your product. Also, you don’t have much money yet because you’re just starting out. Therefore, you want it fast and cheap.

  2. The next stage is building the first version (or beta) of your product. Just as with before, it is crucial to get your product out the door and into the hands of consumers quickly. But you also want enough features & quality to be a good product. If your first version is weak, consumers will ignore you and competitors will surpass you. Start-ups used to go for good and fast at this stage, with lots of VC-based money. Personally, I think the sweet spot is fast, fairly cheap, and pretty good (listed in priority order). Picture the dot floating somewhere in the middle of the triangle, though a bit closer to fast and cheap.

  3. The next stage is the next version of your product. This would involve iterative cycles of consumer feedback, new feature development, and bug fixes. Where the prior stage targeted innovators, this stage is aimed at early adopters, as defined by Crossing the Chasm. There is much debate over what the trade-offs should be in this stage, but I tend to favor cheap, fairly good, and pretty fast (listed in priority order). Most companies probably aren’t rolling in the dough by version two or three yet, unless you’re Microsoft (MSFT) or Apple (AAPL). So cheap is always a highly-prioritized constraint. Speed is still important, but not as much as quality now. The dot is still floating in the middle of the triangle, but now closer to good and cheap.

  4. When the product and industry mature enough to begin enticing the early & late majority, then it’s time to focus on quality. This crowd isn’t as tech-savvy or tolerant of bugs & difficult-to-use products. So now it’s important to provide them with a high quality solution. Hopefully, you’ll have enough income to be able to hire more resources now. Depending on your industry, you can be good and cheap or – especially if you’re in the high-tech world – good and fast.

Quick disclaimer: I realize that sometimes it’s important to denote a fourth constraint too: scope. Many project managers do this and I think that’s a great tactic as well.

What do you think? How would you make these trade-offs?

Recession Proof Business Ideas

On the Monument Even though some businesses are hurting right now, others are thriving. But which ones?

According to Carlton Proctor’s article “Five businesses for a down economy” in the Cincinnati Enquirer, he quotes the following answers from two members of the University of West Florida’s Small Business Development Center:

I would focus on services-related companies and less on the retail sectors. I would look at needed services that are not discretionary.

– Dan Cavanaugh, Manager

I would look at businesses that provide necessities or high-end luxuries. Even when people are down economically, they will still splurge, especially when they are bummed.

– Larry Strain, Executive Director

With that in mind, I decided to ponder some recession-proof business ideas of my own. Here’s what I came up with:

  • Niche Thrift Store

    This could be an online or a brick-and-mortar store. Both have their pros and cons though. The former would have to compete against eBay (EBAY) and Craigslist.org, two formidable opponents. The latter would require a high up-front capital infusion. But what about focusing on a niche? Say, used furniture? Or used car parts? Or used computer equipment for bootstrapping start-ups?

  • Local eBay Classes

    Speaking of eBay, lots of people turn to selling their 63d belongings when they need a bit of cash. Some may even consider turning this into a formal business. But they’ll surely need some help. You can’t quite compete online, because there are gazillions of how-to guides for eBay. So how about posting some flyers around your neighborhood and operating locally? You can place ads at your local library, university, park, or even Starbucks (SBUX) – I’ve seen some of them offer a community bulletin board.

  • Budgeting Classes

    Some people just aren’t good with budgets. They may realize it’s necessary, they may read about various techniques, but sometimes they need a little more than that – a little push. Or some hands-on training to show them how to do it realistically within their current lifestyles. Don’t just tell someone how to balance their checkbook. Learn about their lifestyles and help them save money while still maintaining a similar standard of living.

  • Health Care Professionals Placement Agency

    Society will always need health care and health care workers, such as nurses, medical assistants, home health aides, physical therapists and medical records technicians. In fact, it’s often cited as one of the fastest growing occupations. That means an agency trained in finding and placing such professionals could do very well. Lots exist already, but the demand is still fairly strong.

  • Auto Repair Services

    Drivers will want to extend the life and mileage of their cars, so they’ll be going to auto repair shops. High gas prices have already been driving lots of customers there (no pun intended). You’ll have to do your homework and research a good location though. It helps to have an auto repair background of some sort too, though you can get around that if you have helpful friends who are mechanics.

  • Computer Repair Services

    Lots of people turn to do-it-yourself projects to save money during recessions. However, some realms are just outside of their expertise. Automobile repair is one. Computer repair is another. (Electronics repair could be a third). Although some may opt to live with glitchy hardware a little while longer, they’ll eventually need it fixed. If you can keep your costs low and market yourself well, you’ll find some good business here – especially in local markets.

  • Alternative Energy Consultant

    As companies work to cut costs, they’ll look to cheaper, more affordable energy sources. Or they could be looking to make their company more environmentally friendly, despite costs – just because they care. If you know much about alternative energy, as well as how to enable it operationally and organizationally (it’s not as easy as saying, “use energy-efficient light bulbs”), then you could find a nice bit of work.

  • Luxury Item Rentals

    I’m keeping this one broad because it could encompass many different things. Even in woeful economic times, people still like to splurge. They look for ways to cheer themselves up. Since they may not want to purchase a luxury item outright, they’ll look to renting it. You could rent vacation homes, luxury cars, fancy yachts, high-end furniture, fashion accessories, tuxedos and evening gowns, etc. The list is endless. Think of something (product or service) that people may want to splurge on and try renting it.

  • Funeral Services

    Though it’s a bit morbid, the cycle of life is a constant, even in economic booms and economic slumps. It actually follows population birth patterns more than the economy. On the tail end of the life cycle are funeral services like operating funeral parlors and handling estate sales. It may not be the most exciting job though, unless you’re, maybe, the Fisher family.

Props to Waterless Urinals

There comes a time in every blog that the topic of urinals must come up. Well, maybe not every blog. But certainly this one.

Today, I feel the need to give props to businesses who’ve been installing waterless urinals lately. There’s one in my local public library and I’ve seen a few more around town.

According to Wikipedia, waterless urinals save about 15,000 to 45,000 gallons of water per urinal per year. In a five-urinal restaurant, that would mean 75,000 to 225,000 gallons of water per year. Holy crap that’s a lot of water!

These urinals are also hygienic because they are touch-free. I don’t mean you could eat out of one of these things (God help you if you do), but you don’t have to push any handles to flush it. That puts it on parity with the water-flush touch-free urinals currently out there.

There’s no smell either, in case you’re wondering. How? At the bottom of the urinal is a trap that holds (or “traps”, duh) your urine. A liquid sealant then floats on top of the urine, isolating it from the outside air.

Every new technology is not without costs, however. The maintenance required is replacing the trap and sealant liquid. The traps – or cartridges, as they’re formally known – need to be replaced approximately every 6,000 to 7,000 uses. They cost anywhere from $5.00 to $40.00 each. Sealants cost $1.50 to $2.00 each. And the waterless urinals themselves can cost $400 to $600 each. Couple that with retrofit installation costs, and it can add up a bit.

But it still might be worth it. Annette Stumpf of the US Army Corps of Engineers did an evaluation of waterless urinals (PDF file) and includes some sample cost calculations in her paper. Also in her paper are links to two cost-savings worksheets, one from Waterless and another from Falcon, two manufacturers of waterless urinals.

Then there’s the intangible cost of conserving a natural resource. It’s difficult to put a dollar value to that, but it does count for a tremendous amount. Especially in areas and times of drought.

If you own a brick-and-mortar business (as us web geeks call it; you probably just call it a “store”), consider switching to waterless urinals. Not only could they be a good cost-savings investment, but they could also be good for your local environment and the future of your children’s children.

And with all this talk of urinals, how can I leave off without pointing out some important urinal rules: